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Chapter Text

Circa 1845 B.C.

Land of Moriah

Crawly woke in a tent with a splitting headache.

It wasn’t a new sensation. Tents, well, Crawly had been waking up in those ever since the humans had figured out how to put skins on sticks to keep out the wind and weather. And as for the headache, that was what happened when he’d had too much to drink the night before and had forgotten to sober himself up. So Crawly was not alarmed, all things considered.

What was new, and frankly more than a bit alarming, was waking up with his limbs tangled in someone else’s.

Crawly frowned, rubbed the sleep from one eye, squinted, and—

Oh no.

Oh shit.

Oh shit piss damn shit FUCK.

Even rolled over and, seemingly, fast asleep, Crawly would know that halo of white-blond curls anywhere.

Shit shit shit shit SHIT!

What had happened last night?

Date wine.[1] Date wine had happened. Date wine in large quantities. All because the angel (as far as Crawly was concerned, there was only one angel who was the angel) had been … was scared the right word for it?

No, no, it wasn’t. Worried wasn’t it, either. Existentially terrified was, perhaps, a bit closer. What else was an angel to be when he had, as far as he could tell, gone directly against the word of the Almighty?

“But I couldn’t,” Aziraphale had said, fixated on one idea as only a very drunk and very frightened angel could be, “I couldn’t just stand there and do—do nothing! Abraham loves that boy, and his poor mother—they’d both gone through so much—all that faith, all that testing, and it all ends here? Sarah’s over one hundred years old, and if Abraham—if Abraham did that—well, it would take more than a miracle for them to have another!”

“So you meddled,” Crawly had replied, even though he knew what had happened, since Aziraphale had already told him. Three times, in fact.

“So I meddled,” Aziraphale had answered, miserably. “Miracled up a ram and did my best Metatron impression. I mean—surely that was the Almighty’s plan all along, wasn’t it? She couldn’t—it wouldn’t make any sense that She would—”

But Aziraphale hadn’t been able to finish that thought, instead sucking in air and pressing his hand to his mouth. “I’m done for, aren’t I? This—this isn’t the sort of thing you just get a reprimand for. This is—I’m going to Fall for this, aren’t I?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, angel. You? Fall?”

There were helpful, constructive, practical, safe ways Crawly could have finished that sentence. Ways like, “If you were going to Fall for this, it would have already happened, angel, so no use worrying about it.” Or, “You didn’t Fall for giving away that sword, and that’s surely caused a lot more trouble than this ever could, so I think you’re safe.” Or even, “You’re the one always going on about the ‘Ineffable Plan,’ so what makes you think that this isn’t part of it?”

But no, Crawly hadn’t said any of those things. Instead, he’d gone and said something incredibly stupid.

“Angel, I think you’re about as capable of Falling as that ass over there,” here Crawly had gestured vaguely to a sleeping donkey and its rather surly keeper, “is of flying.”

And Aziraphale had looked up, and in the dim firelight his eyes had looked so blue, blue like the sky on a cloudless day, blue like the heart of a forget-me-not, blue like the celestial firmament itself, and he had said, “Really, Crawly?”

And he had smiled. Really smiled, for the first time since the date wine had started flowing and he’d spilled the whole miserable story.

And then Crawly—

Well, it was best that he not think about that.

Best that he not think about brushing the angel’s hair back from his forehead, smiling a little himself.

Best that he not think about Aziraphale’s gaze flickering from Crawly’s hand to his mouth, and then Aziraphale surging forward like a lion chasing a gazelle to capture that mouth with his own.

Best that he not think about returning the – he’d call it a kiss for charity’s sake – with roughly the same amount of passion and skill that Aziraphale had given to him.

And definitely, definitely best that he not think about the two of them stumbling into the (miraculously? infernally?) empty tent, not speaking and not needing to, both knowing what was going to happen next and not giving a damn about the consequences. Best that he not think about clothes being shed, garment by garment, and skin touching skin as both fell to the skins on the ground. And best that he not think about bodies being shed, about touches that went so much deeper than skin, about angelic/demonic essences slipping free of their corporeal chains, finding that maybe they weren’t that different after all, that they could touch and feel and be and it was wonderful, beautiful, glorious—

Crawly bit down on his hand to keep the groan where it belonged, locked behind his teeth. Wouldn’t do to go waking the angel as he most emphatically did not think about any of that.

Although perhaps “not waking the angel” was a lost cause. Crawly heard (because even here, in the shaded safety of the tent, there was part of him that was always watching and listening, scanning the horizon for threats) a snuffle and a yawn.

Crawly blinked as two fundamental truths hit his consciousness at the same time.

The first was that there was no way an adult male (or an adult-male-shaped being) could snuffle and yawn like that.

The second was that the sound hadn’t come from Crawly’s side, where the angel’s snuffle-and-yawn-emitting orifices were, but rather from Crawly’s feet.

Crawly sat up (ignoring the sensation like a nail stabbing into his temple as he did so) and blinked.

He rubbed his eyes and blinked again.

At the end of the bed, carefully wrapped in blankets and rags, was—

A BABY?

Crawly looked to his left. He looked to his right. He extended his senses out, looking for any sign of a demonic or angelic signature. A stench of brimstone or a hint of ozone.

He didn’t find one. Just his own aura and the angel’s, and outside the tent, the auras of humans, camels, asses, donkeys, and the other beings that made up the caravan whose encampment he and the angel were borrowing.

And here, in the tent, a third aura. Small. Neither animal nor vegetable nor mineral. Something that was different – something that was both angelic and demonic, and somehow neither angelic nor demonic. Something that wasn’t human but wasn’t very far off from human yet was very different from human.

It was coming from the baby.

Crawly glanced sidelong at the angel, who was still, bless/damn him, asleep.

Then, slowly and carefully, so as not to disturb the sleeping angel or the sleeping infant, Crawly untangled himself from the angel and picked up the baby.

He’d held human infants before, plenty of them, knew how to support the head and cradle the body to keep the little one comfortable and (this was important) quiet. He knew, too, what they looked like. This baby could have easily blended into a nursery full of them. The skin was a little pale for the humans around these parts, and the flame-red fuzz on the head was a color most humans couldn’t achieve naturally. But other than that—

The baby opened its eyes.

Crawly gasped.

“Angel.” The time for letting the angel have his rest was done. Crawly followed up the words with a nudge from one knee. “Angel, you need to wake up. You need to wake up now.”

“Mmmph?” It wasn’t a proper question, but it was a start – followed by the angel turning over, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and yawning. “Crawly? What on earth is—”

Aziraphale stopped talking.

He blinked.

He swallowed hard and blinked again.

“Crawly,” and this was said in the very calm, very sensible tones of an angel who was not feeling calm or sensible at all, “why are you holding a baby?”

“Look.” It wasn’t an answer, but it was all Crawly could say right now. He held out the baby so that Aziraphale, leaning on one elbow, could do as he asked.

Aziraphale frowned and peered at the baby.

Celestial blue eyes met celestial blue eyes.

Aziraphale’s pair widened.

“What?”

“My question exactly.”

“But how—”

“Haven’t the foggiest.”

“But where did he—did she …?” Aziraphale quirked an eyebrow at Crawly.

“Angel, on the list of things I am worried about, do you honestly think pronouns even enter into it?”

Aziraphale didn’t wait for Crawly to finish before pawing at the blankets and wrappings, gently untucking them and just as gently putting them back again. “She,” he said, as if it mattered.

He didn’t say anything for a long moment. Crawly watched as Aziraphale slowly drew one finger down one dew-soft cheek. Watched Aziraphale’s Adam’s apple bob up and down.

The baby watched them both. Some part of Crawly dimly wondered what it was she was seeing and what she thought of it.

“… Can I hold her?”

Crawly had no more of an answer for this than he had for any of Aziraphale’s other questions. But he could hold out his arms, wordlessly, and Aziraphale could just as wordlessly take what was offered.

A demon couldn’t sense love, even the sort of world-embracing, cosmos-shifting love that a thoroughly besotted angel could give off. But just because Crawly couldn’t sense it didn’t mean that he couldn’t see it. Aziraphale was radiant with it, his face shining with a light just shy of the divine. The sight made Crawly swallow hard.

“Oh, will you just look at her?” Aziraphale whispered, reverent. “She’s perfect.”

“Perfect?” Crawly whispered. In a perverse way he was grateful; the words shook him out of his stupor. “What she is is a problem.”

Aziraphale looked up, jaw fallen, eyes redolent with hurt.

“Angel, just—turn down the love-fest for ten seconds and think. What is going to happen if our Head Offices find out about her? Either of our Head Offices?”

Aziraphale didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. His sharp intake of breath and the way he clutched the baby closer said everything that needed to be said.

“Exactly. We need …”

… No.

Crawly’s mind was finally clawing its way out of the stupor caused by date wine, angel, and baby enough to think, and for that, he would heartily thank Sa—Go—Someone.

“You need to hide her,” Crawly said.

“Me? But—”

“Angel.” Crawly swallowed. “Don’t—don’t make me say what would happen if my Head Office found her before yours did.”

He wasn’t sure he could force the words out. That if they were lucky, very, very lucky, that Hell would unmake this baby in the most painful manner possible, until there was nothing left of her but dust and ash. If they were unlucky? Well, Hell would still unmake her in the most painful manner possible, but once she was unmade, they’d built her back up again, turn this not-angel/not-demon into a being every bit as infernal as any beast that came from the pit.

And it wouldn’t matter that Crawly would rather be unmade himself than let that happen. Hell’s response to that notion would be a dry, “That can be arranged,” followed by arranging it.

And oh, Someone, if HE found out about her—Crawly couldn’t even finish the thought.

But Heaven … if Heaven found her, they’d at least kill her quickly.

Crawly hoped. He was doing rather a lot of that, but better options weren’t particularly thick on the ground.

Still, at least some of his hopes were not in vain, for though Aziraphale paled, he at least nodded. With a quick glance at the baby, he said, “I need to hide her.”

“Great.” Crawly gulped and nodded in turn. “Excellent. Fantastic. Well then. I’ll, er, leave you to it.” Without waiting for a response, he miracled himself into a new set of robes. It would do absolutely nothing to throw angelic or demonic pursuers off the scent, but it might confuse the humans, and Crawly would take what he could get.

“But—but wait—don’t you want to—?”

“No time, angel. Busy schedule, I’ve got. Things to see, people to do—temptations to, er, tempt—”

“But—”

“Best of luck with the hiding. Don’t tell me how it goes.” He already had one hand on the door-flap, but stopped.

He turned around. Golden eyes met blue.

“I mean it, angel. Don’t tell me how it goes.”

Aziraphale didn’t answer. He glanced at the baby in his arms, who was starting to fuss.

He looked up and nodded.

Crawly managed a half-smile in response and ducked out of the tent, into the blinding sunshine.

The last thing he heard, before he decided bloody bollocks to all this and slithered off in snake form, was the thin, high wail of a heartbroken newborn.

Circa 1825 B.C.

Isle of Naxos

Dionysus, God of Wine, Theater, and Ritual Ecstasy, wasn’t properly awake, but he could sense his father’s handiwork. The sticky weight of humidity on his skin. The crackle of static in the air. The scent of rain on the breeze.

A storm was brewing. And—

Dionysus’s nose wrinkled.

Someone was crying.

That wasn’t part of the storm.

Slowly, he cracked one eye open. When the light didn’t immediately make his head explode with pain, Dionysus let the other open as well.[2]

Still no pain. Good. Dionysus pushed his luck and himself up on his elbows.

With the familiarity of long habit, his gaze swept over the clearing where he and his band had come to rest, counting satyrs and Maenads. There was pot-bellied Silenus, curled up around a krater; Aikaterine and Eunike wrapped in each other’s arms as always; Kallias and Diodoros clasping hands in their sleep with Melitta in the middle …

As Dionysus counted his followers, he frowned.

Everyone was here.

And nobody was crying.

He tilted his head and cocked an ear.

The sound of crying was coming from the same direction as the storm. He hesitated.

But, curiosity, as mortals would say, killed the cat, and Dionysus had always felt an affinity for felines of all stripes.[3] He paused only long enough to adjust his leopard-skin chlamys and make sure his (empty) wineskin was hooked to his belt before leaving the clearing and heading down the path to the beach.

The wind grew stronger as he walked, the scent of rain thicker. And the crying grew louder.

It wasn’t long before he broke through the trees and stepped blinking onto the beach, where he saw—

Well.

There wasn’t much that could surprise Dionysus. Crying girls (or young women, really) on a beach generally didn’t qualify. He’d encountered more than his share of crying young women, drunk and otherwise, on beaches and elsewhere.

Her getup – Cretan-style gown and bedraggled curls in, again, the Cretan style – also wasn’t terribly surprising. No, they weren’t on Crete, but if the black-sailed ship disappearing over the horizon was any indication, this young lady hadn’t been on Naxos for very long. And while the hair was an unusual shade of red, well, mortals were doing quite inventive things with henna these days.

Even her pose – arms wrapped around knees, head pillowed on dress and legs – was familiar. Unsurprising.

The dove-gray wings springing from her back and wrapping around her entire body, though?

Those were surprising.

Dionysus coughed to announce his presence. “Er, miss—”

He wasn’t entirely certain what he planned to say next, but it didn’t matter. The young lady was too busy gasping, whipping her head around, and stumbling to her feet to give him the chance to say it. Her wings came up, tense and coiled, like a swan’s just before the swan in question treated whoever was foolish enough to get in striking range to an unholy beatdown.

Dionysus took a full step back, hands up and palms facing the young lady in the most nonthreatening manner he could manage.

Not that it worked. “Who are you?” the young lady demanded. “What do you want?”

Now that she was facing him, he made several rapid assessments. Eyes didn’t get that red from just a few minutes of crying. Clothes didn’t get that rumpled from half an hour on a beach. And it generally took a lot to make a mortal woman stand like that, like she was just one wrong word away from unleashing a lifetime of pent-up rage on the nearest target.

Dionysus took another step back. “Dionysus, miss. God of Wine, amongst other things.” He couldn’t resist the slight bow, the smirk and the wink. “At your service.”

The wings, Dionysus noticed, were drooping. That was about the only part of her that was looking less than battle-ready. “Dionysus.” She took a step back. Something made her glance over the horizon, to the ship that was almost out of sight. “Son of Zeus?”

“Ah, so you’ve heard of me, then?” Dionysus grinned.

Dionysus would have loved to see her response to that, but alas, even the prayers of gods were not always answered. For at that moment lightning split the sky, a great wave crashed onto the shore and wet the young lady’s wings, and the first fat drops of rain began to fall.

The young lady shrieked and darted away from the waves. Dionysus, however, glowered at the sky. Thanks, Father. Thanks a lot.

Sniffing the breeze, Dionysus guessed they had maybe five minutes before the heavens properly opened. If they were lucky. “Come on,” he said, holding out a hand. “There’s a temple a few minutes’ walk away. Less if we run.”

The young lady stared at the hand.

“Trust me, miss,” Dionysus said, “you don’t want to be on this beach when—” He wasn’t able to finish the thought, since the roll of thunder did it for him.

The young lady jumped. Now she glanced between Dionysus’s hand and the gathering storm clouds.

She swallowed. “Lead the way.” She did not take his hand, choosing instead to wring her own together.

Dionysus shrugged. “Suit yourself. Let’s go!” He ran off, leaving the young lady to follow or not as she pleased. Together they jogged up the beach toward the terracotta-roofed temple in the distance.

As they ran, Dionysus spared a thought for his followers in the clearing. Any chance you could not drench them, Father?

He had no idea what his father’s answer to that would be – although the way the raindrops came faster did not leave him hopeful. He and the young lady barely made it to the temple before the deluge began.

They stumbled up the steps, slipping on the slick stone, finally skidding to a halt on the peristatis. Dionysus leaned against a column and shook out his hair. “Well,” he said, “now that we’ve escaped a soaking—mostly—I think—”

He stopped. He blinked. “Where did your wings go?”

The young lady, who had been wringing out her chiton, looked up. Her gaze barely grazed his before she looked away. “I—put them away. It’s not like I can fly in this weather.”

“… Oh?”

“Wet wings,” the young lady replied, as if that explained everything, which it most emphatically did not.

She peered into the gloom of the temple proper. “Whose temple is this – do you know?”

Dionysus didn’t bother to look inside; trying to guess which god was represented by a statue was a great party game but a rotten way of finding things out. Instead, he opened his senses to the energy surrounding the temple. “Poseidon’s, I think.”

The young lady’s eyes widened. “Poseidon’s? I should—I should—” What she wanted to do was obvious by the way she was edging closer to the steps. And perhaps she would have run down them and out of sight, but for the branch of lightning that split the sky.

She shrieked and stumbled back. The thunder rumbled on her heels.

“I wouldn’t go out in that,” Dionysus said, intentionally keeping his voice light. He itched to come closer, touch her shoulder, take her hand, but kept himself still. She was a skittish filly, this one, as liable to bite the hand that fed her as to take the apple offered.

“Well, I’m not going in there.” She jerked her head toward the sanctuary.

“Never said you had to.”

Dionysus surveyed her through half-lidded eyes and thought of a ship sailing rapidly away. Of a sudden storm blowing in off the sea. True, the storm could be his father’s doing, but it could just as easily be his uncle’s …

“Did you upset him?” Dionysus asked, nodding to the inside of the temple.

“No!” The reply was too swift, too indignant to be a lie. Or a conscious lie at any rate.

Dionysus raised an eyebrow.

The young lady’s shoulders slumped. “Maybe. I don’t know.” She put her head in her hands and rubbed her entire face. “Theseus certainly doesn’t bear me any good will.”

“Who?”

She looked up. “Theseus. Poseidon’s son?”

“You’ll have to be more specific than that.” Dionysus shot her a lopsided smile. “My uncle has many sons.”

The young lady caught her lip between her teeth. She glanced at the horizon, though the rain was pouring down in such thick sheets that Dionysus would be surprised if she could see to the beach, never mind the sea beyond it. “So you don’t … know him?”

“Is he mortal?”

“He’d better be,” she replied in a tone that implied she’d rather like to test the proposition herself.

“Then no, I don’t.” He shrugged and spread his hands. “I don’t get to know my mortal cousins until they prove to me that they’re worth knowing. I have a hard enough time keeping track of the immortal ones.”

“… Oh.”

She seemed content to let the conversation lie there, to stare into the rain and let her thoughts take her far away. Dionysus was not. “Would you like to talk about it?”

Her gaze and her thoughts snapped to him in the same moment.

“Whatever this Theseus did that’s upset you.”

“I never said—”

Dionysus let his raised eyebrow say, quite clearly, what he thought of that protest.

The young lady held his gaze for a moment, but it wasn’t long before her breath left her in a sigh and a slump of her shoulders. “Why should I? What do you care?”

“Why do I care? Curiosity, mainly. It’s not every day I come across winged women crying on beaches. As for why you should …” Dionysus gestured to the pounding rain and the invisible ocean. “Well, one – it’s not like you have anything better to do right now. And two – what do you have to lose?”

“The favor of another god. Or all of them,” the young lady muttered.

“I endeavor not to blame mortals for getting caught in the crossfire of gods’ quarrels,” Dionysus replied, making a great show of buffing his nails on his chlamys and surveying the results. “I have … experience with what happens when gods are not so kind as that. Or goddesses, technically, but really, does it make a difference?”

The young lady chuckled mirthlessly. “Probably not.” Then she sighed. “Are—are you sure you want to know?”

“When you preface it like that, now I have to know.”

He thought he saw a smile ghost across her face. But it was gone before he could be sure.

Then, without warning, she dropped to the floor of the peristatis, once again hugging her knees to her chest, though the wings didn’t make a second appearance. “Have you ever heard of the Cretan Bull? And Asterion, the—” She bit her lip. “The Minotaur?”

Cretan Bull, Cretan Bull … oh, that sordid little story. Dionysus tried not to shudder. Perhaps he hadn’t room to talk, but really, making a woman fall in love with and copulate with a bull – all to get back at her husband for impiety! – was a bit … much. Poseidon was usually good fun, but sometimes he could be decidedly odd.

He slowly sank to the floor himself, near but not too near. “I have.”

“… Asterion is—was my twin brother,” the young lady whispered.

Dionysus stared. He blinked. His jaw fell.

“Twin?”

“What—oh! I’m Minos’s child. Not the bull’s. At least …” The young lady shrugged. “It’s what we always assumed. It makes more sense than … than anything else.”

She certainly didn’t look half-bull. And considering the two eggs laid by Dionysus’s father’s latest paramour … well, the idea that one half of a pair of twins could be fathered by a more-or-less mortal man and the other by a bull was practically normal.

“Understood. Anyway, you were saying? Your twin brother?”

She didn’t answer right away, preferring to pick at a loose thread on her skirt. “They called him a monster,” she whispered, and if Dionysus hadn’t had a god’s senses, he might not have heard her. “But he is—wasn’t. He w-was different, and he didn’t fit in, and maybe he could be dangerous. But none of that made him a monster.”

Dionysus said nothing.

And slowly, haltingly, the whole nasty tale came out. A half-bull, half-man who, if not precisely monstrous, was large and strong and liable to dangerous rages. A twin sister and a mother who were the only ones who could calm him. A father who was also a king, who looked at the cuckoo in the nest and saw a potential threat to his true-born sons, and who, as soon as the mother was dead in childbed, had the Minotaur locked in a labyrinth he’d been building under the palace for years.

And maybe the tale could have ended there and been tragic enough, but it didn’t. No, there had to be an accident in Athens. Another brother of the young lady killed. War fought, war won. Tribute demanded, seven youths and seven maidens, to be sacrificed to the beast in the heart of the maze.

(“I think—I think Father wanted to be rid of Asterion,” the young lady said, her voice cracking dangerously. “But he didn’t dare kill him himself. Or hire a hero to do it. He was afraid Poseidon would—would have a problem with that.”

“He probably would have. Poseidon has a bit of a temper.”)

The first set of tributes was sent, entered the labyrinth and never came out again. A year later, another seven youths and seven maidens were sent to the same fate. A year after that, another black-sailed Athenian ship appeared at the docks of Knossos. This one carried six Athenian youths, seven Athenian maidens, and Theseus.

Dionysus did not need his brother Apollo’s gift of prophecy to see where this was going.

But he let her tell her tale at her own pace. Let her talk about the silver-tongued Theseus, who called himself the son of old Aegeus but who had far too much of the sea in his eyes for the young lady to believe that. Let her explain how Theseus had promised to help her outwit her father and get the Minotaur out of the labyrinth and off to the wilds, where he could live in peace, not hurting anyone and not being hurt in turn.

(“I thought he’d do it,” the young lady said, voice leaden and gray as the skies above them. “I thought he’d see it as a chance to humiliate Father, the way Father humiliated Athens. And I told him—I told him that killing Asterion would just play into Father’s hands. And I thought …”

“You thought Theseus loved you,” Dionysus replied.

She looked up, gaze holding his for a few heart-stopping moments. Then she sighed.

“He certainly pretended to.”)

And. Well. The tale practically told itself. A midnight rendezvous, a hurried trip into the center of the labyrinth. Theseus had smuggled a blade inside his tunic. And once he and the Minotaur were face to face …

It wasn’t hard to imagine what would happen when a son of Poseidon ran into a monster Poseidon had created. If it hadn’t been for the gray-voiced young lady in front of him, Dionysus might have been impressed. It was a neat little story, a clever plot, for Poseidon to create a monster only to help his son dispatch it and gain glory.

But it was the teller who shaped a story, and this teller saw not a triumph but a tragedy.

And then … then things got worse. Because the teller in front of Dionysus had watched a so-called hero slay the so-called monster that she called brother. And while she had still been screaming, Theseus had scooped up the Minotaur’s head with one hand and the Minotaur’s sister with the other and hustled them all to the boat, where the six Athenian youths and seven Athenian maidens were waiting to slip away into the night.

“He wanted to make me his bride,” the young lady said, still gray-voiced. “Maybe to insult Crete. Or maybe he and my father planned the whole thing. I don’t know.”

“So then why aren’t you still on that ship, bound for Athens?”

She looked up.

She smirked. If it weren’t for how sad her eyes looked, Dionysus would have called that smirk smug and self-satisfied.

“Well, I didn’t want to go to Athens, and I can be … quite persuasive, when I put my mind to it.”

Then she sighed, exhausted.

“So,” Dionysus asked. In the time it had taken for her to tell her tale, the skies had cleared, and the sea had calmed. “Now what?”

The young lady looked up, searching the now-cloudless sky for an answer. “I don’t know.” She laughed. “Got any creatures that need calming? I think it’s about the only thing I’m good for. That, and being duped by heroes.”

“Hey. You just said yourself, you can be quite persuasive when you put your mind to it. Personally, I’d like to see that in action.”

The young lady raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, come on. My brain hasn’t been entirely pickled in wine. There’s no way you just sweet-talked a son of Poseidon into letting you go.”

She bit her lip. “Can … can I see that wineskin?”

“What, this?” Dionysus patted the skin hooked to belt. “It’s empty. Or else I would have already offered you some.”

“I know. Just—let me see it?”

Not seeing any reason not to, Dionysus unhooked the wineskin and handed it over.

The young lady squinted.

Dionysus’s eyes widened.

The wineskin grew plumper before his eyes.

“Hey,” he said, “you’re not supposed to do that—you need to get a new wineskin—”

She glared at him, then, with a roll of her eyes, waved her hand.

And the wineskin was new.

She handed it back for him to turn over in his hands, poking and prodding. “You can drink it,” she said. “It’s good.”

There was only one way to test that proposition. Dionysus brought the wineskin to his lips and drank.

It was good. And he would know.

He smacked his lips together. “Well, then. You got them drunk and talked them into dropping you off here?”

“Not exactly.” Now another smug little smirk poked at her lips. “That’s not all I can do.”

“… Oh?”

“I can also turn wine into seawater. Food stores into moths. Ropes into seaweed. That kind of thing.” She shrugged. “They were rather glad to be rid of me by the time they saw this island on the horizon.”

“But you couldn’t stop Theseus?”

Her gaze dropped. “I was too late.”

“Oh.” Dionysus swallowed. Perhaps a change of subject would be best. “By the way … have you ever considered becoming a Maenad?”

The young lady started and stared at him.

“It’s not a bad career path, if I do say so myself. Parties every day, orgies every night … and if we have the occasional mad riot, well, nobody’s perfect. And, to be frank,” he patted the wineskin at his hip, “we could use someone with your talents around.”

“Can’t you make your own wine?”

“Sure – but I’ve never turned rope into seaweed. Or bread into moths.”

“… Oh.” And that was all the young lady said. Her gaze once again went unfocused, her eyes turning to the sea.

They were very blue, those eyes, Dionysus noticed. Blue like the now-cloudless sky above them.

Dionysus watched and waited.

He saw her swallow before her gaze flicked back to him. “I … I suppose …”

Dionysus raised an eyebrow in mute inquiry.

“… It’s not like I have anywhere else to go.”

“You don’t have to stay any longer than you care to,” he said. “If you should decide you want to settle down somewhere and … turn bread into moths …” He shrugged. “You’ll always be free to go.” He frowned. “Although if you want to keep up the wine trick, I will have to insist on you becoming one of my priestesses. I’m can’t afford the competition.”

“That seems fair.”

“Then it’s settled.” Dionysus hopped to his feet and held out a hand. “Welcome to the crew, er …”

He trailed off. “You … you never did mention your name.”

She didn’t mention it now. At least, not right away. First, those brilliant blue eyes flickered between his face and his hand. Once, twice, thrice.

She gulped. “Ariadne,” she whispered. “That is—my name is Ariadne.”

Then, with the air of someone flinging herself off a precipice and praying for a soft landing, she put her hand in his.

And Dionysus smiled.

“Ariadne,” he repeated, helping her to her feet. “Well, then. As I was saying—welcome to the crew. You’ll like it here. I promise.”

Circa 2019 A.D.

The Ritz, London

“Cheers,” Crowley said, lifting his just-filled champagne glass toward Aziraphale. “To the world.”

Aziraphale didn’t even try to hide the wave of contentment that washed over him. “To the world.”

And really, what wasn’t there to be content about? The world was, for the moment at least, safe. Crowley was by his side, also safe. The forces of Heaven and Hell were likely to be too busy soothing their ruffled feathers and sorting through mountains of paperwork produced by one (1) failed Apocalypse and two (2) failed executions to bother them for quite some time. And he and Crowley were about to enjoy a truly scrumptious lunch.[4] There was nothing …

Well, there was something. A fly in the ointment. A missing piece of the puzzle. A whole chapter ripped from the book. But Aziraphale wasn’t going to think about that right now.

He’d spent over thirty-eight hundred years not thinking about that. It would be a shame to ruin the streak.

Although …

Aziraphale permitted himself a sidelong glance at Crowley. He wondered how much time Crowley had spent not thinking about that over the past thirty-eight centuries. Probably as much as Aziraphale. Maybe more. There was quite a bit that went on in that head that Crowley didn’t care to show to the world.

Speaking of which. “Penny for your thoughts?” Crowley asked, absently rolling the stem of his champagne flute between his fingers.

“Oh—it’s nothing.”

One eyebrow quirked over those infernally dark glasses. Only Crowley could manage to express so much with just a look and with half his face covered to boot.

“Well, it’s nothing I care to discuss in public,” Aziraphale corrected. And this really wasn’t a conversation for the Ritz. It was the sort of conversation one had behind closed doors. And walls. Big thick walls. With plenty of wards to chase off ethereal/occult interference.

“Anyway, you never did explain – exactly what is wrong with a tartan collar?” Aziraphale asked, and Crowley’s scoff was all but music to his ears.

Because really, if this wasn’t what he had saved the world for, what was? It wasn’t for nice little sushi places or bookshops or not having to watch the Sound of Music ever, delightful as those things might be. It was for lunches at the Ritz, and afternoons in St. James’s Park feeding the ducks, and long evenings in the bookshop getting spectacularly drunk.[5] It was for the way Crowley threw his head back when he laughed, the way Aziraphale always knew when he was rolling his eyes even if he couldn’t see said eyes, the glint of light off that flame-red hair …

And maybe that was why Aziraphale saw what he did. Because there was a part of him, always, that was on the lookout for that particular shade of flame. Even when he knew exactly where the thing he was truly looking for was (to his left, sprawled out in one of the delicate little Ritz chairs like he had only passing familiarity with what sitting was and what chairs were for), he never quite stopped looking. The subconscious didn’t turn off as easily as all that.

So he noticed. The glint of light, the spark of flame. And he looked, merely a passing glance, because habit was habit.

And then he did a double-take.

Was that …

It couldn’t be. It was absolutely impossible. Well, maybe not impossible, per se. But certainly highly improbable.

Or a coincidence. Yes, that, of course. Humans were doing such inventive things with hair dyes these days; why, not last week Aziraphale’s barber had suggested …

The thought petered out (perhaps aware that it was convincing no one and that, more importantly, there was no one around to convince) as Aziraphale studied the young lady in more detail.

For that was what had attracted his attention – a young lady with hair the same shade as Crowley’s. She sat at one of the small tables to the left of theirs. Her back was to them; the most Aziraphale could see was the hint of a profile.

But even with that (rather huge and blaring) caveat, there were hints, details that came with quiet pings of recognition. Like the way she sat, spine curved in a way that suggested she had a few more vertebrae were typically found in Homo sapiens. The way she rolled the stem of her wineglass between her fingers. The way she tossed her head back when the young man sitting across from her leaned forward and whispered something to her.

“… and then I said—angel, are you even listening to me?”

Aziraphale jumped. Literally jumped. Rattle-the-cutlery-and-make-half-the-restaurant-look-at-him jumped. “Wh-what?”

Crowley’s brows scrunched together. “What’s gotten into you? This is supposed to be our reprieve.”

Aziraphale’s mouth opened of its own accord, ready to spin some soothing nonsense about books or food or ineffability.

Except … he hadn’t gotten himself discorporated, very nearly killed, and in all probability fired to be less than honest now.

So Aziraphale cleared his throat to cover the time it would take to gather his courage. “Do you—do you see the young lady over there?” he said, nodding. “The one with the red hair.”

Crowley looked. No, it wasn’t a look. It was barely more than a glance before he turned back to Aziraphale. “What about her?”

“My dear boy, look at her hair.”

Once again, Crowley looked. This time it was a real look. He even brought his glasses down, just a tad, to see better.

Yet when he turned back, it was with a sunny smile. “Well, what can I say? Seems these days I’m inspiring the folks at L’Oréal.”

“Do be serious. Have you ever seen hair that exact shade?”

Crowley took a breath—

“I haven’t. Except on one person. Well, two. And believe me, I have looked.”

That seemed to give Crowley pause. He glanced at the young lady again.

“And—and maybe I am a bit mad to think it,” Aziraphale went on, “but I do think—”

“Shh.” Crowley’s shushing motion just brushed Aziraphale’s sleeve, and that was more than enough to shut him up. “They’re getting up.”

Aziraphale looked up.

Because of the way the restaurant was laid out, the young lady and her companion had no choice but to pass their table on their way to the exit. Aziraphale barely cast a glance at the young man, garnering only a confused impression of curly dark hair and the sort of tan most Caucasians who were not blessed by genetics paid a lot of money for these days. The young lady, on the other hand …

Oh, he knew that stride; that was almost exactly how Crowley walked in heels; this was just a bit more controlled. Aziraphale looked up further, hoping to get a good look at her face—

Their eyes met. Aziraphale flashed a quick smile – after all, one could kick the angel out of Heaven but kicking the Heaven out of the angel was a much tougher proposition[6] – before good manners won out and Aziraphale glanced at the table.

He was cursing himself before a second had passed and looking back up again, hoping to catch another glimpse, before five seconds had gone.

He barely had a chance to see the wine-purple dress round the corner. Yet still he looked, hoping against hope that maybe she had forgotten her handbag or her left shoe or those dratted mobile phones humans were carrying with them everywhere these days—

“Angel.”

 There were very few things that would have drawn Aziraphale from his reverie. Crowley speaking that word in that tone topped the list of them.

But Crowley wasn’t looking at him. Given how still Crowley held himself and how he didn’t seem to breathe, Aziraphale would bet that Crowley wasn’t looking at much of anything.

“Did you happen to notice her eyes?”

Her eyes! He’d made eye contact, but stupid him, he’d been so embarrassed to have been caught staring he hadn’t marked the color—

“They were blue.”

Crowley say anything further. He didn’t need to. When he looked at Aziraphale, Aziraphale heard exactly what he wasn’t saying.

Like yours.

Aziraphale gulped. “Well—well.”

They didn’t say anything else. Aziraphale was too busy downing the rest of his champagne. And Crowley was too busy staring into the middle distance.

Aziraphale broke the silence, because someone had to. “It could—it could be a coincidence, of course. Humans are doing quite—quite remarkable things with hair dye, these days. And contacts. Those as well.”

“Or it could be a trap.”

There was absolutely no way to categorically deny that as a possibility, so Aziraphale didn’t even try. “Even so …”

Crowley raised an eyebrow.

“We have—we have to find her, Crowley.” Even though it wouldn’t make a difference if any ethereal or occult spies had found their way into the Ritz and this conversation, Aziraphale still found himself lowering his voice. “It’s been long enough. Hiding won’t keep her safe anymore. Not from Armageddon or—or the next one that’s coming. And we can forget all about keeping us safe.”

Crowley snorted at the last bit. But he said nothing further.

Neither did Aziraphale. There was a time to press forward, a time to argue, and this … wasn’t it.

Instead he waited, and watched, and hoped.

“Maybe …”

Aziraphale held his breath.

“Maybe you have a point. Just one, mind.”

And Aziraphale smirked. It was small, and it was barely there for a second – but it was quite smug, and he knew it.

He lifted his champagne glass, which was miraculously full again. “To happy hunting?”

Crowley nearly jumped. He glared. “I didn’t agree to anything.”

“Not yet,” Aziraphale said lightly, “but you will.” He tilted his glass toward Crowley and raised both eyebrows.

Crowley sighed. But he lifted his own glass and clinked it with Aziraphale’s.

“To happy hunting.”

[1] As in, wine made from dates, not the sort of wine you drink on a date. Although in this context, the difference may be academic.

[2] Being God of Wine didn’t make Dionysus immune to hangovers; it just gave him a few extra tricks for dealing with them. For instance, hair of the dog always worked for him.

[3] And spots.

[4] Or at least, Aziraphale was about to enjoy a truly scrumptious lunch. Aziraphale held no illusions when it came to Crowley and food.

[5] So maybe the bookshop did enter into it, just a bit.

[6] As Crowley would say, that was half the problem with Hell.

Chapter Text

The Uber was speeding away from the Ritz,[1] but though Ariadne was safely ensconced in its backseat and physically speeding along with it, her thoughts remained behind.

Who were those men?

And why had they been staring at her?

It took every ounce of self-control Ariadne possessed not to turn around and look back. Instead she took her phone out and stared blankly at the sudoku game she’d started before lunch, when Dionysus had been taking forever in the shower. It would give her something to do, or something to pretend to do, since Dionysus had the job of entertaining the driver well in hand.

She wished she knew why she was so bothered by the staring. It wasn’t that they’d managed to push through her defenses; she’d left most of her defenses behind, anyway. One didn’t show up for lunch at the Ritz in a messy bun, supremely comfortable if carefully unflattering clothes, and no makeup – and that was before she planned her attack for where they were going after lunch.

Even so … she hadn’t been trying to attract attention. And the attention she’d attracted hadn’t been the type she was used to attracting. There were some men who wouldn’t be put off by all the messy buns, salsa-stained t-shirts, and “I literally woke up like this” makeup-less faces in the world. Put on a nice dress, add some eyeliner, and make the effort to twist her hair into a French roll, and their attention increased tenfold. She was used to that, expected it, planned for it.

Yet that wasn’t the attention she’d gotten. Hell, if Blondie had ever experienced sexual attraction to a woman in his life, Ariadne would eat her laptop. And while Sunglasses was harder to read,[2] it was plain as the nose on his face that all his romantic/sexual energy was taken up by Blondie.

A sudden touch made Ariadne jump. But it was just Dionysus, taking advantage of the driver’s distraction[3] to put his hand on her knee and raise both eyebrows at her. All right?

Ariadne flashed him a quick smile. She could feel how brittle it was. Dionysus, not having been born yesterday, looked unconvinced.

Then the driver said something, Dionysus looked up and laughed, and Ariadne retreated into her thoughts once more.

Really, if she was going to be distracted and out-of-sorts, she might as well be distracted and out-of-sorts about something that mattered. Like whatever had possessed Zeus to call a “family meeting” with less than a week’s notice, in London of all places. Zeus was a traditionalist if there ever was one; when he wanted to schedule a family reunion, he did so in Dion or Litochoro, small villages at the foot of Mount Olympus. If he was feeling especially generous to the international travelers, he might move the meeting to Athens or Thessaloniki.

Still, Ariadne supposed she ought to be grateful that Zeus had combined the short notice with a relatively reachable location. She’d had to use magic to procure her and Dionysus’s plane tickets and hotel reservation as it was. At least now that they were here, they could rely on Uber and their own well-padded bank accounts for anything else they might—

“Ari?”

Ariadne jumped. She actually jumped. Gods, what was wrong with her?

Dionysus smiled at her, equal parts fond, indulgent, and worried. “We’re here.”

“Oh—right.” And then there was nothing left for Ariadne to do but untangle herself from the seatbelt and fiddle with her phone (why did it open on the sudoku app?) to rate the ride and tip the driver. Thankfully Dionysus came around to open the car door for her and guide her into the building with a hand on the small of her back, else she might have found herself walking all the way back to Piccadilly.

She barely looked at the nondescript office building, spared only a shadow of a glance at the discreet nameplate by the door, which read Olympic Holdings, Ltd. Paid no attention to the brief conversation Dionysus had with the receptionist. Had no idea which button he pressed once they got into the elevator and what direction they went in once they got off it.

The first thing that brought her out of her reverie was the very familiar, very unwelcome voice that greeted her as soon as Dionysus pushed open the door to what looked like a conference room.

“I thought this was supposed to be a family meeting.”

Ariadne stopped dead. Dionysus tensed beside her.

But she still sent a small, tight smile Poseidon’s way because, really, it had been several thousand years, the main cause of their quarrels (Theseus) was long dead, and someone had to be the bigger person.

“Oh, for Olympus’s sake,” sighed Aphrodite. She was seated across from Poseidon, looking perfect as always. Even when she was sighing and rolling her eyes. “If I qualify as family, surely Ariadne does. Speaking of which—Ari, darling, how are you? And you too, Dionysus, of course.”

Neither had a chance to answer before Poseidon snorted. “You married into the family.”

“And divorced out of it,” Ares said. As always, he was taking up far more space than he needed, legs spread wide in front of him and one arm draped over the back of Aphrodite’s chair. “Although you could always marry back into it, if you wanted.”

A small strangled sound—and there was Hephaestus, bent over the laptop hooked up the projector. His hands looked too big for the tiny keyboard and trackpad, and he was using his wheelchair today.

A wave of relief washed over Ariadne. If Ares was going to needle Hephaestus – whether purposely or not, Ariadne was never sure how things stood between the brothers from minute to minute – then she and Dionysus could find their seats and fade into the background. Or at least she could fade into the background. Dionysus rarely needed to or wanted to.

She glanced around the room. The table was nearly full. Next to Ares were Apollo and Artemis, blond heads together and whispering like always. Then Hermes, tapping away on his phone. Hephaestus was next, on the laptop, followed by Athena, whose attention was split between peering over Hephaestus’s shoulder and murmuring to her father.

Zeus, of course, sat at the head of the conference table – or he would have, if doing so wouldn’t have meant he’d be staring right into the projector. Hera was across from Zeus, scribbling on a notepad. Next to her was an empty seat, with Demeter in the chair next to that. Her wheat-gold hair was tied up in a kerchief and her overalls had grass stains on the knees.

On Demeter’s left was Persephone, then three empty chairs, then Poseidon. Ariadne wasn’t relishing the idea of having only Dionysus between her and Poseidon, but she supposed that was the price of lingering over lunch and the delightful chardonnay that had gone with it.

Except Persephone was grinning and patting the seat next to her, and Ariadne could only take that as an invitation.

“No Hades?” Ariadne asked after she rounded the table and sat down. She supposed it was possible that Hades might take the chair between Hera and Demeter, but … Persephone and Hades had been married longer than Ariadne had been alive, and he and Demeter never sat or stood near each other without Persephone in between to act as a physical and emotional buffer.

Persephone sighed. “No, he couldn’t get away. So I’m here for the Underworld.” She absently twisted her wedding ring around her finger. “But what about you? How’s Los Angeles? And what are you two working on now?”

“Hot,” Ariadne laughed. “And we’re looking at scripts. Dionysus wants to see if we can pitch in with a few indie films.”

“Because if I am on the set of another franchise feature that is more concerned with selling popcorn and keeping secrets than telling a coherent story, I am going to scream,” Dionysus said before Persephone could ask why.

“I thought you liked popcorn movies,” Artemis said.

“It’s less the popcorn than the secrets,” Dionysus admitted, and might have said more, but for the door opening again and revealing … a baking pan?

“So sorry I’m late!” After the baking pan came Hestia, hands still covered by oven mitts. “The baklava took a little longer than I was expecting.”

“Baklava!” cried Artemis – although it might have been any of them. There were few things that could bring the gods of Olympus and their companions together in anything like peace or harmony, but Hestia’s baklava was one of them.

The next few minutes were taken up by the cutting up of the pastry, the passing of plates and forks, and the idle chit-chat of a family that was often scattered to the winds. As soon as the food was handed out, Hestia took the empty chair between Hera and Demeter.

But there was still one chair left. And they still hadn’t started with … whatever Zeus had called them here for. Zeus himself was uncharacteristically silent, glancing between his plate, his wristwatch, and Hera. The looks he shot the latter were annoyed and rapidly running low on patience.

Hera’s only response was to raise an eyebrow or roll her eyes.

Ariadne settled back and let the chatter wash over her. Dionysus was distracted – Ares had finally seen Wonder Woman and was demanding that Dionysus justify the “character assassination” to which he had been subjected (“David Thewlis, really? With that mustache?”). Persephone had been roped into the conversation Demeter was having with Hestia. The twins had gone back to their whispering.

And it was all fine, really. Given how distracted everyone around her was, maybe she’d even be able to sneak another slice of baklava. That was well worth being ignored and studiously not wondering why she’d even been invited to this gathering.

Just as Ariadne was eyeing the baklava, the door opened again, and in walked a being that – from the top of her blond pigtails to the jagged hem of her crop top, the artful rips on her fishnet stockings, and her knee-high pony boots – could only be termed a disaster.

“Huh.” The disaster still had one hand on the doorknob, the other on her hip as she surveyed the room. “Did I spend too long playing in traffic?”

A long-suffering sigh from Hera. “Eris.”

“I’ll take that as a polite way of saying ‘sit your ass down, we’ve been waiting for you,’” Eris replied.

“Thank you, dear.”

Eris flashed her mother a sunny smile and rounded the table to the only empty seat left. Not that she sat in it right away. “Shove over, thigh-baby.[4]” Not giving Dionysus the chance to refuse, she pushed his chair over and squeezed her own in the space that had appeared between Dionysus and Ariadne.

Then she dropped into the seat and flashed Ariadne a grin. “Hi, Ari! How’s tricks?”

“Hello,” replied Ariadne.

And that was all she had a chance to say before Zeus cleared his throat. Like lightning, the sound was enough to quiet the room as all counted the seconds before the thunder.

“Good afternoon, everyone,” Zeus said. “Now that we’re all here – let’s get started.”

He nodded once to Hephaestus, who tapped a few times on the laptop. The lights dimmed and the projector whirred to life.

“I’d like to begin by thanking all of you for coming – I understand that the notice was short and the meeting place unconventional.” Zeus smiled and nodded in a way that somehow managed to encompass everyone in the room. “However, I assure you that there is a reason for both, which I’m sure you’ll understand by the time I reach the end of this.”

Here he paused, letting stormy gray eyes rest on each of them in turn. “I also must insist on discretion. Nothing that is mentioned from this point forward can be discussed with anyone outside this room.”

Ariadne’s eyebrows arched. Well. Maybe that was why she had been invited along. The idea that Dionysus wouldn’t tell her, eventually, what had happened here was ludicrous. Easier to just pull out a chair for her and be done with it.

Or maybe not. Persephone was clearing her throat. “Father.”

“Zeus,” Poseidon said, in much the same tone.

Zeus waved a hand graciously. “Persephone, Poseidon – you may share this with those of your people who you think need to know about it. That being said,” Zeus’s gaze turned to the projector screen, “let’s get started. Hephaestus?”

Hephaestus tapped the mousepad, and a picture appeared on the screen. Ariadne frowned. She had more experience with photographs and cameras than anyone else in this room (except Apollo and of course Dionysus), and unless all that experience had chosen to desert her now, she thought she was looking at a satellite photo of a military base. Perhaps an airfield. The bigger buildings could be hangars.

“What we’re all seeing is Upper Tadfield Air Base,” said Zeus. “Located between North London and Oxford, it’s an American military installation first set up in the 1960s. And on Saturday last, it was the scene of … an incident.”

Zeus nodded at Hephaestus. The satellite picture vanished, only to be replaced by a blurry traffic photo of four motorcyclists – two in all-black leathers, one in all-white leathers, and one in all-red leathers – running through a stop light.

“These four appeared at the airbase and did their best …” Zeus paused. “To end the world.”

“Eh?” asked Ares. It was the first noise anyone had made since Zeus started talking.

Zeus ignored him. The photo on the projector shifted. Now a handsome black man with a trim black beard smiled down at them from the screen. He had one elbow on a stack of books, the other hand gesturing to a spread of empty plates before him.

“Dr. Raven Sable,” Zeus said. “A renowned—”

Demeter’s hands slammed down on the table. Ariadne jumped, and she wasn’t the only one.

“Doctor?” Demeter snarled. “That’s what that asshole is calling himself these days? Doctor?”

Zeus blinked. “Demeter—”

“If he’s a doctor, any kind of doctor, I’m a Teletubby!”

“Demi, really—” Hestia said, starting to rub Demeter’s back.

“What he is,” Demeter continued, pointing to the screen, “is—”

“The personification of Famine,” Zeus interrupted. “As I was about to say. The rest of you can Google his persona – for now, we’d best move on. Hephaestus?”

Once again the picture shifted. Now a young – woman? Man? Non-binary person? – of Asian descent appeared on the screen. The most distinctive things about their appearance were their hair – a blond so light it was practically white – and their eyes – light blue that bordered, again, on white.

“Them,” growled Artemis. Ariadne glanced across the table to see Apollo’s hand on Artemis’s shoulder, ready to comfort her or hold her down. Or both.

“Chalky White,” Zeus said. “Personification of Pollution.” He quickly nodded to Hephaestus.

Now the screen showed a young, pretty Caucasian woman. Her hair was red, and the camera had caught her sidelong, frowning at a notebook in her hand.

“Uh oh,” Ares said.

“Isn’t that Carmine?” Aphrodite asked.

“Who?” asked Poseidon.

“Carmine Zuigiber,” Ares muttered. “She’s a war correspondent. And. Um. War. Y’know, the personification of it.” He scratched the back of his neck. “We, uh, tend to run in the same circles … you know?”

“Quite,” Zeus said. Once again, he nodded to Hephaestus, and once again, the image on the screen changed.

Ariadne winced. This was another grainy still from a traffic camera, showing a tractor-trailer on its side. Sticking out from underneath the capsized truck was the back end of a small sedan. The front end was …

Best not to think about it.

“Ethereal filter,” Zeus said. Hephaestus tapped the trackpad.

The image was overlaid with a kaleidoscope of color – pinks and blues and teals invisible to (most) humans and only visible to gods and immortals when they cared to concentrate. Yet within this riot of color, right next to the half-crushed sedan was darkness: a black-robed, black-winged figure with its back to the camera. If Ariadne squinted – even the ethereal filter couldn’t do much to improve image quality – she thought she could make out a tall staff topped with a long, sharp blade in the figure’s right hand …

“Azrael,” Persephone whispered. Then, when several sets of eyes turned to her, she sighed. “Thanatos has a poker night with him, Anubis, and Yama every other Tuesday. They’ve been doing it for … oh my …”

“Since the invention of Tuesdays, I’d wager,” Zeus filled in for her. “And for those of you who are slower on the uptake – Azrael is also known as Death.”

“So what were they all doing at an American airbase in Wales?” Poseidon asked.

“England,” Zeus corrected. “And that … is what we are coming to.”

Once again, the screen switched, showing the airbase from above.

“As far as we can determine – thanks to Hephaestus and Hermes – these four entities managed to outwit airbase’s security and make their way to a top-secret area of the base. The entities then sawed their way into—”

“I’ll take it from here, Pater, thanks.” That was Hermes, finally looking up from his phone. His gaze swept around the table once. “I’ll skip the technical explanation none of you would understand, or frankly, care about. To make a long story short, these jokers,” he jerked his head at the screen, “nearly set off every nuclear device on the planet.”

The cacophony was immediate and deafening.

“What?”

“How?”

“Why?”

“Why are we only finding out about this now?”

“What stopped them?”

“A-HEM!” Zeus’s voice cracked like lightning and boomed like thunder.

The cacophony died.

“Thanks, Pater,” Hermes said. “To answer your questions – what: the world nearly ended. How: trust me when I say the technical details are not important. Why: we’re getting to that. Why are you only finding out about this now: because we had to confirm it before we shared it with you all. What stopped them …”

He glanced at Hephaestus. “That’s your cue, bro.”

Once again, the image on the screen changed. This time it became a montage of seven photos: three yearbook photos of pre-teens, three driver’s license photos, and one passport photo. Pictured were a brown-haired young boy with glasses, a scrubby-looking black-haired boy, a girl with curly black hair and an expression suggesting she’d like to punch out the photographer, an older blond woman, an suspicious-looking elderly man, a blue-eyed young man with glasses, and a dark-haired, brown-skinned woman with all-too-knowing eyes.

Pointing to each of the photos in turn, Hermes said, “Jeremy Wensleydale, Brian Galkoff, and – this poor kid, I feel for her – Pippin Galadriel Moonchild Ris. And the adults are Marjorie Potts, currently trading as Madame Tracy; Michael Shadwell, Sergeant in the Witchfinder Army – which, yes, apparently is a thing; Newton Pulsifer, who, if any of you know why that name is ringing a bell for me, please tell me because it’s been driving me insane; and Anathema Device, whose parents will probably be forgiven far sooner than Pippin’s will. All of them British, except the Device woman, she’s American. The three kids live in Tadfield; we’re still figuring out what’s up with the adults. But they were all present at the airbase when … well …”

Hermes nodded to Hephaestus, and now a single picture appeared on the screen. It was another yearbook photo. A tousle-haired boy grinned at the camera. His smile was warm and genuine, and if his eyes brimmed over with mischief, well, he was just a kid, so what could the harm be?

“This kid – Adam Young according to official records – told the combined forces of Heaven and Hell to take a long walk off a short pier.”

Silence.

“When … when you say ‘Heaven and Hell,’” Hestia said, very slowly, “do you mean …”

“The Abrahamic divinities,” Athena answered. She glanced at Hermes, who made a “go on” gesture. “Whom Famine, Pollution, etc. are affiliated with. Apparently, this was their attempt to bring about their foretold Armageddon.”

“WHAT?”

The cry seemed to come from every corner of the room at once.

“So, wait. Wait, wait, wait,” Artemis said. “Are you telling me – are you telling me – that the Abrahamics aren’t happy with having however-many-billion followers? That that’s not enough for them? That they have to use their followers’ tech to—”

“Destroy the world as we know it? Yep. That’s exactly what we’re saying,” Hermes said.

“Why?”

Hermes shrugged.

“It’s rather complicated,” Athena answered, because of course she would say that.

“Then give us the simple version. Please,” Apollo said.

Athena sat very still, her eyes going unfocused. “Very well. To summarize a very long and complex history …”

She took a deep breath. “The Abrahamic divinities are divided in two main camps, Heaven and Hell. They have been at war since their inception. Their plan, since either side was capable of forming a plan, has always been to destroy all life on Earth and then have a grand battle to destroy each other. To that end, the forces of Heaven created the Christ—”

“That Jesus fellow?” Apollo interrupted.

“Indeed,” Athena replied. “And the forces of Hell created the Antichrist. To wit …”

She swallowed and gestured to the screen. “Young … Adam.”

“But,” Hestia said, “but you just said—well, Hermes just said—that the boy told both sides to stop fighting. And they—listened?”

“We are still confirming details,” Athena said with a sigh. “But we think …”

She glanced sidelong at Hephaestus. And the screen shifted.

“That these two had something to do with it.”

Ariadne’s eyes went wide.

The screen showed, once again, a collage of pictures. Two men walking through a park. Two men getting into (or out of; the picture wasn’t clear) a black antique car in front of a corner shop. Two men side-by-side in a restaurant, one sitting like he was being graded on deportment and the other like he was getting points for slouching.

Blondie and Sunglasses!

“Pictured on the screen are the beings known as Aziraphale and Crowley. They have been active in London for quite some time; in fact, Aziraphale owns a rare book shop in Soho—”

Zeus cleared his throat.

Athena blushed. “Er—right. Hephaestus, could you turn on the ethereal filters, please?”

Once again, the photos exploded in color. And Ariadne sucked in a gasp.

“As you can see, both beings have wings – the mark of an angel, that is, one of the forces of Heaven, and a demon, one of the forces of Hell. The white wings are the angel’s, the black wings the demon’s.”

“Which is which? I mean—which is Aziraphale, and which is Crowley?” Ariadne heard herself ask.

Everyone turned to look at her. Or at least she thought they did. The vague movement that she saw from the corner of her eye would track with that. But to confirm it would have meant looking away from the screen, and Ariadne was nowhere near ready to do that yet.

“Er, the angel is Aziraphale, the demon is Crowley. Why?” Athena asked.

“We saw them,” Dionysus answered. Once again, Ariadne saw vague movement from the corner of her eye. “Right before we came here. They were having lunch at the Ritz. Since that’s where we’re staying … it’d be nice to know exactly what we’re dealing with, should we run into them again.”

“Nobody is going to be running into anyone without my express permission,” Zeus said.

That started an argument. Or at least Ariadne thought it did. The voices rose and fell around her, but she wasn’t listening. She didn’t care.

She was too busy staring at the screen.

White wings, black wings.

Angel, demon.

So then … could they help me figure out what gray wings mean?

Zeus’s “family meeting” had sparked or stoked a hundred arguments. This did not come as a surprise to Hera. The gods of Olympus had been fractious since the day they overthrew the Titans, and there were far too many of them to reach any decision without having to shout down a multitude of different opinions. That was part of the reason why Zeus preferred to rule by decree rather than consensus.

But that was not what concerned Hera.

She’d already known most of what had been shared at the meeting. Communication was the key to any marriage, especially one spanning millennia, and she and Zeus had discovered that they were both much happier when their marriage had as few secrets as could be managed.

Which was part of the reason why Hera remained in the room after Zeus had adjourned the family meeting, with only Hephaestus and Zeus left beside her. And Hephaestus, Hera sensed, would be gone as soon as the projector and laptop were shut down.

She couldn’t let that happen. Well, the laptop shutting down. Hephaestus could do what he pleased with the projector and the rest of his afternoon.

“Hephaestus? Could you be a dear and let me see the laptop once you’re done with it? No need to close any programs.”

Hephaestus looked up. “Certainly, Mother.” He frowned. “Is everything all right?”

“Of course.”

Hephaestus’s gaze slid to his father, but Zeus was too busy staring at his phone to notice. Probably texting Odin again. The advent of instantaneous communication had done wonders for inter-pantheon relations. Even Hermes didn’t mind losing one of his traditional duties, given all the things it freed up his time for.

Sensing no help from that quarter, Hephaestus waved his hand. The laptop floated above the mirror-polished conference table, coming to rest just in front of Hera.

She allowed herself a small smile. As she had hoped, Hephaestus hadn’t closed PowerPoint. She scrolled back through the slides detailing the communications with other pantheons and tentative plans for responses until she found the ones she wanted.

The angel and the demon. With and without the ethereal filters.

Staring at the laptop, chin resting on her hand and frowning, Hera flipped back and forth between the two slides.

She hadn’t watched the PowerPoint as Zeus, Hermes, and Athena filled the rest of the family in on what had happened. Instead, she had watched the room.

She’d seen very little to surprise her. She had expected Demeter’s and Artemis’s murderous reactions to Famine and Pollution respectively, as she had Ares’s and Persephone’s admissions of being acquainted with War and Death. And nothing about the gods’ reactions to the plot to destroy the world and the revelation of the preteen Antichrist had surprised her.

But Ariadne …

Ariadne’s reactions had been a surprise.

Ariadne wasn’t one of them. Poseidon had put it inelegantly, pointing out that this was meant to be a family meeting, but he had not been wrong. Ariadne wasn’t family, not least because she and Dionysus had never bothered to solemnize their union.

She wasn’t from the same stock as they were. Even Aphrodite, though not descended from Kronos and Rhea, could at least claim descent of a kind from Ouranos. Ariadne? For all that she had been raised by Minos, a son of Zeus, and Pasiphaë, a daughter of Helios and a granddaughter of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys, she was not their child. Not by blood.

Really, Dionysus should have put that together when he first found her on Naxos. But he hadn’t. He’d been as shocked as the rest of them when Athena, acting under Zeus’s orders, had performed a few discreet experiments and revealed that Ariadne was not an Olympian. Or a Titan. Or a Giant or anything that the rest of them recognized.

But now …

Hera flipped to the filtered photos.

Those wings. It had been centuries since she had last seen them, but a pair of enormous, dove-gray wings was rather hard to forget. They had looked about the same size – at least relative to the size of Ariadne’s body – as the wings on the angel and demon. Same shape as well. And the color … assuming the filter wasn’t distorting the colors of these wings too much, the color of Ariadne’s wings was right in between the white of the angel’s wings and the black of the demon’s.

As for the angel and demon themselves …

Hera scrolled to the unfiltered photos.

That red hair – there was no question that the it was distinctive. Mortal hair didn’t come in that shade naturally, and while it was possible to create it with dye or an illusion, there was little reason for a demon to do that. And Ariadne had never done so either, as far as Hera was aware. Given the wings, there was no way to pass the hair color off as a coincidence.

But it wasn’t just the hair or even the wings. Hera could see traces of the angel in Ariadne as well. The way he clasped his hands over his stomach; Ariadne sat like that sometimes. That smug little smile. Even his eyes.

True, both beings were male-shaped, but in Hera’s experience, that mattered very little. Gender was just a guideline. Her own husband had given birth. Twice.

Speaking of her husband …

Hera looked up. Hephaestus had wheeled himself out while she was busy with the laptop. Zeus was still on his phone.

“Zeus?” Hera asked.

“Hmm?”

“Hermes managed to find the address of the angel’s bookshop, didn’t he?”

“Of course he did; he texted it to me the other …” Zeus trailed off.

He looked up.

“Hera.”

She sent him a look that was equal parts inquiry and invitation.

“I specifically stated,” and his tone brooked no argument, “that no one was to contact any of the players in this little drama. That includes you.”

“That is not what you said.”

“It most certainly is—”

“You said,” and now Hera’s tone brooked no argument, “that no one was to contact any of the players without your express permission.” She fluttered her lashes at him. “Which is why I am giving you the chance to express your permission now, dear.”

“And if I don’t?” Zeus asked.

Hera simply raised an eyebrow.

Stormy gray eyes met cow eyes, and for a few brief moments, battle was joined.

It was over quickly – their relationship really had immeasurably improved over the past century. Zeus sighed and turned back to his phone.

“I’ll drive you over tomorrow.”

It was a well-known fact that both the forces of Heaven and Hell considered the Earth – indeed, the universe – to be their oyster. That was why both sides were so confident that they could destroy it without facing repercussions. It was the foundation of their existences, as certain as up was up and down was down.

However, even before an angel, a demon, and an Antichrist teamed up to tell the Heavenly and Hellish hosts where they could stick their Apocalypse, there were cracks in that foundation. One was that other divine and immortal beings existed.

Another was that, all things considered, it was better to get along with the neighbors than it was to fight with them.[5]

Following from that was the realization that if certain locales were considered sacred to certain pantheons, it was perhaps best for everyone if those locales were left to the care of those pantheons.[6]

These facts went a long way toward explaining why a demon was lurking at the excavation site of the old temple at Uppåkra, Sweden, waiting for an angel.

The demon was not Crowley. While Crowley’s appearance, especially over that past few hundred years, had trended closer to “flash bastard” than “archfiend of Hell,” this demon seemed to lean into the latter. Though short, he had dark hair slicked back to reveal a poetic widow’s peak and saturnine features. He even had a long, pointy goatee. Should a local theater troupe have been passing by, looking for a last-minute understudy for that evening’s production of Doctor Faustus – based on looks alone, acting ability and knowledge of the local language be damned – they would have fallen to their knees and sent praise to any powers above (or Below) who happened to be listening, thanking them for throwing a prime Mephistopheles into their path.

This would make perfect sense given that the demon in question was, in fact, Mephistopheles. He’d worn this corporation for the better part of a thousand years, and a whole string of clichés had grown up around it.

At the moment, though, he did not look particularly demonic. He looked worried.

The past week had been … Mephistopheles would say hellish, except that described every single one of his weeks since taking a tumble from grace. Perhaps godawful would be better. It wasn’t just the failed Apocalypse, six thousand years of striving and plotting gone up in smoke the way the world hadn’t. It was how it had all gone up in smoke: an angel and a demon had been working together, going against both sides to stop it.

And they’d gotten away with it. The so-called demon Crowley had survived a bath in Holy Water! Half of Hell had seen him do it! And if the rumors filtering down from Heaven were at all accurate, then the so-called angel Aziraphale had managed the same trick in reverse.

It was enough to worry any self-respecting demon, and that was before he even considered the other rumors that had been swarming through Hell …

“Sorry I’m late.”

Mephistopheles did not jump. But the breath he didn’t technically need caught in his throat.

Slowly, he turned around. Slowly, he nodded. “Hello, Samael.”

“Yes, yes, let’s dispense with the pleasantries, shall we?” Samael’s hands were trembling as she fumbled with a lighter and a cigarette. “What have you got?”

“Here,” Mephistopheles said. He snapped his fingers, and a small lick of flame appeared on his thumb.

Samael watched it.

She smirked.

She lit her cigarette, brought it to her lips, and took a long drag that consumed nearly half of it. Then she breathed out, wreathing her face in smoke that would not have looked out of place in the deepest part of the Pit. Not for the first time, Mephistopheles reflected that it was a good thing that angelic corporations were immune from cancer and that demonic corporations did not need to breathe.

All the same, he summoned a small breeze to keep the smoke firmly downwind of him.

“So,” he said.

“So,” Samael replied. She leaned against a tree trunk, her coat bunching awkwardly around her curves. “As far as Upstairs is concerned, Armageddon is officially off. Caput. Finished.”

“Well … bless it.”

“And Downstairs?”

Mephistopheles shrugged. “No one’s happy about how the past week has gone. Especially the … attempted extinction of Crowley.” His eyes narrowed. “That was Holy Water that Michael came down with, wasn’t it?”

“The Holiest. I checked.” Samael’s growl reminded Mephistopheles that she was, among other things, the Archangel of Destruction. He tried not to shudder.

And felt ashamed. Because really … if this whole partnership was not about mutually assured destruction, then what in Hell’s name was it about?

Samael took another drag of the cigarette, consuming it down to the filter. Which she absently flicked away before digging in her pockets for another one. “And the Hellfire?”

“As Hellish as it could be. Downstairs wanted Aziraphale gone as much as Upstairs wanted Crowley gone.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Samael’s annoyed huff was briefly broken by a smile as she found another cigarette. This time her lighter cooperated with her. “Unfortunately, it gets worse.”

Mephistopheles sighed. Of course it did.

“We’ve been getting … messages.” Samael raised an eyebrow. “From everyone.”

Mephistopheles winced.

“Your lot, too?”

“So I’ve heard.” He sighed. “I don’t see why the lower-downs care that everyone is – er – upset now. They never did before.”

“Well, before, the war was supposed to happen, and everyone being upset with us for starting it would have been the least of our problems. Now …” Samael shrugged. “Now, we actually have to deal with the neighbors.”

The cigarette in her fingers started to tremble. “And …”

Mephistopheles frowned. “And?”

“I heard Michael talking to Gabriel. There’s talk of … getting rid of back channels.”

Mephistopheles blinked. And his jaw fell. “Getting rid of back channels?”

It wouldn’t affect them; their little partnership wasn’t “back channels.” More like the static between the channels, showing hints of pictures and snatches of dialogue. Definitely not on the cable plan, but real all the same.

“That’s—that’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. Just—stop talking? Now? I know neither of our Sides cares much about, um, interfaith relations, but with everyone annoyed with us—”

“I may have misspoken. It’s not so much getting rid of the back channels as …” Samael took a long, fortifying drag of her cigarette. “Turning them into front channels.”

Front … channels?

Mephistopheles almost asked Samael for a cigarette. He’d never smoked, but now seemed like a good time to start.

Because if there were going to be front channels – if Heaven and Hell were to, to put it one way, resume diplomatic relations? Especially if the current interfaith crisis proved to be particularly difficult or thorny?

Well. There were few better things to use to unite two warring factions than a common enemy. Or a host of common enemies. And there were few bonds stronger than those of brothers-in-arms.

Which meant …

If something didn’t happen – and soon – to get Heaven and Hell back on a war footing with each other, then Armageddon might be well and truly off. Forever.

And for him … Mephistopheles suddenly saw eternity stretching before him. An eternity of faux-cheerful posters stuck on damp, dark walls. Endless miserable temptations just to win more human souls to be miserable with them Down Below.

No joy. No light. No love. And no hope of a final battle to end it all – or failing that, Samael revealing their connection and ensuring that his own side would eliminate him.

He looked at Samael, and by the way she was taking quick puff-puff-puffs of her cigarette, he could imagine she was seeing the same godawful future for herself.

“What are we going to do?” he whispered.

“I don’t know,” Samael admitted. “But we damn well need to think of something – and we need to do it fast.”

[1] Metaphorically speaking, given the state of the traffic.

[2] Due, in no small part, to the sunglasses.

[3] Roundabouts didn’t leave much room for conversation.

[4] Hat tip to The Z List by chellerrific https://archiveofourown.org/works/3816202.

[5] If only so that both sides could concentrate their firepower on each other.

[6] Unless, of course, humans decided to switch which beings were worshipped in the space. Which always made for interesting conversations with the neighbors.

Chapter Text

With a smile, Aziraphale turned the sign on the bookshop door to “Sorry, We’re Closed.” He’d been open for a full forty-five minutes today. While that was hardly a record,[1] it was plenty to be getting on with.

Besides, Aziraphale had so many other things to do – things for him, even, not things for Upstairs! Chasing customers away would have just been a distraction. There were shelves to dust, restaurant reviews to read, old favorites to revisit now that he’d have time, and oh, he really ought to get around to cataloguing all those lovely books Adam had gifted to him when he restored the shop.

Yet one thing he would not be doing was starting the search for the being he still thought of as the baby, for two reasons. One, even after a pleasant evening of drinks here at the shop, Crowley was still pretending to not be convinced that searching for her was a good idea – and Aziraphale was determined that they would search for her Together or Not at All. Second …

Well, this might have been cheating, given his earlier resolution. But the fact remained that trying to find a baby one had given up for adoption, as it were, was not an easy feat. It was hard enough for humans in the modern age, with things like legal records and DNA testing and private detectives. Add in a few thousand years and a complete and total lack of any of those things, and what Aziraphale had on his hands was a pickle.

He’d need to think about this. Or better yet, not-think about this. Let the problem come to a boil and then have the ideas steep in the back of his mind long enough, and perhaps by the time Crowley agreed that it was time to find the baby, Aziraphale would have a perfectly brewed action plan ready to go.

Speaking of which, he really ought to get the kettle on, especially if he was going to be cataloging those books—

 The sound of the shop-bell tinkling stopped that merry thought in its tracks. “I’m terribly sorry,” Aziraphale began to say, even before he’d properly turned around, “but I’m afraid we’re closed.”

“I know. I waited until you turned the sign over for a reason.”

That made Aziraphale turn around rather faster.

But whatever he had been expecting to find—

This wasn’t it.

Before him, just a few steps away from the shop door, stood a tall, middle-aged woman. Her ebony hair was coiled on her head in the kind of complicated, crown-like style that most human women had to pay someone else to accomplish, and she was really quite beautiful – classically so, even.[2] And she was impeccably styled from the top of her well-tailored sheath dress to the heels of her sensible-but-still-fashionable pumps and the peacock-feather-emblazoned bag that hung from her shoulder.

But more importantly than that, there was something about her air, her aura if one would, that skittered across Aziraphale’s other senses and screamed, NOT HUMAN, NOT HUMAN, NOT HUMAN!

Aziraphale took a full step backward, and for the first time since a rather awkward conversation outside the walls of Eden, really wished he had his flaming sword back. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

The woman – or female-shaped being – held both of her hands up, palms out. “Do not be afraid—oh, wait, that’s your line, isn’t it?” She chuckled.

Aziraphale failed to see what was funny.

She sighed. And then, with a flick of her wrist,[3] a small rectangle of high-quality cardstock appeared in her hand. “My card,” she said, quite unnecessarily.

He didn’t take it. It struck him as being quite worth the “frivolous” miracle to simply arrange for it to appear where he could read it. So he did.

And he frowned.

What the card said was June Chronides, Marriage and Family Counselor, followed by an address and a phone number.

“Oh, sorry, wrong card,” the lady – Ms. Chronides – said, and snapped her fingers.

Now the card read:

Hera

Goddess of Women, Marriage, and the Family

Queen of the Olympian Gods

In Homeric Greek.

Aziraphale felt his throat go dry. “Your—Majesty,” he croaked. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” He clasped his hands behind him and smiled as politely as he could manage, all while trying very hard to think.

Something about this made the left side of Hera’s mouth quirk slowly upward. “Oh, you do look like her. Or does she look like you?”

“I—beg your pardon?”

“Come,” Hera said, and she swept past him as if this was her bookshop, not his, and moreover, as if she knew exactly where the back room was. “We should sit down. This could take some time.” She tossed him a glance over her shoulder. “And xenia is very important among my people.”

Xenia – sacred hospitality. Aziraphale had done enough reading to take the hint. “Can I get you something to eat? Or drink?”

“If you wouldn’t mind. You strike me as being very English – I don’t suppose I could trouble you for a cup of tea?”

Tea Aziraphale could manage. But this was not the time to do it the old-fashioned way. “Of course,” he said, following her into the back room, where a pot of freshly brewed Earl Grey awaited them.

Hera looked at him over her shoulder again, and this time, she smiled. “You are no fool, Angel of the Eastern Gate.”

Aziraphale tried very, very hard not to show how bothered he was by the fact that she knew that. He was fairly certain that he did not succeed.

“Although,” Hera continued, helping herself to the tea and the artfully cut-up lemons that came with it, “perhaps a touch unsubtle. A.Z. Fell, really?” She arched a delicate brow as Aziraphale sat down.

“In—in my line of work,” Aziraphale stumbled, “honesty is considered the best policy.”

She nodded, conceding the point. “But of course. Still, all the same, Heaven ought to have expected that you’d make trouble sooner or later.” She smirked. “Fire-bringers always do.”

Aziraphale’s eyes went wide and his stomach dropped to the vicinity of his feet.[4]

“Oh, don’t look like that. My husband hasn’t had anyone chained up in the Caucasus for millennia.” She took a delicate sip of her tea. “Anyway. I didn’t come all this way to talk shop. I came here to discuss your daughter.”

The part of Aziraphale that was small, and petty, and that enjoyed nice things and nice experiences, was very glad that he hadn’t actually dared to pick up the teacup that was nominally for him. He never would have been able to hold onto it, and that would have been a terrible waste of good tea and good china.

The much larger part – the part that was a being of love with something to protect – didn’t allow the rest of him to so much as blink.

“My what?” he asked, striving to sound confused.

Hera rolled her eyes. “Please. There are a number of beings in the universe you might fool with that, but I am not one of them.” She fixed him with a look over her teacup. “Do recall what I am the goddess of.”

Aziraphale recalled. Even so, he folded his hands in his lap and fixed her with his most beatific and slightly dotty smile.

She shifted slightly on the sofa and poured herself another cup of tea. “I have to wonder, though, was it you or was it your partner in crime – among other things – who dropped her off at Knossos? Though I’m sure she doesn’t blame you for that. You couldn’t have predicted the mess you were dropping her into.”

Mess? thought one part of Aziraphale, while another wondered, Knossos?

And then, a third part: Oh, no.

“Knossos,” Aziraphale said, “isn’t that on Crete?”

“Indeed. The palace built atop the labyrinth.”

“Now, I believe modern archaeological evidence suggests—”

Hera shot him a look that killed that sentence in its tracks. “Principality,” she said, “you know as well as I do that the archaeologists’ opinions of the past are as trustworthy as the paleontologists’.”

Aziraphale gulped. “Quite.”

“And that being said,” Hera went on, “you also know as well as I do that there was a labyrinth, and a Minotaur, and … a young lady who knew the secret of the labyrinth, how to get in, and how to get out. A young lady with red hair … blue eyes … and gray wings.”

Aziraphale’s throat was dry as the desert that had surrounded Eden. But he didn’t dare grab a teacup. His hands might give him away.

Instead he forced a little smile, clasped his hands more firmly together, and said, “Forgive me, but I don’t remember wings ever being part of the legend?”

“They were edited out of the official version. They didn’t quite fit, you see. And we both know what mortals do with things that don’t quite fit.”

“Humans can be quite cruel,” Aziraphale agreed, even as he thought, And not just humans.

Something about that made Hera sit up and put her teacup down. Crossing one leg primly over the other, she clasped her knee in both hands, tilted her head to one side, and surveyed Aziraphale with frank puzzlement. “You’re just bound and determined not to give anything up, aren’t you?”

“Ma’am, I’m sure I—”

“No, you’re not. Or if you are, you’re wrong.” She sat back, frowning. “You’re afraid.”

Aziraphale judged it prudent to neither confirm nor deny that.

“Hmm.” Hera frowned. “Perhaps it’s time I laid my cards on the table.”

She opened her bag and leafed through it. “Here,” she said, tossing something on the table between them. “You have no idea how long it took me to find a picture with just her – your daughter is quite camera-shy.”

In spite of himself, Aziraphale leaned forward to survey the object on the coffee table.

It was a photograph. If Aziraphale was any judge of the fashions in the photo – which he was, somewhat, just because he chose not to change his style more than absolutely necessary didn’t mean that he was completely unaware of how the humans changed theirs – the picture had been taken about fifty years beforehand.

What it showed was a young woman on a lounge chair in a bathing dress. She wore a wide, floppy hat and almost comically large sunglasses. She wasn’t looking at the camera; her attention appeared to be fully absorbed by the book in her lap.

Still. Despite the sunglasses and hat that shaded her face, and despite the fading of the photograph, Aziraphale recognized her.

It was the young lady from the Ritz.

Aziraphale was not able to keep in his gasp.

And Hera must have heard it. “You can keep the photograph. I have copies.” Her voice was rich with a laugh held back. “And you can keep this, too.” Hera pushed her card across to him. “My mobile is on the back. I don’t sleep, so call me whenever you’re ready to request her contact information.”

Aziraphale barely glanced at the card, too focused on the photograph. It wasn’t until he heard the click of heels on wooden floors that he realized that Hera was leaving.

“Wait!” he called out.

Hera turned around.

She thought she’d won. That much was clear in the way her hand rested on her hip and the smile that poked at the corners of her mouth. She thought he was about to give it all up.

Well, she was wrong. Aziraphale had already given up far more than he had wanted to someone he had no reason to trust. Besides, this wasn’t just his decision to make.

He could ask a question, though.

“What is in all this for you?”

And Hera smiled.

“You’ll find out when you’re ready to request an introduction.”

“It’s a trap.”

Crowley barely let Aziraphale get to the end of his story before he said it. And he was up, prowling around the back room, pacing back and forth as if that would solve anything.

“No bloody way it could be anything else. I mean, really, we save the world, we save ourselves, and not, what, thirty seconds later, we see a girl who could be her dining in the Ritz? And then Hera shows up on your doorstep offering to give us her phone number? There are horror movie traps less obvious than this!”

“That is certainly one way to look at it; however—”

“No. No, it’s not just one way to look at it, it’s the way to look at it. Angel,” and here Crowley slid onto the lumpy sofa, the sofa he’d occupied for so many nights as he and the angel talked and laughed and drank and bullshitted and planned and argued and drank some more. “Look—take it from the one who wrote the bloody book on temptation—”

Aziraphale’s raised eyebrows indicated skepticism.

Crowley glared. “Like I was saying – the person who wrote the book on temptation, me. Let me tell you something. This? This is how you do temptation. Forget about apples. Apples are for amateurs. What you do—what you do is you find your victim, right, and then you find out what they really want, and you dangle that right in front of their nose, but just out of reach, and you keep dangling it there until they’re practically falling over themselves to get it, and then – then! – they’re yours. Hook, line, sinker.”

“You know,” Aziraphale said, “I do know a thing or two about temptation myself.”

“Yes, yes, from filling in for me. Not the same thing. Anyway—”

“No, dear. From thwarting you.”

That was enough to shut Crowley up for a moment.

Aziraphale smiled faintly and reached for his teacup. (He’d said quite firmly that this was not a conversation to have while drunk, and Crowley, to his slight shame, hadn’t even argued.) But while the smile was steady, the hand that reached for the teacup wasn’t. The rattle of bone china on bone china rang through the silent shop.

Crowley winced. The angel had just stood down a Greek deity all on his own – and not just any Greek deity, but the HBIC of that extremely bitchy lot – and here Crowley was, making it worse by going off on a rant.

“It’s quite all right, dear boy,” Aziraphale said softly.

Crowley looked up.

Aziraphale’s smile was warm, accepting, even – dare Crowley even think it? – forgiving. Crowley couldn’t look at it long, but even as he looked away, he could have basked in the warmth all day.

Except they didn’t have time for that.

He sighed. “You were saying? About—knowing a thing or two about temptation?”

“Ah, yes, that.” Aziraphale put his teacup down. It rattled again. “You did rather hit the nail on the head yourself – when you said ‘you find out what they really want.’ You see, it logically follows that, in order to manage that particular feat, Hera has to know what we really want. So therefore …”

A hole rather like some of the more yawning pits of Hell opened up in Crowley’s stomach.

“I never breathed a word of it,” Crowley said. “Not once. Ever. Angel, I swear—”

Aziraphale sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

For a minute Crowley was ready to fly off the handle. Because after all they had seen, and done, and been through together – all the risks he’d taken, all the risks they’d both taken – Aziraphale thought he would lie? To him? Now? About this?

But before he could do that, Aziraphale finished his thought. “I haven’t said anything, either.”

… Oh.

When looked at in that light – well, yes, when thinking about it from that perspective, Crowley was rather frightened himself. Because if Aziraphale hadn’t said anything – and Crowley hadn’t said anything – then there was only other player in this little drama Hera could have pumped for information. And that didn’t bear thinking of.

Except they had to.

Crowley swallowed. “Where—where did Hera say that she’d been … raised?”

“Knossos,” Aziraphale replied. He wouldn’t look at Crowley. Crowley wished he would, even though the way Aziraphale’s shoulders slumped told him that he wouldn’t like anything he saw if Aziraphale did. “On Crete.”

“Crete.” Crowley licked his lips to try to wet them, but it was no use, his mouth was dry as bone. Dry as the sands of Moriah.

He took a deep breath. But before he could speak, his own voice echoed down to him from across the ages.

“I mean it, angel. Don’t tell me how it goes.”

Any habit formed over thirty-eight hundred years would be hard to break.

Still, Crowley plunged forward and broke it anyway. “Is that – is that where you …” No, he wouldn’t say left, not left, that wasn’t the right word at all. “… Brought her? To Crete?”

Aziraphale was looking down at his teacup again. But his nod was clear enough.

“… Why Crete?”

The angel laughed. It was a thin little thing, the kind of laugh that well-meaning mothers the world over would want to take home and fatten up. “Because I thought she’d fit in there.”

Aziraphale looked up. “Oh, don’t give me that look.” (Crowley might have pointed out that he wasn’t giving the angel a look, unless “complete and utter confusion” counted as a look, but now was not the time.) “We—we both know that she wasn’t going to be, well, human. I’ll admit hearing about the wings took me by surprise …”

Crowley made a wordless noise of assent.

“But—well, you know, the first time … I don’t know … the first time more dates miraculously appeared on her plate—”

“Dates?” Crowley asked, taking refuge in a joke because somebody had to. “You’re assuming her first miracle would have been about food? She’s mine too, you know.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “Or the first time she—she—drove her chariot right into a lamppost and somehow walked away with the chariot, lamppost, horses, and herself unscathed.” He raised an eyebrow, as if to ask, Happy? before continuing. “The thing is—people would have realized that she was special.”

“And they’d be … less likely to realize that on Crete?”

“Not exactly—more …” Aziraphale waved a hand. “Look—you know what the Greek deities are like. Or were like, back in those days. Couldn’t shy a stone without hitting a demigod!”

Crowley very nearly asked what that had to do with anything – and then he realized. “She … she really would blend in.”

Aziraphale smiled and wordlessly tipped his teacup to Crowley.

There really didn’t seem to be anything else to say after that. Well, there were many things to say, but none that Crowley could bring himself to say out loud.

So to give himself a break – to give into temptation, as it were – he asked a question. “Can I … can I see the picture?”

“Of course, dear boy,” Aziraphale said, as if he was shocked that Crowley would even think he had to ask. Maybe he was. Crowley didn’t have the energy to ponder that now.

Not when Aziraphale was pushing a faded photo across the table to Crowley.

He took it gingerly, as if simply touching it would make it burst into flame. He saw at once that the girl in the photo was the girl from the Ritz, but that wasn’t what drew his attention. Not really. What he looked at instead was the floppy hat, the big sunglasses, the fact that she was looking at the book, not the camera. Trying to fade into the background in her own photo. Something in Crowley wrenched.

“Why,” Crowley asked – or started to ask; his throat was dry again, so he had to swallow. And as he did so, he turned the photo over, half-idly wondering if—

Ah, yes. Apparently Hera had picked up a few bad habits from the humans. On the back of the photo – in a strange sort of hand that had clearly first learned to write long before there were pens to write with or the Roman alphabet to write in – was a short inscription.

Ariadne

Mexico City, 1968

Crowley forgot what he was going to say. “Ariadne.”

Pretty name. And familiar-sounding. Crowley wondered why.

“Eh?”

“Ariadne,” Crowley repeated. “Her name.”

“Her—what?”

Crowley looked up. Aziraphale was goggling at him. “S’on the back of the photo,” Crowley answered, handing the picture back.

Aziraphale took it with a shaking hand. “Ariadne,” he said. “Yes, yes, of course, that would be her name—”

Aziraphale may have had more to say. Crowley didn’t hear it.

He’d just remembered why the name Ariadne sounded so familiar.

“SHIT!”

Aziraphale jumped.

“Ariadne,” Crowley said, “and—and—Crete. And a maze. And—and that thing—you know, with—” He crooked his fingers on either side of his head, like horns.

Now Aziraphale winced.

“That’s where you l—brought her?”

“Well, I didn’t know they were hiding a monster in the basement! Otherwise I would have brought her somewhere else! All the children in the courtyard looked perfectly normal!”

“The who?”

Aziraphale looked away. “There—there were children, playing. In the courtyard of the palace. You—you have to understand, when I—when I got there, I wanted to find the best home for her—so, so I started at the top.”

Crowley had a feeling all of this was rather beside the point, but wisely didn’t say it out loud. Aziraphale said he hadn’t said a word about this to anyone. Maybe he just needed to talk.

If that was what Aziraphale needed, well, Crowley could listen.

“At the palace,” Aziraphale said, as if he hadn’t said that already. “And there were – there were children playing in the courtyard. Four of them. Three boys and a girl. And they seemed … they seemed well-cared for, and happy, and I felt the love …”

Crowley decided not to try to swallow around the lump in his throat, and simply confined himself to a nod.

“Things were – were a bit hectic once I got into the palace – and, well, I listened around a bit, and I heard—I heard that the queen, the queen of that place, was in labor, and I thought, well, what luck! All I have to do is hand the baby off to the king, and muddle a few memories, and … and she’ll fit right in. They’ll just think the queen had twins, that’s all. So that’s what I did, and—”

Something pinged in Crowley’s mind, and he sat up straight. “Wait—wait. You handed her off?”

Aziraphale blinked. “I—yes? Of course?”

“You gave her. To a person.”

“Whose memory I muddled! And, really, what else was I supposed to do?”

“Well, it’s much more customary to leave the baby in a basket at the door, or float it down the Nile—”

“Crowley! That is not how you give up a baby for adoption!”

In any other circumstances, this was an argument that could have lasted the rest of the afternoon and well into the night. This was not any other circumstances.

“So you were—responsible.” An idea was turning over in his mind, a scheme just starting to hatch.

“Yes!”

“Which means that someone else knows where you brought the baby.”

Aziraphale’s mouth opened.

It shut.

“I muddled his memory. I made,” his face started to go red, “I made damn sure I muddled his memory!”

“Of course you did, not saying you didn’t, but …” Crowley rubbed the back of his neck. “D’you think that someone like, oh, I don’t know, Hera couldn’t go and un-muddle his memory?”

Aziraphale’s eyes went wide. “Oh … my.”

“But you see,” Crowley said, “this also works in our favor. Because, you see, since you gave the baby to someone – the king, you said? You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure!”

“Right, right, of course, of course – well, see, that means we have a witness. It means we can retrace our steps—well, her steps—by starting at the beginning. Whether Hera’s right or wrong or whether this is a massive trap or not—we can find out. Without getting ourselves in hock to Hera.”

“But—but the beginning? Her beginning? The man has to be long dead by now.”

“And?” Crowley arched an eyebrow. “Since when has talking to dead people ever been a problem for people like us?”

“We can’t exactly go showing our faces in Heaven or Hell now. Either of our faces.”

“Heaven or Hell? You think a Cretan king from whatever-century-it-was is going to end up in either of those places? Come on, you’re cleverer than that.”

Or at least Crowley thought Aziraphale was cleverer than that. Right now, he wasn’t looking particularly clever. He was looking rather more like he’d been smacked in the face with a halibut.

“Wait,” Aziraphale said, “wait here.”

And before Crowley could indicate whether he would or wouldn’t be waiting, Aziraphale was off like a jackrabbit, darting into the bookshelves.

Lacking anything better to do – or any clue of what was going on – Crowley waited.

It wasn’t long before Aziraphale was back, a leather-bound volume in his hands. Crowley (who had learned to read upside-down quite a long time ago) squinted at the cover. “Plato? What’s he got to do with all this?”

“Hush,” was all Aziraphale said. “Let’s see, I think it’s at the end of the end of the Gorgias …”

For a minute there was no sound by the flipping of pages and the faint whisper of finger against paper as Aziraphale traced the lines.

“Ah-ha!” He beamed, turned the book around, and pointed to—something. “See? See there! Minos! Judge of the Underworld!”

“… You’ve lost me, angel.”

Aziraphale sighed. “Minos. Minotaur. Minos’s bull.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow and shook his head.

“Crowley, if Hera is right—or, well, not lying—the man I gave Ar—the baby to is Minos. Who is now,” and here Aziraphale grinned, “a judge of the Underworld.”

Oooooooooh. Oh, that was clever. And certainly would be a hell of a lot easier than trying to figure out who was ruling over Crete when Aziraphale dropped the baby off.

Except Aziraphale’s face was falling. “But—but wait. How—how on earth would we be able to speak with him? Even if he is in the Underworld, that’s—that’s still the Greek deities’ territory …”

“Oh, don’t you worry about that, angel.” Crowley laughed and leaned back, relaxing into the incredibly ugly (but incredibly comfortable) sofa. “Just leave that bit to me.”

Now it was Aziraphale’s turn to raise an eyebrow.

And it was Crowley’s turn to grin. “Little-known fact, y’see. About me. I’ve got friends on the other side.”

It was a lovely summer afternoon in London, one of Ariadne’s favorite cities in the world. And there were so many things she could be doing. Hitting the shops on Bond Street. Going with Dionysus to see a play at the reconstructed Globe. Meeting Persephone for afternoon tea at Kew Gardens. Or just walking in a park, enjoying the sunshine, and trying not to laugh at the Londoners who thought that 70 degrees Fahrenheit was warm enough to go shirtless.

But like an idiot, Ariadne wasn’t doing any of these things.

Instead she was holed up in her hotel room, laptop open, staring at a gods-damned PowerPoint.[5]

Or one particular slide of a PowerPoint.

Ariadne rested her chin on her hands and sighed.

She’d been alive for over thirty-eight hundred years. For the first century or so, she’d thought she was – not mortal – but Olympian. Or close enough. No, none of her siblings had had anything like her powers, but she could have “won” the genetic lottery. They had all been a cross of Olympian/Titanic/Oceanic bloodlines; one of them had to turn out weird.

Except she wasn’t part of that cross. And though Athena had been able to discover what she wasn’t, she’d never troubled to find out what Ariadne was.

And now she had, not an answer, but at least a place to go and look for answers …

And Zeus had put his foot down and said she couldn’t even ask the questions.

Well, fuck him. [6]

As Ariadne saw it – or as she told herself she saw it – Zeus couldn’t have it both ways. He couldn’t say you are not one of us and then expect her to blindly obey his every whim.

Hence the staring at the PowerPoint. She’d already tried Googling “rare book shops Soho London.” There had been over 30 million results. Ariadne had gotten through the first ten pages of them before realizing that if she was going to go searching for a needle in a haystack, she’d better find a magnet. Maybe there was something in the photos …

Her gaze went to the one with the car first. And it was a very nice car. But now wasn’t the time to be distracted by automobilia – and more importantly, whoever or whatever had taken the photo hadn’t thought to choose an angle that included the license plate. She could just imagine the results she’d get by Googling “black antique Bentley London.”

She was just about to close the PowerPoint when she saw something.

The car was parked in front of a corner shop.

The shop had a name.

The photo was small – too small to easily read – but maybe if she zoomed in—

The laptop screen darkened, then brightened, and Ariadne jumped.

“Dionysus,” she called over her shoulder, “are you—oh.”

Dionysus stood at the door that divided the sitting room from the anteroom that led to the hotel hallway. Dancing on his fingers was a small ball of spiky lightning.

“Just trying to get your attention,” he said with a small smile. “You’ve been staring at that thing all afternoon.”

Ariadne glared at the blue-white lightning ball. “If you fry my laptop …”

“You’ll just wave your hand and make it better again,” Dionysus said. Casually, he tossed the lightning ball to the side, where it zipped into the nearest wall socket.

Ariadne unplugged the laptop and closed it, just in case.

“Ari, relax. You know I don’t destroy electronics.”

“On purpose.”

Dionysus winced, remembering the lightbulbs, phonographs, and radios he’d exploded, shorted out, or set on fire before they realized that he was the reason why they couldn’t keep anything electronic working for more than a month.[7]

“Anyway,” he said, shuffling into the room and sitting on the sofa, not far from the desk chair Ariadne had commandeered, “what’s it going to take to get you to talk to me?”

Ariadne tucked a curl behind her ear and stared at the carpet.

“You haven’t been yourself since that lovely little family meeting,” Dionysus continued. “And not just in the ‘I had to deal with your family’ way. What’s wrong?”

She licked her lips and swallowed, trying to find some moisture, any moisture, for her suddenly Sahara-like mouth and throat.

Dionysus didn’t say anything. He simply sat there, in a little shaft of sunlight that came through the wide window, head tilted to the side and waiting. His hands were on his knees, palms up. And his eyes …

Normally Dionysus’s eyes were brown, simple, almost mortal-looking. Nothing like Apollo’s golden hazel eyes or Artemis’s silver gray eyes. Or even flashing-eyed Athena. Dionysus’s eyes came from his mother, Semele, who’d started life[8] as a mortal woman.

But other times … when the light hit them right … the color shifted, still dark, but the deep reddish purple of a rich burgundy or claret. And when Dionysus’s eyes looked like that …

In vino veritas.

Ariadne looked away. She couldn’t share the truth with him. Not all of it. Best case scenario, Dionysus would try to talk her out of it or even try to stop her. Worst case scenario … he’d try to help her, and that would pull him right into the line of fire if (when) Zeus found out and got angry that he’d been disobeyed.

She wouldn’t do that.

But she had to tell him something to ease his mind, at least a little bit. Stop him from worrying about what she was doing, even if it meant worrying about what she was feeling.

So she sighed, and shrugged, and looked up. “Dionysus, we nearly had a nuclear holocaust on our hands.”

“It wouldn’t have affected us. Even if the bombs had hit LA dead center, we would have been fine.”

“No, we wouldn’t have.” Ariadne held up a finger to keep Dionysus from protesting. “Maybe not dead. But not fine. Not if our city, our world went up in smoke in seconds.”

Dionysus looked away and shuddered.

“And there’s no way of knowing we wouldn’t have been dead.”

“Immortal,” Dionysus said, “means ‘can’t die.’”

“And maybe that’s true for you, but you’ve never survived a direct nuclear bomb blast. Neither has anyone you know. And …” Ariadne glanced at the desk, absently drawing patterns on it. “We don’t know that I’m immortal.”

Dionysus had no answer for that. He never did, not all the times Ariadne brought it up. She’d survived everything that thirty-eight hundred years had thrown at her, but … well, Achilles might have still been knocking around, too, if Paris hadn’t shot a poisoned arrow right into his one weak spot.

Even if Ariadne didn’t know where her Achilles heel was, it didn’t necessarily follow that she didn’t have one.

“And … and I’m not ready to be done yet. I still have things I want to see. Do. Questions I want answered. And I think you do, too.”

Dionysus swallowed. Nodded. And looked up.

Maybe the light had shifted. Or maybe it was just Dionysus’s mood. But his eyes no longer held the secrets of a goblet of the best wine. Instead they were brown, mortal and vulnerable.

He smiled faintly and held out a hand. But he didn’t take hers. Even after all these years, he still waited for her to close the distance herself.

Ariadne put her hand in his, using it to leverage herself up, cross the short distance between them, stand between Dionysus’s knees and cup his cheek with her free hand.

Dionysus smiled up at her. “We’re here now. Alive. And not picking our way through a world of smoking rubble.”

“True.”

“We should take advantage of it.”

Ariadne chuckled. She shifted her hand slowly, letting her fingers tangle in his dark curls. Dionysus leaned into the touch. “And what did you have in mind?”

She’d laid out the bait for him, ripe for the taking, but take it was exactly what he didn’t do. Instead he brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them, slowly, one after the other.

“Whatever you want to do, sweetheart.”

[1] In either direction.

[2] Gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide or not, Aziraphale was not blind.

[3] A much more skillful sleight-of-hand than Aziraphale had ever managed.

[4] Which ought to have been anatomically impossible, but one never could tell with corporations.

[5] Hephaestus, being an extremely responsible soul, had sent them all the PowerPoint as soon as the family meeting was over.

[6] Though not literally.

[7] He wasn’t alone. All the children and grandchildren of Zeus had experienced a similar learning curve once electricity went from being “something that comes down from the sky when Zeus is annoyed” to “something actively pumped into every home, office building, and street corner on the planet.” Apparently being the descendent of the Thunder God came with a few more powers than were listed on the box.

[8] And ended it, but that was another story.

Chapter Text

In some things, Aziraphale was very much a creature of convention. So when Crowley, after nearly an hour of furious texting, had told him that he had obtained conveyance to the Underworld, Aziraphale was not at all surprised to find that their ride (so to speak) would be leaving at midnight.

He was a bit more surprised to find that they would be heading to the Underworld via the London Underground.

He was very surprised to find that they were to depart via Angel station, and vaguely wondered who was responsible for that.[1]

But here they were, at 11:45 PM (Aziraphale had insisted they arrive early, and Crowley hadn’t argued), standing idly on the southbound platform, waiting for their train to arrive. At this hour on a weeknight, the station was practically deserted. The closest person to them was a blond, dark-skinned young woman seated on a bench, dressed in the most incongruous combination of flower-printed sundress and heavy combat boots. She had a handbag on her lap, and from the handbag poked the head of a small and yappy dog.

Crowley had given the dog (and perforce the young lady) a wide berth from the beginning, and Aziraphale was only too happy to follow suit. He loved all of God’s creatures, he really did, but love was not the same as like, and when it came to small, yappy dogs, that distinction was important.

When Crowley checked his expensive diver’s watch for the tenth time, Aziraphale thought it was past time to make conversation.

“You never said,” he remarked quietly, “how exactly you made these … friends on the other side.”

Crowley looked up. Even with the sunglasses, Aziraphale could see the faint flash of trepidation.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t like,” Aziraphale went on. “I mean, it’s not that important. I was just—”

“Nah, nah.” Crowley made a vague gesture. “S’all right. I don’t mind.”

He didn’t say anything else for a long moment, choosing instead to roll his shoulders and shove his hands (or really his fingers) in his pockets. Aziraphale held his peace as well.

Just as Aziraphale was about to break and inform Crowley, again, that he really didn’t have to talk about this if he didn’t want to, Crowley started to speak.

“All right, first of all, you have to understand – it was the fourteenth century.”

“Oh no.”

“Right. And the Inferno had just come out.”

Aziraphale began to nod – and then he blinked and did a double-take. “You read the Inferno?”

“Of course. I had to do it before Hell did.”

“But you don’t read!”

Crowley winced. “Well—you know—s’an exception to every rule, right? And like I said, I had to know what was in there before Hell caught wind of it. So I could figure out whether to take credit or deny responsibility.”

Then Crowley shuddered. It was a full-body thing, starting at the crown of his head and extending all the way down to his snakeskin shoes. “Inventive fellow, that Alighieri. Bloody good thing Beelzebub’s Tuscan was shit, otherwise the souls Down Below would have had an even more interesting time of it … anyway. The point is, I read the thing. And then I, er, borrowed a couple of your older books, because a lot of it was … familiar, and not in a ‘oh, this man’s describing Downstairs’ sort of way.”

In all of that, Aziraphale judged it prudent to restrain himself to a nod, so he did.

“And then I realized – well, hold on, the reason this is so familiar is that Alighieri was cribbing half of it from the Greeks. And the Romans. I mean, really, you’d find a lot of nasty things Downstairs, but Medusa isn’t one of them. And then I thought …”

Crowley paused. “I mentioned this was the fourteenth century, right?”

“You did.”

“Right. Well, keep that in mind. It was the fourteenth century, and I was desperate to get out of town for a bit.”

Aziraphale couldn’t quite help his raised eyebrow.

“So I went to, er, people Downstairs, and I said, ‘Look, the humans already think that all the Greek lot in the Underworld are with us. And we know that the Underworld lot didn’t always get along with the rest of the Greek lot. So, why not see if they might not want to make things official?’”

Aziraphale blinked rapidly. “You—you proposed forming an alliance with the Greek Underworld deities?”

“Fourteenth. Century,” Crowley replied, as if that explained everything.[2]

“And your Head Office … took you up on it?”

Crowley pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed the space above his eyebrows. “It was a very bad century for everyone, angel.”

Clearly, thought Aziraphale, even if he didn’t say it.

“Anyway. Head Office thought that sounded like a grand idea, and after some diplomatic back-and-forth, we were invited to send a delegation down. Er. Over, really. I didn’t lead it, I made damn sure of that, but … well, I was on it. Being that the whole thing was my idea and all.”

“Which was what you wanted, more or less. To get away.”

Crowley clicked his tongue and pointed at Aziraphale. “Right you are. So, we go down there and … look, I won’t bore you with the diplomatic details, but the whole thing ended with Hades telling us to go to Hell.”

“When you say ‘go to Hell’ …”

“Those were his literal words; however, I think the meaning was closer to ‘get off my lawn.’”

“Ah.”

“Quite. So that was that. But it wasn’t a total loss. I spent a fair amount of time skiving off, so I made a couple, er, acquaintances.”

“Your ‘friends on the other side.’”

“Indeed.” He smirked. “It was almost worth being blamed for the whole debacle.”

Aziraphale looked at him sharply. “When—when you say blamed …”

Crowley shot him a look that managed to ask, despite the sunglasses, if Aziraphale was really as thick as all that. “Well, somebody had to take the blame for it – and it wasn’t going to be Hastur or Ligur, Dukes of Hell and all that.”

And then he shrugged. Like it was nothing.

And maybe, to Crowley, it was nothing. It had all been a long time ago. Crowley tended – or pretended – to let Hell’s bad graces slide off him like water off a duck’s back. Perhaps, with those thoughts in mind, it should have been nothing to Aziraphale, too.

It wasn’t.

He reached for Crowley’s hand, took it in his and lightly rubbed his thumb over the knuckles. “Whatever they did to you,” he said, softly enough that it would have taken a miracle for any being other than Crowley to hear it, “you didn’t deserve it.”

Crowley’s jaw fell. His gaze darted between their linked hands and Aziraphale’s face. He even briefly flicked his sunglasses up.

Aziraphale only smiled and gave Crowley’s hand a squeeze.

Crowley smiled back, and Aziraphale thought he saw a flush darkening his cheeks. But he couldn’t be sure – Crowley looked away too quickly.

He didn’t let go of his hand, though, and that was more than enough for Aziraphale.

They were still holding hands when their train pulled up. And Aziraphale knew it was their train. Most of the vehicles of the London Underground weren’t jet-black, lit by blue-flamed lanterns, and only one car long besides.

As soon as the train huffed to a halt (surrounded, it should be noted, by blue-tinged smoke), the sliding doors opened. And out stepped …

Aziraphale’s eyes saw a young man, tall and thin, with hunched shoulders and his hands in his pockets. His hair was tousled, as if he’d just gotten out of bed. And he was yawning.

Aziraphale’s other senses reported that while the being might be male-shaped and comfortable with that gender designation, he was most emphatically not young and not, strictly speaking, a man.

“Hypnos!” Crowley said. He let go of Aziraphale’s hand so he could fling his arms out. “Long time, no see! So glad you could give me a hand with this.”

“Crowley,” said the being – Hypnos.

“Anyway, this is my, uh—my—”

“Angel,” Aziraphale said smoothly. He stuck out his hand. “Aziraphale, Principality and Angel of the Eastern Gate, at your service.”

Hypnos didn’t take the proffered hand. He barely looked at Aziraphale. Barely looked at Crowley, either.

“Look,” he said, plunging his hands even more deeply into his pockets, “let me just—I’m sorry, all right?”

“Sorry?” Aziraphale asked, perhaps foolishly.

“Angel,” Crowley said – and his tone was tight, wound and tense like a coiled spring ready to burst free. It was the sort of tone one took if one’s next word was going to be run.

“I just—I didn’t really have a choice, ok?” Hypnos said. “But I am sorry.”

And before Aziraphale could think or react – before even Crowley could react – Hypnos looked over his shoulder. “Briareus? You can come out now.”

And then—

And then—

And then—

Aziraphale’s eyes went wide and his other senses skittered and he didn’t even need the arm Crowley flung in front of him to prod him back.

Briareus came out.

The – being – shouldn’t have fit in the train. Or the station. Or the city, probably. But there he was. Dozens of heads, more heads than Aziraphale wanted to count, and probably twice as many hands as that, monstrous and huge—

And smiling. On every head. “Hello,” the being said, from every single mouth. It echoed throughout the station.

“Angel,” Crowley said again, in that same tense, coiled-up tone. Aziraphale grabbed Crowley’s wrist, because if he was going to make a break for it, he sure as Hell wasn’t doing it alone—

“I wouldn’t try running if I were you.”

Aziraphale’s other senses were pinging again, announcing the – arrival? – of another not-human being, except—when he turned to see the source of the voice …

The only other creature in the station was the girl who’d been sitting on the bench. And her dog.

She was getting up, now. Smiling. And opening her handbag enough so the dog could leap out. And as it did, it—

—changed.

What had been a tiny, fuzzy, yappy dog of indeterminate breed was a huge spotted mastiff with close-cropped fur.

And three heads.

“Oh, shit,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale heartily agreed.

“Hello!” said the girl in the flower dress. “I’m Persephone. And you’ll be coming with us.”

The dog growled in triplicate.

“Y’know, Hypnos,” Crowley said, “if taking us in the back way was going to get you in trouble with your bosses, you could have just said no.”

“He could have, but then you’d just try to sneak in a different way, when we weren’t expecting you, and then where would we be?” Persephone stepped forward, the dog keeping pace with her. “Now, Briareus, if you would—”

“Now—now, wait just a moment!” Aziraphale said, before Briareus could (he assumed) pick the two of them up like a pair of toy soldiers and toss them into the car – or worse.

He went to make a placating gesture with both hands, realized he’d never let go of Crowley’s wrist, and settled for making it with just one hand. “I’m sure—I’m sure we’re all reasonable beings here. And that we can come to—to an understanding.”

Crowley groaned. “Angel …”

“Ignore him, he’s just being dramatic,” Aziraphale said. “The thing is—the thing is …” Yes, Aziraphale, what is the thing?

Their interlocutors didn’t seem inclined to save Aziraphale from himself. Persephone had one hand on her hip and was surveying him with a bemused smile and a cocked head. Hypnos had one eyebrow raised, and Briareus had managed to put an inviting, curious expression on each of his faces. Even the dog wasn’t helping – one head was still glaring at them, lips pulled back in a snarl, while the next had was tilted to the side, and the last was looking up at Persephone.

Aziraphale gulped and said, “Whatever it is you think we’re trying to do – I can virtually guarantee that we’re not trying to do that.”

“Oh, I think you’d be surprised by our imaginations,” Persephone replied. “But we can talk on the train. Shall we?”

“Wait!” Aziraphale wasn’t sure who he said that to – the goddess before him, or Crowley beside him, who was tensing in every muscle. “For—for some reason,” and now his mind was finally beginning to work, now he could think of something to say, “you seem very—determined to get us on that train. I mean …” He glanced over his shoulder at Briareus, who grinned and waved with half his hands.

“Well, like I said – if you come to the Underworld, we want it to be on our terms,” Persephone said.

“Yes, yes. Of course. Very—er—reasonable. Now, that being said, it occurs to me that we could do this the easy way … or the hard way.”

“And by ‘hard way,’” Crowley said, pulling his shades down just enough to glare at Persephone over them, “the angel means hard way for you.”

That was not in fact what Aziraphale meant, or at least not with quite in tone of menace, but he was just enough of a bastard to realize how convenient it would be if Persephone thought that was what he meant, so he didn’t correct Crowley.

Despite this, Persephone looked unconvinced.

“But we are quite willing—or at least willing enough—to go with you the easy way, provided we get some … assurances.”

“Assurances?” Persephone repeated.

“Asssurancesss?” Crowley hissed.

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, not daring to take his eyes away from Persephone. “Specifically, if we go into the Underworld with you the easy way, that we will be allowed to leave it on our own terms. And by ‘our own terms,’ I mean that you will return us to Earth – and not just Earth, but this particular Underground station—on the platform, mind, not on the tracks or in the gears of the escalator or anyplace inconvenient like that—when we say we wish to return to Earth. And you have to return us to the platform now, not a hundred years before it was dug or after it’s been reduced to rubble or—”

Persephone blinked. “I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to. Nobody of Olympus could.”

“… Oh,” Aziraphale murmured.

“So is that it?” Persephone asked, looking between the two of them. “Or do you have more things you want?”

“I—er,” Aziraphale said. He looked at Crowley.

Crowley was looking back at him, one eyebrow raised over the sunglasses, as if to say, This is your show, angel.

“I … think that should be enough to be getting on with, yes,” Aziraphale said. Perhaps, in an ideal world, he’d throw in a few more clauses and conditions – a whole contract of them – but they hadn’t the time, and he wasn’t certain anyone on the platform had the patience. “But only if you swear it by the Styx.”

Behind him, Aziraphale thought he heard a whole crowd of people gasping – which meant that Briareus must have been quite surprised indeed.

The dog’s hackles rose. Persephone slowly blinked.

“The Styx,” she repeated.

“Or we could always do this the hard way,” Crowley said, shrugging as if it made no difference to him.

“Crowley,” Hypnos said, and to Aziraphale, it almost sounded like he was pleading.

“Hmm,” Persephone murmured. “You do realize the kind of trouble a goddess could get in, swearing by the Styx, yes? You’ve heard of my brother Dionysus? And his mother?”

“I—have,” Aziraphale admitted.

“So if I’m going to do that …” Persephone tapped one finger against her lips. “I’d have some conditions of my own.”

“Y-yes?” Aziraphale asked.

“Mainly that you two get on that train car peacefully, and,” and now her voice grew hard, implacable, a force to be reckoned with, “that you two behave while you are in my realm.”

Aziraphale looked at Crowley. Crowley looked at Aziraphale.

“Define—” Crowley started.

Aziraphale couldn’t let him finish. “Will we at least get a warning if we aren’t behaving?”

A small smile poked at the corner of Persephone’s lips. “That seems fair enough. So. Are we in accord?”

Once again, Aziraphale and Crowley exchanged glances. This time, Crowley nodded.

“Yes,” Aziraphale said.

“Then …” Persephone closed her eyes, shook out her shoulders, and took a deep breath. The dog whined and pressed close to her leg.

When she opened her eyes, they were glowing.

“I swear by the Styx,” she said, “that as long as you come with us peacefully and behave yourselves while in the Underworld, conforming yourself to our standards after being given due warning, I will personally ensure that you are permitted to leave when you ask to leave and are brought back here, to the mortal plane, to this train station, to this platform, without any meddling in the streams of Time.”

There was a faint whoosh of power through the station, a sense of binding. It circled Persephone, ruffling her hair and playing with her skirt.

It faded. And so did the glow in Persephone’s eyes. “Satisfied?”

“I … think so,” Aziraphale said, glancing sidelong at Crowley.

Crowley plunged his free hand into his pocket as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “Yeah. Yeah, sssure.”

The hiss was rather a giveaway. Aziraphale loosened his grip on Crowley’s wrist to take his hand again.

“Then shall we? I’m sure you’ll have things you’ll be wanting to get back to.” Persephone shot them a sunny smile, and not waiting for their assent, walked around them and toward the train.

Aziraphale looked again at Crowley. “Shall we get a wiggle on?”

Crowley closed his eyes and groaned. “Only if you promise never to use those words in my hearing again.”

“Aww.” Once again, the ground shook as all of Briareus’s heads spoke at once. “I kind of like it. Get a wiggle on. Sounds fun!”

Crowley turned around, Aziraphale turning with him. He looked from Briareus, to Aziraphale, to the floor. And under his breath, he murmured something that sounded like, “Sa—Go—Someone give me strength.”

And with that, into the train car they went.

Of the things that Samael strongly disliked about heaven, these three remained: hoverboards, interns, and meetings. But the greatest of these was meetings.

Unfortunately, after the failed Apocalypse, Samael’s quota of meetings had gone up exponentially.

There was so much to cover: standing down the troops, un-provisioning the supplies, figuring out just what in Heaven’s name had happened to War, Famine, and Pollution. And of course dealing with the strongly worded letters coming from the other divine forces of the world. Some of them were polite, some of them weren’t, and all of them had the same overarching theme: What in SOMEONE’S name did you think you were playing at?

Not for the first time, Samael allowed herself to drift away, fantasizing about what she’d do to the traitor-angel, traitor-demon, and little-snot-Antichrist were she ever to get her hands on them. Or maybe she’d just rain down fire and brimstone on the entirety of England, Sodom and Gomorrah style. It could hardly make things worse, could it?

“—and Ra, Isis, and Osiris want to come up and have a, I quote, ‘talk,’” Gabriel said, tossing the latest missive onto the glass-topped table and jolting Samael from her reverie. “When’s the last time they wanted a talk?”

“They were a bit upset after the plagues,” Michael pointed out.

“Well, if they would have just talked some sense into Pharaoh—”

A chime of the wards cut off what promised to be a supremely indignant (and annoying) rant, and Samael was forced to be grateful.

She seemed to be the only one at the table feeling that way. Uriel scowled, Michael frowned, and Sandalphon sighed. It was left to Gabriel to sigh and say, “Come in.”

The wards were released, and toward them came—

Samael bit back a groan.

An intern.

On a hoverboard.

“Um,” she squeaked (at least, the intern’s form was vaguely feminine; Samael had no idea how the intern actually identified, but “she” would do for now), “um, excuse me, your—your archangel-nesses, but, er, there’s a bit of a—a situation.”

Gabriel looked about ready to snap; Michael ended that with a look. “Yes, dear? What is it?” she asked with a voice full of enough treacly, Julie-Andrews-inspired sweetness to make Samael want to vomit.[3]

“It’s the traitor, ma’am,” the intern said.

Everyone at the table sat up straighter. The intern squeaked again.

“What about him?” asked Michael in that same treacly tone – albeit this time seasoned with just a pinch of salt.

“He’s disappeared. Gone off the grid! Here!” The intern hovered over, practically threw the printout in her hands at Michael, and just as quickly hovered away.

“… What?” asked Sandalphon, who was always a little slow on the uptake.

Michael was already smoothing the printout and scrutinizing it. “His last known location was Angel Underground Station, London.”

“Angel?” Uriel repeated. “That’s a liminal.”

If Samael weren’t an angel – and not just an angel, but an archangel in a room with other archangels – she would have sworn. Liminals – liminal points, technically – were places where any being of any stripe could enter other planes, even planes where they had no business being. Depending on what train he caught, the traitor could have been on his way to Valhalla, Duat, Tír na nÓg, or any other plane.[4]

And to make matters worse, they wouldn’t have any means of tracking him until he came back. Not without causing several diplomatic incidents and making themselves even more enemies among the neighbors.

“Does that say anything about the other traitor?” Gabriel asked.

Michael tutted. “We can’t track him, you know that …” She raised her eyebrows at Gabriel. “Back channels?”

“We really need to make them front—” Gabriel started.

He didn’t have a chance to finish.

A raucous human male voice had started to sing.

“Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name! But what’s puzzling you is the nature of my game …”

The sound was coming from Michael’s pocket.

She flushed. “Excuse me. I really must take this.” She pulled her cel-phone[5] from her pocket and pressed it to her ear. “Yes?”

The entire room leaned forward, waiting with bated breath.

“Yours too? Where was he last spotted?”

“…”

“Yes, that’s where ours was.”

“…”

“The inference is rather obvious. It’s certainly too much to be coincidence.”

“…”

“I’m really not sure—”

“Michael—Michael!” Gabriel said, waving frantically and gesturing for Michael to put the phone down, like a human child trying to get his mother’s attention.

Michael glared at him rather like an exasperated human mother would, sighed and spoke into the phone again. “Please excuse me for a moment, I’m in the middle of a meeting—no, no, stay on the line, this won’t take a moment.” She brought the phone down and covered the microphone with one hand. “What?”

“It’s the demon, isn’t it? He’s with Aziraphale!” Gabriel said.

Michael sighed. “He’s also gone off-grid – last seen at Angel station.”

“Right. I knew it!” Gabriel beamed, and Samael tried not to roll her eyes. Based on the way Michael’s mouth twisted, she wasn’t the only one. “Great. Tell your, uh, contact that we want a meeting.”

“What?” asked Michael.

“What?” echoed Uriel.

“Huh?” grunted Sandalphon.

No, no, no, no!

“If our man and their man are going off the grid? We need a coordinated response. None of this back channels nonsense. We need a meeting. You, me—”

“And me,” Samael jumped in.

Gabriel and Michael both blinked at her.

“What?” she asked. “You think I’m going to let the two of you meet with literal demons without my sword?” She shifted in her chair, like she was trying to scratch an itchy spot between her wings. “Our interests and Hell’s might coincide, for now, but they are not to be trusted.”

“I second Samael,” Uriel said. “You’ll need backup.”

Gabriel huffed. “Fine, Samael too – but no more! Too many people in the room and it just becomes chaos. Michael, you got all that? You, me, Samael, and your contact, Beelzebub, and—and whoever else Beelzebub wants to bring.”

Michael’s eyes had narrowed, but after a moment, she nodded. She brought the cel-phone back to her ear. “Hastur? Are you still there? … Good. Yes. I’d like to propose a meeting.”

They could all hear the squawk of surprise on the other end.

“Yes, I know, highly irregular … however, I don’t think we have much choice.” Michael sighed. “As the Archangel Gabriel just said … this calls for a coordinated response.”

It had been nearly seven hundred years since Crowley had seen Hades, but the god and his realm had barely changed at all.

Take, for instance, the throne room. First, it was, in fact, a throne room and not a conference room or a plush executive office. Second, it looked like it had been decorated in sometime BC and not altered one bit since. It was the sort of room that made its statement in grand columns, marble floors, jewel-encrusted mosaics, and not much else.

Except for the thrones. One iron, plain and austere. The other silver, set with jewels worked into flowers and climbing vines. All the same as when Crowley had been here last.

Today there were two people sitting on the thrones. The Hellish delegation had gone to the Underworld during the summer last time, so Persephone hadn’t been part of the negotiations.[6] She’d taken her place on the silver throne now. And Hades …

When Crowley had met him the first time, Hades had been black-haired, dark-eyed, clean-shaven, deathly serious, and surprisingly youthful. The only hint of modernity in his appearance had been his clothing. It was much the same now, only instead of a tunic and hosen, Hades was wearing a well-tailored suit.

He also didn’t look happy, which was no change from last time.

“So,” he said without preamble as soon as Persephone had seated herself. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”

If there had been any more sarcasm dripping off the “pleasure,” someone would have had to put up a “wet floor” sign.

Aziraphale answered him. It was probably better for everyone that way. “Your Majesty,” he began. “First, I would like to thank you for extending your hospitality to …”

Hades’s slowly arching eyebrow killed that speech. Aziraphale seemed to deflate.

Can’t be having that. Crowley bumped his elbow into Aziraphale’s. When Aziraphale glanced at him, confused, Crowley took his opening to grab the angel’s hand and thread his fingers through it.

Then he turned back to the thrones, fake smile plastered on for plausible deniability, but feet planted shoulder-width apart, free hand shoved into a pocket, and every inch of his corporation radiating, Make something of it, I fucking dare you.

Neither of the beings on the thrones took him up on that dare. Neither of them even raised an eyebrow.

“You were saying?” Hades asked Aziraphale.

Aziraphale took a deep breath. “We would like to request an audience with Minos of Crete.”

“The judge?” Hades asked, words dangerously clipped. He glanced sidelong at Persephone, but Persephone’s eyebrows were up, and she almost looked surprised. “Why?”

“Er, not in that capacity,” Aziraphale replied. “That is – really, we’re not at all concerned with the workings of your realm, or the judging or the—well, any of that, really. It’s just …” Aziraphale took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and hung onto Crowley’s hand tight enough to cut off the circulation. “We may have—mislaid something on Crete while he ruled it, and we’re hoping he can help us find it.”

Now Hades’s expression was a mirror of his wife’s. “You think you mislaid something on Crete.”

“Y-yes.”

“When Minos ruled it.”

“We believe so.”

“Thirty-eight hundred years ago.”

Crowley felt the jolt that ran through Aziraphale and hoped his hand grounded him enough to keep the pair on the thrones from noticing it. As for what Crowley felt …

Well, assuming they made it out of the Underworld in one piece, he could at least say the trip hadn’t been a total loss.

Meanwhile, Aziraphale had managed to let out an unsteady chuckle. “My goodness, has it been that long?”

“And you’re just looking for it now?” Hades asked.

“Well, we had a free moment,” Aziraphale replied with a sunny, shaky smile that, Crowley was certain, fooled no one. Maybe he should start doing the talking …

Hades opened his mouth.

He didn’t get a chance to say anything. Persephone did it for him. “Would the timing have anything to do with …”

She trailed off.

Her eyes narrowed.

Slowly, her head tilted, bird-like, to one side.

Crowley looked sidelong at Aziraphale, only to find Aziraphale looking sidelong at him.

Hades, meanwhile, watched his wife with an expression of no small confusion.

“Your wings,” Persephone said finally.

“What?” asked Aziraphale, just as Crowley said, “Our what?”

“Your wings. Show them to us.” She leaned back and folded her hands on her lap, expectant.

Crowley glanced at Aziraphale, who gaped back at him. “Why?” asked Crowley.

Hades looked like he’d like to ask the same thing.

“Because …” Persephone bit her lip for a fraction of a second, just long enough for Crowley to mark it, before sitting up straight and fixing them with the sort of royal glare that takes millennia to perfect, but once perfected, takes no prisoners.

“Because I want to help you, if I can,” she said (which seemed to be news to her husband), “but you shouldn’t need me to tell you that you have powerful enemies, enemies that I risk turning into my enemies if I help you. If I am going to take that risk, I need to know that I am taking it for a—a good reason, and for that, I need to see your wings.”

“But,” Aziraphale said, “but we’re not trying—it’s not our intention to—and we certainly wouldn’t—”

“It’s not your intentions I’m questioning. It’s …” She waved a hand vaguely. “As I said: you have enemies. Enemies whose actions you can’t control. You are asking a great favor of me, of us right now. I am merely asking for a small amount of trust in return.”

“And if we say no …” Crowley asked.

Persephone shrugged. “Then I don’t see a point in continuing this conversation.”

Once again, Crowley and Aziraphale exchanged glances. Crowley was trying to think of some way, any way, bringing their wings out on this plane would lead to discorporation or worse. Aziraphale …

The question in his blue eyes was clear. What choice do we have?

Crowley sighed. Squeezed the angel’s hand, asking, Wait. Then he rolled his shoulders …

… And unfurled his wings.

“Happy?” he asked, gaze fixed on Persephone.

She didn’t answer, although something made her nostrils flare. Crowley wondered what it was. His wings? He brought them forward enough to see, but they looked much the same as always – black, big, vaguely swan-like, impeccably groomed.

She turned to Aziraphale. “And you?”

Aziraphale took his own deep breath, stretched his neck, and let his wings loose.

Even here, even now, something in Crowley lurched when he saw them. Pristine white, pure, radiant – only, did the angel ever preen? Assuming they got out of here in one piece, Crowley was going to have to sit Aziraphale down and do the job himself. Some of that dust was probably centuries old.

“I see,” Persephone said, dashing that rather agreeable mental image. She bit her lip again, and she folded her hands under her chin.

Hades, however, was staring at her with an expression that could most charitably be called, What??

Persephone finally seemed to notice. “Wait,” she said to Crowley and Aziraphale, and she snapped her fingers. A heavy velvet stage curtain fell in front of the dais, blocking Hades and Persephone from view. And hearing as well. Crowley checked.

“Well,” Aziraphale murmured, “that—”

“Shhh,” Crowley replied. “If they don’t have this place bugged to the gills, they’re a lot stupider than they look.”

Aziraphale’s brows knit together.

“Listening devices, angel.”

“Oh!” He nodded.

They stood in silence for a few heartbeats, which was boring, but Crowley would take boring.

“Do …” Aziraphale paused, as if questioning whether it was really safe to say what he was thinking. “Do you think we might be able to put our wings away?”

“I …” Crowley hesitated, turning the question over in his mind, examining it from all angles, looking for a trap. He didn’t find one. “I don’t see why not.”

All the same, he brought his wings back in first – and it was only when no Furies came flying from the ceiling, no trapdoor opened up beneath him, and no magic arrows came zooming from the wall that he nodded for Aziraphale to follow suit.

And again, they waited. In silence. Deathly dull silence.

Until the curtain opened.

“Right,” Persephone said without preamble. Hades, next to her, looked equal parts suspicious and thoughtful. “Upon further consideration, we have decided that you will not be permitted to speak to the judge Minos.”

Aziraphale’s jaw fell, and Crowley hissed in a breath like he’d weathered a punch to the gut. “But—” Aziraphale began.

Persephone held up a hand. “Wait. We would not let the representatives of any divinity speak to one of our subjects. The dead must be given their rest; the time for proselytizing is long past. That being said …”

Persephone adjusted her skirt. “You said yourself you wished to ask to him about something that happened while he lived. If he knows anything about what you seek, it will be in his life scroll. And my husband and I,” she nodded to Hades, “have decided to give you access to our archives.”

“When—when you say our archives …” Aziraphale said slowly, wetting his lips in anticipation.

“They contain the life scrolls of every mortal soul in our realm,” Hades said. “You may look in Minos’s or … any other mortal alive on Crete during the time period you mislaid your—thing. Minos’s steward, his housekeeper …”

“The nursemaid for his children,” Persephone added helpfully.

Something about her tone made Crowley look very hard at her, but Aziraphale seemed to notice nothing. “Oh!” he said. “Oh, that sounds—that sounds delightful! Crowley?”

Once again, Crowley examined the offer for traps. Once again, he didn’t find any. Once again, he had to wonder what choice they really had.

He nodded, slowly. “Thank you. We’ll take you up on that.”

Even after they were led to the archives and left there – alone, as far as Crowley could tell – he still mentally poked the offer for traps.

Aziraphale, though. Aziraphale’s eyes were shining as they took on the rows upon rows of honeycombed shelves, each housing a scroll marked with a small tag. With the slightest breeze, the tags would all flutter like butterflies.

Crowley couldn’t help watching him, just the littlest bit. The last time that Crowley had seen the angel this excited, they’d been in the Library of Alexandria.[7]

“Right,” Aziraphale said, rubbing his hands together. “Right. Let’s see … there’s got to be a … a card catalogue or something around here somewhere …”

“Angel,” said Crowley, surveying the shelves before him, realizing how they stretched invisible into the ceiling and unfurled for miles past the horizon, “you realize we could be looking through these things for centuries, right?”

“Hence the card catalogue, dear boy, I certainly don’t intend to go plucking scrolls off the shelf at random … now, let’s see …”

The bubble of foreboding slowly inflated in Crowley’s gut. This—this was the trap, wasn’t it? They could leave whenever they wanted, except, if they were still searching for answers, they wouldn’t want to …

“Well,” Crowley murmured as Aziraphale headed down one of the corridors of shelves, “now I know how Oedipus felt.”

Aziraphale paused and raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

“I said, now I know how Oedipus felt.

“Oedipus?”

“Well—yeah? I mean, the god of the dead offers to give him exactly what he wants, except there’s a catch, y’see, and it seems simple, except …”

Aziraphale blinked, slowly, and did not seem less confused. “Oh, come on,” Crowley said, “you have to remember this one. Musician bloke, his wife dies, so he goes down to the Underworld to fetch her back, and—”

“Oh.” Aziraphale slowly nodded. “You mean Orpheus.”

“Orpheus, Oedipus – what’s the difference?”

Aziraphale shot him a glance that managed to be equal parts fond and exasperated. “Quite a big one, but I’ll explain later. Come on, help me find a card catalogue.”

“Pretty sure this place doesn’t use the Dewey Decimal System,” Crowley muttered, but he followed the angel anyway.

He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for. He probably wouldn’t be able to find a card catalogue in a modern library. (That was what librarians were for.) In the archives of the god of the dead … it was a lost cause. So he contented himself with looking up at the shelves, wondering if he ought to start reading labels to see if he could get some kind of idea—

That was probably why he didn’t notice the desk until after he’d barked his shin on it.

“Ow!”

“You all right?” Aziraphale asked, turning around.

“I—” Crowley frowned, eyes narrowed, and stared at the desk. Or rather, what was on the desk.

A computer. Old – he hadn’t seen a screen like that in years – but …

“You keep going, angel,” Crowley said. “I’ll … let me check this out.”

Aziraphale frowned. “If you want to look at this … don’t go too far. I don’t want either of us getting lost in here.”

Yes, that could very well be another trap, couldn’t it? Crowley nodded. “I’ll stay here. And I’ll holler if I need you.”[8]

Aziraphale nodded once, then, with a worried backward glance, disappeared down the next row of shelves.

Crowley sat down. The computer setup looked familiar enough – screen, mouse, keyboard (but why blank? Or had it been used so much that all the letters had worn away?), tower to the right of the screen. He jiggled the mouse (one of the rolly-ball mice?), and the computer woke up.

He blinked and pulled his sunglasses down to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. Was that Windows XP?

Perhaps the archives of the dead using a modern operating system was too much to expect …

Crowley squinted at the screen. What he was seeing wasn’t a login screen or even a generic desktop. Instead, he was greeted by a simple menu showing flags. Lots of flags.

There were all the familiar ones, of course – English, French, Spanish, German, etc. – as well as a few less-than-familiar ones. And ones that weren’t flags at all. Like the Roman eagle and the Athenian owl.

Interesting …

Out of habit, he clicked on the Union Jack.

The flag-menu disappeared, replaced by a search page. An incredibly detailed search page. There were fields for first name, last name, place of birth, place of death, birth year, death year, father’s name, mother’s name … his eyes were starting to glaze over and he hadn’t even tried scrolling.

At the top was a simple logo, looking like letters carved in stone, and it read Necropedia.

Crowley blinked. It can’t possibly be this simple.

But if it was … only one way to find out.

Crowley clicked on the “First Name” search field, glanced at the keyboard out of habit—and jumped. Before him was a familiar QWERTY keyboard.

Well. Probably a good thing he’d chosen English as his language of choice. He could barely even remember the Greek alphabet, never mind touch-type in it.

So he typed. Put “Minos” in the “First Name” field, “Crete” for the place of birth. And hit “search.”

The familiar hourglass icon popped up. Crowley watched the pixel sands make their way to the bottom and the hourglass turn over.

It happened again.

And again.

And again.

Well, good thing I can’t die of old age.

Crowley glanced at his watch.

The hourglass continued to turn.

Fifteen minutes later, it occurred to Crowley that he perhaps he ought to have narrowed down the search. There were probably quite a few Minoses who’d been born on Crete.

Ten minutes after that – about the time Crowley was debating finding out if control-alt-delete worked on Underworld computers – the hourglass finally disappeared, replaced by a page of search results.

Many, many search results. And – if Crowley was reading this right – yes, they were ordered newest to oldest.

Well, that wouldn’t work. Crowley found the menu to change search order, clicked on “oldest to newest,” and braced himself for another half-hour wait.

It didn’t come. The results reordered themselves almost immediately. Crowley clicked on the first one.

Born 1872 B.C.E. to Europa, daughter of Agenor of Tyre, and Zeus, son of Kronos …

The names “Europa” and “Agenor” were both linked, while “Zeus” and “Kronos” weren’t. What was it that Hades had said – something about the archives covering every mortal soul here? Zeus and Kronos certainly weren’t mortal …

But the only way to find out more was to keep reading, so he did.

By the time Crowley got to Minos’s fifth birthday, he realized that this was going to take forever. He could scroll and skim, or …

He glanced at the keyboard and hit control-F in a spirit of experimentation.

Another search box popped up.

Crowley typed in “Ariadne.”

Words flew past …

Finally, the text stopped on the first yellow-highlighted “Ariadne.”

… Minos and Pasiphaë named the girl Ariadne and the monster Pasiphaë had delivered Asterion, though he would later be called the Minotaur …

“Pasiphaë” was linked. “Ariadne,” “Asterion,” and “Minotaur” weren’t. Interesting. Crowley scrolled up for more context.

On the day Pasiphaë’s pains came upon her, Minos shut himself in his closet as was his custom, to busy himself with work until the travail was over. Yet though he ordered that he was not to be disturbed, a flaxen-haired stranger from the east came in. Locks he passed through like smoke, and though he was visible to mortal eyes, he walked unseen.

When he came unto the king, before Minos could challenge him, the stranger worked magic that left Minos in a waking sleep, unable to act or move of his own accord, but able to listen and speak.

The stranger was carrying a babe, which he pressed into Minos’s arms. “She’s yours now,” the stranger said, and though his words were not true, the force of his magic made Minos believe them. “Your daughter. You’ll believe your wife just gave birth to her, and you’re just, er, minding the first one while she works on the other one. Right, that’ll work—anyway. She’s your daughter now, and—and you have to take care of her. Treat her like your own. Call her the twin of the other baby. And—and please, for the love of everything good and holy, love her. If you do nothing else

Crowley couldn’t keep reading. He closed his eyes, breathed in sharply—

And pushed all of it—everything, every jagged-glass feeling that threatened to burst through—down. And down. And down.

He didn’t have time for this. He had to keep reading.

love her.” The stranger left then.

Soon the servants came to tell Minos that Pasiphaë had been delivered safely, but the babe was monstrous, half-bull, half-man. Minos and Pasiphaë named the girl Ariadne …

Crowley leaned back. He’d read enough. Now he just had to find the angel—

“Crowley—Crowley!”

Crowley barely had time to bolt upright before Aziraphale rounded the corner, out of breath and carrying a scroll.

“Oh, thank Heaven, you haven’t moved—Crowley! I found it! I found Minos—here, look at this.” Paying no mind to the age of the scroll, Aziraphale jabbed his finger to the ancient ink. “Look what it says, right here; a rough translation would be When Pasiphaë was …”

Aziraphale stopped. He frowned at Crowley. “My dear boy,” he laid a hand on Crowley’s shoulder, “are you all right?”

Crowley swallowed. He gestured to the screen. “I think I found it, too.”

“Eh?” Aziraphale squinted at the screen.

He blinked.

He took his reading glasses from his pocket, put them on, and squinted again at the screen.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale whispered, “how …?”

“Computers, angel.” Crowley laughed, or tried to, even though he knew Aziraphale would never be fooled by it. “They’ve come a long way since 1983, which you’d know if you ever bloody bothered to upgrade.”

There was too much on Aziraphale’s face; Crowley had to look away. He swallowed a few times and rubbed the back of his neck. “So,” he said, realizing that the swallowing wasn’t doing a damn thing but unable to do much about it. “You—you told him to love her.”

“What else could I do?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley shook his head. Not a denial, just—just something. Something, some gesture he could make with some part of this corporation that wasn’t threatening to spiral out of control. “I—I’m glad. Do—d’you reckon he listened?”

“I don’t know.” Papyrus rustled. “We could—”

“No,” Crowley said. He forced himself to take a deep breath. And then another. “We—we know enough now. Where to look, if nothing else.”

Crowley looked up and tried to force a smile. “We have what we need. So let’s go home, angel.”

[1] Crowley swore it wasn’t him.

[2] Actually, knowing Crowley, it rather did.

[3] Except, being a celestial being who hadn’t consumed gross matter in the past century, she couldn’t.

[4] Or Golders Green, Edgware or High Barnet. Just because one could use liminals to travel between planes didn’t mean one had to.

[5] Similar to a cell phone, but not on any network you’d recognize.

[6] On the way down, Aziraphale had asked Persephone how she was able to come with them, seeing as it was still summer in the human world. Persephone had looked up from fondling the dog’s ears and chirped, “Not in Australia!” and that been the end of that.

[7] The first time they’d been there – not the last. Crowley never thought about the last time if he could help it.

[8] Crowley would have suggested calling Aziraphale on his mobile, except Aziraphale didn’t have one, and he doubted there was any reception in the Underworld.

Chapter Text

A Prince of Hell, a Duke of Hell, and a lesser demon all walked into a bar across the street from Angel Underground Station in London. What they found waiting for them was not a punchline, but rather three archangels.[1]

The bar was most emphatically closed – doors locked, chairs up on the tables (except the one the archangels were using), cash register emptied, closed – and that was on purpose. Mephistopheles had already had to explain why this was the optimal choice to his superiors more than once. The fewer humans who were around for this meeting, the better. Even if angels and demons could render themselves individually unnoticeable to human eyes,[2] put this many in a room and they would attract human attention.

Besides, if things did end up going south, humans would only get in the way.

“Beelzebub! Long time, no see!” Gabriel called out, raising his glass of … actually, Mephistopheles had no idea what was in that glass, or how Gabriel had gotten it, but it didn’t matter.

“We just saw each other,” Beelzebub pointed out ruthlessly. “At the airbase.”

“Right—right. That. Yeah.” If he had been a bit more human, Gabriel would have probably knocked back a fair bit of whatever-he-was-holding, but as it was, he shot the glass a puzzled glance and put it down again. “Anyway, this is Michael, and this is Samael—”

“I know,” Beelzebub said.

“But we don’t know your associates,” Gabriel said. “Or at least, I don’t.”

Beelzebub sighed and rolled zir eyes. “Hastur, Mephistophelezz.” Ze pointed to each in turn. “Now sit.”

Hastur took the chair across from Michael, leaving Mephistopheles no choice but to take the one opposite Samael.

Mephistopheles had to give her credit: Samael displayed not a flicker of recognition when her gaze fell on him. If anything, she looked like she’d just smelled something rather distasteful. Admittedly Hastur could have provoked that reaction, but Mephistopheles rather suspected it was because she’d been on Earth for longer than five minutes and had yet to have a cigarette.

“So,” Beelzebub said. “You have an idea, I prezzume?”

“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to call it an idea,” Gabriel said. “I just thought we could use a coordinated response, given the magnitude of the—”

“Fuck-up,” Beelzebub filled in.

Gabriel winced. Michael sighed. After a heartbeat’s pause that Mephistopheles hoped only he noticed, Samael wrinkled her nose.

“And it wazzz a fuck-up,” Beelzebub continued ruthlessly. “Forget Armageddon. We couldn’t even kill the bastardzz, and then not two dayzz later they’re going off-grid. How the blessed Heaven did that happen?”

“Well, it wasn’t my department,” Gabriel said. “Er, that is …” He shook his head. “Look, clearly, just keeping an eye on our former agents through established channels isn’t going to work. Although speaking of which …” He raised an eyebrow.

“Yezz?” Beelzebub asked.

“Did you, er, bring copies of the demon’s …?”

“Crowley’zz movements? I did.” Beelzebub reached into zir jacket and pulled out a sheaf of dot-matrix printer paper, with the sprocket holes still attached.

“Great, I’ll be taking—”

Beelzebub smacked Gabriel’s hand down. “The angel’zz?”

For a moment, Gabriel didn’t move. Then, with a thin, tight smile, he reached into his jacket with his free hand. “Of course.” Out came his own sheaf of paper, crisp white sheets fresh from the laser printer.

Gabriel put his paper down on the table.

Beelzebub put zir paper down on the table.

Either could have reached for the other’s pile. But that would have required letting go of their own.

Mephistopheles saw a muscle in Samael’s cheek twitch – impatience for sure. In any other circumstances, she would have already ripped both sets of printouts from their respective owners’ hands and distributed them around the table. But if this meeting was ultimately about creating a rapprochement between Heaven and Hell, then Samael was here to ensure that the whole thing was a massive waste of time, so she wouldn’t do that.

Mephistopheles almost felt proud of her.

And really, if it was going to be this much trouble simply to hand over some printouts, maybe he and Samael had nothing to worry about. Certainly Mephistopheles wasn’t going to be helping things along. Hastur was leaning back in his chair with a smug grin as he watched the standoff. And neither Beelzebub nor Gabriel was going to budge. So they were quite safe, really—

Michael sighed and snapped her fingers, and two printouts appeared before each person at the table.

Mephistopheles bit back a sigh. Well, it was worth a hope. Then, to keep up appearances, he forced himself to read what was in front of him.

He wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to be looking for, if anything, so he was rather relieved when Gabriel huffed. “They’re practically living in each other’s pockets!”

“So it appearzz,” Beelzebub sighed.

“I don’t understand it.” Gabriel sat back, confusion written on every line of his do-you-really-have-to-be-that-handsome face. “It was one thing when we assumed that your man was trying to make our man Fall—”

“Or your man make our man rizze,” Beelzebub countered.

“What?” Samael snapped. “That’s impossible. Demons can’t rise. You lot are supposed to stay where we threw you.”

Hastur puffed up, and Mephistopheles scowled to hide his smile. Now Hastur would come out with something stupid, and Samael would follow it up with something confrontational, and within a few minutes this dangerous meeting would be over—

That didn’t happen.

Instead, a sound like three sets of church bells going off at once came from one side of the table – while from the other side, two sets of unholy beeping emerged.

Samael, Gabriel, and Michael each dug their cel-phones from their pockets, while Beelzebub and Hastur hastily pulled their pagers out. Leaving Mephistopheles with nothing to do but twiddle his thumbs (metaphorically) and try not to drool over Samael’s cel-phone (all too literally).[3]

Hastur’s wordless growl of rage was the first sign that something not particularly pleasant had happened. Michael’s soft tut-tut was the second.

“Our man’s back in Angel station,” Gabriel said.

“Ourzz too,” Beelzebub confirmed.

“Right,” Samael said.

And stood up.

“Enough beating around the burning bush. Celestial observation isn’t good enough; we need people on the ground to keep an eye on the traitors. Ones who can act instead of sending interns with printouts to the higher-ups.”

Then she pointed to Mephistopheles. “You—what’s your name again? Methamphetamine?”

Mephistopheles was too surprised to say anything other than the first thing that came to mind, which thankfully was, “Ah, Mephistopheles.”

“Close enough. Come on, you’re coming with me. We’re tailing the traitors.”

Mephistopheles was already half-out of his seat, but Beelzebub’s hand locked on his wrist. “I don’t think so. You’re walking off with my demon for Satan knowzzz how long?”

Samael fixed Beelzebub with a gaze that said that ze really was too stupid for words. “No. I’m taking your demon to help me tail a pair of traitors. And if it makes you feel better, I’m planning on sending him after the angel and me after the demon if they split. You can decide how long we’ll be doing this – work out the details for shifts and such amongst yourselves. Honestly, the sooner I’m relieved of this mess, the happier I’ll be.”

Beelzebub narrowed zir eyes, but Michael’s happy gasp cut through it. “Oh! So we can each track both of them! Oh, that’s brilliant, Samael!”

“I try,” was all Samael said, before cocking an eyebrow at Mephistopheles. “Ready, Megafauna?”

“Wait,” Gabriel said. “You said can act. What exactly are you planning on doing?”

Samael glared, and Mephistopheles was uncomfortably aware that this was the angel who had played a starring role in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. “As long as they stay on Earth? Nothing more than watch. If they try to leave? Whatever it takes to keep them here.”

Gabriel frowned, eyes narrowed … but after a few seconds that felt like years, he nodded.

“Finally! Come on, Metatarsals, before we lose them!”

Mephistopheles didn’t bother to correct her. Beelzebub had let go of his wrist, and that was all the encouragement he needed to run after Samael as she dashed from the bar.

As soon as the door was safely shut behind him, though, he couldn’t contain himself any longer. “Samael, that was—”

“Shhh,” Samael waved a hand at him, but she barely looked at him, too busy scanning the street and the station in front of them. “There—oh, shit!”

Mephistopheles looked and nearly blessed. There, not more than a street-width away, were the two traitors …

And they were already getting into the long black automobile that was parked right in front of the station.

“Shit, shit, shit …” Samael muttered below her breath, until—“Ah, there’s one!”

“There’s—” Mephistopheles didn’t have a chance to finish, as all four tires of an automobile that was rolling past them blew out spectacularly.

“Get in, get in! I’ll control the driver; you keep us from getting discorporated on the way!”

That was not nearly enough of a plan to be getting on with, but seeing little alternative, he followed Samael’s instructions and Samael herself into the back of the vehicle.

“Hey! What’s all—” started the driver.

He didn’t get a chance to finish. “Do Not Be Afraid,” Samael said, her voice dripping with celestial command and twisting something in Mephistopheles’s spine. “I Am The Messenger Of The Lord, And You Will Do Exactly As I Say.”

Mephistopheles glanced at the rearview mirror, where he could see the driver’s face go slack in the way that humans’ faces tended to so when confronting the majesty of the divine-adjacent.

Samael snapped her fingers, and Mephistopheles felt the frisson of a miracle.[4] At the same time, he heard the squeal of tires that were clearly attempting to shatter the current zero-to-sixty record in Islington.[5]

“Follow That Car. The One That’s Going Fast,” Samael said, and the driver slammed on the accelerator to obey. Samael glanced once at Mephistopheles and nodded.

As for Mephistopheles, he grabbed the headrest in front of him, took a deep breath, and started throwing out demonic miracles left, right, and center.

He’d need every one of them if they were to successfully tail a demon who drove like a bat out of hell.

The trouble with stakeouts, Ariadne was coming to realize, was that no one ever mentioned how boring they were.

She’d been parked[6] at the coffee shop across the street from A.Z. Fell & Co.: Antiquarian and Unusual Books most of the day before. And here she was again. Waiting for the shop to open, if it ever would. Hoping that this was the bookshop the angel ran, and that she wasn’t wasting her time and drinking far too many terrible coffees on a wild goose chase. Praying that this might where she finally got an answer.

This had to be the place, didn’t it? Ariadne took her phone out and checked her math. First – the picture from the PowerPoint, the one showing the angel and the demon and the black Bentley in front of a shop. The shop definitely said A.Z. Fell & Co., and …

Ariadne’s gaze flickered upward, as if she hadn’t just been staring at the maroon shopfront and beige brick building. Yes, this was definitely the same place.

And next, the Yelp page.[7]

Ariadne’s eyes flicked over the reviews for what had to be the hundredth time. One mentioned weird lights and strange sounds. Several played up the owner’s strange fashion sense. A couple talked about random good deeds he’d done for people who stumbled into his shop. Another laid out a litany of curious and unusual happenings, ranging from plants that didn’t die to odd books that felt like magic. Even the ones that mentioned the owner’s boyfriend tracked with what Ariadne had guessed about the angel when she’d seen him in the Ritz.

Granted, she was less sure what to make of the reviews that mentioned a snake – didn’t the Abrahamic faiths have a thing about snakes? – but surely the weight of the circumstantial evidence was in her favor.

Ariadne sighed and ran a hand through her hair. Not that any of it made a difference if the shop wouldn’t open …

She glanced out the window again, hoping against hope—

Nothing.

Maybe I should try calling? … Again. She’d tried calling most of yesterday. All she had gotten for her trouble were endless rings. Did the owner not even have voicemail?

Still, it couldn’t hurt to try again—

Her phone buzzed, and Ariadne jumped. Rolling her eyes at herself, she glanced at the notification. A text from … Persephone?

Heeeeey gurl!

Ariadne blinked. But she shouldn’t have been surprised. If anything, she should have been more surprised that this hadn’t happened sooner.

Ariadne began to reply, only to be greeted by blinking ellipses. She waited.

You still in London?

Ariadne texted back, Yep. Pretty sure your father would zap anyone who tried to leave before he said so

Haha oh boy. Don’t tell him where I went then

Ariadne’s only reply was an arched-eyebrow emoji.

Had some business in the underworld

Oh is that what they’re calling it these days? The rest of Ariadne’s reply consisted of eggplants, water droplets, and similar emojis.

HAHAHAHAHA as if you have any room to judge!

What’s that supposed to mean?

Now it was Persephone’s turn to send an arched eyebrow emoji. Come on what’s the one reason you’re in town at all?

Hey I LIKE London

Persephone opened her next text with crying/laughing emojis. Just not the rest of us?

Ariadne snickered while she tried to think of a reply. And glanced at the shop across the way, just in case.

Still no movement.

Her phone buzzed again, and Ariadne looked down.

Not that I can say anything. I married the lord of the dead to have an excuse to get away from them all for six months of the year

Now Ariadne’s actual eyebrow arched. That’s a little cold for you

Then, after a moment’s thought, Did Eris steal this phone?

A series of rapid-fire texts from Persephone followed:

HA

She wouldn’t DARE

She lives down here and I’m queen

I can say no more tabletop and she’s SOL

Ariadne snickered even as she typed. LOL you wouldn’t actually do that

The ellipses flashed for quite a while after that, and when Persephone’s reply finally came through, Ariadne could see why.

No but a girl can dream. ANYWAY I actually had something to ask you! Are you free for lunch?

Ariadne winced. At any other time, lunch with Persephone would be great, but …

Well, she did have an excuse. D & I are going to a show at the globe at noon so lunch is a no-go. Maybe tomorrow?

The ellipses started to flash almost immediately after that. That didn’t surprise Ariadne in the slightest.

What was surprising was that they didn’t stop flashing. What on earth is she trying to say?

She might have wondered that for a while, but a sudden squeal of brakes cut that thought off with extreme prejudice.

Ariadne looked up, of course. It was what you did when you heard what sounded like the beginnings of a three-car pileup right in front of you.

But that wasn’t what she saw.

She gasped deeply enough and sharply enough that, were a barometer present in the coffee shop, it shown a noticeable drop in air pressure.

A black antique Bentley had pulled up to the curb outside the shop so quickly that the tires were smoking. And getting out of it were—

Blondie and Sunglasses!

They were heading into the shop. Ariadne’s hands shook as she shoved her phone back into her purse and started to gather the coffee mugs and plates she’d used.

Wait. Ariadne. Wait for them to open the shop first.

So she sat. Hands folded in front of her like a schoolgirl. Ignoring her entire purse vibrating as Persephone’s text finally came through.

But no matter how carefully she sat, the sign on the shop door didn’t flip. And she’d know if it did. Even if she was too far away to read it, she’d see the movement.

She made it for perhaps five minutes at a generous estimate before her patience ran out.

Screw it. Ariadne snapped her fingers, returning pristine plates and mugs to the cupboards and depositing the trash in the trash. Then she grabbed her purse and practically ran out of the coffee shop.

She crossed the street without looking and would have been run over twice, had the drivers barreling toward her not found themselves suddenly on the other side of the jogging red-haired young woman.

She didn’t even pause to give the Bentley a second glance, though the car practically begged for it.

Finally, she stood at the shop door. She reached for the handle—

Locked. Of course.

Well, that wouldn’t take a moment to fix.

Ariadne closed her eyes and gently nudged the universe in the direction she wanted it to go. The universe resisted – enough to make Ariadne frown – but only for a moment.

Even on the busy street, the click of the latch was music to her ears.

Then …

There was nothing for Ariadne to do but square her shoulders, throw open the door, and go in.

“Did you see that?” Mephistopheles asked.

“Eh?” Samael replied. She knew she should have been watching the street, but this thrice-damned lighter was giving her no help whatsoever.

Mephistopheles put a hand on her arm. “That woman—the redhead. An automobile practically teleported around her.”

That got Samael to look up.

It was easy to guess where Mephistopheles was looking – even in the London gloom, the young-looking woman’s hair glinted like fire.

That, and as Samael watched, another vehicle did the same thing.

“What the fuck?” she asked.

“Yeah. You think maybe she’s …” Mephistopheles raised his eyebrows and let them ask the question for him.

“Maybe …” Samael murmured. The redhead clearly wasn’t human, and the idea that she might be from wherever the traitors had gone to wasn’t too far a stretch. Samael reached out with her other senses, trying to get a glimpse of the woman’s aura or her spiritual signature.

Nothing. Or rather, too much something. Picking the redhead’s spiritual signature out of this mess was like listening to three symphony orchestras’ worth of instruments, each playing a different tune, while trying to track down the one playing “Amazing Grace.”

“Fuck,” Samael said. Then, quirking an eyebrow at Mephistopheles, “You?”

Mephistopheles’s eyes narrowed, but he had to shake his head. “No.”

Samael growled low in her throat – the sound made the half-dozen nearest humans shudder, not just the “goose walking over my grave” chills, but full-body shudders – and leaned against the doorway she and the demon were lurking in.[8] What was worst was that Samael couldn’t even turn back to her lighter – duty and logic told her that she had to keep both eyes on the woman.

That was why she saw, clear as day, how the woman walked up to the angel’s shop, put a hand on the door, and walked right in.

“Do you think …” Mephistopheles glanced sidelong at Samael. “Should we call that in?”

Samael said nothing, eyes narrowed, arms crossed, brain whirling.

If they called this in … talked about a mysterious visitor to the angel’s shop who could bend reality around her … lots of things could happen. They could be told to keep watching, see what happened. Or Heaven and Hell could send a joint task force out to deal with the problem. If they played their cards right, they could probably manage to wipe out the angel, the demon, and the redhead in one fell swoop, maybe even taking the bookshop out, too.

Of course, if Heaven and Hell played their cards right, that meant that things would be going wrong for Mephistopheles and Samael – because there were few things that better bonded soldiers who used to be enemies than winning a battle together.

The fact that Heaven and Hell were unlikely to play their cards right was not enough insurance against that.

“Best not,” Samael said. “For now – we watch and learn.”

Mephistopheles nodded. “Fair enough.” Then he glanced at her, smiled, and held out a thumb.

It was on fire.

“Light?”

Samael smirked, chuckled, and brought her cigarette up to it. “You know me too well.”

“After all these years, I’d better.”

Then, with one last smile at each other, Samael retreated to her corner of the doorway, Mephistopheles retreated to his, and they settled in for a long period of watching and, hopefully, learning.

When they pulled up next to the bookshop, something inside Crowley unwound.

Not all the way. Too much had happened since the Armageddidn’t and everything that had gone before for Crowley to really unwind. He’d need at least a decade of peace and quiet before he’d even consider it, and even then he might not, too busy waiting for the next shoe to drop.

But the bookshop. The bookshop, to him, was safe in a way that Heaven, Hell, Eden, and even his own flat had never been. Never mind that he’d seen the whole blessed thing burn to the ground. Or that at least one other deity had managed to get past whatever wards Aziraphale had on the front door. The feeling ran deeper than logic and did not respond to facts.

“Well, thank you for getting us here in one piece, dear boy,” Aziraphale said, in a tone that made it clear that as far as he was concerned, it had been a near thing.

“You know me, safest driver on the block.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes, but there was a hint of a smile as he did so. And then he got out of the car.

Crowley followed suit, but not before checking his mirrors. He wasn’t in the habit of doing so – whether in motion or not – except, while he was driving, he could have sworn he saw a little nondescript gray car following them …

There was no nondescript gray car there now. Maybe he was just being paranoid.

But if they really are out to get you, how paranoid can you be?

“Coming?” Aziraphale asked over his shoulder, and Crowley, remembering where he was and what he was supposed to be doing, followed him into the shop.

As soon as they were both inside, Aziraphale gently shooed Crowley away from the door and did – something to it, probably locking it. Crowley wasn’t paying attention. The safe feeling had settled over his shoulders again. The incandescent lamps the angel flicked on filled the space with a warm glow, revealing the familiar sights of groaning bookshelves, well-worn floors, and ancient tomes. The air was redolent with the comforting scents of dust, paper, and cocoa. And then there was Aziraphale, bustling behind him and past him.

“We really ought to discuss things, you know. Start planning next steps, now that we know … what we know.”

Crowley threw his head back and barely bit back a groan. “What we really ought to do is have a drink.”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake – Crowley, it’s not even noon yet.”

“So?” Crowley asked, although a part of his mind was asking, Ngk??? He glanced at his watch and tapped it a couple of times.

The hour and minute hands spun rather alarmingly before the universe and the watch righted themselves and the latter showed Crowley the time. The angel had been right – it was not yet noon.

But what day?

Crowley shook his head. That was the trouble with inter-plane travel. Even if the people you were traveling with swore by the Styx that they weren’t doing anything to mess up the timestream, time still went fuzzy around the edges. Couldn’t be helped.

But did it matter? It wasn’t like anyone Upstairs or Downstairs cared how they spent their time anymore – no, scratch that, they probably did care, deeply; they’d merely forfeited all right to complain.

“We should at least pretend to be civilized people, Crowley,” said Aziraphale, drawing Crowley from his thoughts again.

Civilized what?—oh, right. Drinking. “Civilization is overrated,” Crowley said, heading to the back room and throwing himself onto the sofa. Which may have been a mistake; he found himself precariously balanced on a pivot point where, if he were any less vertical, he’d immediately become horizontal and sleep for a week.

“’Sides,” he went on, as much to keep himself awake as anything else, “it’s five o’clock somewhere. M’watch says so.”

Crowley held up said watch, or at least the wrist it was attached to, and waved it at Aziraphale. Aziraphale, for his part, was bestowing upon him a gaze that was equal parts fond, exasperated, worried, and completely missing the reference.[9]

Finally Aziraphale sighed and shook his head. “I’ll see if Adam put anything drinkable in the wine cellar.”

“You do that, angel,” Crowley said. He sprawled on the sofa, bringing both feet up. “I’ll be right here.”

He couldn’t see Aziraphale shaking his head, but he could feel it, and he could definitely hear the angel’s brogues tap-tap-tapping away.

Maybe Crowley shouldn’t have put his feet up – though he was most emphatically not lying down, even if his corporation did seem ready to do that of its own accord.

Still, he thought as he leaned his head against the lumpy back of the sofa, as long as he didn’t lie down properly, he’d be all right … he’d just close his eyes for a couple minutes, no harm in doing that …

How long he sat there he wasn’t sure. Time, once again, went a bit fuzzy around the edges. He could hear, vaguely, Aziraphale messing about in the wine cellar below … hurried footsteps up the stairs … yes, all normal sounds, all what he expected to hear …

The merry ring of the shop-bell … Aziraphale’s most apologetic tone, “Oh, I’m so sorry, but we’re—”

CRASH! And the tinkle of broken glass.

Crowley’s eyes flew open and he was rolling off the sofa before his legs quite knew what they were supposed to be doing.

Shit fuck shit fuck fuck fuck SHIT! What in Heaven’s name had he been playing at, falling asleep? He finally found his legs and stumbled to his feet, running into the shop proper.

“ANGEL! Angel, where—”

Crowley skidded to a halt as soon as he left the back room.

The first thing Crowley noticed was Aziraphale. Standing with his back to him, frozen in shock, but alive and seemingly whole. All in all, an encouraging sign.

The second thing Crowley noticed was the bottle of wine by Aziraphale’s feet. Or what had once been a bottle of wine. Now it was a pile of broken glass and a blood-red stain seeping into the ancient wood.

The third thing Crowley noticed—

The third thing Crowley noticed knocked the wind clean out of him and made him nearly swallow his tongue.

Which made it rather strange, all things considered, that Crowley was the first of them to find his voice.

“Ariadne?”

[1] Well, there might be a punchline, eventually. It would depend on how the meeting went.

[2] Invisible was possible, too, but unnoticeable was better than invisible. Humans noticed if what should have been empty air refused to let them pass, or if the empty chair they were trying to swing over to their table weighed as much as a chair with a whole body in it. Whereas if angels and demons simply made themselves unnoticeable, not only would humans go out of their way to avoid these little inconveniences, they wouldn’t even realize they were doing it.

[3] Covetousness wasn’t one of Mephistopheles’s favorite sins, but he made an exception for cel-phones. He’d seen Samael’s once and had wanted it with the blazing passion of a thousand suns ever since.

[4] He also felt the automobile rise a few inches, now that the tires were fixed.

[5] Which was held by Crowley.

[6] Metaphorically speaking. The Uber had long since left.

[7] To read the reviews in all of their brilliant glory, check out Sparse Clutter by ItsClydeBitches, Chapter 6: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19364431/chapters/46364224

[8] It should be noted that Mephistopheles was much better at the lurking part.

[9] The last one was nothing new. Neither were the first three, if Crowley were being honest with himself.

Chapter Text

They’d hidden her away. Spent nearly four thousand years not thinking about her (or “not thinking” about her) because anything else was too painful or too risky. Stopped an apocalypse (more or less) and escaped being murdered by their own compatriots by the skin of their teeth. Decided, under no small amount of duress, that it was past time to look for her. Followed the clue they’d been given to another clue. And now, after all that …

She had found them.

If Aziraphale needed any proof that, in spite of (or perhaps because of) everything, the Almighty still had a soft spot for him and Crowley, it was standing right in front of him now. The young lady from the Ritz. The young lady from the photo Hera had given him. Ariadne.

And if Aziraphale had needed a reminder that the Almighty’s plan was called ineffable for a reason, that was also standing in front of him. Because Ariadne, the young lady from the Ritz and the photo, looked about two seconds away from bolting through the door from which she’d come.

“How,” she was staring at Crowley, pointing at him, her other hand clutching her purse, “how do you know my name?”

Aziraphale glanced over his shoulder to see Crowley wincing. “Oh … bugger.”

“That’s not an answer,” she said, and took a full step back.

A rather loud and obnoxious alarm bell – less a bell and more like the air-raid sirens used during the war – began to sound in Aziraphale’s mind. Because while the Almighty was not cruel – even after all he’d seen, Aziraphale would never believe that of Her – She was also, at best, only slightly inclined to help Her children out of their own messes. She’d given them the ingredients; it was up to them to make the crepes.

And crepes were so very, very easy to get wrong.

“Wait!” Aziraphale said, and yes, it sounded panicked, and yes, it sounded desperate, and no, there wasn’t anything he could do about that, so best to move past it. “That is—my dear …”

Aziraphale stood up straight, folded his hands in front of him, smiled, and did everything in his considerable power to project both Do Not Be Afraid and I Am Here To Help.

He glanced sidelong at Crowley to find that he was doing much the same thing. In his case it was a bit more slouched, a little less Do Not Be Afraid and a little more Trusssst In Me, with a definite hiss on the s. But it was the thought that counted.

With the tableau in place, there was nothing for Aziraphale to do but to widen his smile and say in his best customer service voice, “How can we help you?”

Ariadne’s gaze volleyed between the two of them, and Aziraphale wracked his brain for something, anything, that would keep the panic in her eyes from spreading and getting her to run. Yet try though he might, he just couldn’t think—

Or rather, he didn’t have time to.

Ariadne had blinked and was staring at the dropped wine bottle.

She looked at Aziraphale—at Crowley—

Then she snapped her fingers, and the wine bottle appeared in her hand. Whole again, and, to judge by the slosh, full.

But Ariadne wasn’t holding it like a wine bottle – or at least, not like a wine bottle someone intended to drink from. Instead she had one hand on the neck of it, and she tapped the butt of it into her other hand. Thwack, thwack, thwack.

“Look,” she said, as if they were about to do anything else, “you’re not the only people in this room with a couple of tricks up your sleeves, ok?”

Something about the way she said that reminded him of that dear young witch, Anathema, and the way she had matter-of-factly told him that she had a bread knife. Aziraphale couldn’t quite help the small smile.

“Oh, we can see that,” said Crowley. Aziraphale dared a glance back at him to see that Crowley had managed to make himself even more nonthreatening, and not least because he was now lounging so loosely against a bookshelf that a single stiff breeze could knock him over.

Once again, Ariadne looked from Crowley to Aziraphale and back again. Once again, Aziraphale smiled.

Ariadne took a deep breath. And chuckled. “You know … this wasn’t how I imagined this would go.”

“O-oh?” Aziraphale asked, or at least, that was what the encouraging noise that came out of him was meant to be.

“I figured I’d get yelled at about the door,” she nodded her head toward it, a faint rueful smile flashing across her face, “and, you know, the fact that you’re closed.”

“Oh—well, no harm done,” Aziraphale replied. Or at least he assumed there was no harm done. The door looked all right, and surely he could miracle away any damage that he couldn’t see. “And …”

He cast about desperately for something, anything to say – something that would cut down on the tension and keep her, keep all of them calm.

And he had it.

It was a risk, of course – a gamble – but what about this wasn’t a gigantic gamble?

Aziraphale took a deep breath and cast his dice. “And, well, there’s always xenia to consider.”

Her eyes went wide, and Aziraphale was fairly sure he was not imagining the faint gasp.

“Xenia,” she repeated. Her accent was much better than his – which was to say, she didn’t have one. She said the word like someone who had been speaking Greek from her cradle would. “You’re willing to play by those rules?”

“Of course,” Aziraphale replied, not daring to turn around and give Crowley a play along, play along! look. “After all,” he tried to chuckle and didn’t quite succeed, “we all know how Zeus treats those who break them, and I’d hate to have to tangle with him, wouldn’t you?”

She winced. “Let’s not bring Zeus into this.” She swallowed. “Besides, if we’re going to play by xenia … I should have brought a gift.”

“You’re holding a bottle of wine,” Crowley pointed out. “Seems like a good enough gift to me.”

Aziraphale found himself praying that, no matter how she knew of them, knew enough to go looking for them, she didn’t realize just how out of character that was for Crowley to say. Watching others stew in their own juices was one of his favorite pleasures. To actively try to cut the tension and embarrassment …

Well, while there were some people he would do that for, it was a very small and extremely exclusive list.[1]

“Right, that originally belonged to you two. I don’t think that …” Ariadne trailed off, her eyes going to the label. They widened. “Yikes.”

Aziraphale winced. “Er, yes, about that …” Adam had tried, he really had, but an eleven-year-old could only be supposed to know so much about wine. This had looked like the most drinkable of the lot, and Aziraphale suspected it was because it was modeled after a wine that the Youngs kept in the house.[2] “It’s been a trying few days around here.”

Ariadne didn’t reply at first. Instead, she snapped her fingers again and held the wine bottle back out. “Here. Better now.”

“Thank you, dear,” he said automatically, before glancing at the label. “Oh! That is better.”

“I try,” she said with a small smile.

Aziraphale smiled back, something a little like relief flooding through him, except—well, it was really too soon for that. “Would you like to sit down?” he asked, remembering his manners. “There’s a sofa in the back room – chairs …”

“All sorts of things. Very comfy,” Crowley put in helpfully.

Ariadne’s eyes brightened, then narrowed. After a moment, she nodded. “Sure – lead the way.”

And Aziraphale did so, miracling three glasses into existence. “Here – make yourself at home. I’ll just—er …”

He wasn’t sure what he would do, but he did note that she took a chair – and moreover, the one closest to the door. So they hadn’t quite earned their way into trust yet.

Crowley took a seat on the sofa as always; Aziraphale snapped a corkscrew into existence and sat down beside him. Then he busied himself with opening the bottle and pouring, and of course, trying not to be caught watching Ariadne through his lashes.

She was sitting on the edge of the seat, and when Aziraphale handed her a glass, she smiled politely but didn’t drink. Aziraphale considered proposing a toast (to what?) but decided that was too forward.

Instead he watched as Ariadne held her hand in the practiced, studied way of one who had held similar glasses without taking a drink many, many times before. It put him off drinking too, and a sidelong glance at Crowley showed it had done the same for him.

“So …” Aziraphale said, casting about for something, anything to say.

“Xenia says that the guest isn’t asked questions until after a meal,” Ariadne said.

“Oh, would you like something to eat? I’m sure I could—”

“No—no, no, thank you.” Ariadne fiddled with the wineglass, her eyes nervously alighting on Aziraphale and then Crowley and then back again.

She took a deep breath. And with the attitude of someone making a decision and throwing caution to the wind, she put the glass down on the nearest flat surface and scooted even farther forward on the chair.

“Look,” she said, “I have no idea why you two haven’t just chased me off yet, or how you know my name, but—well, the thing is, I can very, very easily be out of your hair if that’s what you want. I just—I need to know something, and you two are my only hope for finding out.”

“Oh, my dear—” Aziraphale began, while Crowley made a noise that couldn’t quite be put into words.

She held up a finger, asking for quiet, and they gave it to her. She took another deep breath.

“You’re an angel,” she said, pointing at Aziraphale, “and you’re a demon,” she pointed to Crowley. Then, slowly, brought her finger back again. “White wings … black wings.”

“That’s—that’s all quite correct,” Aziraphale said.

“Ok. Ok, great. Do—do all demons and angels have wings like that?”

“Yeah,” Crowley answered. Aziraphale very nearly jumped. “Or at least, close enough. Some … some demons get a bit more creative. You don’t want to get to know them, though.”

Aziraphale could see Ariadne swallow; it was as plain as the hurried nod. “Great. Ok.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “So … do you …”

She let the sentence trail. Rolled her shoulders. Stretched her neck from side to side. And then—

Her wings unfurled.

They were familiar – even though Aziraphale had never seen them before, they were so familiar. Same size (relative to Ariadne) and shape as his own, as Crowley’s, as every other angel’s or demon’s wings he had ever seen. Same bone structure, same feathers in the same places. The only difference was that instead of being white or black, hers were a soft dove-gray: the perfect midpoint of the two.

But as fascinating as her wings were, Aziraphale didn’t stare at them for long. Ariadne’s face was far more interesting. Much as she strove to hide it, the struggle of hope and fear was far too obvious to ignore.

Then, finally, she finished her question.

“Do you have any idea,” she whispered, “any idea at all what gray wings could mean?”

Whatever Ariadne had expected when she finally forced the question out … this wasn’t it.

They were barely even looking at her wings. Or at least Blondie—the angel—Aziraphale wasn’t. He was watching her face with an expression she couldn’t read. Something like confusion and realization and dismay all happening at once.

The demon—Sunglasses—Crowley was harder to puzzle out, in no small part because of the sunglasses, at least until he dropped his head into his hands and groaned. “Oh, bloody fuck.”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale hissed.

“She has no idea,” Crowley went on, somewhat muffled by his hands. “No clue. None whatsoever.”

“Yes, I can see that—”

“No clue about what?” Ariadne interrupted.

They knew something. Something that wasn’t good, probably, but so what? If they knew something, then—then Ariadne would deal with it after she knew it. And no matter how bad it was, knowing had to be better than not knowing.

“Look,” she went on before either of them could come up with a reason not to tell her, “you two—you have no idea how long I’ve been searching for an answer. Or even a clue to get an answer. I’ve asked everyone I can think of – the Fates, the Norns, you name it, I’ve asked around, and—nothing. If you—if you know anything, just tell me what you want, and I’ll …”

She trailed off. The angel was softly smiling. Sadly too. Something in it made Ariadne guess that he wasn’t in the mood for bargaining. “Oh, my dear, I think we understand a bit more than you think we do.”

“… Oh.” Ariadne began to twist her hands together. “So, you’ll … help? Seriously, I’ll take anything.”

“Yeah.” That was Crowley, looking up. “Yeah, we can help. Get you some answers. Sure.”

She might have said something; probably she ought to have said something; she didn’t have a chance. Aziraphale had given his wineglass a longing glance and then with clear reluctance set it aside. “So, to start with your first question – the wings. I think – I could be wrong – but I do believe you’ve already somewhat guessed what they might mean? White wings, angel; black wings, demon; gray wings—”

“Both. Half-and-half,” Crowley filled in.

And Ariadne—

Her mind stuttered to a halt. So that—that was what she was. Half angel, half demon. A hybrid. Like—maybe a little like a demigod, or like—

Asterion …

If she followed that thought any further, she was going to start bawling, and she was not ready to do that in front of a pair of strangers, no matter how helpful they were willing to be. “Is there—is there a name? For that?”

And on the heels of that question, dozens of others crowding her mind: Who are the others, how many are there, how can I find them, please please please tell me …

But one thing at a time. Especially since the one question she’d already asked had Aziraphale and Crowley exchanging a glance that lasted half an instant and spoke for hours.

“Um,” Crowley said, “a name.”

“The humans might have one. In … some language.” Aziraphale waved a hand. “Possibly even English; they’re very clever about words and names and … things. Stands to reason, I suppose, since the Almighty did tell Adam—”

“Angel,” Crowley said, nudging Aziraphale with an elbow.

“Er—right, that’d be a tangent, wouldn’t it? And you haven’t … oh dear. So. A name. As—as far as I’m aware, no, your, er, species doesn’t have one.”

“… Oh.” Silly to feel disappointed by that. What did she need a name for? She had a description; that was more than she’d had ten minutes ago.

“’Cause, you see …” Crowley was rolling his wineglass between his hands; he paused only long enough to down the entire thing. “There wasn’t much need for a name. Since, er …”

“To our knowledge … you’re the only one,” Aziraphale finished.

Ariadne stared.

She blinked.

Her mouth was very dry. And her throat was thick. “W-what?”

No. No, this couldn’t be right. She hadn’t been looking and hoping and searching for all these years for—it wasn’t a species she was looking for, it was a people, a tribe, a family, and she hadn’t spent this long looking for it only to be told at the end of it all that she was still alone.

“Then—wait, how do you know? That I’m a half-angel, half-demon?” she asked. “I mean, if there’s only one – if I’m the only you’ve seen—then—then maybe …”

“Oh! Well, we were there when you were born, dear. That is, in a matter of speaking. That you were born—really it was more of a,” Aziraphale waved his hands vaguely, “spontaneous manifestation—”

Crowley put his hand on Aziraphale’s knee, stilling him at once. “What the angel is trying to say is—we’re your parents.”

Once again, Ariadne’s mind stuttered and went still.

… Parents?

“How …” Ariadne’s eyebrow arched as she surveyed the two very male-shaped beings in front of her. “How are you my parents?”

“Oh, we’re jumping into the deep end of parenting, are we?” asked Crowley. “Right. I’m going to need another drink for this.”

“Crowley—”

Crowley held up a finger to silence Aziraphale. With a snap of his fingers, his wineglass was full again; with a flick of his wrist, it was empty again. “Much better. Where were we? Ah, yes, when an angel and a demon love each other very, very much—”

“CROWLEY!”

“What?”

“My dear boy, really, this is not the …” He didn’t finish; he was looking at Ariadne. “Oh. Oh, my dear. Are you all right? I’m sure this is all a bit of a shock …”

A shock? That was one way of putting it. Ariadne tried to swallow but couldn’t because of the dryness in her throat.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her wineglass, still full.

“You—you know,” she heard herself say, “a drink would be …” She didn’t bother to finish. She grabbed the glass, and with a flick of her wrist—

The wine nearly ended up going down her shirt when she realized what she’d just done. That flick of the wrist …

“My dear,” that was Aziraphale again, “you really don’t …”

He might have said more; Ariadne wasn’t listening. She’d caught Crowley’s eye – or at least, she looked at him, and he smiled, so she assumed some eye-catching had happened.

And then—

Ariadne slammed the wineglass onto the table and pulled pin after pin from her hair, until she had a big enough chunk to bring around and look at it.

Then she looked at Crowley’s hair.

Same color.

She looked at Aziraphale, and that—that was harder, because she couldn’t see her own face. But—but if she looked at his eyes …

“Holy shit,” she whispered.

And that seemed to spur Aziraphale into action. “Right,” he set, getting up, “I’m sorry, my dear, but you do not look well. Now—here, put your wings away, that’s it, and sit back. Very good. Deep breaths, now.”

Somewhere in that he’d put his hand on her shoulder. It was—warm. And comforting. Almost in spite of herself.

Ariadne took deep, shaky breath after deep, shaky breath and told herself to focus on that.

“Corporations are funny things, aren’t they?” Aziraphale asked, smiling. Ariadne wondered what Fortune 500 companies had to do with anything and decided she didn’t care enough to ask. Not when there were so many other things she wanted to know.

She turned to Crowley, a little surprised to find him teetering on the edge of the sofa, just like she’d been sitting on the edge of the chair not thirty seconds ago.

“You,” she pointed, “you said—you said the two of you loved – love? – each other.”

“Just a bit,” Crowley replied, and if the words didn’t say much, the tone said it all. Onto the next question, then.

“Then … then why …” Ariadne swallowed. “Why am I only meeting you now?”

Aziraphale winced. “Well—er, let me put it like this. Are you familiar with a play called Romeo and Juliet?”

Ariadne thought of a wattle-and-daub playhouse on the south shore of the Thames, the crunch of hazelnut shells under cork-soled shoes, pressing through the groundlings to get closer to the stage, knowing laughter at That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet, and above all, Dionysus’s eyes as he had drunk all of it in. “That one,” he’d whispered to her before they left, “the one who wrote this – he’s special.”

“Just a bit,” Ariadne replied, and left it at that.

“Excellent! Well, imagine for yourself that Romeo and Juliet had a bit more luck than they do in the play, poor things, and that things had, er, gone on for—”

“Angel. No. No,” Crowley said. “There’s a time for metaphor and beating around the bush, and this isn’t it. Ariadne—look. The thing is. Hell? Hell isn’t nice, and it isn’t good. Heaven claims to be both, but between you, me, and the angel? They’re lying.”

Ariadne glanced at Aziraphale, to see how he took that, but all she saw was a knowing wince.

“And while Heaven and Hell don’t agree on much … one thing they do agree on is that they don’t like each other. At all. And they really wouldn’t like any implication that, you know, maybe it doesn’t have to be this way. So, if they’d found out about you …”

“Oh,” Ariadne said, because that did explain it all. Or at least enough. It was even comforting in a way, to know she hadn’t been tossed on a mountainside to keep her from killing her grandfather or destroying her city or killing her father and marrying her mother.

She took a deep breath, her next question on her lips—

Her phone buzzed, and Ariadne jumped half out of the seat—almost into poor Aziraphale.

“Sorry, sorry—let me just—” She pulled her phone out of her purse, and—

The first thing she saw was the time.

Oh. Shit.

The next thing she saw was Dionysus’s text. Where are you???

“Crap,” Ariadne said.

“What? What’s wrong?” Aziraphale asked, peering at the phone.

“No, no, it’s nothing—just—I was going to meet someone at the Globe—you know, the new one? And now—well, I can just tell him that—no, godsdammit, I have the tickets—and there’s no way an Uber—”

“Uber?” Aziraphale asked.

“I don’t drive in London,” Ariadne said distractedly, “but now—crap, I certainly can’t run that fast—”

“I could drive you,” Crowley said.

“—and—wait, what?”

“Got my car out front. Would be easy enough to get you there.” Crowley shrugged. “If you still want to go, that is.”

Ariadne hesitated. She could just tell Dionysus that she’d lost track of time and wouldn’t be able to make it. The tickets didn’t matter that much – the God of Theater should be able to get himself inside a theater, tickets or no tickets.

But if she did that, she’d owe Dionysus an explanation, and this—this was not something she felt up to explaining …

She looked again at her phone. “The show starts in fifteen minutes.”

Crowley grinned. “Oh good. A challenge.”

“Oh, no,” Aziraphale groaned.

And that was what decided her.

“You know what? Ok. Let’s do this.” She popped out of the chair. “Globe Theatre – here we come.”

Were the new Globe the sort of theater that employed a curtain, it would have been five minutes before curtain-up. Dionysus was still standing in front of the theater.

And Ariadne was nowhere to be seen.

He pulled his phone from his pocket. Her last text had said that she was on her way. It had been sent ten minutes ago. There’d been nothing since.

He was not worried about them not being able to get into the theater or missing the show. The show wouldn’t start until he wanted it to, and theater policies about when one was supposed to be inside and in one’s seat simply did not apply to him and those in his entourage.

But Ariadne …

This wasn’t like her. She had always been the one to keep track of when showtime was, who had the tickets, when did they need to leave in order to get where they were going without having to bend the rules of space and time, etc. She’d been acting strangely since they’d met with his family; she’d disappeared entirely for most of the day before; and now this …

Dionysus put his phone away again and scanned the street. For what, he didn’t know. Ariadne hadn’t told him what the Uber she was presumably taking looked like. Or even if she was taking an Uber at all. Still, he watched, looking for something—

What he saw – what everyone on the street saw; they couldn’t help it – was a black antique car rounding the corner on two wheels, speeding down the street, and coming to a stop so sudden it should have snapped the necks of every mortal sitting in it.

Before Dionysus had a chance to pick his jaw up off the floor, the back door of the car opened, and Ariadne spilled out of it. “Thanks again!” she called over her shoulder, before shutting the door behind her and trotting up to Dionysus. “So sorry! Come on, let’s go!”

Dionysus … didn’t want to do that.

What he wanted to do was put both of his hands on Ariadne’s shoulders, hold her still, and give her a once-over. Because what he could see right now was not encouraging. She was smiling, yes, but not in a way that reached her eyes. A long lock of hair had worked its way out of her French twist to curl over her shoulder. And every movement seemed tense and jumpy.

But he didn’t get to do that, since Ariadne grabbed his elbow and all-but-dragged him forward while the other hand dug in her purse for the tickets. Dionysus contented himself with looking over his shoulder, only to see the black antique car execute a three-point turn that … really shouldn’t have been possible, at least not with a boat of a car like that.

And—was he going insane, or was that car only a two-door? But then how had Ariadne—

“Is everything all right?” Dionysus asked heard himself asking.

“Lost track of time—got distracted. Sorry!” Ariadne said, which didn’t answer the question at all.

And then there was nothing to do but to go through the familiar rigmarole of handing over their tickets and being ushered into the theater. They’d gotten groundling tickets, so at least they didn’t have to worry about making their way through the upper galleries and disturbing other patrons as they tried to find their seats.

Normally, he and Ariadne would melt into the crowd and quietly insinuate themselves into one of the best viewing-areas of the house, but today … today Ariadne stopped as soon as she found an empty space big enough for the two of them, and Dionysus stopped next to her. And as soon as he and Ariadne came to rest, the play started.

He held out a hand in the space between them, waiting for her to clasp it. Ariadne didn’t notice. He bumped her arm, gently. Ariadne looked up, blinked twice, shot him a distracted smile, and let her eyes turn back to the stage.

Dionysus shoved his hands into his pockets.

He stared at the stage. Westmoreland was telling the king of Mortimer’s misfortune, and in a minute they’d hear of Hotspur and Archibald meeting at Holmedon, and …

Dionysus didn’t care.

He looked sidelong at Ariadne. Her eyes were ostensibly on the stage … but if Dionysus were to wave a hand in front of her face, he doubted she’d even see it.

He frowned.

Later, the actors and crew who had been present would shudder when they remembered this show, calling it “the one that Murphy’s Law bloody near murdered.” There’d be muttering about whether perhaps this play ought to join the Scottish play in the litany of Shakespeare’s cursed works. From the audience, there would be confusion, noises about asking for refunds, and heavy disappointment.

And Dionysus wouldn’t care about any of it. Because something was wrong – very wrong – with Ariadne.

And she wasn’t telling him what.

[1] Whose length had very possibly just doubled.

[2] Aziraphale was rather determined to find a way to get to know the Youngs better and introduce them to some proper wine, because no one deserved to have what they were currently presumably drinking be the limit of their wine-horizons, but, well, other things were taking precedence at the moment.

Chapter Text

By mutual consent Aziraphale and Crowley had gone to Crowley’s flat as soon as they had dropped Ariadne off. It had nothing to do with convenience or sensibility and everything to do with Crowley’s liquor supply having not been burned to ash and then restored by a well-meaning but hopelessly eleven-year-old Antichrist.

They’d not spoken in the car, and they’d barely spoken in the flat beyond the bare necessities to locate the alcohol and distribute it. Aziraphale thought that what they both needed was to be alone with their own thoughts for a while, but at the same time, being alone was not something either was prepared to face.

But that was all right. They could be together with their thoughts. Crowley’s flat had plenty of room for all of them.

“More whisky?” Crowley asked.

“No, thank you.”

Aziraphale glanced at the window. The sky was starting to darken.

They had both been thinking for a long time.

Aziraphale could not say what Crowley’s thoughts were; though he’d dropped his sunglasses on the table by the door, he might as well have left them on for all that Aziraphale could read his face. As for Aziraphale’s thoughts, they had gone around and around the same dizzying track so many times that he was sure he knew every last bend in the road.

Of course he was thinking about Ariadne. What else would he – would either of them – be thinking about? He’d gone over their conversation, such as it had been, so many times he could probably recite it from memory.

And the worst of it was, she’d barely said anything about herself! The only reason they even knew her surname was because she’d put it along with the rest of her contact information into Crowley’s mobile on the way to the theater. And she’d scribbled it on a scrap of paper from her purse when Aziraphale had admitted he didn’t have a mobile.

Not for the first time, he took the paper out and looked at it.

Ariadne’s handwriting was much like Hera’s, in the sense that it was very clear that the Roman alphabet was not her first alphabet and paper and pens were not her first writing implements. Besides that, there was little else the paper could tell him beyond what was written on it. The phone number was American, which matched her accent and some of the things she’d said.[1] The surname was Tavros, which … could mean anything, really. Aziraphale wasn’t even sure what language it came from. It looked vaguely Greek, but he was far more familiar with various flavors of classical Greek than anything they were speaking in Athens today.

Although perhaps it was related to tauros, bull? That would make sense, especially since she’d been raised on Crete as an ostensible daughter of Minos …

Not that she’d said anything about that. Aziraphale was merely assuming. He was making a great many assumptions, which he supposed was a side effect of having very few facts to go on. The most personal information she’d divulged had been her wings. And, yes, while wings were quite personal, they had been the prelude to a question, not an answer.

Questions …

She must have so many questions. After thirty-eight hundred years of radio silence, they certainly owed her answers. He just hoped they would be worth a fraction of the wait.

Strange, too, how one of the very first questions she had asked – once they got past the what and the how, which were inevitable under the circumstances – had been about how he and Crowley felt about each other …

Aziraphale sighed, folded the paper up again, and put it back into his jacket pocket.

And looked at Crowley.

When an angel and a demon love each other very, very much …

He’d objected to the statement, but only because he recognized the flippancy and the formula.[2] Not because it was untrue. Crowley had even confirmed it when Ariadne had asked – not in so many words, but …

Well, not in so many words was Crowley’s style, wasn’t it? There so very many ways to say what he was thinking without coming right out and saying it. Ways like Yes, all right, I’ll do that one, my treat and Little demonic miracle of my own and I’ll give you a lift, anywhere you want to go.

And once – a very long time ago – Angel, I think you’re about as capable of Falling as that ass over there is of flying.

How odd was it that Aziraphale’s reaction to that last one – or was it the first one? – had been the least prudent and had arguably been what had gotten them into at least part of this mess. But it was the only one he’d never found it in him to regret.

“Something on my face?”

Aziraphale jumped, literally. “I—I’m sorry—what?”

Crowley raised an eyebrow at him as he refilled his glass. “My face, angel. Only, you keep staring at it, makes me wonder if there’s something on there I ought to know about.”

“Oh—oh, no, it’s nothing like that. I just …”

Words died.

Crowley frowned and brought the tumbler to his lips. “Angel?”

It occurred to Aziraphale with a stomach-sinking sort of clarity that for all that Crowley had been extremely open about his feelings for centuries, Aziraphale had never really reciprocated. Not the way he ought to have.[3] And that … that simply wouldn’t do.

“I love you, Crowley.”

In hindsight, Aziraphale would realize that he could have timed that better. Even if the mess would later be miracled away, Crowley probably did not appreciate the whisky he’d just sipped exiting his corporation via his nose.

Not that he seemed to care much at the time. He slammed the tumbler down on the table, twisted around in a way a human spine probably wasn’t meant to, and stared at Aziraphale. Aziraphale had never seen those golden eyes look so open, so vulnerable, and yes, so shocked.

“… What?”

Aziraphale shrugged. He wouldn’t insult Crowley’s intelligence or feelings by saying something like Surely you ought to have known or even It’s true. Instead, he told the truth. “You’ve been saying it to me for such a long time, my dear – I thought it was past time you got to—”

He didn’t get a chance to finish, for with the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it suddenness of a cobra strike, Crowley was on him. In his lap, long-fingered hands tangled in his hair, staring into his eyes like they held the secrets of existence.

Aziraphale tried to smile in return. He didn’t get very far, because Crowley’s lips were almost immediately, and—

It wasn’t Heaven. Aziraphale knew a damned sight too well what Heaven was like, and it wasn’t this. This was—this was a warm mug of cocoa and a good book, an endless lunch at the Ritz, racing through Central London at ninety miles an hour to the tune of some infernal bebop, feeding the ducks at St. James’s, laughing together over a fifth glass of wine, only somehow all at once, and better, and—and—

—and Crowley was practically attacking his bow tie without even breaking the kiss, and that was perfectly fine because, one, they didn’t actually need to breathe, so why stop kissing? Two, if Crowley managed to damage the bow tie, Aziraphale would just miracle it back together later. And three, which perhaps ought to have been two or even one, Aziraphale’s own hands were busy, catching hold of the lapels of Crowley’s jacket and torn between wanting to push the jacket off him or use it as leverage to pull him closer—

Really, details of wardrobe aside, this wasn’t so terribly different from the last time they had done this—

And that reminded Aziraphale of other things, which had rather the same effect on him as slamming the brakes on did on the Bentley.

Aziraphale pulled back. “Crowley—dear, wait just a moment—”

Crowley did not wait just a moment. He jerked backward as if he’d been burned. “Shit—shit, I’m sorry, angel—did I hurt you? No, wait, bless it, I went too fast, didn’t—”

“No!” Aziraphale had seen the gathering guilt in Crowley’s eyes and had no desire to watch it grow stronger. He took Crowley’s hands in his and smiled. “You didn’t go too fast. Not at all. It’s just …”

He took a deep breath. Actually, he was panting. When it came to times like this, the corporation truly had a mind of its own. “We really ought to lay down some ground rules before we both lose our heads. Again.”

“Ground rules—oh. Oh.”

As if his meaning wasn’t perfectly clear already, Aziraphale added, “I don’t think we’re in a position to be able to afford another Ariadne.”

“Heaven no. Can’t imagine what it would take to baby-proof this place.” Crowley waved a hand to indicate the flat, with all its angles and sharp corners. “And your bookshop is a deathtrap to anyone under six.”

Aziraphale chose not to argue with that, not least because he suspected Crowley may have had a point.

Crowley pushed a hand through his hair, which flopped back perfectly into place once he was done with it. “So. Ground rules. You were saying?”

“I think,” Aziraphale bit his lip, “I think as long as we ensure everything stays corporeal, we should be safe enough. At least … look, I’m not entirely certain about the details about whether these corporations can, er, breed, but I am fairly sure that given the current shapes we’re both in,” he gestured between his technically male-shaped corporation and Crowley’s also technically male-shaped corporation, “we shouldn’t be able to do it with each other.”

“Couldn’t hurt to make assurance doubly sure, either,” Crowley murmured. When Aziraphale shot him a confused look, he sighed. “Condoms, angel.”

“Oh. Right. Quite. Not a bad idea, that. Do you have some? I don’t think we should be miracling them up – seems a bit risky, using a miracle to prevent a miracle—”

Crowley snapped his fingers. A rather familiar-looking black cardboard box appeared on the table beside them. It still had the cellophane on it.

Aziraphale realized with a small prick of guilt that the box could have just as easily come from the corner chemist’s as, say, Crowley’s bedside table … and then the much larger part of him decided he didn’t care. “Perfect. Now, where were we?”

Crowley grinned. It was positively sinful, much like that thrill that snaked down Aziraphale’s spine. “I believe,” Crowley leaned closer to him, hands going back to the bow tie to slowly untie it, “I was about to use every one of my wiles and have my wicked way with you.”

Oh, two could play at that game. Aziraphale’s hands went to Crowley’s snakeskin belt, and he had to bite back a smug smile of his own when Crowley’s eyes widened. “Is that so, dear? Because here I thought I was going to show you some of the tricks I picked up in that club off Portland Place while you were having a nap.”

Crowley scowled. “If you attempt to dance a gavotte in my bed, angel, I am throwing you out of it.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “Oh, darling, do shut up.”

And then he made damn sure that Crowley did.

The traitors were still at the gray block of apartments in Mayfair when Mephistopheles and Samael were relieved. There was the usual volley of insults and supercilious sniffs as the new angel and new demon took their places. Mephistopheles didn’t bother to participate (Samael did enough participating for the both of them, and she was better at it), simply restrained himself to briefing Legion on what they ought to be looking for, and set off with Samael back toward Headquarters.

Well. Not with Samael. Samael had taken one look at him, sneered, and crossed to the other side of the street. Mephistopheles made sure that Legion and the angel (whose name he hadn’t caught) could see him rolling his eyes before following in her wake.

They’d gone ten blocks and made three turns before Mephistopheles dared to cross the street again. “Well?” he asked.

Samael looked over her shoulder. Ran a hand through her shaggy gunmetal-gray hair. “How well do you know this maze of a city?”

“Well enough—why?”

“You think you can get us back to the place where the traitors dropped the redhead off?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Great.” Samael sighed. “Because I’m hopelessly fucking lost.”

“You could just …” Mephistopheles pointed up.

“No way. We start flying, and that’ll attract attention. From Upstairs and Downstairs.”

“True …” Mephistopheles looked around, reconnoitering his surroundings, trying to map out the quickest way to get to the theater on the banks of the Thames. “Er. Would you mind going down?”

Samael raised an eyebrow.

“Taking the Underground. It’s a lot faster than walking.”

Samael let out a dry chuckle. “It’s fine. Lead the way.”

Mephistopheles did so, navigating them to the Bond Street station and puzzling out the routes until he found the one that would take them where they needed to go. He didn’t dare any demonic intervention to help things along. Samael seemed to understand, although the way she glared at the “No Smoking” signs made Mephistopheles sure she would have unleashed a very different sort of miracle on them, had the need for concealment been any less acute.

Finally they found their train, got on, were whisked through the streets, and got off again at the Southwark station. From there it was a brisk walk to the theater.

Mephistopheles felt a chill as he stood outside the wattle-and-daub building. He liked these kinds of theaters. The first time he’d seen himself played on the stage had been at a theater very like this – and very close by, too, strangely enough.

But that wasn’t what gave him the chill. “Do you … feel that?” he asked.

“Yep,” Samael replied, popping the final “p.” She shoved her hands in her pockets.

It was late. The theater was empty and quiet. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of humans had passed through this space since they had watched the traitors drive the redhead here and leave her. None of their auras had left more than a whisper of a feeling to mark their passing. Most humans could live in a space and not leave more than that. Some could – but it took personality on a level most humans just didn’t possess.

Creatures who weren’t human, though, were a different story. Which was almost certainly why Samael had brought them back here.

He was fairly certain that she hadn’t expected to find this, though. This wasn’t just beyond-human levels of personality. This was true Presence. Something had made this space just shy of sacred, and—

Mephistopheles hissed in a breath. “Shit!”

Samael glanced at him.

He recognized this Presence.

“Shit,” Mephistopheles repeated. “Shit, shit, shit!”

“You mentioned.” Samael rolled her shoulders, and her right hand twitched like it was reaching for a sword. “What’s wrong?”

“This,” Mephistopheles found himself dropping his voice, even though nobody was around to hear them. “This isn’t just anyone, all right? It’s—it’s one of the big ones. I know this—this person—he used to hang around here in, oh, it must have been the 1500s, 1600s, he was always lurking around the playhouses—”

“Who?” Samael demanded.

“He—” Mephistopheles hesitated. He did not want to say the name out loud. In a space like this, a near-sacred one, to say the name aloud might attract his attention, and the last thing he wanted was to attract the attention of one of them. “Can I see your phone?”

Samael didn’t hesitate to hand it over. Mephistopheles quickly found the notes app and typed in a name.

Samael’s eyebrows rose when she saw it. “Well.”

“If—if he’s involved with this …” Mephistopheles shuddered. “That means the rest of them are too.”

“Or it could be coincidence,” Samael mused.

Mephistopheles goggled at her.

“What? It’s a theater.” She jerked a thumb toward the wooden O. “That’s his wheelhouse, isn’t it?”

For a moment Mephistopheles almost felt relief. She wasn’t wrong. And of that lot, well, this one was always one of the most content to live and let live, so to speak. As long as his particular pets weren’t messed about with in a way that would cause their early demise—

Mephistopheles nearly choked and frantically shook his head. “No—no, he doesn’t—he’s not here that often! In London! He spends most of his time in Los Angeles!”

Samael narrowed her eyes. “How do you know?”

“His aura’s all over the city. We can barely get anyone to do temptations out there.”[4]

“Huh,” Samael remarked. She put the phone back into her pocket, her hands following it. She tilted her head back, eyes closed, seeming to sniff the air.

She didn’t seem worried – but then again, she had less cause to worry. She was an archangel. If it came down to a fight, Samael could hold her own long enough to call for backup or escape. Mephistopheles, on the other hand, was just a minor demon with a bit of fame among the humans.

“He wasn’t happy,” she remarked, opening her eyes. “When he was here.”

“He … wasn’t?” Mephistopheles extended his senses, and … yes, he could see what she meant. Sort of. He caught glimpses of the feeling, but whenever he tried to pin it down and understand it better, it wriggled out of his grasp.

“It’s a love-based feeling,” Samael said.

“Oh,” Mephistopheles murmured. That explained why he couldn’t get a close read on it.

“Hmm.” Samael said nothing more as she circled the theater, craning her neck, listening with every single one of her senses. Mephistopheles could only follow in her wake, wondering what she felt.

After they’d made a complete circuit of the theater twice, Samael stopped and huffed. “Well, fuck me sideways.”

“Hmm?”

“His aura is too potent.” Samael waved to the theater. “If the redhead even left a trace here, there’s no way I’ll be able to find it.”

“Bless it,” Mephistopheles muttered. “So the trail’s gone cold on her.”

“… Maybe.” Samael tapped one finger against her chin. “If him being here is a coincidence, then yes. But if it’s not …”

Mephistopheles felt his eyes widen. “Could you trace him?”

Samael’s only response to this was a smile. “Fancy another walk?”

Mephistopheles chuckled. “Of course. After you.”

And with that, an angel and a demon headed back onto the streets of London, following the trail of a god.

Hera had not lied when she told the angel Aziraphale that she did not sleep. But sleep was not the same as rest. Even in the old days, when she had spent most of her days on the Olympian plane and only come to the mortal world when necessary,[5] she had made certain to spend a few hours of each day on her couch, relaxed and comfortable.

Even now, after nearly two millennia spent almost exclusively in the mortal world, Hera saw no reason to break that habit. Sleeping couches had gone out of style, but her bed in their London townhouse was more than comfortable. It was the perfect place to while away the quietest hours of the night with only a book or a journal article for company.

Or it would be, except Zeus had thrown open one half of the double doors without so much as a knock. “Hera!”

Hera blinked. Zeus stood on the threshold, breathing through his nose like a bull, a tablet in one trembling hand. Clearly, this wasn’t a conjugal visit.

“Yes, dear?”

That was all the invitation Zeus needed to storm into the room, slamming the door behind him.

Hera pushed her reading glasses down her nose so she could glare over them.[6] “Whatever it is that has you upset, I’m sure there’s no need to take it out on the architecture.”

“This,” Zeus replied, “this is what I get from listening to you!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Look!” he said, thrusting the tablet into her lap.

Hera carefully put the article she was reading to the side and took the tablet. She frowned at the grainy image before her. “What am I looking at?”

“CCTV footage from in front of the angel’s bookshop,” Zeus said, and hit play.

That was not nearly as helpful as Zeus seemed to think it was. Everything looked normal to her. The street was crowded with people; the demon’s car was parked in front of the bookshop; pedestrians were crossing the street with little care for life or limb—

Oh.

One of them managed to teleport a vehicle around her. As if Hera hadn’t noticed the first time, the pedestrian did it again.

Hera squinted at the tablet, pushed her glasses up her head and squinted again. But it was no use. The image quality was too poor; Hera couldn’t make out any identifying features. And in no time, the pedestrian had disappeared into the bookshop.

She sighed and handed the tablet back to Zeus. “So some supernatural figure is visiting the angel. How is this my fault?”

Zeus scowled, took the tablet back and fiddled with it. Then he shoved it back at Hera. “Watch again.”

Ethereal filters. And what Zeus had wanted her to see was obvious, even before the first car teleported around the pedestrian for the second time.

After all, there was only one being in London – or, Hera suspected, the world – with gray wings.

“Huh,” Hera murmured.

“They found her!” Zeus exploded. “You gave them too much information, and they found her! And now they have what they want, and they owe us nothing!”

“Yes, that is unfortunate,” Hera murmured. She frowned at the tablet. Something … something Zeus had said didn’t sit quite right. Only she couldn’t quite—

“And now what?” Zeus continued ranting. “She was supposed to be our leverage! But if they’ve already found her, they don’t need us, and—”

“Wait,” Hera said, lifting one finger. “Please. I’m thinking.”

In past centuries, this would have only incensed Zeus. But they had come a long way. Now, though Zeus clenched his fists and took a deep breath, he let it out again slowly, and he said nothing further. Leaving Hera free to think in peace.

And she did. Furiously.

“Are we sure,” she asked finally, “that they found her?” She looked up. “It seems to me to be equally likely that she found them.”

Perhaps it was even more likely. All Hera had given the angel was a name and a photo. It would take quite a feat of sleuthing to use that to find Ariadne’s contact information – especially since Ariadne and Dionysus, thanks to their connection to mortal Hollywood and its celebrity culture, were even more careful about information security than most of the other gods were.[7] Whereas the angel, on the other hand …

Hera snapped her fingers, and after a few moments of inner scrambling, the tablet displayed one of the photos they had put into the PowerPoint – the one showing the angel, the demon, the car, and the bookshop. “Yes, I think it’s much more likely that she found them.” She turned the tablet around, one perfectly manicured nail resting on the screen right next to the painted letters reading A.Z. Fell & Co.

Zeus squinted, scowled, and cursed a blue streak that London’s meteorologists would have a very difficult time explaining come morning.

Hera shut off everything electronic in the room with a snap of her fingers and waited for Zeus to get that out of his system. When he seemed to be finished, she smiled at him. “Better?”

He sighed, and that was answer enough for Hera to snap her fingers again and turn the lights, tablet, etc. back on.

Zeus lowered himself to the bed and let his head flop against the pillow. “I gave direct orders.”

“I know,” Hera replied, patting his arm.

“And I never even expected her to disobey! Out of all of them …”

Hera made a nonspecific noise of assent. She would grant Dionysus this much: once he’d come into his godhead, in many ways he’d been the least troublesome of Zeus’s children. He’d been so uninterested in Olympian power struggles that he hadn’t even bothered to take a side in the Trojan War. And Ariadne had always followed where he led … or more accurately, hidden in his shadow.

But perhaps that lovely mortal metaphor, still waters run deep, held some truth to it after all.

“And,” Zeus went on, his voice niggling its way back into Hera’s consciousness, “because that damn girl had to stage her little rebellion now, we’ve lost our leverage—”

“Leverage?” Hera asked. “Wait. No. She was never leverage.”

Zeus opened his mouth—

“She was bait.”

Zeus’s eyes narrowed. Then they widened. He sat up on his elbows. “Hera …”

“And,” Hera tapped her finger against her chin a few times, thoughtful, “there’s no particular reason why she has to stop being bait.”

“What are you planning?” Zeus asked, voice threaded equally with caution and hope.

“It’s not so much planning as … not-planning. Realizing that not much needs to change about our plans. We might have lost this hand, but we haven’t lost the game yet.”

Hera set the tablet to the side. “In fact … if we’re very clever about this … we might even be able to get more out of the angel and demon than we thought we would in the first place.”

Zeus’s eyebrows arched. “Tell me more.”

Hera smirked. And then she complied.

[1] Like asking Crowley, as the Bentley climbed past ninety miles an hour, what the car had “under the hood” – which had confused Aziraphale to no end.

[2] While raising Warlock, he and Crowley had done some research on the talk after realizing that, if their plans proved successful, the boy would need to know the facts of life … and that his parents would absolutely botch the whole thing beyond repair. They’d thought they couldn’t possibly do worse than his parents. Sadly, they had not been wrong.

[3] If Aziraphale had been ready to be a little kinder to himself, he might have realized that statements like They’ll destroy you and I can’t have you risking your life and Don’t go unscrewing the cap were every bit as open as anything Crowley had said. But beings that find it easy to be kind to others can sometimes find it very hard to be kind to themselves, and Aziraphale was no exception.

[4] Not that it made much of a difference to Hell’s recruitment numbers. When so much greed, lust, wrath, etc. were naturally swirling around a place, actual demonic temptations were at best the icing on the cake.

[5] To figure out what Zeus had gotten up to.

[6] As an immortal being, Hera did not suffer from age-related farsightedness and thus had no technical need for reading glasses. However, they did come in useful for a number of things, such as expressing one’s displeasure to one’s spouse.

[7] And given Hermes’s endless nagging on the subject and Hephaestus’s technical know-how, that was saying something.

Chapter Text

“Leaving already?”

They were not morning people. As the God of Wine, Dionysus had long believed that mornings were best when they didn’t start until after noon. Ariadne usually agreed with him, except for when they had an early-morning shoot to oversee.

Yet today they had – as far as Dionysus was aware – nowhere in particular to go, nobody in particular to see, nothing in particular to do. But Ariadne was up, dressed, and twisting her hair into a messy bun.

It wasn’t even nine yet.

Ariadne flashed him a distracted grin. “Hey, I’ve got stuff to do. I’ll be back by dinner, don’t worry.”

Dionysus crossed his arms over his bare chest (why bother to get dressed when reasonable people weren’t even out of bed at this hour?) and reached for his truth-encouraging power. “Like what?”

Ariadne wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Oh—stuff. Probably some shopping. Might pop into a bookstore; is there anything you want?”

Dionysus sighed. “No.” He didn’t even have the energy to snark about being able to buy any book he wanted himself. And like a spoiled, petulant child (and knowing it, which was worse), he huffed and looked to the side.

He didn’t look again at Ariadne, although he could hear the faint whisper of cloth and the scrape of nails on bobby pins as she finished her hair. He leaned against the doorpost and took deep breaths.

“Hey.”

Dionysus wouldn’t have looked up, but Ariadne’s hand on his cheek, tilting his face in her direction, didn’t give him much choice.

Her brows were knit, lips pulled down in a faint frown. “Look, I know I’m not being much fun this trip, but … come on, Dionysus. You can make your own fun. Nobody better.”

He snorted. “It’s not about fun.” He put one hand on her waist, lightly stroking with his thumb. “I just wish you’d tell me what was bothering you.”

Ariadne’s eyes clouded; she looked away. “Like I said,” she squeezed past him, “I’ll be back by dinner. Have a good day!”

He followed a few steps behind like an obedient puppy, but it was no use. Ariadne grabbed her purse and didn’t look back. And though she closed the door to their suite softly, in Dionysus’s mind it slammed like a dungeon door.

Dionysus waited a couple minutes, just in case she came back.

She didn’t.

He stomped to the bedroom, threw himself on the bed, and shouted into the pillow.

He wasn’t sure how long he lay there, trying to think his way out of this morass. All he knew was that it wasn’t long enough. Because his phone started ringing.

Gods, NOW what? Dionysus groped for the phone and answered it without bothering to check the caller ID.[1] “What?”

“Dionysus! My favorite brother. My goodness, how wonderful it is to hear your voice!”

There was only one person who could do sarcasm that well. Also only one person who could called Dionysus his favorite brother and not be immediately known for a liar. Dionysus blinked. “Hermes?”

“The one and only.” Hermes sounded impossibly chipper for this hour, which … was Hermes all over. It wasn’t that Hermes was a morning person; it was that Hermes had yet to meet an hour of the day or night that he didn’t like. “You busy?”

Dionysus tried not to snort. “Not particularly. Why?”

“Great. We need to talk.”

A brisk rat-a-tat-tat sounded from the direction of the hallway … and from Dionysus’s phone.

Dionysus stared at the phone, uncomprehending, then glanced over his shoulder (not that he could see the door from here, but, still). He didn’t.

All the same, he padded out to the door, opened it …

And there was Hermes, phone in one hand, travel mug in the other. “Morning, kid!”

Dionysus’s jaw dropped. “Are you kidding me?”

“Not yet!” Without waiting for an invitation, Hermes bustled inside. “Here—this is for you,” he said, thrusting the travel mug in Dionysus’s general direction.

“What—what is it?”

“Coffee. You’ll need it.” Hermes poked his head into the bedroom before heading into the sitting room. “Ariadne around?”

“No.” Dionysus tried not to sound put out about it. Hermes meant well, most of the time, but Dionysus wasn’t in the mood to have all his secrets badgered out of him.

What he wasn’t expecting was for Hermes to sigh heavily. “Well. Shit.” He looked over his shoulder. “Did she tell you where she was going?”

“No.” Once again, Dionysus did his best not to sound put out.

He must have messed it up. Hermes’s eyes narrowed, and he looked Dionysus up and down twice. “Right. Let’s try that again, shall we?”

“What?”

“God of Tricksters, remember?” Hermes gestured to himself. “You think you’re going to convince me with that ‘no’?”

“Yes?” Dionysus answered. “I have no idea where she is.”

Hermes’s eyebrow slowly rose.

Dionysus closed his eyes and tilted his head back. If the god he trusted most hadn’t been standing right in front of him, he would have been praying for … something. Patience, maybe. “She didn’t tell me where she was going. Just that she’d be back by dinner.”

And Hermes … sighed?

“I was afraid of that,” he muttered and threw himself onto the couch. Then he looked at said couch, with its chintz fabric and overstuffed pillows and cushions. “Great Gaia, this thing is hideous.”

“Ariadne likes the Ritz,” Dionysus muttered, lowering himself onto the chair.

He was bracing himself for teasing, a click of the tongue like a whip-crack or a quip about turning into Uncle Hades in his old age. What he got was a scowl. “Of course she does.” Hermes nodded to the mug Dionysus was still holding. “You’d better drink that, kid. You’re gonna need it.”

Dionysus frowned, but he brought the mug to his lips and took a sip.

He nearly spat it across the room. “What the fuck is that?”

“Irish coffee!” Hermes grinned. Then the grin fell off his face. “What, you don’t like it?”

Dionysus stared at the mug. “This is not an Irish coffee.”

“Sure it is! Death Wish Coffee with a dollop of Jameson whiskey. What else do you need?”

Dionysus barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes. “That’s not what Irish coffee—wait, did you say death wish?”

“Best coffee in the fucking world, kid.”

“I’ll pass,” Dionysus said, putting the mug down with a thunk. “So what are you doing here, anyway?”

Once again, Dionysus expected teasing, mostly about his taste (or lack thereof) in coffee. He didn’t get any. Hermes frowned again, burrowing into the sofa cushions, and looked … uncomfortable?[2]

“I, uh,” Hermes pulled at his collar, which strictly speaking shouldn’t have been necessary, since he was wearing a loose t-shirt. “Well. I actually came to warn you. Er, you and Ariadne, but—”

“Warn us?” Dionysus stared at his brother, jaw hanging. “Warn us about what?”

Hermes took his phone out again, probably so he’d have something to fiddle with. “So. There’s no easy way to say this, but—you remember the angel and the demon who stopped the Abrahamic assholes from ending the world?”

“Rings a bell,” Dionysus answered, wondering what this had to do with anything.

“And you remember how Pater said none of us were to go contacting any of the, uh, dramatis personae in that little clusterfuck?”

Dionysus’s stomach began to sink. “Yeah …”

Hermes rubbed the back of his neck. “So—the angel has a bookshop in Soho. There’s a coffee shop across the way that has CCTVs. I hacked into the cameras, and Hephaestus was reviewing the footage last night, and—he saw Ariadne walking into the bookshop.”

“What?!”

For a minute, Dionysus allowed himself to imagine that maybe this was a coincidence. Ariadne liked to collect things; maybe she’d gone into the shop in Soho because it had something she wanted to buy—

“I take it she didn’t bother to tell you about her plans.”

“No, she didn’t—look, how do you even know it was Ariadne, anyway?” Dionysus asked, seeing a straw he could grasp at. “Security cameras aren’t exactly shooting in 4K—”

“Ethereal filters. Her wings are kinda a giveaway.”

Oh, fuck.

“And, uh,” Hermes squirmed, “I did mention that Hephaestus found this first, didn’t I?”

Yes, he had, but Dionysus had no idea why—

His stomach plunged into his feet.

He realized why.

“… No,” Dionysus breathed.

“He doesn’t mess around with Pater, you know,” Hermes went on, looking at everything in the room that wasn’t Dionysus’s face. “So. Um. He went to Pater pretty much as soon as he found this—”

“SHIT!” And Dionysus was on his feet, magicking his phone and his wallet into his hands, ready to run out the door and after Ariadne—

“Whoa!” Hermes was, as always, quicker on his feet. He had Dionysus’s elbow in a death grip that wasn’t likely to slacken soon. “And where do you think you’re going, cowboy?”

“After Ari! Before Father has a chance to get to her!”

“Without even getting dressed? Come on, the days when we could appear to mortals half-naked are long gone.” Hermes didn’t even wait for Dionysus to magic some clothes on himself; he made a complicated gesture and Dionysus found himself clothed. “And where are you going to find her, eh?”

Dionysus scowled. “I … don’t suppose you have the address of the angel’s bookshop?”

Hermes’s response was to grin and tap his phone. Dionysus’s phone buzzed.

Dionysus didn’t even have to look at the phone to know what Hermes had sent. “Thanks,” he muttered to his feet.

“No problem, kid. Now run off and rescue your girlfriend.”

Dionysus flashed his brother a quick grin and was off.

Not before he heard Hermes’s voice following him – and felt a travel mug somehow, improbably, lodge himself into a pocket that really shouldn’t have been big enough for it. “And drink the fucking coffee! You’re gonna need all the caffeine you can get!”

Once Samael and Mephistopheles had left the theater, tracing the god’s Presence had not been easy. The god had left little dots of Presence like a trail of breadcrumbs around the city, but like actual breadcrumbs, they were liable to be kicked, stepped on, and eaten by birds. More than once Samael had guessed in which direction the god had headed next, discovered she was wrong, and retraced their steps back to where the trail had been strongest and guessed again.

Dawn was just starting to slice through the streets when Samael and Mephistopheles ended up outside a large gray stone building. Samael was no expert on human architecture, but something about it – the tall mansard roof, the weathered copper lions, the endless carved stone details – looked out of place here. But familiar. As if she’d seen buildings like that before, just not here. Still, the architectural incongruousness of the building wasn’t why she stopped.

She stopped because the Presence was practically throbbing here.

A sidelong glance at Mephistopheles proved that he felt the same thing.

It wasn’t as strong as it had been at the theater. But it was strong enough that the auras of the thousands of humans in the vicinity weren’t enough to mask it. This god either wanted to be broadcasting his location to everyone in a three-block radius … or he just didn’t care that he was.

Samael just wished she knew enough about him to determine which it was.

“So …” Mephistopheles began.

Samael raised an eyebrow at him.

“Now what?”

Samael leaned against a lamppost. “Up to you, I suppose. Personally, I’d like to hang around for a bit. See where he goes next.”

“Then we can stay,” Mephistopheles said, leaning on the other side of the lamppost.

“You sure?” Samael frowned at him. She didn’t mention it often – not much point – but she knew damn well the gulf of rank that lay between them. The only people who had any standing to question Samael’s decisions were other archangels or the Almighty Herself (which in practice, these days, meant the Metatron). The other archangels Samael could usually put off with a roll of the eyes or prickly comments, and the Metatron barely gave her the time of day. Mephistopheles, on the other hand …

Mephistopheles was, at best, the type of demon who reported to three different managers all with very different strategies and a constant need to have someone to blame when (not if) things went wrong. And if Hell were anything like Heaven,[3] then he could expect management to be looking over his shoulder even more than they had been previously. Nobody wanted to find out the hard way that traitorous thoughts were contagious.

And since spending time on Earth was what had led Crowley and Aziraphale down the primrose path of dalliance in the first place … Samael could only assume that Mephistopheles’s time topside would be even more severely curtailed than usual.

“Relax,” Mephistopheles said, smirking as if he could read her mind. “If anyone questions me, I’ll just say I was keeping an eye on you.” He held out a thumb to her, already lit. “Light?”

Samael chuckled, took out a cigarette, and settled in to wait.

They didn’t see anything of note for almost four hours. The building across the street grew a bit livelier, but that told Samael nothing. She read the names that flashed on the lighted boards over the doors – Ritz Hotel, Ritz Restaurant, Ritz Club – but they also told her nothing.

In the time they watched, no fewer than three red-haired women left the building. They were all too far away for Samael to be sure if any of them was the redhead, whose face she hadn’t seen clearly to begin with. And most disappointingly, none of them used any magic.

Closing in on the fourth hour, Samael thought she felt something – a frisson, a flicker of another Presence – but it was gone too quickly for her to be sure that was what she had felt. A sidelong glance at Mephistopheles showed that he had felt it, too.

Samael stood up straight, unconsciously shifting into a battle-ready posture. Mephistopheles gulped and echoed her movements.

Not ten minutes after she’d felt the flicker, the Presence they’d been tracking started to move.

“Get ready,” Samael said, taking the cigarette from her mouth and grinding it under her heel before snapping it out of existence.

She didn’t say what for, and Mephistopheles didn’t ask.

Wait for it … wait for it … there!

Samael felt the minute the Presence was no longer shielded by the building, and it wasn’t hard to connect the moving Presence with the dark-haired young-looking man who ran out one of the large doors. He was waving a hand frantically – what for Samael couldn’t tell – perhaps some kind of magic? She didn’t feel anything, but she did see a black automobile not unlike the one driven by the demon Crowley slow to a stop long enough for the young man to dive into the backseat of it.

“Oh, no,” Mephistopheles groaned.

“Well, hopefully this one is a calmer driver than that Crowley,” Samael muttered, before snapping her fingers and blowing out the tires on a passing automobile.

The chase was on.

Crowley leaned against the bookshop counter, facing the door, and scowled.

He was aware that he should not be scowling. By virtually any definition, yesterday had been one of the best days of his life. First, they’d gotten back from the Underworld in one piece. Then Ariadne had waltzed into the bookshop and while, no, their reunion had been nothing like what certain treacly made-for-TV movies claimed it ought to have been,[4] they had her back and that was what was important. And then, at his flat, Aziraphale had actually come out and said that he loved him (and not in an angelic way, either), and they had passed a thoroughly agreeable night. Which Crowley was hoping to repeat at the first opportunity.

And then – and then – this morning, at an hour that could only barely be called decent, Crowley had been awakened by a text. From Ariadne. Asking if it would be too much trouble if she came by the bookshop, because she still had questions.

No, Crowley was not scowling because things were going badly. He was scowling because they were going entirely too well, and if that wasn’t a harbinger of disaster, nothing was.

“Crowley, dear,” that was Aziraphale, coming up behind him, “if you don’t move soon, I’m afraid I might mistake you for part of the furniture and dust you.”

Crowley took the hint and moved. Then he narrowed his eyes as Aziraphale carefully moved the feather duster along the counter. “Why are you dusting in here, anyway?”

“Er, well,” Aziraphale cleared his throat and didn’t meet Crowley’s eyes, “Ariadne is coming, and you did mention, last night, that this place was a—I believe the words you used were ‘deathtrap for anyone under six’—”

“Six years, not six feet!”

“Yes, well …” Aziraphale paused in his dusting long enough to adjust the cuffs of his jacket and straighten his bow tie. “I would like things to look nice.”

“Oh.” Crowley realized he had no answer to that and so, wisely, chose to stay silent.

Or so he thought. Apparently that was so out of character for him that it pinged some concern on Aziraphale’s part. “Everything all right, my dear?” Aziraphale asked, putting a hand lightly on his upper arm.

And rubbing it. With his thumb. Even through the stiff fabric of the jacket, Crowley could still feel the faint trail of warmth.

Crowley swallowed hard, and his corporation’s heart – always a pain in the arse, really – decided that now would be a grand time to skip a beat—

And before he could follow that train of thought to a station that might be rather nice, the shop-bell rang and in walked Ariadne.

The first thing Crowley noticed was that she was wearing oversized sunglasses, which, if that wasn’t a sucker-punch to the gut, very little would be. The second thing he noticed was the way her smile seemed to shake. The third thing he noticed was the brown paper bag in one of her hands.

“… Hi,” she said. She held the bag up. “I come bearing gifts?”

She looked just like Aziraphale as she said it – the unnaturally still posture, that flickering smile, the eager-to-please fairly dripping off her—

She’s nervous. So nervous. Why is she nervous?

“Oh, how thoughtful of you, my dear!” That was Aziraphale, thankfully bustling forward with a smile and giving Crowley a couple of seconds to remember how to act like a person. “But you didn’t have to bring anything.”

“Nah, it was no trouble – I was in the coffee shop already,” she gestured to the shop-window and presumably the coffee shop across the street with her other hand, which held a plastic cup filled with an iced drink, “so, you know, I figured, I might as well pick up some food. Um, I hope you like scones?”

Crowley couldn’t help what came next. It was a demonic compulsion. He’d swear it with Go—Sa—Somebody as his witness. “It’s pronounced scone, by the way. Rhymes with ‘gone.’ Not ‘cone.’”

Aziraphale, who was already halfway into unpacking the bag, stopped. And glared.

Crowley grinned.

“Ignore him, dear,” Aziraphale said, turning back to Ariadne. “He knows not of what he speaks.”

“As if you wouldn’t have corrected her if she’d said it the other way,” Crowley replied, leaning against the counter and finally feeling some of the tension he’d been carrying around begin to unwind.

“I would not have,” Aziraphale replied, still unpacking scones (however one chose to pronounce them). “Unlike you, I have manners.”

Somewhere in all this, Ariadne had pushed the sunglasses to the top of her head, so Crowley was able to see the way her gaze flicked between him and Aziraphale. A smile teased at the corner of her lips. But all she said was, “Nice thing about having an American accent on this side of the pond – nobody expects you to pronounce anything correctly.”

“American … accent?” asked Aziraphale, beating Crowley to it.

“Oh come on,” Ariadne laughed, “you have to have heard it. I’m pretty proud of it. Around here, it gets me everything from the side-eye to the, ‘Oh, you sound just like those Americans on telly!’”

Crowley blinked. He had to hand it to her; the English accent she slid into for that last bit was pretty good. But it was also old. Even Aziraphale hadn’t spoken quite like that for at least fifty years – which meant that the rest of England had abandoned that intonation a century beforehand.

Interesting.

“So, you don’t think of yourself as American?” Aziraphale asked.

Ariadne tilted her head slightly to the side. “Do you guys think of yourselves as British?”

“English,” Crowley corrected, “there’s a difference.”

Ariadne’s only response was to raise her eyebrows and take a far-too-innocent looking sip of her drink.

“We did arrive not long after the Angles, didn’t we?” Aziraphale asked, glancing at Crowley. “I mean, we were both fomenting around Wessex in – oh, goodness, what year was it?”

“Five hundred and …” Crowley tried to remember, gave up, and shrugged. “Something-or-other.”

Ariadne blinked. “And you’ve been here ever since?”

“Oh, no! Well, not really. We’ve both had to move around quite a bit – blessings and temptations, you know, orders from our Head Offices to go here, there, and everywhere.”

Crowley could see, quite clearly, that Ariadne didn’t know. “He means Heaven,” he pointed to Aziraphale, “and Hell,” he pointed at himself.

“Oh,” Ariadne murmured.

“But England’s been, well, home for a while,” Aziraphale went on. “I’ve owned this shop for, goodness, it must be over two hundred years now.”

He made the mistake of saying that while Ariadne was sipping from her drink – or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Ariadne made the mistake of drinking while he was talking. There was a gasp, a gurgle, and a great deal of coughing.

“Oh—oh, my!” Aziraphale put a hand on her shoulder, clearly seconds from whacking her on the back. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, still coughing. “Yeah—yeah, fine.”

Crowley limited himself to a wince in sympathy. Even when one didn’t need to breathe, fluid in the lungs was never a pleasant feeling.

“Two—two hundred years?” she asked. “You’ve both lived here for two hundred years?”

“Er …” Aziraphale glanced sidelong at Crowley. “Well, I’ve had the shop for two hundred years … I’ve been in London since … how long has it been?”

“Since the printing press washed up in England, at least,” Crowley replied. “Fourteen something-or-other. Not counting, er, business trips elsewhere.”

“Wow,” Ariadne murmured. She glanced down, absently jiggling her drink. “We’ve been in LA for a century – I thought that was long.”

Crowley just barely raised an eyebrow. We? He caught Aziraphale’s eye.

Aziraphale had heard the same thing he did; that was obvious. But when he felt Crowley’s gaze on him, he slowly, subtly shook his head.

Yeah, best not to scare her off. And perhaps it was only fair that she got to ask her questions first.

“Anyway!” Aziraphale said, and Crowley recognized that tone – the too-brightness, the cheerfulness tossed over his real feelings like a dust cover over furniture. “Shall we have a seat, my dear? After all, you said you had questions – and we really ought to enjoy this food you were kind enough to bring along.”

Aziraphale’s hand moved from her shoulder to the small of her back, guiding her gently but inexorably forward. Crowley saw her startle at the touch and hoped she wasn’t taking it too – badly? Personally? Aziraphale was like that with everyone; if he had the slightest hint of positive feelings toward someone, they’d soon be “touched by an angel” in almost every sense of the word.[5]

But whatever Ariadne might have been feeling, she went along with Aziraphale easily enough. Crowley grabbed the bag of scones (and other assorted baked goods; he checked) and sauntered after them.

After they were seated, baked goods distributed more-or-less equitably among the three of them, it didn’t escape Crowley that Ariadne found her way back to the wingback chair she’d sat in the day before, leaving him and Aziraphale to share the sofa. Which he didn’t mind, not in the slightest, but it was an interesting choice.

It was also interesting that Ariadne, for all that she’d asked to come over, seemed to have a hard time asking the questions that all three of them knew she had. She kept passing her drink (which, Crowley noticed, had condensation all over it but didn’t let a drip of water drop) from hand to hand, taking nervous sips, listening to Aziraphale chat enough for the three of them, but not actually coming out and saying anything.

At least until she took a deep breath, dug into her purse, and pulled out her phone. “Ok, so. I, um. Had questions.” She waved her phone. “I wrote them down – so to speak – I hope that isn’t too weird?”

“Not at all, not at all,” Aziraphale said, and it was a blessed good thing that reassurance was second nature to him, because Crowley certainly wouldn’t have had it in him.

“Great. Awesome. Um.” Ariadne had tapped a few times on the screen, and now she was clearly scrolling through something. “There are … quite a few here.”

“So begin at the beginning,” Crowley said, even though it was a stupid thing to say, because somebody had to say something.

Ariadne looked up, eyes wide and lips slightly parted – like he’d touched a chord there. He heard her gulp.

“What—what was the beginning?” she asked. “For me, anyway. I mean, how did you two,” she gestured to them, “make …?” She gestured to herself.

Aziraphale took a deep breath—

“I mean, I don’t need all the gory details,” she stumbled on. “Just—just the gist. If that’s ok.”

“No, no, that’s quite all right, my dear,” Aziraphale replied. “And, well, er …” Aziraphale took a deep breath, and Crowley held his. “How … familiar are you with the story of Abraham and Isaac and the ram?”

Well. At least the angel wasn’t going all the way back to Eden.

But going back that far was enough to take up some time, especially since Aziraphale felt the need to explain, not quite everything, but … quite a bit. And Crowley let him, barring the occasional interruption for clarity’s sake or to cut a tangent short. Because Aziraphale, the angel who had been collecting scrolls and tablets ever since humans had first learned how to pick up a sharp something and etch their thoughts into the world around them, was better at this than he was. While Aziraphale had been collecting stories, Crowley had been asking questions and making arguments.

Ariadne, however, didn’t seem to mind. Not how long it took or how many tangents Aziraphale went off on. Her eyes were round, wide as saucers; her phone was at some point dropped into her purse and the drink deposited on a table without so much as a second look.

At least until Aziraphale got to the end, bringing her to Crete and walking away. “And …” Aziraphale had to take a deep breath, and something about the way it caught told Crowley that if it weren’t for however-many-centuries of English stiff upper lip bearing him up, the angel would be sobbing by now.

Crowley couldn’t be having with that. He edged over so his knee was touching Aziraphale’s and took Aziraphale’s hand in his. Aziraphale clung to it and took another deep breath.

“My dear,” he said, “forgive me for asking this, but were you—that is, did we—did I do right by you? That is, were you happy?”

For the first time since Aziraphale had started talking, Ariadne didn’t look rapt. Instead, she visibly started, blinked, and tilted her head to one side. “I—I—maybe? Kind of? I mean – I always had a roof over my head, always had enough to eat, got a fairly decent education given the time and place, and my—my family was … well, look, it could have been worse, is all I’m saying.”

She looked away, picked at a loose thread on her skirt. “Could have been a lot worse,” she muttered at the sort of volume that wasn’t meant to be heard.

That … was not a ringing endorsement of her upbringing. And to judge by the way Aziraphale’s pressure on his hand increased tenfold, it was probably not what Aziraphale had wanted to hear.

Crowley took a deep breath, pondering how best to tempt a little more information out of her—

Not that it did him any good. Because the door to the shop slammed open – the bell didn’t stand a chance – and a panic-fueled Presence barreled into Crowley’s other senses with a force that was nearly physical and nearly enough to knock him arse over elbow—

And following the Presence, a voice, crying out a name:

“ARIADNE!”

Mephistopheles nearly groaned when the black car they were tailing pulled up in front of the bookshop. Of course it did. Where else could it possibly have been going?

“Stop The Car, Now,” Samael ordered the driver of their vehicle.

Even as the brakes squealed and the vehicle rocked to a halt and Mephistopheles miracled away three potential crashes, he grabbed Samael’s wrist. “Wait!”

Samael raised an eyebrow at him.

“Are we sure we want to get out here? I mean … this place is still being watched by our sides, right?”

Samael’s nostrils flared; her eyes narrowed. Then she sighed. “Then we haven’t got a choice. Upstairs and Downstairs will know about,” she jerked her head toward the bookshop, “that in about five minutes. We need to talk to the agents on the ground if we want to keep any control over the situation.”

“And tell them what?”

Samael scowled. “The truth, for starters, or at least the parts of it that we can afford to let slip. And after that …” She shrugged. “We’ll see.”

With that, she ducked out of the vehicle, and Mephistopheles had little choice but to snap away oncoming traffic and follow her.

They didn’t have to look hard to find the angel and demon tailing the traitors – Mephistopheles had barely gotten out of the car when he heard a high, fluting voice call, “Archangel Samael! Ma’am! Over here!”

He scanned the busy street—and there she was. A be-suited angel, jumping up and down and waving.

About ten feet away, in the next darkened doorway down, lurked Legion – ratty scarf, fingerless gloves, strange eye-makeup and all. Or at least one of Legion. Maybe even the main one. They[6] grinned when they saw Mephistopheles. “Ah, Mephistopheles!”

“Legion,” Mephistopheles replied, hurrying across the street and trying not to look worried. Even though he was. Legion had relieved Mephistopheles, but the angel Samael was talking to hadn’t relieved her. What was going on?

“Can you believe,” Legion said, beckoning Mephistopheles into their corner, “that Heaven sent a bloody intern to keep an eye on the traitors?”

“They what?!” yelped Samael, who seemed to be finding this out from said intern. Mephistopheles spared a glance at the intern to find her cowering, and he felt a flicker of pity.

“Satan’s hairy balls,” Mephistopheles muttered, which made Legion chuckle. “What’d they think the intern would do if she had to tail the demon Crowley by herself?”

“Blessed if we know,” Legion said, twisting their body to lean against the doorpost (and tilting their head so their hair-horns weren’t bent out of shape). “Speaking of blessed things – what are you doing, riding around with an archangel?”

Mephistopheles tried not to make it obvious that his blood ran cold at the question. “Keeping an eye on her, obviously. We encountered something … interesting when we were tailing the traitors, and she wanted to see if she could find out more about it.”

Legion stood up straight. “Wait. You don’t mean that—that god that just ran into the bookshop?”

Was there any point denying it? Actually, yes, there was. He wouldn’t be believed, but there was still a point in playing the game. So Mephistopheles raised one perfectly groomed eyebrow. “What god?”

“Whoa,” Legion murmured, which was about what Mephistopheles had expected. “Do you know who he was? He felt familiar, but—”

“Oi! Demons!” That was Samael. “Get over here a minute, will you?”

“Says fucking who?” Legion challenged.

“The Archangel fucking Samael,” Samael replied (the intern blanching at the language), “who’s got the Archangel fucking Michael on speed dial, who has the Duke fucking Hastur on speed dial. Now come here!”

Legion’s eyebrow arched, and they remarked to Mephistopheles – loud enough to be heard – “Never knew a duke who would fuck Hastur.” But Legion strolled forward. Considering how often Hastur incinerated, dismembered, fed to hellhounds, and otherwise disposed of Legion’s personae, Mephistopheles wasn’t surprised that the threat worked.

“Yeah?” Legion asked, throwing their hands into their pockets and leering at Samael. Mephistopheles found himself praying to Satan that Samael wouldn’t notice.

“She says,” Samael nodded at the intern, “that a blond—”

“R-r-r-redhead, ma’am,” the intern squeaked.

“Whatever. Young woman, red hair, went into the shop about …” Samael raised an eyebrow at the intern.

“Half an hour ago, ma’am. Not long after I arrived.”

Samael didn’t do anything as obvious as look at Mephistopheles, but he caught her drift anyway. He shoved every reaction that threatened to bubble up back down.

“Right.” Samael turned back to Legion. “Did anyone else go into the shop before she got here?”

Legion shrugged. “How should we know? It’s a shop. Humans are supposed to be going in and out. We’re just looking out for the angel.”

Samael narrowed her eyes at Legion. Then she smirked. “I’ll take that as a no, then.”

“We didn’t say—”

“Or that you’re too stupid to have noticed if they did.” Samael put one hand on her hip and looked Legion over twice. Her amused smile said exactly what she thought of the demon. “Which is it?”

Now Legion scowled. “It’s a no.”

“Good. Right. Well, I don’t know how thoroughly you were briefed – but since the only reason we’re doing this is because those two,” she nodded at the bookstore, “went off-plane, clearly to parlay with somebody, and now they’ve got a bona fide god in their shop …” Samael pulled her cel-phone from her pocket. “We need to alert Headquarters.”

What? NO! That was the last thing they wanted! If Headquarters got involved—

Samael caught his eye for a fraction of a second, and Mephistopheles understood. He opened his mouth—

And never got a chance to say anything. “Oh, you’re going to call in a bunch of archangels and take all the bloomin’ credit? Not bloody likely,” Legion scoffed.

“And do you have a better idea?” Samael asked.

“Why not do it ourselves?”

The intern gasped. Mephistopheles felt his eyes go wide of their own volition.

But Samael?

She looked Legion up and down. And she laughed.

“Right. Right. Like you’d stand a chance against a literal god. Do you even know who’s in there?”

“Do you?” Legion tossed back.

As an answer, Samael smirked, tapped on her cel-phone, and turned it around. Mephistopheles saw the note he’d written in there with the god’s name.

The intern squealed. Mephistopheles didn’t bother to hold back the shudder. But Legion …

Legion tilted their head a little to one side. “Huh. Well, we can still use some firmament to blow a hole in him, can’t we?”

Mephistopheles’s brain stuttered on that, even as Samael’s face when sent slack and she demanded, “What.”

“’Cause we brought this,” Legion said, lifting up their jacket and pulling out what looked like a handgun.

It wasn’t a handgun. Maybe humans would be fooled by the appearance, but no ethereal or occult being would be. What Legion was holding was firmament – the boundary, the energy that separated the physical plane from the ethereal plane – that had been twisted into a weapon. Firmament had been the material both sides had used to make weapons in the war, the first war, the big one, the one before time began, before Heaven was Heaven and Hell was Hell. And they’d used it to make just about every kind of weapon that would eventually be known to man. Weapons that humans would eventually call shields and swords and staves and things like that, but which the infernal and celestial armies had called Sloth (or Fortitude, according to the other side) and Wrath (or Justice) and Pride (or Faith), respectively.

Both sides had largely stopped using firmament-weapons once Holy Water and Hellfire came on the scene. But they still kept the old weapons around. And made upgrades. Just in case.

“Archangel S-Samael,” the intern stammered, “why is a d-demon carrying Hope?”

Legion glared. “This isn’t Hope; it’s Envy.”

“Small,” the intern said, gesturing to the not-handgun. “P-portable. Evens the odds when your opponent is b-bigger and s-stronger and b-better than you. Hope.”

“Small. Portable. A consolation prize for all those times when your enemy is bigger and stronger and better than you. Envy,” Legion fired back.[7]

Samael threw her head back and groaned. “Semantics! It doesn’t matter!”

“So you want one, then?” Legion asked.

Samael blinked. “What?”

“Small. Portable. Will probably take a chunk out of a god. Will definitely blow a few holes through the demon that swam in Holy Water and the angel that walked through Hellfire. We could end this now,” Legion said, grinning.

Mephistopheles’s jaw fell. Even with firmament, which probably would do some damage to the traitors (probably), there was no way two minor demons and an intern angel could take out a god, even with an archangel on their side. This was an unmitigated disaster waiting to happen—

—Which was exactly what they wanted.

Mephistopheles glanced sidelong at Samael to see her coming to that same realization.

“We could indeed end this now,” Samael said.

Legion grinned. And split. Now there were four Legions, three holding out their handguns to Samael, Mephistopheles, and the intern.

“Then let’s do this,” Legion said in quadruplicate.

[1] If this was some godsdamn telemarketer or scam, Dionysus was going to curse them with horrific hangovers for the next year.

[2] It couldn’t be the sofa. Whatever one might think about how Ritz sofas looked, they were very good at their primary job, i.e., providing a comfortable place to sit.

[3] Spoiler: It was.

[4] Crowley had not invented the made-for-TV movie, but he had insinuated to Hell that Aziraphale had, and he had thoroughly enjoyed the angel’s puzzlement when the latter got a letter from Gabriel praising him for his excellent work and most becoming modesty.

[5] “Almost” being the operative word here.

[6] Given that Legion was, well, legion, they were always quite insistent on using plural pronouns. Gender was negotiable; number was not.

[7] Not literally.

Chapter Text

Ariadne and the young man[1] had been arguing for quite five minutes. This did not bother Aziraphale too much. What did bother him was the fact that they were doing it in what sounded like a flavor of Greek that had gone out of fashion centuries ago. Possibly millennia ago. And they were doing it very quickly, sentences spit out in staccato bursts more like machine gun fire than rational conversation. As a result, Aziraphale was lucky if he understood one word in ten.

Their body language was not terribly instructive, either. The quick hand motions, Ariadne’s set shoulders, the young man’s pacing like a caged cat – they all spoke to anger, stubbornness, worry. But not what each was angry, stubborn, or worried about.

And Aziraphale had a terrible, terrible premonition that he and Crowley might be at the heart of it.

He glanced up at Crowley, who was watching the arguing couple with scrunched eyebrows and a lean that looked nonchalant without managing to fool Aziraphale for a second. Crowley had always been better at spoken languages. “Can you understand what they’re saying?”

“Mmmph,” said Crowley with a shrug. “Trying to. But they’re speaking a weird dialect. Olympian, I think.”

“When you say Olympian …”

“I don’t mean what the humans near a certain pile of rocks in Thessaly were speaking.”

Oh … dear. Aziraphale took a deep breath, especially as the argument reached a crescendo. “You might wish to step back a few feet, dear. Get upwind of this. So to speak.”

Crowley’s eyebrow arched; then he understood and took a full two steps back. And shuffled directly behind Aziraphale for good measure.

Aziraphale took another breath, closed his eyes, and stretched his neck muscles. He reached deep inside himself for the Love that made him who he was. And then he let it out.

What it should have done was produce a feeling of calm and repose in the bookshop. There were few beings who could withstand an overwhelming outpouring of Peace on Earth and Goodwill Toward Men[2] without calming down at least a little.[3]

Unfortunately, it seemed the young man was one of them.

“What in Tartarus’s name was that?” he shouted, thankfully in English, whirling to face Aziraphale.

Aziraphale had no chance to reply. First, because he felt Crowley’s hand on his arm and knew that the odds of Crowley doing or saying something slightly foolish were distressingly high. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, because Ariadne planted herself like a tree between Aziraphale and the young man, hands on hips, craning her neck to look at him. “Don’t. You. Dare.”

“Ari—”

“No! You want to shout at me for not listening to your pain-in-the-ass father, then shout at me! Leave them out of it!”

For a minute there was stalemate, young man staring at Ariadne and Ariadne glaring back at him. The young man was the first to blink, physically and metaphorically, his entire posture seeming to deflate.

“But why?” he asked, and even his Presence banked down, becoming something less than an all-out assault on the senses that went beyond the human five.

With that release of pressure, Aziraphale felt other presences. Familiar-seeming presences. And if he could sense them here in the protective cocoon of the shop and with the great press of humanity outside the shop—

Crowley made a strangled sort of noise. “We need to go,” he said. “We need to go now.”

“What?” asked the young man.

“No time to explain,” Aziraphale said, closing the distance between himself and Ariadne, ready to grab her and run for the door if he had to. (Crowley would follow.) “Please, just—”

“Leaving so soon?”

Aziraphale’s breath hitched in his throat. He knew that voice—

Slowly, he turned around and saw who was emerging from the back room of the shop (how?).

Samael.

He hadn’t seen her in centuries, but she wasn’t hard to recognize. Same gunmetal gray hair, cropped short; same stormy eyes and olive-toned skin. Same just-this-side-of-furious expression. The only change was that she’d ditched the robes for the light-colored modern business wear preferred by most angels.

Next to her was another angel. Aziraphale didn’t recognize her, but since she wore the scared-stiff expression endemic to interns in over their heads everywhere, he supposed he didn’t really need to.

“Samael,” Aziraphale heard himself say. “What a—surprise.”

“But is it really?” came a voice from behind him, and Aziraphale whirled to face the door once again.

Two other figures blocked the exit. Both demons. Both familiar-looking in a way that Aziraphale couldn’t place. Well, not so much for the one on the right. He had the face that Anglophone culture had ascribed to demons in general for at least four hundred years, all sharp, saturnine angles and slicked-back black hair. The other – Aziraphale knew he ought to know him, felt familiarity ringing a bell, but he couldn’t quite remember—

Then Crowley growled, “Legion,” stepping around Aziraphale to get closer to the demons, and Aziraphale remembered. Legion was the demon who had brought the Hellfire to “his” would-be execution in Heaven; Crowley had described him well but Aziraphale had never seen him—

“Hullo, Crowley.” Legion smiled, and on anyone else it might have even been a pleasant one. “Making new friends, we see? Not enough to be sleeping with enemy, you have to go dragging the neighbors into it?”

“Did you really think we wouldn’t find out?” Samael added. “First, you go off-plane, now you’ve invited the God of Wine to tea—”

God of WINE? Aziraphale thought, and something that he should have remembered much earlier began to jump up and down and demand his attention.

The so-named god was watching Samael with what Aziraphale could only interpret as contempt. “Look, whoever you are and whatever you think is happening here – I hate to break it to you, but you’re wrong. And we,” he put a hand on Ariadne’s shoulder, “are leaving.”

Ariadne glanced sharply at the god.

“Oh, we don’t think so,” Legion said, and pulled something that looked like a handgun out of his pocket.

It was not a handgun.

“And that’sss enough—” Crowley said, or started to say.

“No, it isn’t.” Samael again—and when Aziraphale’s gaze whipped to her, she was holding a not-handgun too. So was the intern. “What you’re going to do,” Samael continued, “is keep your hands where we can see them, not make any sudden movements, and—”

The shop floor rumbled.

And the god spoke.

“No.”

Aziraphale blinked, because the god was changing. His plain green t-shirt became longer, more like a tunic, a subtle and then not-so-subtle pattern of leopard spots emerging. Vines leaves appeared in his hair, a bunch of grapes behind one ear. And his eyes, which Aziraphale would have sworn were brown mere moments ago, shifted to a rich burgundy.

The shop floor rumbled again, and a few enterprising green shoots slithered up through the cracks between the floorboards.

“This is not a battle you can win,” said the god. “But if you put those things down now, I might let you survive it. We. Are. Leaving.”

That was when several things happened at once, or in such quick succession that they might as well have happened at once, except that time seemed to slow down so they could all have their turns.

The first was a series of pops as Legion after Legion sprang up between shelves and lounging by tables, each with an identical gleam in his eye and each holding an identical not-handgun.

The second was the intern shouting, “I don’t think so!” raising her not-gun and firing.

The third was Aziraphale realizing that the intern had no aim whatsoever and that the trajectory of the not-bullet wouldn’t bring it close to the god.

The fourth was Aziraphale realizing where the not-bullet was heading.

The fifth was Crowley – faster and closer – shouting, “No!” as he realized the same thing, lunging at Ariadne and tackling her to the ground.

The sixth was Crowley yelling as the not-bullet didn’t hit Ariadne.

And the seventh was all holy hell breaking loose.

If Ariadne had been mortal, her head would have hit the floor with enough force to make her see stars. As it was, she had bigger things to worry about.

Like Crowley, half sprawled on top of her, with a hole in his shoulder leaking blood.

And the forest of grapevines bursting from the shop floor and surrounding them.

And Aziraphale’s anguished, “Crowley!” as he dove to the floor and the demon.

And the endless bang-bang-bang of many, many cartridges emptying at once.

But her biggest problem by far was the vines that crept under her arms and around her chest, lifting her up, dragging her back—

“Damn it, Dionysus! No!” If she wasn’t still half-under Crowley, she would have started kicking. But the yelling did the trick; the vines loosened, and Ariadne wiggled out.

There were snapping, whipping sounds all around her, shouts that didn’t belong to Dionysus and clearly weren’t coming from Aziraphale or Crowley. Good, the grapevines were doing their thing. Ariadne crawled closer to Aziraphale and Crowley.

She’d thought they weren’t shouting. That wasn’t true. Or rather it changed. Aziraphale had his hand hovering over Crowley’s shoulder; the hand was glowing; and then Crowley howled—

“Fuck!” Aziraphale shouted, and the single syllable spoke volumes.

And then he acted. He dragged Crowley into a sitting position, leaning against the shop counter, wrestled himself out of his jacket, and wrapped it as well as he could around the wound.

“That’sss—” Crowley started – and then yelled again as Aziraphale pressed down on the wound.

“Sorry, dear boy, but we have to—” He was cut off by a whizzing sound and a thunk as a bullet buried itself in the wood of the counter, inches from Aziraphale’s head.

Oh. Fuck. “Dionysus!” Ariadne shouted.

“Stay down!” There—there he was, not far from where he’d been. Still on his feet, directing the vines like a conductor directing an orchestra. “There’s too fucking many of them!”

Many of who? There were only—

“Well, hello, pretty one.”

Ariadne looked up. The creepy goth one – Legion? Was that what Crowley had called him? – was standing over her.

And pointing the gun at her chest.

And leering.

“Won’t you like to come with us?” he crooned. “Not that you’ll have much of a choice. But if you’re very good and come quietly, we might not shoot you.”

That was when Ariadne got angry.

It was no garden-variety frustration or frothing rage. Instead it was white-hot, incandescent. This anger sang, stood its ground and stared injustice in the face and snarled, Not. Today.

Because she hadn’t come this far, searched for so many centuries, finally found the species and the people she’d been looking for, only to have some Xerox goblin point a gun at her and tell her to come quietly.

The air around her crackled with an energy that wasn’t electricity – something older, deeper, more powerful. Her skin began to glow.

From the corner of her eye, Ariadne saw Crowley’s jaw fall – and in the same moment, Aziraphale threw himself over Crowley, his wings springing from his back and completely shielding Crowley from view.

Meanwhile, Legion was staring at her, face slack, gun held loosely—

“FUCK OFF!” Ariadne shouted, and let the anger loose.

A jet of white light shot out from her, hit Legion square in the chest—and Legion wasn’t there anymore.

And for a minute, there was silence.

But only for a minute. It was broken by Crowley trying to push Aziraphale off him. “Come on! We need to go!” And he tried to get up, but his legs didn’t seem to be working—

Aziraphale slung Crowley’s good arm over his shoulder and hauled them both to their feet. Crowley sagged as he tried to get his legs underneath him.

Then someone grabbed Ariadne by the shoulders—Ariadne screamed—

“Ari, calm down! It’s me!”

And from another corner of the room, Ariadne heard Legion shouting, “Hey! She smote us!”

They needed to go.

Ariadne stumbled to her feet, checked to make sure Aziraphale and Crowley were following, and ran for the door.

The four of them spilled into the busy Soho street, first Ariadne, then Dionysus, then Aziraphale and Crowley. Vines burst from the earth and wrapped around the handles of the shop door, but they would only hold for so long—

Now what? Ariadne looked from side to side. They needed to get help for Crowley – but where? Hospital? Where was the nearest hospital? And how—

Ariadne’s eyes fell on the black Bentley.

“Crowley, give me your keys!”

“What?” asked Crowley.

“Ari—” Dionysus started.

“Keys! Now!” Ariadne said—and didn’t wait. She reached—

And the keys were in her hand. She tapped the fob, and the car unlocked.[4] “In! Now! I’ll drive!”

“But—but you can’t drive!” Aziraphale gasped.

Ariadne stared at him, jaw hanging open, and decided she didn’t have time for this. “In!”

The doors of the Bentley swung open just as the doors of the bookshop splintered.

That was enough to decide Aziraphale and Crowley, who ran/dove/collapsed into the backseat. Dionysus shot one I hope you know what you’re doing look at Ariadne before sliding into the passenger seat.

That makes two of us, Ariadne thought.

She hurled herself into the driver’s seat and remembered just why she hated driving in London. You started in the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road, and then everything just got worse.

Too late to worry about that now. She turned the key, the engine roaring to life.

Then she pulled away from the curb, slammed on the accelerator, and hoped one of them came up with a plan soon.

As the car lurched to life and tore down the street, Dionysus tried to figure out just what in Gaia’s name was going on here.

That Ariadne was acquainted with the angel and the demon was obvious, as was the fact that there was some kind of emotional connection. The number of people Ariadne would physically block him from shouting at was vanishingly small. And she hadn’t wanted to leave until the angel and the demon were ready to retreat.

And it wasn’t one-sided. The demon had taken a bullet for her!

Speaking of …

Dionysus squirmed so he could see into the backseat. The angel was sitting up, holding the demon against his chest with one hand and pressing his jacket against the demon’s shoulder with the other. The jacket had been white – or at least cream-colored. Now …

Dionysus’s stomach turned to look at it for long, which was why his gaze flickered to the rear window.

He blinked.

“Ari, how fast are we going?”

“Pushing seventy, why?”

There was absolutely no way that any vehicle ought to be following them that closely when they were pushing seventy in the middle of London – not unless the car had flashing blue lights on top. And the seafoam green hatchback that gaining on them didn’t.

“We’ve got company.”

“What?” But Dionysus could hear that it came more from frustration than disbelief. Ariadne grabbed the rearview mirror, swore, and hit the gas even harder, if that was physically possible.[5]

The demon yelled, and even the angel squawked in undignified protest.

Dionysus had bigger things to worry about. Such as the fact that Ariadne was making a sudden right-hand turn, oncoming traffic be damned, without even attempting to slow down. “Where are we going?”

“Not sure yet! Did we lose them?”

Dionysus looked again. “Nope.”

“Damn it!” Another turn onto a side street, this one to the left and on two wheels. Dionysus took hold of a thoughtfully placed bar near the ceiling and held on for dear life.

“ARI! Look out—”

“I see it, I see it!” And with a snap of her fingers, the delivery truck that had been double-parked in front of them wasn’t there anymore. Another snap of her fingers once they’d passed it, and it was back. Dionysus looked over his shoulder—

Unfortunately, the little green car didn’t crash into the van. It swerved around with a squeal of brakes and a laying on of horns from the rest of the traffic.

“We need a plan!” Dionysus said.

“We need to lose them; then we can worry about a plan!” Once again Ariadne slammed on the brakes and threw the car into a turn that broke just about every rule of the road and probably a couple laws of physics besides. “Can’t you give me a hand?”

Once again, Dionysus looked over his shoulder. He reached out with his power—

An enormous grapevine burst from the asphalt, but by the time it was big enough to do some damage, it was already a hundred feet behind their pursuers.

Next trick, then. There was electricity all over the place – in the buildings, in the streetlamps, in the wires underground. If he could just catch hold of some of it—

But the car was doing much more than seventy now, and every time Dionysus reached for a strand of electricity, it slipped through his fingers. “Shit!”

“Guess not,” Ariadne muttered.

“What about you two?” Dionysus once again squirmed to look at the angel and the demon in the backseat. “Those assholes are your friends, aren’t they?”

“Friendsss,” the demon grunted, “is a sstrong—” His words were cut off by a yelp as Ariadne threw the vehicle into yet another turn and the force of it sent the demon crashing into the angel. Even Dionysus grunted as the travel mug that was still somehow in his pocket dug into his thigh.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Ariadne said, and—

Dionysus stared at her. She looked upset. Not just stressed or scared or (what would be infinitely more helpful) pissed off, but upset. Because the demon was hurt.

He had to do something.

The travel mug pressed against him again, and Dionysus had an idea. He pulled it out of his pocket, concentrated, and turned around to hand it to the angel. “Here, give him this.”

“What—” the angel started.

“It’s wine. Strong enough to knock out an elephant. Should take the edge off for him,” he nodded to the demon.

“I can—” the demon started, reaching for the mug with his good hand, but the angel was faster.

“Thank you,” the angel said with enough feeling to make a flush climb up Dionysus’s face. He couldn’t keep the angel’s gaze after that, looking to the rear window instead—

The little green car was close enough that Dionysus could see the gray-haired bitch in the driver’s—no, wait, this was England, that was the passenger seat. The self-replicating goth was in the driver’s seat.

Neither looked happy.

“ARI!”

“Hang on!”

Dionysus barely had time to grab the oh-shit bar before Ariadne wrenched the car to the right and tore down a side street. A one-way side street. Going the wrong way.

“Ari, are you—”

“I know what I’m doing!”

And she seemed to. The vehicles that were barreling toward them, each driver throwing their entire body weight on the horn, disappeared seconds before the inevitable crash and – if those pops Dionysus kept hearing were any indication – reappeared right behind them.

Dionysus closed his eyes, even as the angel said weakly, “Oh, good Lord.”

He didn’t open them until he heard another squeal of brakes and felt the force of another hard right turn. “Is there a reason why we keep going to the right?”

“Trying to get them into an accident!”

“But if we keep this up, we’re just going to be going in circles!”

“Do you have a better idea?!”

“Tadfield!”

That came from the backseat. Dionysus turned around. The angel was still holding his jacket to the demon’s wound, but the demon had slumped to the side and seemed to be – well, hopefully that was just the wine, taking a bit more than just the edge off. “Even if they follow us all the way there, they shouldn’t stay long. Adam has the entire place under his protection. And hopefully that nice young Anathema …”

Here the angel broke off, swallowing, looking at the hopefully-just-sleeping demon with an expression Dionysus couldn’t watch for too long. He wrenched his mind onto something productive. “Adam,” he seized on, “Adam, who’s Adam?”

The angel looked up. “The Antichrist!”

Dionysus did not groan. But he’d helped out with enough horror movies to not like the sound of this.

Then again—if the intelligence his father had gathered was at all correct—this was an Antichrist who’d chosen not to end the world …

“All right, fine. Tadfield it is. Ari, you up for that?”

“Yes! How do we get there?”

Dionysus looked at the angel, who looked a bit panicked. “Um. Er …”

“Never mind!” He fished his phone out of his pocket, opened the maps app and typed in “Tadfield, UK.” The airbase was the first result that popped up, and that would have to do.

“Calculating …” the phone informed him as he thumbed the volume up.

“Yes, yes, hurry—”

“In 500 feet, take the M25 motorway on the left.”

“SHIT!” Ariadne yelled, and with a suddenness that would have given even the most reckless drivers of certain Northeastern states pause,[6] threw the car to the left, cutting across three lanes of traffic to barrel onto the on-ramp. They had to jump two curbs to do it, and the undercarriage did not sound happy about that, but they did it.

Dionysus once again squirmed to look out the rear window, hoping against hope—

No dice. The little green hatchback was still following them.

“Ari, we’re gonna have to get creative.”

Her only reply was a frustrated growl and a swerve into the next lane.

Dionysus tapped against the glass, trying to think. If this was a movie—well, if this was a movie, with a car like this, it’d probably involve gangsters—

His eyes went wide and once again he turned around. “Don’t suppose this thing comes equipped with a couple Tommy guns?”

“What?” the angel squawked.

“Tommy guns?” Ariadne asked.

“Yes, Tommy guns! This is a gangster car, isn’t it?”

“A gang—” Ariadne started, but she couldn’t finish. Instead, she gasped.

“No,” she whispered. “No, this isn’t a gangster car—this is a Bond car!”

“A what?” the angel asked.

“He got me to the theater in ten minutes yesterday, Dionysus!” Ariadne actually turned to look at him, just for a second, and the smile made her almost glow. “He drives like James Bond! So there have to be—Aziraphale, what kind of traps does he have in this thing?”

“What?” The angel—Aziraphale—was saying that a lot.

“Traps! Tricks! Something we can use to get people chasing us to stop chasing us!”

“I …” There was a moment of devastating silence. Then, slowly, Aziraphale murmured, “He … he does love those films …”

“So there has to be something! Dionysus, see what you can find!” That Ariadne couldn’t look herself was obvious – not with the way she was weaving in and out of the different lanes.

Dionysus looked at the dashboard, but he couldn’t see anything there other than what he’d expect to see on a car this old.[7] The center console was the same.

But after so many years with Ariadne, he knew how her magic worked. Sometimes, if she believed something was true, it ended up being true, no matter what reality might have had to say on the matter. The trick was to keep her from realizing she was doing it.

“You’ve got to give me a hint, sweetheart; Bond was always more your thing than mine.”

“Like—like an ejector seat!”

Oh, please not that.

“Or—or tire-slashers, or a self-destruct button—”

Not that either!

“Or fire that shoots out the exhaust! Or an invisibility cloak—like Die Another Day!”

“Fire?” Aziraphale asked. “Oh, that does sound like him!”

There we go! “What would it look like?” Dionysus asked Ariadne. “In a Bond movie? The fire exhaust and the invisibility cloak?”

“I—I don’t know! Probably some kind of a switch, with—with something that would tell us what it was!”

“Like a switch with a flame next to it?” Dionysus asked.

“Yes! Yes, that!”

Dionysus had to bite back a smile when a small toggle appeared. Next to it was a small carved flame.

“And the invisibility cloak? What would that look like?” Dionysus asked.

“Another switch—um—maybe a lightning bolt next to it?”

“A lightning—Harry Potter?!” Dionysus asked.

“Well, WHY NOT?”

Considering that another toggle had appeared, right below the flame exhaust, this one with a lightning bolt next to it, Dionysus had to admit that it was a good question.

“To your left – two switches. Looks like you know how the demon thinks, sweetheart.”

Ariadne took her eyes off the road long enough to glance at the console and whoop. “Ok! Ok, now we are in business! Dionysus, do you think you could throw some wine onto our friends back there?”

“Wine?” Aziraphale asked.

“Accelerant,” Dionysus said. He concentrated – pulling wine out of nothing was not easy—

There was a splash; he looked behind to see that the little green car had been doused in purple liquid. “We’re good!”

“Ok—now HANG ON!”

Ariadne didn’t give them much a chance as she slammed the car into reverse and turned on the fire exhaust.

Flame blossomed out the back of the car—right onto the wine-drenched hatchback—

“GO, GO, GO!” Dionysus shouted.

Ariadne threw car back into drive, and it lurched forward. Dionysus waited—with so much wine on the hatchback, there was really only one way this could go—

BOOM!

“WA-HOOO!” Ariadne shouted, switching off the flame exhaust and throwing on the invisibility cloak.

And as the car sped down the highway, leaving a blown-to-smithereens hatchback and an almighty traffic jam in their wake, a small, thoroughly inebriated chuckle came from the backseat.

“Did—didja hear that, angel? I finally got m’wahoo!”

[1] Who was clearly in no way young, and strictly speaking, not a human male.

[2] And women. And man- and woman-shaped beings. And sentient beings who did not identify as man, woman, or man- or woman-shaped. Aziraphale did not discriminate.

[3] Well, there might have been a bit of tunic-befouling terror first. Sometimes one didn’t get the balance right on the first try.

[4] It should go without saying that a 1926 Bentley would not have keyless entry. It should also go without saying that a 1926 Bentley belonging to Crowley would have no need for locks at all. The fact that neither of these things occurred to Ariadne says all that needs to be said about her emotional state.

[5] Since the resulting g-forces nearly sent Dionysus into the backseat, he had to assume it was.

[6] You know who you are.

[7] Including a gas gauge pointing toward E, but he wasn’t going to mention that.

Chapter Text

After blowing up their pursuers, it only took thirty minutes for the Bentley to arrive in Tadfield. Aziraphale thought that it ought to have taken longer than that – certainly the bus ride from Tadfield to Mayfair had taken much longer – but nearly eighty years of driving with Crowley had hopelessly skewed his perception of how long driving anywhere ought to take, so he decided he wasn’t going to worry about it.

He had bigger things to worry about. Such as Crowley.

The bleeding had stopped. That was good; the last thing any of them needed was a discorporation. And the wine Dionysus had given him seemed to be keeping the pain under control – mostly by keeping Crowley unconscious, but Aziraphale would take what he would get.

Beyond that …

The trouble with weapons pulled from raw firmament – as the not-guns that Samael, Legion, and their friends had wielded clearly were – was that they did not just injure physically. They’d been designed back in the old days, before any of the angels (and they had all been angels back then) had corporations to injure. Firmament weapons cut straight through the body and into the, for lack of a better term, soul.

And that was the part Aziraphale couldn’t heal – not on Crowley, anyway. It wasn’t just the pain he’d caused; with Dionysus’s wine, they probably could keep the pain under control. Aziraphale had felt his healing energy doing almost as much damage as the not-bullet had. Which meant …

Aziraphale closed his eyes and forced himself to take deep, steadying breaths. They were going to get help. Anathema—

“Is this the place?” Ariadne asked, and Aziraphale looked up. Before them was the two-story gray stone cottage that he recognized.

More to the point, young Anathema and Newton were standing under the arch-cut shrubbery. Aziraphale had fished Crowley’s phone from his pocket and called them when they got on the M40. “Yes—yes, this is it, dear. Thank you.”

Ariadne brought the car to an almost impossibly gentle stop just outside the shrubbery. For a fraction of a second, there was silence and stillness.

And then everything started moving again. Dionysus was the first to pop out of the car; the door directly behind Aziraphale (and why did the Bentley keep growing extra doors?) opened next. “Aziraphale? Crowley?” asked Anathema.

Aziraphale glanced over his shoulder and flashed Anathema what he hoped was a gentle, calm smile. “Hello, dear. We need to get him out gently—”

“Right, of course. Come on …”

The next few minutes were taken up with Aziraphale extricating himself from the car and getting Crowley out. Thank goodness, Crowley had had enough of Dionysus’s wine that the jostling didn’t disturb him.

Newton took one look at Aziraphale’s ruined jacket, still pressed to Crowley’s shoulder, made a retching sound and turned away.

Just as Anathema was reaching for Crowley’s legs, Dionysus took them. “I’ve got him, miss – can you just get the door for us?”

“I—sure.” Anathema squinted oddly at Dionysus; then her eyes widened. And then she shook her head and trotted for the door, Aziraphale, Dionysus and Crowley between them following in her wake.

“This way—I got the spare bedroom ready,” Anathema said, hurrying into the house and up a set of stairs, leaving Aziraphale and Dionysus to follow as best they could.

“I’ll get the kettle on!” came a voice – Newton’s – from behind them.

“Don’t blow up the stove!” Anathema called back, though to Aziraphale’s ears, the command sounded more teasing than serious. He wished he knew why it made Dionysus jump, though – or if not that, what did.

Finally they were up the stairs and at the doorway that Aziraphale assumed belonged to the spare bedroom. Anathema gestured them all inside so Aziraphale and Dionysus could lay Crowley on the bed.

“Where’s my mug?” Dionysus asked Aziraphale.

“I—oh, dear, I left it back in the car—”

“No worries. I—oh, hello.” He ducked past Anathema to a drinking glass that was, for some reason, on the bedside table. He tapped it twice, and it was filled with wine.

Dionysus then caught Anathema’s eye. “Keep giving him this if you need to keep him knocked out. And let me know if it stops working.”

“That—that looks like wine,” Anathema said.

“Yes, well, my nephew Asclepius has mostly cornered the market on healing—I can just—” Dionysus jumped again and threw a wondering glance over his shoulder. “Anyway. You two still need me?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “No—and—thank you. Truly. For …”

Dionysus’s mouth twisted in a half-smile; he shrugged. “Thank Ariadne, not me.” And without another word, he turned and thundered down the stairs.

“That,” Anathema started, “that is—I mean—is he—who is he?”

Aziraphale sighed. “It’s a … very long story. But Crowley …”

“Right, right! Yeah, ok. Crowley.” Anathema hovered over him, squinting at the jacket. She glanced at Aziraphale. “Can we …”

“I’m more concerned with the spiritual wound – can we do that first?”

Anathema looked again at the bloody jacket, swallowed, but nodded. “Yeah. Ok. Just …” She closed her eyes, shook herself, opened them again, and—

“Whoa.”

Aziraphale tried not to wince.

“How—no, what—?”

“Firmament,” Aziraphale explained. “It’s the weapons we were using in the war. The first war. Can—” Aziraphale’s voice broke; he had to look away and cover his mouth with his hand. “Can you help? Please?”

“I …” Anathema took a deep breath. “Um. Well, huh. Maybe a potion? Or …” Her gaze once again went to Aziraphale’s jacket. “Maybe if I work on patching him up physically, it’ll, um, spread?”

Aziraphale’s knees very nearly gave way. “Physical healing won’t work on this. It has to happen directly on the ethereal plane.”

Anathema shot him a helpless look—and she didn’t say anything further. She didn’t need to.

No, no, no, NO—They hadn’t come this far for bloody firmament to come between them now! There had to be—there had to be another solution. Another way. Someone who could do healing magic on the soul level, but without damaging Crowley further. Maybe Adam? He was half of Hell—

Wait …

“Wait here,” Aziraphale said, and paused only long enough to duck across the bed and kiss Crowley’s forehead before running down the stairs. “Ariadne!”

He found her sitting at Anathema’s kitchen table, next to Dionysus, a steaming mug of tea before her. She looked up as soon as he came in. “How is he?”

Aziraphale’s throat went dry, and there—there was the guilt. He shouldn’t be asking this of her; she was the last person he had any right to ask anything of. Especially after she’d gotten them all out of London. How many miracles had she worked just getting them out of Soho, never mind all the rest?

But what choice did he have? Did Crowley have?

And she must still have questions …

“Anathema isn’t going to be able to help,” Aziraphale said, and he had no idea how he was able to sound so calm. “She can’t—she can’t heal on the ethereal plane. And my energies and his don’t mix. But—but you …”

Ariadne’s eyes were huge; she drew in a shaky breath. “I—I’ve never done anything like that before.”

“I can show you how,” Aziraphale said. “It’s—it’s not hard. It’s draining, but the technique is fairly simple.”

“Ok. Ok, sure.” Ariadne gulped and stood.

“Ari—”

Ariadne looked down. Dionysus was looking up at her, his hand halfway to her. But—strangely—he hadn’t taken hers.

Ariadne’s chin wobbled; she took a deep breath. Then she took Dionysus’s hand and squeezed it. “Just trust me, Dionysus. Please? For just a little longer?”

She looked back at Aziraphale and squared her shoulders. “Let’s do this.”

Crowley lay unmoving on the bed. Except for the fact that he was a bit pale – and unconscious – and had his shoulder wrapped in a jacket that was pretty much done for, he looked … fine.

“So,” Ariadne said, trying not to wring her hands together, “you said ethereal plane. How do we, um, get there?”

“Mmmm … it’s not a question of getting there,” said Aziraphale. “It’s a question of being there.”

“Um …” Ariadne glanced at the room’s only other occupant, Anathema, who was much prettier in person than she was in her passport photo (but who wasn’t?). But Anathema looked at confused as she felt – although maybe a bit more curious.

Aziraphale tilted his head slightly to one side. “Have you ever tried to access it?”

Ariadne shook her head.

“Well, there’s a first time for everything.” Somehow, even when saying that, Aziraphale’s smile was gentle and his eyes were kind. “Now, if you’ll just—oh, I’m sorry.” He’d placed a hand on her shoulder, but withdrew it almost immediately. “I didn’t mean to—that is, do you mind, dear?”

“No! No, it’s fine.”

“Well. All right, then.” Aziraphale smiled and put the hand back on her shoulder. “Deep breath, now.”

Ariadne took one. Then another, just to be sure.

“Excellent. Now close your eyes.”

Ariadne did so.

“Now …”

Open them.

The voice—it was Aziraphale’s, Ariadne knew that. But it didn’t sound anything like him, and that wasn’t just because he was speaking in her head.

He wasn’t talking about her physical eyes, either. But Ariadne didn’t know how to open—

You can do it, dear. I have faith in you.

Ariadne gulped, concentrated, and—

She opened her eyes.

Oh.

She squeaked. Had she said that out loud?

Aziraphale didn’t chuckle. Not really. But the warmth/pleasure/mirth she felt radiating from him was like a chuckle, so “chuckling” was as good a word for it as anything. You did, in a manner of speaking. Which isn’t really speaking at all. But take a moment to get your bearings, dear.

Ariadne decided that was good advice and took it.

She looked around.[1] She was aware, on one level, that they hadn’t left the spare bedroom in Jasmine Cottage. On the other hand, she was equally aware that wherever they were, it wasn’t the spare bedroom in Jasmine Cottage. It looked – if it looked like anything – like the vast plane of space, dotted by pinpricks of light with fine stardust sprinkled throughout.

Aziraphale was still very near her, or at least, she thought the being was Aziraphale. If being was even the right word for the glowing shape next to her. Ariadne saw two pure white wings, burnished hooves, eyes everywhere, and faces. First an eagle, then an ox, then a lion, then a person—Aziraphale. And—

Those were stumps. Two of them. Where—wings?—ought to have been.

You’re trying to process all this on a very human level, aren’t you? asked Aziraphale, sounding just a touched amused. Then, much less amused. But I suppose it’s not surprising … it’s what you know.

Yeah. Yeah, let’s go with that.

Aziraphale couldn’t hold onto the same face for longer than an eye-blink, but somehow each one that appeared before her was smiling.

Are you ready to try to help Crowley, dear?

I—

Ariadne turned.

If it was possible, her jaw dropped.

She was looking at Crowley. She knew, on a level too deep for mere knowledge, that she was looking at Crowley. What she saw was not Crowley.

Where Aziraphale was light, this—Crowley—was darkness. Dark fire, glowing red/black/purple. And six wings, two around the head, two where wings were supposed to be, two at the feet. Each wing inky black. The fire that made up his body looked almost like scales. And even as Ariadne watched, his shape seemed to shift – one minute vaguely humanoid, the next serpentine, the next something she couldn’t attempt to put into words.

In every form there was an angry, glowing hole. A rip in the fabric that made Crowley, Crowley. Just looking at it made Ariadne hurt on a level that went deeper than the skin.

How do I—she started to ask, and then realized she didn’t need to. She knew how to fix this.

But knowing how and doing it were two very different stories …

Is this going to hurt him?

She felt a tendril of fear snake out of Aziraphale. I hope not. I hope you two are similar enough that your energies will be able to help his. Mine are too different. Then, stern, If it hurts you, stop at once.

But—

He took this wound so you wouldn’t be hurt. He would not appreciate you taking on hurt to fix him.

Ariadne looked at the angry, glowing hole and decided that she’d rather deal with a Crowley who was fixed and unappreciative than one who—wasn’t. But Aziraphale didn’t need to know that.

She reached out—

And almost gasped. The hand/arm/energy that moved toward Crowley was silver, equal parts blinding light and dark fire. It moved like mercury, twisting and twining over itself, reflecting and splaying light. And there was power coming off every inch of it.

But she didn’t have time to marvel over that. She had work to do.

She gently placed her energy near the gaping hole in Crowley’s shoulder-ish region.

He flinched. Even under whatever Dionysus had put in that wine. But—Ariadne watched closely—she wasn’t hurting him. The area she was touching was sore, tender, but she wasn’t causing more damage through the contact.

That would have to be enough. Ariadne got to work.

Healing Crowley was a little like sewing up a tear in fabric. It was a little like tying knots. It was a little like shaping dough, or clay. It was a little like pouring asphalt into a crack in the pavement. It was a little like playing with fire, and it was a lot like herding cats.

Actually, what she was doing – taking parts of Crowley’s essence and knitting them back together, covering the hole, smoothing it over so the rest of Crowley’s essence could fill in the void underneath and start to heal – wasn’t really like any of these things, when you got right down to it. But it was a little like them, and that was enough to be getting on with.

And sometime later – a few minutes, or a few hours, or a few months or a few years – she was done. Ariadne straightened, surveyed her handiwork—

Oh, no!

What? That was Aziraphale, sounding as alarmed as she’d heard him in this form.

Look! She gestured to Crowley’s shoulder-area, where the hole had been. Now there was a line of dark, pulsing energy, nowhere near as vibrant as the rest of the fire that made up Crowley.

Oh, that? There was no mistaking the relief there. That’s just a scar, dear. Look. Aziraphale gestured to a similar line on him, more shadow than darkness, that extended from about where his knee would be up to his hip and onto his stomach. I have one, too.

That—that looks like it hurts.

Well, sometimes, yes, it does. And Crowley’s will, too. But—Aziraphale stopped, and each of his flickering faces registered concern, and, yes, a little bit of fear. Ariadne, you need to go back to the mortal plane.

What? Why? What’s happening? But even as she said this, jagged lines – like lightning strikes – cut across her vision, swirling through the darkness, tearing it apart—

Ariadne. Ariadne, look at me. Listen to me. The urgency Aziraphale pushed at her brooked no argument. Deep breaths, now.

From a long way off, Ariadne thought she heard something like a mortal body taking deep, shaking breaths.

Good. Now close your eyes.

She did.

“… and open them.”

Ariadne did.

She blinked. She was back in the spare bedroom. Except—she was facing Aziraphale? Where was Crowley? No, wait, his feet were right there—

But now Aziraphale was starting to tilt sideways—

“Whoa!” Aziraphale caught her, somehow, twisted things around so Ariadne was suddenly sitting on the end of the bed. She found herself stupidly grateful for the lack of footboard.

“I—” Ariadne began.

“Shhhh.” Aziraphale crouched before her, both hands on her shoulders, staring deeply into her eyes. “Deep breaths. In and out. With me, now. In …” Aziraphale took a deep breath, held it for five seconds, and then let it out again. “And out.”

Ariadne breathed with him. One breath. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Finally Aziraphale smiled. “Good. That’s it. Keep breathing, just that. Ariadne …”

Aziraphale’s voice shook with an emotion Ariadne didn’t have the spare brain cells to name. So she smiled. Or at least she thought she smiled. Tried to smile? Her facial muscles may or may not have cooperated.

“Should I get her something?” That was Anathema, hovering over Aziraphale’s shoulder and peering worriedly at Ariadne. “Water? Aspirin? … Water and aspirin?”

“I think not, dear,” Aziraphale said. “Ingesting anything right now could be a mistake. But thank you.”

Anathema swallowed, and then, maybe seeing Ariadne’s wondering gaze on her, shot Ariadne a quick smile.

Once again, Ariadne tried to smile. Once again, she wasn’t sure how well it worked.

“Ariadne.” The name was enough to send Ariadne’s gaze flickering back to Aziraphale. “Do you want to lie down?”

Ariadne didn’t trust herself to speak. She tried nodding instead. That was a mistake – the room suddenly spun in three different directions at once.

“I thought so. Here, let me help.” Aziraphale put an arm around her shoulders and helped Ariadne scoot so that her head was in the general vicinity of the pillows and her feet were on the bed. “That’s it. Lie back, now.”

Ariadne was almost there, but she stopped, grabbing the closest of Aziraphale’s arms. “Crowley?”

Aziraphale smiled. “He’ll be fine. And that’s thanks to you. Truly.” Aziraphale brushed a few tendrils of hair out of Ariadne’s face. “Thank you, Ariadne.”

“Good,” Ariadne said, or tried to. She also smiled again, or tried to. In truth, she wasn’t sure what she was doing or just trying to do. All she really knew was that there was now a pillow under her head, a mattress under her feet …

It would be so easy to just close her eyes and dive into unconsciousness.

So that was what she did.

If Dionysus hadn’t had someone – Newton, who said to call him Newt – to talk to, he would have been even more of a jumpy wreck than he already was. And he was quite the jumpy wreck even now, but, with a distraction (Newt) around, he was able to hide it.

Especially since what Newt had to say was … intriguing. Particularly as it related to what had happened at the Tadfield airbase on the day that, had the Abrahamic folks had their way, would have been the end of the world as everyone knew it.

Dionysus was only mildly interested in how certain anthropomorphic personifications of rather troubling concepts had been driven off, or how the Antichrist had convinced this Satan fellow to go, quite literally, to Hell. He was very interested in how their merry band of heroes had managed to keep the bombs from going off.

And that was a subject on which young Newt could speak with some authority.

“I mean, it wasn’t really special,” he was saying, staring into his teacup. Dionysus thought he ought to be annoyed by this, especially since his truth-enticing power worked so much better with sustained eye contact, but really, he didn’t need it. Newt had barely taken any prodding, supernatural or otherwise, to talk. “Just … you know. Tried to fix the system. And mucked it up entirely.” He laughed mirthlessly. “Story of my life, really.”

Oh, that was interesting, especially given everything else Dionysus had sensed since coming within twenty feet of Newt. “Oh?” Dionysus asked.

Really, this was too easy. A quirked eyebrow and tone of genuine interest, and Newt was off to the races. “I wanted to be a computer engineer, you know!” Newt laughed. “Or some kind of electrical engineer. An inventor or something. I used to do experiments in my bedroom – kid stuff, you know, making radios and things like that? – and knock out the power for half the block.”

“Did you,” Dionysus said. “So you felt strongly about electrical … things?”

Newt smiled. “Yeah. Weird, isn’t it? And I can barely touch them without making them blow up. Just my luck, you know?”

If what Dionysus was thinking was in any way correct, luck had nothing to do with it. But, “Oh, I don’t know,” was what he said. “Seems to me the entire world was lucky to have someone with your particular, er, talents around.”

“Who’d’ve thought that mucking stuff up would help to save the world?” Newt said, grinning.

“Honestly, that sounds to me to be the most human thing about this whole mess.”

He probably shouldn’t have said that. Newt’s brows furrowed, and he frowned faintly. “How—how do you know Aziraphale and Crowley, anyway?” Newt asked.

“Er—” Dionysus began, because Well, I don’t actually know them, I just happened to be in their shop when some other people burst in and started shooting, and all of the not-shooting people thought it would be a good idea to stick together was not an explanation he was prepared to share. Especially since he knew damn well that wasn’t the whole story.

Luckily, he was saved by the bell. Or the buzz, in this case, specifically that of his phone in his pocket.

“Hold on just a minute …” Dionysus said, though what he’d do if it was that stupid celebrity-tracking app again, he wasn’t sure.[2] Probably pretend he’d lost his train of thought and change—

It was not the celebrity-tracking app.

“I—I need to take this. Sorry,” he said, and without waiting for Newt to politely acquiesce, popped out of his chair and trotted for the nearest door. He waited until he was outside, door firmly shut, before answering.

“Hermes?”

“There’s a rare bookshop in Soho that now has a vineyard growing in it,” Hermes said without preamble. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

Dionysus groaned and ran a hand down his face.

“What did you do?”

“Defended myself, mostly,” Dionysus sighed. “And Ariadne.”

For a minute, there was only surprised silence from the other end of the line. “The angel and demon – they attacked you?”

“What? No, no, they’re fine.” Well, Dionysus hoped the demon was fine. But that was more than Hermes needed to know. “Some friends of theirs showed up. Packing heat.”

“What?”

Dionysus pushed a hand through his hair. “Look, if you want me to explain … it’s not going to happen, and that’s not me being difficult.” At least not completely. “I have no idea who they were, what they wanted, or what they thought shooting – actually I’m not entirely sure they were real guns, now that I think about it – but anyway, really not sure what they were trying to accomplish. Hail of bullets and all, bigger things to focus on, you know?”

Hermes, bless him, didn’t press further on that. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“And Ariadne?”

Dionysus let himself wince, remembering the demon tackling her to the ground and getting a bullet to the shoulder for his trouble. Remembering the self-replicating goblin standing over her and pointing a gun at her chest. Remembering how upset she’d looked as they drove away from the bookshop, how she hadn’t hesitated when Aziraphale asked her to help him help the demon.

For Hermes, he selected an answer that was true but certainly wasn’t the whole truth. “She wasn’t injured. And she was the one who drove us all out of there.”

“Drove you out of there,” Hermes mused. “There’s a car that exploded on the – what was it – M25, apparently. Would you happen to know anything about that?”

Dionysus winced again. “Why do you think I would—”

“‘Eyewitnesses,’” Hermes interrupted, sounding suspiciously like he was quoting something, “‘are claiming the scene was like something out a movie.’”

“Shit,” Dionysus muttered, and made his way over to the bench that someone had thoughtfully placed in the yard.

“Seriously, what did you do?”

“Self-defense! The people who were shooting at us started chasing us!”

“Still shooting?”

“Thankfully, no. But we had no idea how long that would last. And how do you even know any of this, anyway?”

“You near a TV, kid?”

Dionysus cringed. “Oh, no.”

“BBC has wall-to-wall coverage. Chyrons about ‘signs and portents’ and ‘strange happenings in London.’”

“Fuck.” Dionysus rubbed the back of his neck and ran a hand through his hair. “Father’s gonna chain me up in the Caucasus and send an eagle to eat my liver, isn’t he?”

“I’m sure he’s thought of it,” Hermes said, far too cheerful and matter-of-fact. “However, I don’t even think I’ll have to talk him out of it. Hera’s already on it.”

“… What?!?!?”

“But if you don’t want to end up in hock to Hera, which I’m pretty sure you don’t,” Hermes went on blithely, “you’d probably better get on the groveling and get on it quick.”

Groveling? There was no amount of groveling in the world that could possibly make up for a fuck-up on this scale—

… Unless …

“… Would Father be open to a bargain?”

“A bargain?” Hermes laughed. “With him? Come on. What could you possibly have that he wants?”

“What if I told you that I know exactly what went down at that airbase?” Dionysus challenged.

Silence.

“Father wants to know that, doesn’t he?” Dionysus continued. “And now I do.” Or he would, soon enough. Wouldn’t be hard to get the rest of the story out of Newt, this time listening like his life depended on it. “I’d be happy to share, assuming—”

“How?” Hermes demanded.

Dionysus laughed. It rang false even in his ears, so Hermes wouldn’t be fooled for a moment, but it was the thought that counted. “If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: I’m very easy to talk to. And,” before Hermes could use that to try to worry more information out of him, “I think I might have some information for you, too.”

“For me?”

“You wanted to know why the name Newton Pulsifer sounded familiar, didn’t you?” Dionysus said. Even in the information barrage that “family meeting” had been, he remembered that bit – if only because it was rare that Hermes admitted to being confused or not knowing something. “I think I might have something to jog your memory.”

“And what would that be?”

Dionysus took a deep breath. This was a gamble, but who better to try it with a god who blessed the lucky? “Have you ever had to clean up any Father-related messes with someone called Pulsifer?”

Once again, there was silence. Then, softly but growing louder with every syllable, “Oh, no. Now I remember. Fuck! Not him, I hated him!”

“Hated who?”

“Thou-Shalt-Not-Commit-Adultery!”

“Hey, that’s one thing I haven’t—wait. Is it adultery if the other person is the one who’s married?”

“No, not you—although don’t let Pater know that; he’d be terribly disappointed. Ugh. Thou-Shalt-Not-Commit-Adultery was a half-brother of ours.”

“… I’m sorry, what?”

“His mother was a Puritan,” Hermes huffed.

“Father slept with a Puritan?”

“Several of them, although there was only one pregnancy.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think? This is the god who turned himself into a shower of gold sparks to sleep with a woman whose father had locked her up in a bronze tower with no windows and no door, remember?”

“Ugh.” As always when he thought of his father’s escapades in too much detail, Dionysus was consumed by the urge to take a bath. “All right, so, Father decided to add a Puritan or five to the notches on his bedpost. And she named the kid—”

“Thou-Shalt-Not-Commit-Adultery.”

“So, clearly he was fucked from the get-go.”

“Maybe,” Hermes grunted. “Or maybe he deserved it. Retroactively.”

“And why would that be?”

Another wordless sound of frustration. “Do you what the kid decided to be? Once he grew up?” Hermes didn’t wait for Dionysus to answer. “A witchfinder!”

Dionysus’s eyes narrowed. “So … he went after monsters for a living? Like ninety percent of Father’s other—”

“No! I mean, well, yes, sort of. Except he wasn’t going after, you know, actual monsters. More anyone who was a smidge to the left of regular mortal. And he was good at it. Always knew the difference between the women whose only crimes were being warty, old, and/or wealthy and the actual supernaturals and would let the former go.”

 “… How is that not better than the alternative?”

“It’s the fucking principle of the thing! He was an actual demigod using his powers to persecute people who were a lot more mortal and a lot less powerful than he was. Or could have been, ‘cause he never really learned how to use his powers. Hypocrisy doesn’t begin to cover it.”

“Did he know he was a demigod?” Dionysus asked.

“You think I didn’t try to tell him? Repeatedly? Even Apollo helped! Kept trying to send oracles and prophecies his way—but the damn fool didn’t listen! Kept claiming he was a man of God and that God would protect him from the demons who kept trying to trip him up—well, God did a fat lot of good when he got himself blown up, let me tell you—”

“Wait, hold on—blown up?”

Hermes paused. And then he chuckled. It was not a nice chuckle. “Oh, yeah. That. That was kind of funny. So for his final act – not that he knew it at the time – dear Adultery went after a witch. Agnes Nutter – that’s a name you don’t forget. Except, she wasn’t the ‘eye of newt and toe of frog’ kind of witch; no, she was a prophetess with Cassandra-level accuracy—”

“Oh boy,” Dionysus muttered.

“Yeah, and, well, she knew he was coming, see? So the day the torch-carrying mob was going to show up to burn her, she stuffed her petticoats full of gunpowder and roofing nails—”

“You’re fucking kidding.”

“Nope,” Hermes said pleasantly. “The only thing they found of dear old Adultery was his hat. And, well, I found his soul. He was pretty shocked when I showed up to collect him, let me tell you. I think he was expecting St. Peter or something.”

“Do Puritans even believe in St. Peter? Thought that was Catholics.”

“Details!” Hermes dismissed. “Anyway. He wouldn’t come with me to the Underworld – which was stupid, and I told him so, because as a son of Zeus he’d be a shoo-in for Elysium – so I dumped him on the Abrahamics and as far as I know, they’re still arguing over his soul to this day.”

“Huh,” Dionysus murmured. “And – before this happened – did he manage to get around to reproducing?”

“Oh, yeah, he was middle-aged by the time he went sky-high. He must have had—wait.”

Dionysus waited.

“You—you think the Newton kid might be a descendent?”

Dionysus glanced back at the cottage, thinking of computers that fried themselves when Newt touched them, blocks that lost power when he tried electrical experiments, and a – housemate? Girlfriend? – who told him, “Don’t blow up the stove!” when he offered to make tea.

“Let me put it like this,” Dionysus said. “I’ve never seen anyone who wasn’t a descendent have bad luck around electronics that’s half as bad as this kid’s.”

“… Huh,” was all Hermes replied to that. “You know Pater isn’t going to care about a descendent that many generations down, right? I mean, he barely takes notice of his actual kids unless they show they might be worth paying attention to.”

“And how is a descendent who helped to save the entire world not worth paying attention to? Heracles did less and became an actual god. I did less and became an actual god.”

“Bullshit, kid. You make the world worth living in. Don’t forget that.”

“Thanks,” Dionysus said, swallowing hard. “Anyway. You think you can confirm that the Newton kid is descended from Adultery?”

“Sure, shouldn’t be too hard – might have to cash in a favor with Hestia to get her genealogical expertise on the case, but, you know, doable. But you’re going to owe me big for this one.”

“Nah. You can take credit for figuring out that one of however-many mortals who saved the world is a descendent. I think that’s plenty of payback, don’t you?”

Any one of Dionysus’s other siblings would have taken that bargain and ran cackling with it off into the sunset. Not Hermes. “And where does that leave you?”

“Still sitting pretty,” Dionysus replied. “Because I still haven’t told you how he helped save the world – or what the rest of them did, either.”

With that, Dionysus hung up and turned to the cottage.

He sighed. Then he squared his shoulders and trudged back inside. Because if he wanted to keep himself and Ariadne from ending up chained to a mountainside, he needed to figure out just what had gone down at that airbase. And he needed to do it fast.

Crowley was an old hand at sleep. He’d even given drunken sleep a go now and again. But for all his experience at sleep, waking up someplace unfamiliar – a place where he had no memory of going …

Well, he did have experience with that set of circumstances. It just wasn’t good experience.

So perhaps it was no surprise when, upon opening his eyes to see a room he didn’t recognize, his first instinct was to bolt upright and get the Heaven out of there. Unfortunately, the “bolting upright” part led to him slamming his hands onto the mattress, putting pressure on his left arm, and the pain that shot through his shoulder at that trick left him seeing stars.

“Crowley, easy! Hush, hush. Everything’s all right,” Aziraphale said. So Aziraphale was here, wherever “here” was. That could be very good or very bad.

A hand rested on Crowley’s shoulder – the good one – and another lifted his bad arm so he wasn’t putting any weight on it. “It’s all right. You’re safe. We’re all safe. Everything is just fine.”

Crowley took a few deep breaths and let his eyes dart around the room so he could judge that for himself.

He was in a bedroom of some kind, in particular the kind that decided “shabby chic” was an aesthetic that could be achieved by picking up a few older furnishings and some knockoff décor and throwing it all together, rather than the honest way.[3] He was lying on a bed. There was a tartan afghan thrown over him, which, despite the “eclectic” air of the room, managed to clash with absolutely every other bit of décor in it. That was a comforting sign; only Aziraphale could manage to miracle up an afghan like that, and if he was miracling blankets, surely whatever they had gotten themselves into was nothing they couldn’t get themselves out of.

However, Crowley’s comfort fled the minute he realized that the blanket hadn’t just been thrown over him. He looked to his right.

“Angel—”

“She’s fine,” Aziraphale said, whispered really, as if he’d read Crowley’s mind. Maybe he had. “Just resting. She—she’s had a busy day.”

Crowley decided he wasn’t going to believe that until he was able to confirm it for himself. But looking at Ariadne – who was on her side, her back to him, curled up like a child and fast asleep – certainly didn’t disprove what Aziraphale was saying. If anything, she looked peaceful, content.

Crowley swallowed hard. “When—when you say ‘busy day’ …”

“Well, there was smiting Legion,” Aziraphale started.

“That bit I remember.”

“And getting us out of London. All that mad driving. And miracling things so we didn’t crash.”

“I sort of remember that.” He definitely remembered pain every time she had slammed on the brakes or thrown the Bentley into a turn. He also vaguely remembered a wahoo, although he couldn’t recall the context.

“And I imagine there was probably even more miracling after we’d, er, blown up our pursuers, what with the invisibility cloak and all—people can’t really avoid hitting you if they can’t see you—”

“Wait. Invisibility cloak? And did you say blow up?”

“Oh, you don’t remember that? Well, I can see why, given I’d dosed you with that wine … anyway, yes, Ariadne used the flamethrower exhaust to set fire to some wine Dionysus – her young man – obligingly poured on Samael and her, um, friends. And then, well …” Aziraphale took his hands away from Crowley long enough to spread them and make a rather unconvincing explosion noise.

In other circumstances, Crowley might have found the picture highly amusing. In these circumstances, his brain was still short-circuiting on a certain phrase. “Sorry, did you say ‘flamethrower exhaust’?”

“Er. Yes?”

“As in – an exhaust pipe that shoots flame? Just to be clear, that is what you mean?”

“… It is.”

“And this flamethrower exhaust, what vehicle is it on?”

“The Bentley, dear boy.”

“My Bentley. The one I’ve had since 1926?”

“Indeed.”

Crowley swallowed hard. “My Bentley does not have a flamethrower exhaust.”

Aziraphale’s mouth opened.

Aziraphale’s mouth shut.

Aziraphale looked at Ariadne, and Crowley found himself looking in that direction as well. “Well. It. Er. It certainly did have a flamethrower exhaust when …”

Crowley looked sharply at the angel as the latter trailed off, a thoughtful look settling onto his face. “Let me guess – your Bentley doesn’t have an invisibility cloak, either?”

“What, like Harry Potter?”

“Or an ejector seat? Tire slashers? A self-destruct button?”

“A ssself-dessstruct button?”

“… Huh,” Aziraphale murmured. Slowly, he sank onto the chair placed next to the bed.[4] “Interesting … I wonder …” He shook his head. “Anyway, I suppose that means she has even more reasons to be tired out. Besides the smiting and the driving and the …”

The thoughtful look fled, replaced by a guilty one. “Healing you …”

Crowley’s eyes bugged. “Healing me? You mean—” He tried to look at his shoulder, but the bullet had entered his back, so he couldn’t really see—

“Your corporation was able to self-heal once the ethereal wound was taken care of,” Aziraphale said, “although you’ll be quite sore for a while. I’m—I’m not entirely certain if that’s because of the ethereal wound or the corporal one.” Aziraphale took a deep breath and ran both hands through his hair. “When—when I—well, I didn’t have a corporation at the time, so my experience isn’t going to be very useful in this regard, I’m afraid …”

That, Crowley decided, was a thread he would definitely be unravelling – later. “Ariadne healed me. Ssspiritually.”

Aziraphale swallowed once, twice, then took another deep breath and looked Crowley in the eye. There was absolutely no mistaking the rock-hard certainty in those sky blue eyes. “Yes.”

“Aziraphale—”

“Anathema couldn’t. She’s a human; she had no idea where to start. I thought of Adam, but—he’s half-human, and he’s eleven. Ariadne …”

“I could have hurt her,” Crowley growled. “We’re both blessssed lucky I didn’t hurt you when you tried!”

“And I would have kept trying, except for the obvious fact that it was hurting you,” Aziraphale replied. “And believe me, I am aware you wouldn’t want this; I didn’t want this—”

“Then why—”

“Because after everything we have been through, every battle we have fought, everything we have won, I could not lose you now to bloody firmament!” Aziraphale’s voice shook more with every syllable – Crowley had no idea how he did that and still didn’t speak above a whisper. “That—that would not be fair, Crowley. Not to you, not to me, and not to Ariadne, either.”

Now his gaze dropped. “Of course, if you want to be angry with me over it, I—well, I wouldn’t blame you. I’m not particularly pleased with myself over it, either.” But he swallowed hard, looked up, and when he did, he wore no hint of regret. Guilt, yes, but not regret. “But I would absolutely do it again, and what’s more, I think she would do it again, too.”

Well. When he put it like that … Crowley sighed and let himself flop back against the pillows.

“You make it very difficult to stay angry with you for long, angel.”

A shy, hesitant smile made a quick appearance and was gone almost before Crowley could blink. “Oh, I don’t know.” Aziraphale chuckled mirthlessly. “I seem to recall at least one decades-long sulk.”

“That was different.”

“Quite.” Aziraphale breathed deeply. “Everything is different now.”

“True.” And Crowley’s eyes slid to Ariadne, still curled on her side, still breathing deeply, still asleep.

She must be a fantastically deep sleeper – or that tired.

“So,” Crowley asked, “any idea what our next move should be?”

“Not yet, dear boy.”

“Ah.” Crowley sat up again – keeping weight off his bad arm and shoulder – and turned back to Aziraphale.

“Well then. We’d best get on with that.”

[1] In a manner of speaking. Which really wasn’t speaking at all. In fact, for the sake of brevity, assume everything from here on out is an extended metaphor for an experience that is not reducible to human language or frankly, human experience.

[2] It had already gone off once, informing him that Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston had been sighted in his area. Even by the standards of that app, the notification was utterly nonsensical. The next Thor movie wasn’t filming yet, and last Dionysus had heard, it was supposed to be filming in Australia.

[3] Which, in Crowley’s opinion, consisted of buying a space (say, a bookshop); furnishing it with high-quality, durable items and a certain amount of kitsch (say, every angel-themed gewgaw and gimcrack one could get one’s hands on); inhabiting it for a given amount of time (say, two hundred years and counting); and changing as little possible along the way.

[4] It was a wingback chair. And tartan. Another point in their favor, since if Aziraphale was miracling up chairs, clearly the world wasn’t ending (again).

Chapter Text

When Samael had allowed Legion to talk her into attacking the bookshop and the god inside of it, she had planned to fail. Failure had been the point. They needed an almighty cock-up to prove that angels and demons couldn’t work together and that they’d all be better off if they resumed their war footing and went back to plotting Armageddon.

She just hadn’t quite expected to fail quite this well.

Samael pulled the icepack she had been holding to her head away and scowled at it. Discorporation was never fun, but discorporation via explosion had to be one of her least favorite ways to get rid of a body. And the icepack wasn’t helping her to deal with the residual aftershocks.

The fact that the intern was in the next infirmary bed over, sobbing, wasn’t helping.

Samael sighed, flopped against the pillows, and wondered if maybe she should ask for earmuffs instead.

And she wondered how Mephistopheles was doing. He and Legion would have been sent to Hell after their discorporations. Mephistopheles probably wouldn’t be happy about losing his body – he’d held onto it for at least the past thousand years, maybe longer – and unlike Samael, he didn’t have the pull to get another body with the exact same specifications.

Sorry, buddy. Hopefully if their plan had worked, it would all be worth it—

The doors to the infirmary (one of the few places in Heaven that had doors) thundered open, and Samael figured they were all about to find out.

“SAMAEL!” That was Gabriel.

“Oi! No need to yell,” she grumbled. “You do realize I’m not the only patient in here, right?”

If the way the floors shook as Gabriel pounded his way to her were any indication, Gabriel was not taking that request to heart. “What the, and please do excuse my French, Hell was all that?” Gabriel demanded.

Samael’s response was a glare. Gabriel had no right to demand anything of her. They were the same rank; if Gabriel took the role of manager over the cherubim and principalities and all the rest, it was because someone had to and he was at least a little bit good at it. Michael, Michael might have a right to demand something of her, being “first among equals” and all that, but Gabriel—

As Samael glared, she realized Gabriel wasn’t alone. He’d dragged Michael and Uriel into this with him.

Michael had an eyebrow raised.

Samael huffed and let her head fall back. “What happened was that some idiot demon thought it would be a grand idea to attack a literal god with some firmament, and I stupidly let myself get talked into it.”

Her stomach roiled a little. Displacing blame was not her way; she preferred to spit out the truth, whatever it was, and take what guilt and blame justly belonged to her. The last thing intelligent people did when things had gone pear-shaped was waste time by arguing over whose fault it was.

But muddying the waters was part of the plan, so muddy them Samael would, assuming the whole time that Mephistopheles was doing the same thing Down Below.

“Interesting,” Michael murmured. “Hastur claims that both of the demons on the scene are saying that the entire thing was your idea.”

Hastur had already spoken to Mephistopheles and Legion? As soon as the question occurred to her, Samael kicked herself for asking it. Of course he had. Hell wasn’t going to give its agents time to rest and recover after a cock-up as spectacular as this. If she wasn’t an archangel, she probably wouldn’t have been given as much as time as she had been given.

“Would you expect anything else out of a demon?” Samael pointed out. Perhaps a rant might have made the point better, but she just didn’t have the energy for it. Besides, there was something to be said for not being the lady who doth protest too much.

“Not really,” Michael said. “Which is why we booked a conference room on the fifth floor. If we’re to get to the bottom of all of this, it will only happen when we’re all together.”

Samael goggled. The fifth floor? There was nothing particularly significant about the fifth floor – expect for the fact that it was no-mans-land, neutral territory used for the extremely rare meeting between both sides. So neutral that no weapons were permitted, no aggression allowed, by decree of the Almighty Herself.

It was part of the reason why both sides, when they had to meet, preferred to do so on Earth. Earth was technically neutral, but nobody was enforcing a ceasefire there.

If they were meeting on the fifth floor … this had gotten serious in ways Samael hadn’t planned for.

“And the meeting is now,” Gabriel said, looking like he was about to haul Samael off the cot whether she wanted to come or not.

Samael narrowed her eyes at him and levered herself up, ignoring the twinges of residual pain that came from everywhere. Uriel gently helped the intern up as well. “Then let’s go.”

Getting to the conference room didn’t take long. The infirmary was close to the elevators, and the conference room booked was also close.

When they got there, though, the room was already half-full – with Beelzebub, Dagon, Hastur, Legion, and Mephistopheles.

Samael permitted herself a single, swift glance at Mephistopheles. He sat gingerly, as if he too was still dealing with residual aches, but otherwise seemed all right. Good.

That left Samael free to focus her fury on Legion. “You!” she shouted. “You bloody moron!”

“Hey, it wasn’t just—”

“Let’s attack a god, he says, it’ll be easy, he says, I’ve got firmament—”

“And was it a total bloody loss?” Legion fired back. “Little miss over there managed to put a hole into the demon Crowley, didn’t she?”

The intern sniffled, even as almost all eyes in the room turned to her. “I m-m-meant to hit the g-g-god!”

“You what?” demanded Beelzebub, even as Uriel gasped and Hastur laughed.

Dagon was the next to speak, smoldering at Gabriel. “You sent an intern to tail a pair of traitors who managed to outwit both our sides and stop Armageddon.”

Gabriel bristled. “It was temporary. Hadraniel had other—”

“An intern!”

If it didn’t fly in the face of Samael’s larger goals, she would have cheered Dagon on.

As it was, she wasn’t sure she’d have to do anything. As long as Dagon and Gabriel kept shouting at each other—

Michael cleared her throat, and somehow that shut Dagon and Gabriel up. “I think,” she said, “we should all have a seat before we start arguing, shouldn’t we? Samael, Liel, you first.”

Samael tried to hide her scowl as she took a seat across from Legion. The intern and the other archangels filled in around her.

“Now,” Michael said, folding her hands before her, “we called this meeting to get to the bottom of what happened on Earth earlier today. I think the best way to do this with a minimum of argument is to have each witness tell their part of the story without interruption. Then we can iron out any discrepancies as a group. Beelzebub, Dagon, Hastur, are you in agreement?”

“Yezz,” Beelzebub said, and that seemed to be enough for all of them.

“Excellent. Mephistopheles …”

Mephistopheles jumped.

“It has not escaped my notice that you are the only one of the witnesses who has not said anything yet. Therefore, I think you ought to tell your version of the story first – unless, of course, your superiors have an objection to that.”

They did not. So Mephistopheles had no choice but to swallow, stare at the battered faux wood conference table, and tell his end of the story.

With Legion sitting right next to him, he couldn’t lie – too much – Samael knew that. But he could spin. And he did. Downplaying Legion’s utter stupidity, playing up Samael’s recklessness[1] and the intern’s foolhardiness.

Samael had to hide a grin, even as she plotted how she’d return the favor once her turn came along.

Unfortunately, her turn would be a long time coming.

“—and then Legion – or one of Legion – tried to separate the redhead from the rest of the group, and she …” Mephistopheles hesitated, his gaze flickering to Samael for a fraction of a second. “I think she smote them. Or one of—”

“Smote?!” Beelzebub demanded.

“Smote?” Uriel asked.

“Smote! Definitely smote,” Legion said. “We’ve been smited—smote—smitten?—whatever. It’s happened before. We know what it feels like. That was a smiting.”

“You’ve got another angel working with the traitors?” Hastur snarled at Gabriel.

“We most certainly do not!”

“Demons can’t smite,” Dagon snapped. Her eyes were narrowed at Gabriel. “We can annihilate, pulverize, liquify, decimate—we can do lots. But smiting? That’s your lot.”

“But …” Gabriel trailed off and stared at Samael. “You would have recognized another angel.”

That was true; she would have. Even if they didn’t know each other, all the Host always recognized each other, on Earth as it was in Heaven. It was one of the perks of the tribe.

… Who was that redhead? And how was she able to smite anyone or anything?

“How do we know that the Greeks don’t have a power similar to smiting?” Samael asked. “Lightning, for instance. We had one of Zeus’s brats there; if the redhead is another one—”

“Yeah, no. We’ve been struck by lightning before. That wasn’t lightning. That was smit-ing,” Legion said, drawing out each syllable.

“But—” Samael said.

“And,” the intern interrupted – which shocked the rest of the table into silence – “and the demon Crowley wouldn’t let her get hurt. Why would he care about one of the Greek deities?”

“Wait, what?” Dagon demanded. “The demon Crowley wouldn’t let her get hurt?”

“I think you’d best explain yourself, dear,” Michael said, and though the words were gentle, the tone of command was unmistakable.

The intern quailed. “He—he—he—when I t-t-tried to shoot the g-g-god, Dionysus, I m-m-missed—and I would have shot her—b-b-but the demon Crowley p-pushed her down, and that’s how h-h-he …”

“You expect us to believe that a demon sacrificed himself for someone else?” Gabriel scoffed.

The intern’s eyes went huge, but before she could say anything, Beelzebub snapped, “It’zz not unknown. You,” now she was looking at the intern, “what did thizzz ‘redhead’ look like?”

“I—um—er—”

Uriel rose, put a hand on the intern’s shoulder, and crouched at her level. “Show me.”

The intern breathed a sigh of relief and tipped her forehead against Uriel’s. Samael looked away. This sort of mind-melding, mind-sharing – she’d never had the knack of it, like Uriel did, and even if she had … it was uncomfortable to watch.

“Thank you,” Uriel said, which cued Samael that it was all right to look. Uriel was pulling away. She made a complicated gesture, and an apparition appeared in the center of the conference table.

It was the redhead. By the way she was standing and the shocked expression she was wearing, this had to be the intern’s memory of what she had looked like when the four of them had made their initial appearance.

Now, though, now Samael looked at her more closely. How had this girl managed to smite a demon – even one as half-powered and incompetent as Legion? The most noticeable thing about her was that shock of red hair.

But now that Samael was looking … she narrowed her eyes. There was something familiar about her—

Michael gasped. “She looks like—”

“Aziraphale,” Gabriel snarled.

“Crowley,” Hastur growled.

Gabriel and Hastur broke off and glared at each other.

But nobody else in the room seemed inclined to let them have their little pissing match. “She doezzz,” Beelzebub buzzed.

“She looks like both of them,” Michael agreed. “And she can smite, like an angel …”

“And the demon Crowley took a bullet for her,” Dagon finished.

“What have those two been doing?” Uriel wondered.

“We should find out,” Mephistopheles said.

All of the bosses stared at him – probably doubly shocked because, well, it was Mephistopheles. The one demon in Hell who knew how to keep his mouth shut.

But Samael wasn’t shocked, because she knew he’d been speaking to her.

That’s why, even though it went against all of their planning, all of their strategy, Samael found herself nodding.

“Yes,” she agreed. “We should.”

When Ariadne’s eyes fluttered open, the light was lower and more golden than it had been when they had closed. She pushed herself up, stretched, and wondered where her phone had gone in all the excitement. Or if there was a clock somewhere in this room. How long had she been asleep?

“Feeling any better?”

Ariadne yelped and almost fell off the bed.

But when she turned around—it was just Crowley. Sprawled on an armchair, idly flicking through his phone with his good hand, his bad arm—

Ariadne’s eyes narrowed. “Why is the sling tartan?”

“Aziraphale created it,” Crowley said, as if that explained everything.

… Actually, given the tartan blanket and the tartan armchair, both of which had not been in the room when she had fallen asleep … maybe it did.

“Huh,” Ariadne replied. “How are you feeling?”

“Could ask the same thing of you,” Crowley answered, not even looking up from his phone. Or at least Ariadne didn’t think he had. Bit hard to tell with the sunglasses. “In fact, I already did.”

“Oh. Um.” Ariadne took a deep breath and took stock. Nothing in pain – vision seemed good – no sense of encroaching unconsciousness. Perhaps, at some point, a meal would be a good idea, but she could go a while before eating felt less like an option and more like a need. “I’m fine. So. You?”

Crowley kept his gaze trained on the phone, but his thumb did stop moving. “I suppose I would be much worse if it weren’t for you.”

Now he looked up – sort of – or perhaps it was merely that his sunglasses slid down, showing just where he was looking.

His eyes were – yellow? Golden? And strange. Slit-pupiled, like a cat’s, a little too much iris and just a tad too little sclera.

… Was that why he always wore the sunglasses?

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said softly, and Ariadne forgot her musings about his eyes.

She forced herself to shrug and make her tone as nonchalant as possible. “I could say the same to you.”

Crowley stilled. Almost unnaturally so. “Not the same thing.”

“Oh, right, of course. Because a little …” Ariadne waved a hand. “Spiritual first aid – that’s totally as dangerous as stepping into the path of a speeding bullet.”

“It could be.”

 Ariadne blinked. And then …

She told herself she couldn’t help it. The way she crossed her legs underneath her, the elbow that came to rest on a knee and the chin that came to rest on her hand. The way the rest of her mind went quiet, focused on one burning question.

“Why?”

It was just one syllable, but it made Crowley jump. His hand went slack, the phone slipped, and he stared at her.

Ariadne raised an eyebrow.

Something about that made him smirk. “You really are full of questions, aren’t you?”

“I mean, I’ve had a lot of information tossed in my direction these past few days.” With her free hand, she fiddled with the blanket. “I’m just trying to make sense of it all.” She raised an eyebrow. “So are you going to answer, or do I need to interrogate Aziraphale?”

Crowley laughed. Well, it was sort of a laugh, if a laugh could also be a snort. “Believe it or not, I have some experience with …” He shifted, and his gaze dropped back to his phone. But his hand was still. “Let’s say, parental figures who don’t take kindly to questions. Wouldn’t wish that experience on you for the world.”

Ariadne tilted her head to the side and kept her mouth shut.

“I’m a demon.”

There were any number of stupid replies Ariadne could have made to that – things like You don’t say and I think we’ve gone over this and What’s that got to do with anything?

She knew they would be stupid, which was why she didn’t say any of them.

“And the thing with being a demon is … there are certain things that are …” Crowley seemed to really see the phone in his hand; his brows furrowed, and he held it up for Ariadne’s inspection. “Part of the hardware, you might say.”

Ariadne forced herself to restrain her response to a nod.

“Demons … hurt. Or have been hurt. Have lost something very precious to them. And …”

“Hurt people hurt people?” Ariadne asked.

Crowley stilled, staring at her as if whatever response he had expected, it wasn’t that. “Yessss. Yes, that would be … that would explain it.” He shifted, slouching in the chair in a way that bent his spine at an even more impossible angle and that probably wasn’t doing his shoulder any favors. “Plus, you add in a hard-learned predisposition to shoot first, ask questions later, and you have a recipe for—well, problems.”

“But you didn’t hurt me,” Ariadne pointed out.

“Apparently whatever your boyfriend put in that wine managed to take the natural defense systems completely offline. Not that I’m complaining, under the circumstances, just pointing it out.”

“You didn’t hurt Aziraphale, though. And you hadn’t had any of Dionysus’s wine then.”

Crowley waved his good hand. “That’s different.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I was awake. Conscious control can overcome some of the basic programming.”

“Ah.”

“Indeed. So.” Crowley tapped on the phone screen in a way that almost looked convincing. “He is your boyfriend, then? Dionysus?”

Huh? … Oh.

She’d walked right into that one, hadn’t she?

Hard upon the heels of the realization came the walls. Thirty-eight hundred years – give or take a couple decades – of wariness and caution. An endless litany of don’t trust don’t trust don’t trust and what does he want and figure out his angle and who does he think he is anyway. Questions she’d learned, the hard way, to get answered before divulging anything remotely personal.

Except …

If she couldn’t trust someone who’d literally taken a bullet for her, who could she trust?

“Boyfriend’s kind of a silly word to use when your age is better measured in centuries than years,” Ariadne said.

“Husband, then?”

There was a hint of – something – swimming underneath the words, but whatever it was, it dove deep and burrowed into the mud before Ariadne could catch more than a glimpse of it.

She snorted. “Ha. No. I mean …” She shifted, bending her spine until she heard it pop. “We’ve talked about it. Thought about it. But. Well. To get married, we’d need Hera’s blessing, and—”

“Hera,” Crowley repeated. Once again, there was something swimming underneath, something Ariadne couldn’t catch.

“Goddess of Marriage,” she explained, if that was what Crowley had wanted explained. “Can’t get married without her say-so – well, unless you want everything to end in tears. Hephaestus and Aphrodite tried that. Didn’t work out so well for them.”

Crowley’s eyebrows arched over his sunglasses.

Ariadne chuckled and shrugged. “Look, if you’re hoping for the gossip and the play-by-play … sorry to disappoint, but all of that was a bit before my time. Anyway. We need Hera’s blessing to get married, and … to make a very long story short, Hera killed Dionysus’s mother before he was born, and then their relationship only got worse from there, so Dionysus? Not keen to ask Hera for anything.”

She sighed, leaning against the pillows. “And I really don’t blame him.”

She’d left the door open for further questions there, and she … was all right with that. Crowley seemed to understand what it was like to have questions and no answers. The least she could do was give him what answers were hers to give.

He didn’t ask them, though – or at least, he didn’t ask the questions Ariadne thought would be obvious. Instead, he asked, “Killed his mother before he was born?”

“Zeus – Dionysus’s father, and the reason Hera went on a rampage – saved Dionysus as his mother was dying and sewed him up in his thigh. Er. Sewed Dionysus up in Zeus’s thigh.”

“Oh.” Crowley’s brows furrowed, then cleared, and he nodded. “Ah, right. I do remember that bit. So that actually happened?”

“Yep.”

“Interesting. So what else actually happened?”

“More than you’d think,” Ariadne answered. “The Muses were usually pretty good about making sure the real story got out there. More or less.”

“Someday, when we’re not all recovering from a shootout and a chase across London – which, by the way, remind me later to have a chat about what you did to my car – someday you and Aziraphale will have to go through one of his books on Greek myths and tell him what the true stories are.”

Ariadne smiled. “Sounds like fun.”

“Good. Although, speaking of true stories … when were you going to tell your—” Crowley hesitated. “You said you didn’t like boyfriend.”

“Partner.”

“Ah. Good word, that. Partner. Anyway. When were you going to tell your partner the true story about …” Crowley gestured to her, then to himself, then made a vague “over there” gesture that presumably was meant to encompass Aziraphale … wherever Aziraphale was.

Then he raised an eyebrow and waited.

Ariadne groaned and let her head thunk against the headboard. “I have no idea – and not for whatever reason you’re thinking.”

“Oh?”

“Zeus …” Ariadne waved her hand through the air. “In his divine wisdom, decreed that none of us were to have any words with any of you unless he said so. And, you know, I wasn’t exactly in the mood to be asking his permission.”

“… Did he,” Crowley murmured. “None of you?”

“Yep.”

“And so you didn’t tell Dionysus because …”

“Zeus can’t blame him for what he doesn’t know anything about.” Ariadne shifted and shrugged. “At least, that’s the theory. He probably could. But, you know. If Dionysus didn’t know … well, he couldn’t dig himself in deeper than I was already digging him. Or try to stop me.”

“I see,” Crowley replied, and maybe Ariadne was imagining things, but she thought he really did. “But I do have to point out that the cat is rather out of the bag on that one.”

“Out of the bag and fleeing across state lines.” Ariadne sighed. “Is that your way of telling me I should probably come clean?”

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t tell you something like that. Encouraging honesty? Quite undemonic of me, that. Of course, if Aziraphale were here, he would most emphatically tell you that honesty is the best policy, etc., etc.”

Ariadne laughed. And wondered. “Where is Aziraphale, anyway?”

“Downstairs. I told him to get something to eat. And fill our hosts in on what led us to end up on their doorstep. Well, the edited version.” He twisted his bad wrist awkwardly – that was the wrist on which he was wearing a large, complicated, and expensive-looking watch. “He’ll probably be back in a few minutes, unless we intercept him downstairs.”

“Ah. So, I take it I should probably face the music with my partner now?”

“I would not be the one to tell you that. However …” Crowley let the sentence linger for a moment. “I am also not not telling you that. Assuming you’re feeling up to it.”

“Yeah, I’m good.” Ariadne tested that proposition by getting off the bed – and found that it was true. “What about you, Mr. I-Literally-Got-Shot-Today?”

“Well, I refuse to admit to being good,” Crowley replied. “But I’m certainly more than capable of going downstairs and holding a mostly civilized conversation.”

Ariadne laughed; Crowley smiled and snapped the fingers of his good hand. The door obligingly swung open. “After you?”

Ariadne glanced at it, took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and went through.

Well, here goes nothing …

Dionysus heard the creak of the stairs a few seconds before the mortals did – and right about the time Aziraphale did. Given the way the pair of them went still, the mortals seemed to catch onto the fact that people were on the stairs rather faster than they otherwise might have.

Even as Dionysus kept most of his focus trained on the door, he cast a sideways glance at Aziraphale. The angel was … intriguing. He’d done most of the filling in of Anathema and Newt that was required, although there was a rather large omission he was dancing around – that being what in Tartarus’s name Ariadne was doing in the shop in the first place. To say nothing of exactly who their assailants had been and what they had wanted. Still, Dionysus assumed the mortals didn’t need to know any of that …

Although he wouldn’t have minded them finding out, provided he got to find out with them.

And that was another thing. Even as Dionysus knew he was watching the angel, evaluating, he sensed he was being watched and evaluated in turn. It was damned disconcerting. Usually beings like Aziraphale caught one whiff of his relative power compared to theirs and went running in the opposite direction, wings tucked between their legs.

This was one unusually brave – or foolish – angel.

But maybe he’d be able to find out which, because if that was Ariadne coming down the stairs—

It was. And hot on her heels was Crowley.

Dionysus barely glanced at the demon before giving Ariadne a thorough once-over. She looked all right – her clothes were a bit rumpled, there was a pillow mark on her cheek, and her hair was half out of its bun, but all of that was consistent with her having taken an impromptu nap, as Aziraphale had said. (Why she’d needed the nap he’d been a bit vaguer about. Something about “spiritual healing” and “it takes a lot out of you if you’re not used to it.”)

“Ari,” Dionysus said, already half out of his chair.

Ariadne smiled. “Hey.”

And that was all she had the chance to say. “So the sleeping beauties are awake!” Anathema said. “How are you two feeling?”

“Fine,” Ariadne said.

“Peachy,” Crowley said.

“Truly?” Aziraphale asked.

Dionysus shot him a sharp look. The angel was practically radiating worry, and maybe that was natural, given the state Crowley had been in when Dionysus had seen him last, but he wasn’t looking at Crowley. He was looking at Ariadne.

Dionysus began to seriously consider handing out a divine boon to whoever deigned to tell him exactly what was going on here. He would even think it through, really think it through, to avoid another Midas touch debacle.

“Yeah, I’m good.” Ariadne took a deep breath. Then she looked at Dionysus.

“I, um,” her gaze flickered to Anathema and Newt, “I don’t mean to be rude, but …” She turned back to Dionysus. “Can we talk?”

Dionysus didn’t care one bit about being rude. He was up and halfway across the room before “can we” turned into “talk.”

But he stopped before he reached her. And held his hand out.

With a palpable sigh of relief, Ariadne took it. And tightly squeezed it as Dionysus headed for the nearest door outside.

She didn’t let go as they made their way into the backyard, far enough away from the house that they wouldn’t be overheard, nor did she let go when she turned and looked up at him.

She was biting her lip, eyes huge, hand clinging to his with force that would have been painful, had he been mortal. She took a deep breath—

“Hey,” he said, cupping her cheek with his free hand. “It’s ok. Ari, whatever it is, it’s ok.”

Ariadne laughed. “Yeah, you say that now.”

“Ari—”

She held up a hand, and he shut up. “Just—just, hear me out, ok? And then tell me it’s ok.” She took another deep breath. “Before I get into this—I swear to Gaia I was trying to keep you safe and out of trouble.”

“Keep me safe?”

“Your father—”

“Ah. Enough said.”

Ariadne smiled, tiny and weak but real, then closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe. “I just—I had to know, ok? Seeing their wings – it was the first real lead I’d had in centuries. So I had to follow it. Even if your father wouldn’t like it.”

“The first real lead,” Dionysus repeated. “You mean – to find your people?”

Ariadne swallowed hard and nodded.

“Ah.” More than that – well, he shouldn’t say. “And … what did you find?”

Once again, Ariadne bit her lip. Her gaze slipped away from him. And she squeezed his hand.

“Aziraphale and Crowley – they’re – they’re my parents.”

Dionysus’s jaw fell.

In moments like this, it was usually best not to say the first thing that came to mind – so How? was right out. The second thing, Are you sure?, probably wasn’t a good idea, either. The third thing – that might have some promise.

“And you’re ok with that?”

Ariadne looked up, brows knit and head tilted to one side.

“Ari. You do realize you have every right to be furious, right? They abandoned you. Left you on your own for centuries. And—”

She shook her head. “No. That’s not—look, it was—”

“If you say complicated—”

“It wasn’t, really. At least, I don’t think it was. They were trying to keep me safe. Keep all three of us safe.”

“From …?”

“Hell. And Heaven. Apparently neither would have been happy to find out about me.”

Hell and Heaven … Dionysus closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You mean like the people who were shooting at us earlier today?”

“Yep.”

“Well, fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“And now they’re after us.”

Ariadne winced. “Sorry.” And sighed. “I was trying to keep you out of this.”

“Yes, well. A bit late for that. Especially since …”

He hesitated. Was now really the time to tell her that her secret – at least as far as her going to the bookshop was concerned – was already blown wide open?

Yes. Nothing good could come of her not knowing.

“… My father already knows.”

“What?”

“You were caught on camera, going into the bookshop,” Dionysus replied. “With ethereal filters and your wings … kind of a dead giveaway.”

“Fuck,” Ariadne swore. “I swear, Dionysus, I was trying—”

“Ari.” Dionysus stroked her cheek and tilted her head up so she could only look into his eyes. “I’m not mad.”

And when the words were out, he realized that they were true. He was quite a lot of things – confused, surprised, and perhaps a bit frustrated at the situation – but not mad. Not at Ariadne.

The angel and the demon, on the other hand …

He’d reserve judgement. Keep an eye on them. Fine, the demon had pushed Ariadne out of the way of a bullet, but … they hadn’t had to watch thirty-seven centuries of abandonment issues play out. He had. So they would have to damn well prove that their intentions had been good, thank you very much.

That being said, most of that could be put firmly in the category of “tomorrow problems.” Today …

“So now what?” Ariadne asked, and there was no hiding the traces of fear and uncertainty that still lurked in her eyes.

“Well, believe it or not, I have a plan for dealing with my father,” Dionysus replied. “As for the rest … your ideas are as good as mine.”

Ariadne’s eyes went wide, and she looked beyond him, back to the cottage.

Dionysus looked over his shoulder. Bowing to the reality of the gathering twilight, someone had turned on a lamp. Dionysus could see straight into the kitchen, where Anathema and Newt were sitting side-by-side, the former chatting animatedly to the table’s other two occupants. Crowley and Aziraphale. Who were sitting quite close together, sides practically touching, hands conveniently hidden by the table.

“Sorry,” Ariadne murmured.

Dionysus turned back to her. “Don’t be,” he said, and once again, he meant it. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Now come on. Let’s head back in and see if we can’t think our way out of this mess.”

Hera stood in front of the television and beamed.

The evening news had just concluded, and while the story she was most interested in hadn’t been the top story – there was too much Brexit nonsense for that – it had been prominently featured. Complete with aerial shots and man-on-the-street interviews.

It was a key story on the BBC’s website, too. Hera had told Hermes to make certain of it, and once he did, she’d informed him that he was to make the story go viral. He had rolled his eyes, but with his next breath he had assured her that it would happen.

Let him roll his eyes. Her plan would work.

And to think, she had her least useful stepson to thank for it!

Hera glanced at her phone, opened the BBC app, and beamed again. There it was!

“Vineyard mysteriously takes over Soho bookstore.”

And if this was what the staid, sober, and responsible BBC had to say on the matter, just imagine what the tabloids were saying! Hera very nearly went to find out.

A soft cough broke her reverie. Hera looked over her shoulder. “Athena.”

“Hera.” Her stepdaughter was, as always, stiff and formal. It had nothing to do with her feelings for Hera – whatever bad blood had existed between them had largely been put to rest during the Trojan War, when they had decided to bury their hatchets with each other by planting them in Aphrodite’s skull – it was just how Athena was with everyone. “Here’s the list you wanted.”

Had Hera a shade less inherent dignity or poise, she would have squealed. As it was, she knew quite well that her eyes danced with glee. And she did not care one bit.

Somebody with a sense of humor[2] had written “Signs and Portents” at the top of the list.

Hera dropped to the sofa, patting the cushion next to her. “Sit, dear. I’ll want your opinion on these.”

Athena sat. And said nothing.

Hera scanned the list, snapping a pen into her fingers and scribbling notes beside the different entries. She sighed at Ares’s (show up to a battle in his war chariot with Eris by his side, which was not particularly creative but was probably the best he could do) and nodded at Asclepius’s (cure a whole ward of cancer patients, which showed his thoughts were trending in the right direction). Demeter planned to make several in-person appearances at organic farms the world over; Poseidon would call forth a herd of horses straight from the sea.[3] Apollo had a whole list of music festivals he wanted to bless, and Artemis—

Hera made a strangled noise. “Is she out of her mind?”

“Who?” Athena asked, leaning slightly closer to Hera and reading over her shoulder. “Oh. I thought you wouldn’t be pleased by that.”

“We are trying,” and Hera had to be very, very careful to keep the frustration in her tone under tight control, “to gain the mortals’ appreciation. To set ourselves up as a better alternative. Not to convince the wealthiest and most powerful among them that we are enemies to be feared.”

“Yes, I told Artemis you were likely say something along those lines.”

Hera raised an eyebrow at Athena. “And what did she say?”

“That showing up to a major oil industry conference and sending her arrows into a few of the most powerful executives would be a net boon to humanity and they would come around eventually.”

Hera sighed. “When will that girl learn that not all problems can be solved with target practice?” She decisively crossed Artemis’s entry out and moved on.

Aphrodite’s idea – appear at a Pride festival in full Botticelli glory while Eros peppered the counter-protestors with arrows designed to inspire all-consuming and ideally same-sex lust – made Hera smile, at least until she saw the location. “Paris Pride, really?”

“Aphrodite lives in Paris.”

“She would,” Hera muttered. “I think her talents would be better utilized in a place less friendly to equality.”

“I mentioned that to her. She said she would like to conference with a few other love and fertility deities and split up the work.”

“… Oh.” Well. Hera could hardly argue with that.

She quickly scanned the rest of the list, finding little to object to but scribbling a few ideas for improvements in the margins. When she reached the end—

She frowned.

The list wasn’t long enough.

Hera went back to the beginning and scanned the list again, this time more focused on mental math than the substance of the ideas presented. Obviously neither she nor Zeus would have an entry – Hera hardly needed to tell herself her own planned miracle, and Zeus had been tied up in a conference call with Odin, Dagda, Perun, and Ra since Dionysus’s little stunt had hit the news. She had hoped to have had more time to convince the other pantheons of the wisdom of her strategy, but as Hephaestus would say, one had to strike while the iron was hot. Dionysus wouldn’t have an entry, either, because Hera had specifically told Athena not to contact him to ask for one.

But they weren’t the only ones who were missing … “Did Hades send anything in?”

“He said that mortals never worshipped him much to begin with, and he was always perfectly content with that.”

Hera snorted. He would be. She’d deal with her pigheaded brother later. “Persephone sent in an idea.”

“In her capacity as Goddess of Spring, not Queen of the Underworld.”

“… True,” Hera admitted. “And Thalia and Melpomene both wish to consult with Dionysus first?”

“Comedy and tragedy do arguably fall under his purview.”

That was a good point. “What about Hermes?”

“Zeus has kept him busy most of the afternoon – but when I found him in between calls, he said he’d be a bit more obvious about the next start-up he gave a push to.”

Hera shook her head and jotted that down, even as she told Athena, “He’ll need to tell us specifically what he intends before he does anything. I don’t want him going off half-cocked. Now, let’s see …”

She scanned through the rest of the list.

She frowned.

“Athena.”

Athena folded her hands in her lap, took a deep breath, and said absolutely nothing.

“Where is your miracle?”

Athena frowned. “I don’t have one.”

Hera didn’t ask. She let her glare do the talking for her.

She should have realized that it wouldn’t work. Athena had a mind that appreciated proverbs (having come up with many of them herself), and better to stay silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt was a particular favorite.

Best to change tactics. “And why would that be?”

Athena let her gaze fall to her lap. “I am not convinced of the wisdom of this plan.”

“Your father and I already heard your objections. We decided that this would be our strategy. You do not—”

“You may have heard, but you did not listen!” Now Athena looked up, eyes flashing. “We have not just survived without human worshippers for nearly fifteen centuries. We have thrived!”

“Athena—”

“We have influence still. Plenty of it. Perhaps even more than we had in the old days—”

“We might be influencing more mortals, but that’s just because of population increase. Compared to the Abrahamics—”

“Who are blamed every time something goes wrong,” Athena pointed out. “The demons, if not the angels. What we have now is what Creon was so pleased with at the start of Oedipus Rex: power without responsibility.”

“I cannot imagine that the Goddess of Wisdom would be afraid of a little bit of responsibility.”

“I never said I feared it for myself. But you cannot pretend that we have always used our influence wisely.”

Hera did not bristle. At least, not visibly. Even if that was a dig at her, it was equally a dig at everyone else in the pantheon.

“We have not grown and matured nearly as much as I would like to us to have in our spiritual exile,” Athena said. “Before we bring it to an end, we should be ready to take up our mantle again. I fear we are not.”

“We are more than ready,” Hera snapped. “Or at any rate, we are certainly better equipped for mortal influence and all the responsibility it entails than the Abrahamics. We have no desire to wipe out humanity so we can settle a six-thousand-year-old grudge.”

Athena sighed. “Perhaps, but—”

“And need I remind you that we won’t be doing this alone? Assuming your father is successful, we’ll have virtually every other pantheon that has been pushed to the side by the Abrahamics on our side. Instead of one set of divinities reigning supreme over billions of people, we’ll all have a much larger sphere of influence than we do now and a much more manageable set of followers. Explain to me how that can possibly be worse than the Abrahamics having it all their own way.”

Athena scowled. “And what happens when we no longer have a common enemy to unite us? What happens when the Abrahamics are finally cut down to size and we start eyeing each other’s followers in the hopes of expanding our own trains?”

“We’ll deal with that day when it comes,” Hera replied. “Now, Athena?”

Athena raised an eyebrow.

Hera handed the list back, complete with her scribblings. “Send my feedback to the relevant parties and let me know what they come up with. And when you come back with the next list, I want to see your cleverest idea for a miracle or five to nudge the mortals in our direction. That is an order.”

Athena scowled and snatched the list back with far more ill-humor than was strictly warranted. “As you wish, my lady.” Then she left the room without a further word.

As for Hera … she sat back, frowning. That conversation could have certainly gone better.

But she shook her head. This was their plan. This was the best plan they had. Their first and perhaps only chance to reclaim the followers and influence they’d lost to the Abrahamics and return to their rightful place among the constellation of beings that mortals not just admired but worshipped.

And no one – not even Hera’s own excessively wise but also excessively pigheaded stepdaughter – would be allowed to get in the way of that.

[1] She’d never admit it out loud, but Mephistopheles may have had a point there.

[2] So clearly not Athena.

[3] Hera had no idea what this herd of horses was supposed to accomplish, but it would doubtless be impressive, and that was really all that she wanted to see.

Chapter Text

Anathema’s kitchen table had not had six chairs when this day had begun. It barely even fit six chairs, even with Aziraphale miracling the table as long as it could go before the kitchen became unnavigable. Yet now it had six chairs, and what’s more, six beings in those chairs.

Anathema’s kitchen table was rectangular, but still, something about the setup put Aziraphale in mind of so many long nights in Wessex, fomenting good often, counseling chastity rather more often than he would have liked,[1] and when all else failed, making plans for war.

He was rather afraid they had already arrived at “when all else failed.”

“All right, so,” Dionysus said. He and Ariadne had sat down thirty seconds ago, and as far as Aziraphale could tell, they had yet to let go of each other’s hands. “In the name of Gaia, Ouranos, and Chaos itself, who were those people at the bookshop, and why were they shooting at us?”

Newt and Anathema were also leaning forward. Aziraphale did not like bringing humans into this, but, well. This was their kitchen, so it would be a bit rude to leave them out.

“Well, in terms of who,” Aziraphale began, shooting Crowley a let me start glance, “there were two angels and two demons. The angels – well, I’m afraid I’m not sure who the younger one was, the one who shot Crowley, she seems a bit, er, new—”

“Oh, for Someone’s sake,” Crowley interrupted, “don’t tell me I got shot by a bloody intern.”

“Intern?” Newt asked. “There are angel interns?”

“Demon ones too. Just as incompetent as human ones. Possibly worse,” said Crowley. Then he turned back to Aziraphale. “Also, they passed off the job of – whatever the Heaven they were doing – to an intern? They think you’re tame enough that an intern can take you on? I am insulted, angel.”

Aziraphale took a deep breath. “Yes, well, hold that thought, dear – because the other angel was Samael. An archangel. Specifically the Archangel of Destruction.”

If Aziraphale had been hoping for a particular reaction, it probably would have been the one he got: wide eyes, sharp indrawn breaths, and stunned silence.

Dionysus was the first to break it. “When you say Archangel of Destruction …”

“Ever hear of Sodom and Gomorrah?” Crowley asked.

“That wasn’t just her, dear—”

Crowley’s hand covered his and quieted Aziraphale quite nicely. “The ten plagues of Egypt? The walls of Jericho tumbling down? And, ah, let’s see, what else—”

“I think we get the picture,” Ariadne murmured.

Dionysus, however, was studying Crowley with narrowed eyes. “I thought you were a demon. How do you know all that?”

“Bad news like Samael gets around.”

“Quite,” Aziraphale said. “If she was rumored to be in the area – well – demons cleared out of it very quickly.” He sighed. “So did humans, if they knew what was good for them.”

“Ok, so that’s the angels,” Ariadne said. “Who were the demons? The Xerox goblin—”

“Xerox goblin?” Anathema repeated, and Crowley snickered.

“He was a weird-looking goth who kept making copies of himself. Pretty creepy. Anyway, him, and, uh … the other one?”

“The goblin is Legion,” Crowley said, “and the other one is Mephistopheles.”

Dionysus looked up. His eyes narrowed. “Mephistopheles?”

“Dionysus—”

“‘Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed in one self place, but where we are is hell, and where hell is, there must we ever be’ – that Mephistopheles?”

Crowley flinched, and frankly so did Aziraphale. But Crowley was able to answer. “Yes. From the Faust legend. That was him.”

“Interesting.” Dionysus shifted, tensed, like a cat ready to pounce, and his eyes slowly shifted from brown to burgundy. Ariadne was glaring daggers at him. “Any chance he may have also had some dealings with Kit Marlowe?”

“Dionysus—”

“Only, you know,” Dionysus stretched in a way that looked lazy but was anything but, “poor Kit – died in a barfight, you know that, right? Except, he was a playwright – under my protection – and, well, a bar is the last place a playwright I’ve taken a shine to should be dying. So I’ve always wondered if perhaps there was some interference there.”

Ariadne threw her elbow on the table and let her head drop into her waiting hand. “It’s been four hundred years.”

“Wasn’t our – well – my former side,” Crowley replied. “Hell liked Doctor Faustus. The whole bit where Faustus gets dragged away by demons after appealing to Christ and getting nowhere went over quite well Down Below.”

“Heaven liked the play, too,” Aziraphale said, before Dionysus could follow Crowley’s speech to its logical conclusion. “I mean, it features a demon telling a man ‘no, don’t damn yourself, that’s a terrible idea and I would know.’ Plus the implied lesson about the futility of human knowledge compared with Grace.”

“I told you it was mortal politics,” Ariadne said, but Dionysus, at least, was sitting back with a sigh.

“Right. So. We had squaring off against us one archangel, one angelic intern, and …” Dionysus raised an eyebrow at Crowley. “Where do Legion and Mephistopheles stand in the Hellish pecking order?”

“More pecked upon than pecking,” Crowley replied.

“Huh,” Ariadne murmured, echoing Aziraphale’s thoughts, even as he wondered if he ought to be insulted. He’d been sure that display with the splashing and asking Michael for a rubber duck would be enough to win Crowley a bit of peace.

“So that answers the first question – who they were – now the next – why were they shooting at us?” Dionysus asked.

Once again, Crowley and Aziraphale exchanged a glance. But there was really no help for it. If now wasn’t the time to come clean, when would there be a time?

This time Crowley started. “Well … based on what they said … I’m guessing they knew we went … well, they knew we left Earth, even if they didn’t know where we went.”

“Because we went to the Underworld, you see,” Aziraphale said. “To …” He looked at Ariadne. “Well, to see if we could find out a bit more about you, dear.”

“Me?” Ariadne asked.

Before she could say more than that, Crowley hurried on. “We wanted to confirm a couple things. Because we were given your name, and a promise of contact information …” Crowley’s attention shifted, infinitesimally, away from Ariadne and toward Dionysus. “By Hera.”

If Crowley had been hoping for a reaction, he would not be disappointed.

“Hera?!” Dionysus shouted, springing to his feet. “Hera came to you?”

“Yep,” Crowley said.

Dionysus began to pace, and – well, whatever he said next was not in a language Aziraphale understood, probably that Olympian dialect again. It was also probably not language fit for polite company, a surmise which Ariadne confirmed when she said, thankfully in English, “Sweetie, if you turn anyone’s hair black—”

Dionysus spun to face her. “She’s playing at something.”

“Yes. Obviously.”

“But what?” Now Dionysus rounded on Crowley and Aziraphale. “Did she say what she wanted from you?”

“She, er, refused to talk terms,” Aziraphale said. “I believe—”

“Oh, fantastic. Fantastic. We’re in Hera’s debt and we don’t even know what she wants.”

“No, we’re not,” Crowley replied. “At least Aziraphale and I aren’t. All we got from her was a first name and a photo, and she gave us those as bait.”

“And I found my way to them myself,” Ariadne added. “We don’t owe her anything.”

“So now we’ve thwarted her. Even better!”

“Sorry,” Newt said, “please excuse the dumb human here, but—why is it so bad that Hera is involved?”

“Newt—” Anathema started, but never got a chance to finish, because Dionysus rounded on him.

“Hera,” Dionysus said, and his voice was low and very, very serious, “is one of the most jealous, vindictive goddesses in any pantheon. She is the sort of goddess who sends a pair of snakes to murder an infant. She’s the sort of goddess who curses a pregnant woman to be unable to give birth on dry land or an island. Oh, and speaking of pregnant women, Hera is the sort of goddess who tricks one into getting herself burned to ash by her baby’s father.”

Ariadne made a soothing noise and took Dionysus’s hand – a hand which Dionysus seemed to cling to.

“And that is barely even scratching the surface of what she’s done,” Dionysus concluded, throwing himself back into his chair, “so if she decides she’s going to chase after whatever she thinks she’s owed or whatever she wanted to gain? You two,” he pointed at Anathema and Newt, “are to get away. Far away.”

Anathema sat up straighter. “Now hold on a second—”

“I am not joking,” Dionysus said. “You are mortal. Hera is ruthless. And Hera doesn’t believe in innocent bystanders. Ask Megara and her children if you don’t believe me.”

“Megara? From the Disney movie?” asked Anathema.

“No,” Dionysus said. “From Thebes. Megara was the wife of Heracles, until Hera drove Heracles mad and he murdered her. And their children.”

Anathema’s jaw fell and Newt choked, but Aziraphale watched Ariadne. Ariadne was frowning, eyes on Dionysus, and not saying a word.

Aziraphale could perhaps be excused for assuming that was not a good sign.

“So, wonderful,” Crowley “Hell’s after us. Heaven’s after us. Hera may or may not be after us. Now what?”

Dionysus took a deep breath—

But Ariadne was the one who sat up straight and spoke. “The Underworld. You said you were in the Underworld. Who did you talk to down there?”

“A few people,” Aziraphale said. “Hypnos; a, er, charming fellow named Briareus; Hades – but mostly Persephone.”

Ariadne’s eyes went wide, and she was—smiling? Even Dionysus looked heartened – surprised, but heartened.

He glanced at Ariadne. “You think …?”

“I’ll call her. I’ll call her right—” Ariadne patted herself down and somehow – Aziraphale was not sure how, but suspected a miracle – produced a slim mobile. “Oh, yikes.”

“Yikes?” Dionysus asked.

Ariadne turned the phone toward Dionysus. “I’m not calling her now.”

“Oh. Yikes.”

“Why?” Anathema asked. “What’s yikes?”

Ariadne turned the phone to Anathema, who blinked at the time displayed on it. “Oh, yikes.”

“You know,” Newt said, “maybe—maybe we all ought to get some rest. I know you have all had a busy day …”

Aziraphale was not normally in the habit of sleeping, but there were exceptions to every rule. “We should probably see if there’s a hotel room to be had,” he nudged Crowley.

“What? Don’t be ridiculous,” Anathema said. “You’re all staying here. I’ve got plenty of room. This place has three bedrooms.”

“We cannot trespass upon your hospitality like that,” Dionysus said.

“Sure you can. Or rather, you’re not. If angels, demons, or angry Greek goddesses show up, I want someone around who can handle them while Newt and I make a break for it.”

“Ah,” Dionysus said, and grinned.

“Wards, then,” Crowley said, getting up. “If only so we know to tell you two to make a break for it.”

“I’ve got wards—”

“We’ll have better ones,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale nodded.

“Much better ones,” Dionysus added, and Aziraphale saw no reason to doubt that.

“So, it’s settled then,” Aziraphale said. “Wards – then rest – and we keep planning in the morning.”

As the four non-humans headed outside to start laying the wards, Aziraphale reflected that it wasn’t the most thorough or comprehensive battle plan he’d ever been part of. But it was also far from the worst, and after the day they’d had?

That was more than enough to be getting on with.

Of course as soon as things got interesting, Mephistopheles, Legion, and the intern were kicked out. Beelzebub had buzzed about Mephistopheles and Legion having work to do; Michael had told the intern that the infirmary would probably want to have another look at her. And that had been that.

Mephistopheles had to work hard to school an expression of disappointment onto his face.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to know what was being done and said – if he had the ability to make copies of himself like Legion, he would have liked to leave a second Mephistopheles in that meeting. But Samael was still in there, and that was almost as good. Which meant that Mephistopheles was free to go off and do something useful.

Like see if he could find anything about the redhead.

Mephistopheles, after all, hadn’t mentioned that the only reason why he and Samael had found the god to trail was because they’d been trailing the redhead first. He also hadn’t gone into detail about the way the people in the bookshop had been standing or the logical inferences to draw from the things they’d said. Of course Legion or the intern could have mentioned those things, but they’d been kicked out. Samael could, too, but she wouldn’t.

So when all was said and done, Mephistopheles commiserated with Legion about being left out of the really interesting part for as long as it was polite, and then as soon as it wasn’t, he was out of the elevator and hurrying to the Cabinets.

The Cabinets were a particularly unpleasant part of Hell.[2] Even damper, smellier, and more bloody uncomfortable than the rest, the Cabinets managed to pile on the creepy by being just row after row of beige filing cabinets. The sort of things that managed to look unassuming while at the same time striking a tendril of fear down the spine of every office worker. Plus, you couldn’t open any of the drawers without creating an infernal racket that echoed through all the exposed pipes along the walls. And you got a little static shock every time you touched a part of the filing cabinets that was metal (which was to say, every time you touched the cabinets).

But the Cabinets held one of the greatest treasures of Hell: information. So Mephistopheles would brave their unpleasantness every time if it meant getting what he wanted.

There were some parts of the Cabinets that were open to all; Mephistopheles sailed right past those. What he needed would be in the deeper parts of the archive, the parts locked behind doors with signs reading, Authorized Personnel Only – This Means Not You![3]

Of course, this being Hell, the signs were only the first line of defense – the one meant to weed out the least powerful and most cautious. They’d worked for a time on Mephistopheles, too, at least until he had watched and listened and learned to work his way past the tricks.

Now, those doors opened for him as easily as if he had a key – a particularly stubborn key, one that he never put in the door the right way around on the first try and that was on a whole keyring of similar-looking keys to boot, so he’d spend quite five minutes fumbling before finally getting the blessed thing open. But a key all the same.

There were five such doors, and none of them held Mephistopheles back for long. Because that was the thing about Hell. Heaven could blather on about how all demons were intrinsically evil, but they hadn’t been tossed out for being evil, because evil hadn’t existed until they’d knocked around in Hell long enough to invent it. They’d been tossed out because they danced to the beats of their own drummers. Dared to have opinions. Refused to conform. Disobeyed.[4] The jackasses on the Dark Council might blather on about how they expected absolute obedience or else, but Hell? Hell knew better. If you could work your way past the locks and the traps, then you were authorized personnel, and bless anyone who said otherwise.

And once Mephistopheles opened the final door, it was easy enough to find what he was looking for. Hell’s information organization system might have been infernal, but it wasn’t barbaric. Once you got used to the logic, it was child’s play to locate whatever you needed.

So it wasn’t long before Mephistopheles was standing in front of the wine god’s filing cabinet.

And he had an entire filing cabinet. Hell kept notes on everything it observed – and for many centuries it had keenly observed all the gods Heaven had eventually displaced, searching for potential allies. Even when Hell had been told, usually politely, to bugger off, they kept observing. Just in case things changed.

It was a lucky thing that they did …

Mephistopheles opened the top drawer, winced at the rattle that echoed through the vaulted room, and got to work.

Oh …

Oh, HELLO.

He barely even had to peek into the first few folders before he’d hit the jackpot. Before long, he had a whole stack of files that could be quite helpful, everything from modern surveillance photos to ancient papyrus reports. There was even more where that came from, but this was plenty to be getting on with. The last thing he needed to deal with was someone who actually was authorized (in the Dark Council’s eyes) coming in and asking just what the Heaven he thought he was doing.

Mephistopheles brought his stack to the ancient, stained copy machine and pressed buttons until the inevitable error messages went away.[5] Someone must have been smiling upon him, for the machine was almost cooperative. He only had to sort out three paper jams and weed out half-a-dozen photocopied bare bottoms before getting his copies.[6] Then there was nothing left to do but put the originals back precisely where he’d found them and head back up to the fifth floor.

It was, of course, far from guaranteed that Samael would still be there. But they couldn’t meet on Earth until Mephistopheles got another corporation – not unless he wanted to possess some human, and generally that was more trouble than it was worth – and anyway, Samael didn’t have a corporation yet, either. Probably.

He would just have to go up there and hope he’d be able to catch Samael before she went back up to Heaven.

He took the stairs because he knew he wouldn’t meet Beelzebub, Dagon, or Hastur that way.[7] And that was his second bit of luck. When he’d gotten to the fourth floor, he heard footsteps above him, craned his neck to look up—

Samael!

And she was alone!

“Samael!” he hissed, keeping his voice low just in case the sound carried.

Samael jumped, looked down, and grinned.

“Well, well, well. And here I was just wondering how I’d get ahold of you.” Samael waited on the landing for Mephistopheles. “You shouldn’t have come up here, though.”

“Eh, I could have thought of an excuse. Besides.” He flashed a smile and held up the stack of photocopies. “I found things.”

“Things?” Samael asked, even as she opened the door, scanned the corridor, and all-but-dragged Mephistopheles into the nearest conference room.

“Yep. About the redhead.” He let the pile of copies fall on the table with a pleasing thunk. “And this isn’t even everything. Just something to get us started.”

Samael’s eyebrows arched, but she slid into a chair and patted the one next to her. Mephistopheles took it and watched Samael as she went through the stack.

“Ariadne,” Samael said first, her eyes on the topmost file. “You’re sure that’s her name?”

In answer, Mephistopheles flipped the page over and gestured to the surveillance photo. It hadn’t been a good photo to begin with, and after going through Hell’s black-and-white copy machine, it was worse, but the redhead was recognizable. “We’ve got plenty of photos of her – this is just the only one I bothered to copy.”

“Huh,” Samael murmured. “So why do I know that name?”

“Go to the last page.”

Samael raised an eyebrow at him.

“It’s in reverse chronological order. We haven’t actually got files on her, I don’t think … but, well. she shows up quite a bit in the wine god’s files.”

“Well, well, well,” Samael said as she thumbed through the printouts. She came to the last one.

Mephistopheles bit his lip and found himself hoping – praying, almost – that it was legible. Papyrus on the copy machine was always a crapshoot—

But Samael was frowning, and not the I-can’t-read-this frown of a frustrated angel. “Mephistopheles?”

“Yes?”

“This reads like it’s the first intel report on Dionysus.”

“Could be. It was one of the oldest reports in his file.”

“And it says,” Samael cleared her throat, “‘The god travels with a harem of followers, called Maenads, but among them his favorite is a human woman/demigoddess called Ariadne, originally from Crete.’”

“If you skip a couple paragraphs, there’s a short summary of what we were able to find out about—”

“How old is this report?”

Mephistopheles blinked. “Um …” Dates were always a nightmare, especially going that far back. While Heaven had counted down from the beginning and then after the birth of the Christ started counting up, Hell had used whatever dating system was current among the humans at the time. “I think – somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty-five hundred years ago? I could be off by a century or two …”

Samael stared at the pile of printouts and blinked. “Thirty-five hundred years.”

“Roughly.”

“So that blows one theory out of the water,” Samael murmured.

Mephistopheles raised an eyebrow at her.

Samael pursed her lips together and cast a glance over her shoulder, even though nobody could possibly be listening in. “We were wondering if the redhead – if she was … well. Like the Nephilim.”

Mephistopheles shuddered. He remembered the Nephilim. They’d been so damned weird – and destructive – that the Almighty had had to send a flood to destroy them all.[8] It had been one of the few decisions made by the Almighty that Mephistopheles had seen no reason to disagree with.

“But she can’t be,” Samael went on, “because there’s no way we could have missed a Nephilim or Nephilim-like being for thirty-five hundred years.”

“She was in Greece for a lot of those years. And, well. You remember what they were like.”

“Even the Greeks knew trouble when they saw it. Why d’you think the gods went around making so many demigods? Someone had to deal with all the monsters.”

Remembering the stories that had come out of Greece, Mephistopheles could see Samael’s point.

“But why would she be like the Nephilim, anyway?” Mephistopheles asked.

“Cross-breed. Or rather cross-species mix. That never ends well.”

Mephistopheles frowned. “… Is she?”

Samael blinked at him. “She’s half-angel, half-demon. What else would she be?”

“But, but that’s the thing,” Mephistopheles pointed out. “Demons aren’t like humans, made from the dust with life breathed into them. We’re—we used to be angels, once.”

Samael’s eyes went wide. And she looked back down at the papers in front of her.

“You … have a point.” She frowned. “But she’s definitely not an angel.”

“Not a demon, either.”

“So some kind of mix.”

“Right – but there’s a difference between a mutt and a mule. You know?”

Samael looked puzzled for a moment, and Mephistopheles wondered if maybe she didn’t know. He’d never seen Samael express any sort of interest in animals.

Then her face cleared; she nodded and turned back to the files in front of her. “Still. Should probably get through this first, before we get sidetracked with a thousand questions. So let’s …”

She turned over the paper and blinked. “Mephistopheles, why—”

“Sorry!” Mephistopheles snatched the offending page, balled it up and tossed it the direction of the nearest trash can. “Though I got them all.”

Samael raised an eyebrow. “Do I want to know?”

“No. No, you really don’t.”

“Fair enough.”

And with that, Samael nodded once, and they both turned back to reading.

After all, they had quite a bit of material to get through before one or both of them were likely to be missed.

According to Dionysus’s phone, it was getting on for four in the morning. He knew this because he was staring at it, mindlessly scrolling through Twitter. And he was doing that because he couldn’t sleep.

Ariadne was curled up in the crook of his arm, out cold. Dionysus wasn’t sure whether to envy her or worry about her. Ariadne slept – they both did, they might not need to, but they’d both formed the habit as children and never quite gotten out of it – but she usually didn’t sleep twice in one day.

Then again, they usually didn’t have days like this one. Up at an ungodly hour – getting shot at – exploding a car – some sort of otherworldly healing Dionysus still hadn’t had explained to him – highly emotional confession – and then, after all that, an hour tailing an angel and a demon like a duckling as they laid wards around the cottage.

Dionysus had covertly watched her as much as he was able between laying his own wards. Even after knowing her so long, he hadn’t been able to tell what drew her more – the lure of learning something new, a bit of magic that wouldn’t need a million workarounds, or the lure of having finally found her family.

The phone gave off just enough light for Dionysus to see her face. Ariadne never looked her best asleep, features slack, drooling, hair sprouting new snarls every time she moved a fraction of an inch. But right now, she looked so peaceful, contentment rolling off her in waves—

The wards Dionysus had laid buzzed. That would have been alarming enough. His phone buzzed at the same time, which didn’t help.

Worst of all, though, was the text message making the phone buzz.

Come out come out wherever you are!

Dionysus nearly started cursing a blue streak.

But he didn’t, because Ariadne was stirring. “Di’nysus? Whazzat?”

“Nothing, sweetheart.” A lie, but a harmless one. Hopefully. “Just my phone. Go back to sleep.”

“Oh.” Ariadne yawned, then burrowed back under the covers and dropped back to sleep.

Dionysus waited, straining every one of his senses.

But there were no sounds from the other guest bedroom, no hint of hall light spilled under the door, not even another buzz from the wards.

His phone was another story.

I know you’re in there!

Fuck. Clearly, there was no getting out of this one.

As carefully as he could, Dionysus extricated himself from Ariadne and the bed. He dressed himself with a wave of his hand and slipped out the bedroom door. Then he padded barefoot down the stairs and out the door.

The night air hit him with enough force to make him shiver and plunge his hands into his pockets. Damn English weather. He missed LA, warm sunup to sunup.

But he didn’t have time to be cold, so he hurried down the path to the garden gate and beyond.

The Bentley was still parked on the road, guarded by demonic wards thick enough and strong enough to make even Dionysus give it a wide berth. Parked behind it was a motorcycle. And perched on the motorcycle was a goddess.

The goddess looked up from her phone and huffed. “Finally,” she said, shoving the phone into the pocket of her leather jacket. “Took you long enough, thigh-baby.”

“Eris,” Dionysus said. “What do you want?”

She pouted. “Aww, come on. Haven’t you got something at least a little nicer for your favorite older sister?”

“You are not my favorite older sister.”

“Oh please. Who else would it be?” Eris pillowed her arms on the handlebars of the bike and blinked up at Dionysus. “Don’t tell me it’s Athena. The stick you’ve got up your butt has never gone that far up.”

Dionysus rolled his eyes and didn’t take the bait. “I got out of bed for this. What do you want, Eris?”

“Oh, lots of things! A drone, a hoverboard – a real one, a Marty McFly one, ‘cause I already have one of the ones that catch fire – my very own nuclear warhead—”

Well, now Dionysus wasn’t going to sleep for the next week.

“—For everyone to stop telling me I need therapy, a pony—”

“A pony?” Dionysus asked.

“When someone asks you what you want, you have to say a pony. It’s traditional! Anyway. But what I’d really like, right now,” Eris tilted her head and grinned up at him, “is for you to tell me what you’re doing in Tadfield, at the house of people Father specifically said we weren’t supposed to be talking to.”

Dionysus set his shoulders and glared. “It’s none of your business.”[9]

“So what? I want to know!”

“The Rolling Stones had a song about getting what you want,” Dionysus replied. “It was a bit of a hit. Involved a boys’ choir. I’m sure you’ve heard it.”

“Oh please. I wouldn’t let Apollo put me off with that, you think I’m going to let you quote a song at me?”

It was worth a try, Dionysus thought.

“Besides, I don’t go around making movies. Or plays. Or wine, for that matter. So I don’t see where you get off going around making trouble.”

There was absolutely nothing Dionysus could say that Eris wouldn’t take, twist, and use against him, so he said nothing.

“I mean, if you’re going to pull that kind of bullshit,” Eris went on, as if she hadn’t been expecting a reply – which she very well might not have been – “the least you can do is let me know what’s up and count me in, because—”

Dionysus’s heart dropped. “No.”

“No? No what?”

“No fucking way! You—” Dionysus bit the rest of that sentence back, hard, because the last thing he needed to be doing right now was telling Eris anything remotely adjacent to the truth.

You are a walking disaster, he wanted to say. Everything you touch blows up spectacularly. The last time you got invited to a wedding, a city fell.

Except …

Eris hadn’t been invited to that wedding, had she?[10] She’d been specifically excluded. De-invited from not just that wedding but every wedding by divine decree of Hera after The Incident at Hades and Persephone’s wedding.

And look how trying to keep Eris from making trouble at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis had turned out …

What was it that Hermes had said the first time Dionysus asked him what Eris was doing at a family meeting? “Pater realized it was way better to have her inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in. And Hera agreed. Which tells us all we need to know, really.”

“Y’know, thigh-baby,” Eris said, resting her chin on one hand and beaming up at him, “if I didn’t know better, I’d say you looked like you just got hit with a clue-by-four.”

Dionysus took a deep breath. He crossed his arms, tucking hands into armpits as if the reason why he was trembling was simply the temperature. “Let’s start with one thing. This trouble? It isn’t about me. I didn’t go looking for it. I’m only—”

He hesitated. But there was no getting around this, not if he wanted to make sure Eris was in the tent with the urine going in the correct direction. “It’s because of Ari that I’m in this.”

Eris blinked. “Ari? Ariadne? Your girlfriend Ariadne? Who’s never set one little toe over any line Father cared to draw?”

Because Father never put the line between her and anywhere she wanted to go.

“Yes. And if anything – anything – happens to her because you wanted to watch the world burn, I will find the deepest, darkest pit Tartarus has to offer, and I will fling you into it myself.”

Eris rolled her eyes. “Uh huh. Sure. And if I buy that one, do you have a bridge in Brooklyn—”

“Do I need to swear it by the Styx?” Dionysus asked.

Even just saying those words – not actually doing it – Dionysus felt the frisson of power. Icy fingers reaching out, ready to bind him to his words, whatever those words might be. It made him shudder, and he didn’t care that Eris saw.

Eris’s jaw fell; she must have felt it too. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would,” Dionysus said, and whether she had meant that he wouldn’t fling her into Tartarus or that he wouldn’t swear it didn’t matter. The answer was the same.

She leaned back. “You never swear on the Styx.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

“Well, shit.” Eris ran a hand through her hair and blinked up at him through her lashes. “What in Tartarus has Ariadne gotten herself into that you’re willing to do that to make sure it doesn’t blow up in her face?”

“To make sure you don’t blow up in her face,” Dionysus corrected, “and, well …”

He didn’t want to do this. Even if Eris seemed likely to behave. She was, if not the last person he wanted to know what was going with Ariadne, pretty damn close to the bottom of the list. But here she was, and the only thing worse than having her on their side was not having her on their side.

So Dionysus took a deep breath and murmured a quick prayer to Gaia, Chaos, or any other primordial force that cared to listen (and not hate him on sight for reasons of ancestry).

And then he told her.

[1] He’d been disturbingly successful with Sir Bors, but he’d had no luck whatsoever with Lancelot or Guinevere.

[2] Which was saying something.

[3] Mephistopheles always wondered whether the signs were magically attuned to the demons looking at it, displaying the correct message for the viewer, or whether they said that sort of thing to everyone. He’d never been brave enough to ask a lower-ranked demon and find out.

[4] And, in one memorable case, asked questions.

[5] Every demon had their own way of dealing with the ubiquitous copy machine errors. Some shouted. Some kicked the machines. Some shouted and kicked the machines. The one thing absolutely no one did was look up the error codes and fix whatever the problem was.

[6] No one was quite sure who had cursed the copy machines to spit out random images of demons’ bottoms, but Mephistopheles suspected the demon Crowley.

[7] Taking the stairs was perilously close to being virtuous, after all.

[8] Along with most of humanity, or at least the humans who lived around the Mediterranean, but who was counting?

[9] You might be wondering why Dionysus didn’t ask Eris how she knew where he was. There were two reasons for this. The first was that it was a useless question; Eris always knew where and how to find trouble. The second was that not asking never failed to annoy Eris.

[10] Dionysus had been. There were relatively few things that the Greek and Abrahamic divinities agreed upon, but “weddings need lots of wine” was one of them.

Chapter Text

Since Anathema and Newt had not planned on having their home invaded by four not-strictly-human beings, the selections for breakfast were … sparse. “No worries,” Anathema said, throwing a jacket over her shoulders. “There’s a pretty good café on the main street—”

“High street,” Newt corrected.

Anathema caught Ariadne’s and Dionysus’s eyes and winked. “Although you might want to grab a cup of coffee before you go. I’m not sure they quite understand what good coffee is over there.”

“Says the woman who can barely brew a cup of tea to save her life,” Newt replied as they all stepped out the front door.

“Pfft. You say that like it’s hard. All you have to do is put some water in a mug, put the mug in the microwave—”

“I’m sorry, the what?” Aziraphale sputtered with enough indignation that Ariadne had to bite back a laugh.

She glanced up at Dionysus, to see if he found it as funny as she did—

Dionysus wasn’t looking at her. Wasn’t looking at any of them. Was staring at his feet as they hiked through the summer-tall grass on the side of the road, with the sort of scowl that said he thought he was unobserved.

Ariadne frowned. He’d been out of sorts ever since they – or, well, she – had woken up. She couldn’t be sure he had slept. Ariadne bumped her hip against his, raising an eyebrow when he jumped and looked at her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, low enough not to be heard by anyone but him.

Dionysus glanced sidelong at their companions – Anathema, Newt, and Aziraphale continuing to argue over tea and Crowley trying very hard not to laugh at the three – and shook his head. “After breakfast. There are some things you need to face on a full stomach.”

Ariadne’s eyebrows arched. “About how worried should I be?”

“Well …” Dionysus ran a hand through his hair, looked around, and sighed. “Let’s put it at DEFCON 3.”

“We’re not already at DEFCON 3?”

“DEFCON 2 and a half, then.”

Fantastic.

She didn’t ask more, though she did slip an arm through Dionysus’s and didn’t pull away as they walked into the village proper.

She wondered, vaguely, what kind of picture they made: the goth-inspired witch, the washed-up rocker in sunglasses and a tartan sling, the nineteenth-century shopkeeper, the tall and tanned young man with a hint of wildness in his eyes, the barely-put-together redhead, and Newt the token normal. Although Newt probably didn’t qualify as normal when he was walking with them.

She was taken enough by these musings that she barely noticed the motorcycle parked in front of the little café Anathema led them to.

She probably should have. They’d just made it inside when an awfully familiar voice rang through the tiny space.

“Thigh-baby! And Ari!”

“Oh, no,” Dionysus moaned.

What the—

Ariadne couldn’t complete the thought before Eris pinballed into her pulled her into—

It wasn’t a hug. More like a wrestler’s hold, meant to immobilize and stun. Its only virtue was that it was over quickly.

“Look at you!” Eris grinned, holding Ariadne at an arm’s length. Ariadne had enough time to notice, dazed, that Eris was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Lucille Ball sticking her tongue out before Eris started speaking again. “All grown up and causing trouble! I am so proud.”

“Eris,” Dionysus growled.

“And these must be your parents!” Eris squealed. “You have no idea how long she’s been looking for you. Probably ever since Dionysus first brought her up to Olympus and Athena did some proto-DNA testing and Ari found out the hard way that she was adopted—”

“Eris!”

“What?”

The onslaught ended, or at least paused, Ariadne dared to look at Aziraphale and Crowley. Aziraphale’s jaw had fallen, while Crowley had shifted his shades down enough to peer at Eris over them. “Do we … know you?”

“You should,” Eris sniffed. “Thigh-baby said he was going to warn you.”

“Full stomach?” Ariadne heard herself ask.

Dionysus ran a hand down his face. “You weren’t supposed to come see us until I called you.”

“Come see you?” Eris asked. “I’m just here for breakfast! Not my fault you showed up. What, I’m supposed to pretend I don’t know my own brother?”

“Brother?” Newt asked.

“Wow,” Eris said, glaring at Dionysus, “you really didn’t tell them anything, did you?” But she turned to grin at the rest of them. “But you know what? Whatever! Hi, I’m Eris, Goddess of Strife and Discord, what are your names?”

“… I think I’m going to need something stronger than coffee,” Anathema said.

“Oh, skip the coffee,” Eris said. “I tried it. And hexed the coffee machine. Broke a really hard-to-find part, too. It’ll take at least three weeks to ship a replacement in.”

As if to prove her words, Eris gestured to the counter, where a harassed-looking older woman was on the phone, not paying a lick of attention to them but nonetheless looking more horrified by the second.

Dionysus groaned and waved his hand at the coffee machine, which instantly perked to life and spat out three cups of coffee. “Could you at least try to behave?”

“Nope!”

It was at that point Ariadne’s brain shut off. It was the only way to handle Eris. Dealing with her was like getting caught in a rip tide. Your best hope was to swim parallel to the shore and hope the tide found someone else to harass before you were swept out to sea.

So she made her way to the counter, ordered a coffee and the first pastry she saw, handed over her credit card and sent a bit of persuasion the barista’s way that would ensure that everything that was ordered got put on her card. She’d planned on treating Anathema and Newt anyway, but if they were siccing Eris on unsuspecting divinities and mortals, the least Ariadne could do was pay for their breakfast.

Breakfast purchased, Ariadne turned back to the café proper … to find that Eris had shoved three tables together, so there’d be room for all six of them to eat with her. And Eris had seated herself right in the middle, where she could grin at Ariadne and wave her over.

Well. Fantastic. Still, Ariadne sat next to her, because someone had to, and if Dionysus took Eris’s other side, they could at least hope to contain the blast radius.

Dionysus seemed to be thinking the same thing, for he took the other chair next to Eris. Aziraphale came to the table next, worried gaze fixed on Ariadne, and sat across from her. Crowley took the seat next to Aziraphale, putting him across from Eris. That left Newt to take the chair on the end, next to Dionysus, when the latter kicked it out for him and Anathema to take the one chair left, next to Crowley.

Ariadne sipped her coffee (just as bad as Eris had promised) and crumbled the pastry in the hopes that no one would notice that she wasn’t eating it.

She didn’t say much, which was fine, because Eris in a chatty mood could talk enough for three people. And since Anathema actually came out and asked whether Eris had really started the Trojan War (“What?” she asked when Ariadne and Dionysus stared at her, “when’s the next time I’ll get a chance to quiz a goddess?”), Eris was in quite the chatty mood. The Trojan War was only the start of her exploits, and she was only too happy to share some of the highlights.[1]

Crowley, Ariadne noticed, looked very interested as Eris talked. That was only mildly terrifying.

Not that Ariadne had long to bask in the mild terror. She’d barely sipped her coffee before Eris was poking her in the ribs. “Hey! I heard you blew up a car yesterday! I want to know more about that.”

“Um …” Ariadne started.

“Oh, that—that wasn’t particularly interesting,” Aziraphale said. “I mean, just a few stray miracles, and, well—”

“It was like something out of a bad action movie, from what I’ve heard,” Anathema said, winking at Ariadne. “You know – the kind that’s all explosion, no brain? You’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all?”

Dionysus took a quick sip of coffee, probably to hide a snicker.

“You know what I want to know about?” Anathema went on, leaning forward. “Every couple has a meet cute story, right? I mean – Newt and I met while the world was literally ending, those two,” she tilted her chin at Aziraphale and Crowley, “met while it was beginning – so what about you two? What’s your story?” Anathema asked.

And she meant well. That was as plain as the glasses on her face. But—

Ariadne’s throat went dry, and she looked around the table. Newt looked politely inquiring; Dionysus had thrown her a questioning glance; and Aziraphale and Crowley—

Oh, there was interest there, a casual lean on Crowley’s part, a tilt of the chin and a raise of the eyebrows, a nonverbal Oh? from Aziraphale. And Ariadne—

She couldn’t talk about this. Not now. Not when she’d barely even known Aziraphale and Crowley two days. It wasn’t Dionysus that she didn’t want to talk about – she’d happily talk about him all day – it was the everything else that went into how they met.

Ariadne gulped down some coffee, trying to think of something, anything, to put Anathema off.

A mistake. Eris took advantage of that pause to lean conspiratorially toward Anathema. “She probably doesn’t want to talk about it,” she not-whispered, “because she and thigh-baby only met when Ariadne’s ex-boyfriend dumped her on Naxos—”

Ariadne slammed her coffee cup down.

“Dumped me?” Ariadne hissed.

Dionysus’s eyes had gone very wide. And Eris looked surprised. “Well, he—”

“No, no. You’re not getting out of this that easily. You want to tell the story, Eris? Tell whole story.”

She twisted in her chair, the better to glare at Eris. “First – he didn’t dump me. Oh, he put me ashore at Naxos, but that was only because I’d made myself the world’s worst kidnapping victim. And if you’re going to call that asshole anything, instead of calling him my ex-boyfriend, why don’t you call him what he was – the bastard Athenian demigod who pretended he was in love with me so he could trick me and use me to murder my brother!”

She didn’t realize that she had gotten louder with every word until she was practically shouting at the end. And when she looked up, every mortal in the café was staring at her, whatever bubble that was protecting them from mundane notice having well and truly popped.

Oh … shit …

Ariadne didn’t dare look across the table. “I—I need some air,” she stammered. And practically ran from the café.

So clearly Eris had tap-danced on some trauma there, Ariadne was on the run, and everyone in the café was now staring. Wonderful.

The last bit, though, Crowley could fix.

“Oi! As you bloody well were!” Crowley said, snapping the fingers of his good hand, and the humans in the café went back to their coffees[2] and their breakfasts as if no one had been practically shouting about murdered brothers before running out of the café like the hounds of Hell were after her.[3]

“I should,” Aziraphale said, and didn’t actually say what he should do, but the way he got up (leaving his tea and croissant behind) and hurried out of the café rather said it all. Probably for the best that he be the one to go after Ariadne, talking people down from the proverbial ledge being far more his wheelhouse than Crowley’s.

As for Dionysus, he took hold of Eris’s elbow and hauled her from her chair. “I think it’s about time we had a chat, Discordia. Excuse us.”

“Roman name? Oh, that’s a low—oof! I’m coming, I’m coming!”

And in the wake of those hasty departures, Crowley, Newt, and Anathema remained, holding down the fort.

For a minute none of them spoke. Then Newt cleared his throat. “Well. Er. That happened.”

“I had no idea asking that would set a bomb off,” Anathema said, shooting a questioning glance at Crowley.

“Don’t look at me. I wouldn’t have guessed it either,” Crowley said. He really should have Googled Ariadne when he had the chance. He hadn’t, because he’d invented the pastime of Googling one’s friends, acquaintances, coworkers and self and knew blessed well that nothing good ever came from it, but apparently even a broken clock could be right twice a day.[4]

They sat in awkward silence, Crowley drumming his fingers on the table until he couldn’t take it anymore. “Right. ‘Scuse me, back in a bit.”

“Where are you going?” Newt asked.

“To eavesssdrop,” was all Crowley said before drawing a bit of demonic you-don’t-see-me around himself and leaving the café.

Once outside, he hesitated – not over what he was going to do, but how he was going to do it. Shapeshifting while injured could be a terrible idea at the best of times …

But it wasn’t his corporation that was injured, was it? The sling was half placebo effect for him, half Xanax for Aziraphale. His soul was another story, but … that would be injured in whatever shape he was in.

Maybe he’d even feel better. Snakes didn’t have shoulders.

With little more than a thought and a shimmer in the air, Crowley’s human corporation disappeared, replaced by long black snake with a red belly.

The soreness he’d felt since yesterday didn’t go away. But it didn’t get worse, either. Crowley would take it.

He’d also take the enhanced senses the snake form gave him. Dionysus and Eris were masking their Presences, but their scents were a different story. The scent of Olympian – a tang of lightning, a hint of ambrosia, and an overwhelming wave of power – was not difficult to pick out of a crowd if you knew what to sniff for and had the nose to do so.

So Crowley followed his nose until it led him to Dionysus and Eris, who’d set up camp near the village’s war memorial. There was a bubble of humans-leave-us-alone built around them, but luckily that kind of thing didn’t apply to Crowley. He slithered up a nearby tree and into its branches, the better to hang down and listen.

Eris had seated herself on the base of the memorial, arms crossed over her chest and eyebrow raised at Dionysus. “You have got to be kidding.”

Oh, good, they were speaking English. Then again, Crowley wondered what other language the Goddess of Discord would speak, given a choice in the matter. There were only so many languages that had discord built into their very bedrock quite the same way English did.

“This is why we can’t take you anywhere!” Dionysus, pacing, sounded as if he were mid-rant, which didn’t bother Crowley as much as it might have. Rants were often circular. Whatever he’d missed would surely come back around. “Not half an hour and you’re bringing up Ariadne’s worst memories in front of people she hasn’t even known for a week—”

“You do realize all of that happened when Ariadne was younger than pretty much all of the mortals in the room, right?”

Dionysus stopped, half turning in place. “And what does that have to do with anything?”

“Literal millennia is a long time to be carrying that kind of baggage around,” Eris replied, her tone dripping with the disdain of someone who couldn’t believe she had to state the obvious. “Maybe she should put it down? Which you ought to know better than anyone, O God of Self-Medication.”

Dionysus stiffened, and while Crowley couldn’t see his face, his entire posture radiated a glare.

“We both know she wasn’t the only one who showed up in your band hoping the wine would drown the sorrow.”

“Your point?” The sentence and the air seemed to crackle with static.

Eris rolled her eyes and made a plucking motion, quelling the staticky feeling. “Just that most of the other ones managed to figure their shit out in a couple decades.”

“They were mortals. They only had so many decades to work with.”

“Maybe, but here’s the thing. I don’t recall you being shy about giving them pushes when they needed it. Because, you know. That was kind of our job. Giving pushes to mortals.”

“Ari,” Dionysus pointed out with the air of one delivering the coup de grace, “isn’t mortal.”

“So, what? You tried to push her and it never worked? Or were you too busy getting into her chiton and now you’re just using the immortality as an excuse?”

“She’s not mortal, so pushing, or not pushing, her is none of your fucking business,” Dionysus said. “Now, I’m going back to the café and finishing my damn breakfast. If you’re willing to be civilized, you’re welcome to join us. If not—I’ll call you when we’re ready to deal with you.” And with that, Dionysus threw his hands in his pockets and stalked off.

Eris scoffed, sighed, and leaned back against the monument. She looked up—

Blinked.

And grinned.

“Well, well, well,” she chuckled. “I spy with my little eye … something that beings with S. Or is it C? Whatever. Care to come down, Crowley?”

“With an invitation like that,” Crowley asked, “do I have much of a choisssse?”

“Nope!”

Crowley slithered back down the tree and transformed back once all of him was safely on the ground. “Not much getsss passst you, does it?”

“Long before Peter Parker had a spidey-sense, I had a trouble-sense.” Eris patted the war memorial, and Crowley took a seat. “What’s with the speech impediment?”

Crowley worked his jaw and opened and shut his mouth a few times. “Takesss a few minutessss for the hissss to work itssself out.”

“Ah. That sounds rough, buddy.” Eris fished in the pocket of her leather jacket and pulled out a pack of chewing gum. She wordlessly offered him a piece, and Crowley took it with a nod of thanks.

They sat silent for a few minutes, Eris blowing a bubble twice as big as her head. Once she’d succeeded and popped it – without spraying gum all over everything in a 10-foot radius – she asked, “So, how much of that did you listen in on?”

“You don’t seem upset by that,” Crowley replied, knowing full well it wasn’t an answer to her question.

Eris raised an eyebrow at him, a clear I see what you did there, before answering his implied question. “Pfft, why should I be? I’d’ve done the same thing. I have done the same thing.”

“And what’s a little eavesdropping between friends,” Crowley mused. Then, carefully, casually, “Is Dionysus always … like that?”

“Hair trigger where Ari’s concerned? Yeah, pretty much. Granted, she is, like, ninety percent of his impulse control … and he could have done a lot worse.”

Crowley wondered if he was about to be regaled with the tales of Dionysus’s romantic misadventures, told as only a sister could. But Eris’s mind seemed to be on other things. “Trouble with Dionysus is he’s half mortal. So, you know. He’s scared of losing what he cares about.”

Eris tilted her head toward him, one eyebrow raised, one immortal commiserating with another. Except Crowley wasn’t immortal, not when you came down to it. So, “Can’t blame him,” he replied. “Worst feeling in the bloody world, that.”

Eris blinked. “Oh?”

Crowley tried not to think of a bookshop on fire, of calling Aziraphale’s name and getting no answer. He took a deep breath and could still smell the smoke. “You don’t want to know,” he said, which was the politest way he could tell her, I’m not going to talk about it.

“… Maybe not,” Eris agreed.

“And, you know,” Crowley added, shifting the conversation slightly, “when you lose someone you care about – ‘specially if it’s sudden or violent – you don’t get over that overnight.”

“Oh, you didn’t like the baggage comments, did you?” Eris asked.

Crowley shrugged and instantly regretted it, as his shoulder informed him that it did not like that gesture at all.

“Look, I’m not saying that the whole thing wasn’t a clusterfuck. And I’m the queen of clusterfucks. But …” Eris crossed her arms over her chest and cracked her gum. “There wasn’t going to be a happy ending for the Minotaur. It was a monster created by Poseidon to punish Minos. Show the mortals who’s boss, you know? And it honestly wouldn’t surprise me one bit if he planned for Theseus to kill it the whole time. Game was rigged from the start.”

It took every bit of self-control Crowley possessed – and contrary to what some might think, he possessed quite a bit – to keep his mouth shut and let Eris choose how to follow that up.

She glanced at him sidelong, a lopsided smirk pulling at one corner of her mouth. “But I guess you’re thinking that doesn’t matter, aren’t you? Who cares if the game is rigged, if you’re smart enough and crazy enough, you can still win?”

“Just because something happens to be written doesn’t mean it’s the only thing that matters. There might be something else written. In a book you haven’t read. In bigger letters. Underlined, even,” Crowley pointed out.

“That’s … bullshit,” Eris said, but she grinned as she said it – the grin of one champion bullshitter taking her hat off to another champion bullshitter. “And I’m not sure I believe that you believe it.”

Now it was Crowley’s turn to grin. “It’s not bullshit. It’s ineffable. And believe it or not …” He lowered his shades just enough to wink at her. “It’s one of the very few things I do believe in.”

Aziraphale hurried from the café, looked left and right, and then – Oh, thank Heaven.[5] The red hair was hard to miss, even with her head bowed and walking rapidly away from him.

Rather too rapidly. “Ariadne!” Aziraphale called and chased after her. “Ariadne, wait!”

She didn’t wait. Maybe she hadn’t heard him.

“Ariadne!” Aziraphale kept after her, unable to help wondering if perhaps Gabriel had had a point about the way he’d let this corporation go. It would probably be a bit easier to catch up with her if he’d indulged in a few less desserts—

“Ariadne!”

Fourth time was the charm, apparently—Ariadne stiffened, looked over her shoulder, and stopped. Aziraphale took the opportunity to catch up while he had it.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “I don’t mean to disturb you, but—”

What Aziraphale had been about to say died a fast and thoroughly undignified death when he got a good look at Ariadne’s face – wide eyes, slack mouth, slightly flared nostrils. He knew what fear looked like on a corporation, and this was about as obvious as it got.

And, well, he couldn’t help what came next.

“My dear girl,” he put a hand on her shoulder before he could stop himself, “whatever is the matter?”

Ariadne stared at his face. Then his hand. And swallowed twice, hard.

But she didn’t shake him off.

“It’s—um.” She rubbed her face with both hands and ran one through her hair. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

Reluctantly, Aziraphale removed his hand from her shoulder. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” he said. “But—forgive me—I don’t think any of us should be alone right now.”

Ariadne blinked twice, then shook her head. “Oh. Right. Angels and demons with guns.” She took a deep breath and crossed her arms around herself, her hands tucked into her armpits as if she was cold.

“We can keep walking, if you like. Or find someplace to sit down.”

“Walking—walking’s good,” Ariadne replied and started to do that. Thankfully she was no longer moving as quickly as she had been.

As for Aziraphale, he kept pace and kept his mouth shut – never mind how much he wanted to say something. Or ask something. He’d guessed from the moment Hera had made her “offhand” comment about the mess he had unwittingly dropped Ariadne into that her childhood had not been a happy one. And Ariadne’s blithe reassurance that it could have been worse had not been particularly reassuring.

However, it seemed his guess as to why that reassurance had been the best Ariadne could do had been completely off the mark.

They kept walking, Aziraphale letting Ariadne choose the direction. The village wasn’t that big. As long as they didn’t head out for the hedgerows and woods that surrounded it, they couldn’t get too lost.

He was a bit surprised, though, when Ariadne’s wandering led them toward the church in the center of the village. He was even more surprised when, after a moment’s hesitation by the churchyard gate, she pushed it open and headed inside.

“Consecrated ground doesn’t bother you, then?” Aziraphale asked and immediately wondered if he shouldn’t have.

Ariadne shot him a confused look.

“The cemetery,” he gestured, “usually it’s consecrated. Crowley – er – has difficulties with consecrated ground.”

Although, now that Aziraphale thought of it, that difficulty didn’t extend to graveyards – only the space enclosed by the walls of a church. Bit odd, that. Perhaps ineffable.

“Oh,” Ariadne murmured. “It … well, it depends.”

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows, an Oh? Go on, expression if ever one existed.

A smile flickered across Ariadne’s face. “Sometimes …” Ariadne rubbed her arms. “Sometimes, it’s bad. Hot. Like stepping out the door on a one-hundred-degree day and realizing you forgot your sunscreen. And sometimes I don’t feel much of anything at all …” She glanced sidelong at the squat church. “The more recent the church, the less I’m likely to feel—I mean, unless the congregation is, um, really enthusiastic.”

“Goodness,” Aziraphale murmured, knowing full well that the less he said about certain enthusiastic denominations, the better for everyone.

“And sometimes …” Her voice was so quiet, Aziraphale wondered if she’d meant to be heard.

“Sometimes?” he asked, unable to help himself.

Ariadne shot him a sideways glance, there-and-gone, almost too quick to be noticed. She took a deep breath. “Have you ever been to one of Gaia’s temples?”

“Can’t say I have,” Aziraphale said. Even – or perhaps especially – after humans turned away from the gods of the Romans and Greeks to the god of Abraham, he tended to avoid the formers’ temples. Barging in would have been … well, it would have been rude.

“Stepping into one of them feels … well, felt, to me, like …” Ariadne tilted her head back, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. “Like coming home? Like—like the journey’s over, and you can breathe again, and … and someone is there, and they’re happy to see you back.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened. That—that was how he felt. Not in every church or mosque or synagogue, but in the best of them. The ones where the congregants were loving and did their best to be kind to each other.

He had no chance to say as much, though, because Ariadne still had something on her mind. “They always remind me of my mother.”

For a moment, Aziraphale’s brain stuttered. Mother? Ariadne didn’t have—well, when Crowley was in a feminine mood, then she had a mother—

And then he realized.

“Pasiphaë?” Aziraphale asked.

Ariadne nodded. “She used to bring me to Gaia’s temples. Just me, not Xenodice or Acacallis or the boys.”

Aziraphale wracked his brain, trying to place those names.

Ariadne must have seen something in his expression, for she took pity on him. “My siblings. There were nine of all of us altogether. Androgeus, Catreus, Xenodice, Deucalion, Asterion and me, Acacallis, Glaucus, and Phaedra.”

“My goodness,” Aziraphale murmured. Though there was no reason for him to be surprised. He had seen four children playing in the courtyard that day, hadn’t he? Ariadne and Asterion (he remembered that name from the scroll) would make six – that was just three more, and in those days? The fact that they’d all survived long enough to be named was the only surprising thing.

“What about Phaedra?” Aziraphale asked.

Ariadne tilted her head to one side, eyebrow raised.

“You said—you said your mother wouldn’t bring your sisters Xenodice or Acacallis to Gaia’s temple. What about Phaedra?”

“Oh.” Ariadne’s voice was small. “She died when Phaedra was born.”

“Oh—oh, my dear, I’m so sorry—”

“No, no, it’s fine. How would you know?” Ariadne said, sounding quite sincere. “The old writers – I mean, that’s not something they would note down. ‘Woman dies in childbirth,’ not exactly …” She broke off with a shrug.

Once again, Aziraphale put a hand on her shoulder. This time, Ariadne did not merely fail to shrug it off. This time, she leaned into it.

“So,” Aziraphale asked, nudging the conversation back toward a more cheerful – slightly – topic, “why did your mother bring only you to Gaia’s temples, then?”

Ariadne didn’t answer at first. Her eyes went to the church, though her gaze seemed unfocused.

Then she smiled. “You know … I think it’s because Gaia was the only one who could handle the weird.”

“The—the what?”

“The wings, the magic, the—the fact that the universe tended to rearrange itself to my liking. The weird,” Ariadne replied. “Mamá – and Minos – they really didn’t know what to make of, um, any of it. Everyone else – well, except Asterion – was normal. So …”

Ariadne took a deep breath and looked at the sky. “Mamá said that after my wings started popping out, she went looking for answers everywhere. First Zeus’s temple, because he was Minos’s father, but the priests there didn’t know anything. Then Helios, her father, but his priests didn’t know anything either. And then Mamá went to her mother, Perse, and Perse went to her parents Oceanus and Tethys, and they didn’t know anything. So finally she went to Gaia, because all roads lead to Gaia, you know? And the priestess there – she seemed to know that Mamá and I were coming, because Mamá said she picked me up, tickled me so the wings came out, and said I would always be Gaia’s child.”

Aziraphale … well, Aziraphale would have to think about that in more detail later. It was curious that the primordial Greek goddess would choose to take Ariadne under her proverbial wing.

But now was not the time for that. “How old were you?” he asked. “When your wings first manifested?”

Ariadne scrunched her brows. “Um … Mamá said it was after I started to crawl, but before I started to walk … she said I used the wings for balance when I was starting to walk. So … nine months? Ten?”

Nine or ten months. Aziraphale tried to picture what Ariadne would have looked like then – a larger, chubbier version of the newborn he’d left behind? Would she have already shown hints of the woman she would become?

He and Crowley had missed so very much …

“Is that normal?” Ariadne asked, drawing him out of his thoughts with a bump.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Wings showing up around that age – using them for balance – that kind of thing,” Ariadne asked. “Just wondering.”

“Oh … well, er, I wouldn’t know. That is,” Aziraphale said, “all of us – well, most of us – we were created as adults. Even when we’ve had to replenish the ranks, as it were, we started grown-up. You … as far as I’m aware, you’re the first to start out as an infant, and incorporated, for that matter.”

“Huh,” Ariadne murmured, and said no more.

Somehow, as they spoke, they’d managed to cross through the churchyard and almost to the church door. Aziraphale gestured toward it. “Shall we? Or would you rather head elsewhere?”

Ariadne glanced askance at the door for a long moment, but eventually she shrugged. “We can try. Anglican churches usually aren’t too bad.”

“Very well. After you, my dear,” Aziraphale said, opening the door for her[6] and waving her through. He smiled, but part of him was tense, ready to pull her back at the first sign of a problem.

And he very nearly did, when Ariadne took two steps into the church and stopped dead. But the small, awestruck, “Oh,” stopped him.

She turned around, grinning. “I’m good. I mean – this is one of the good ones.”

Aziraphale very nearly sighed with relief as he followed her inside. And—oh, this was one of the good ones. Aziraphale closed his eyes and breathed deeply, basking in the feeling of warmth and welcome.

Heaven had once felt something like this. Not for the first time, Aziraphale wondered when that had changed.

“You feel it too?” Ariadne asked.

“I do,” Aziraphale replied. “Come – let’s have a seat.”

Ariadne led the way into the nave, slipping into a pew close to the back. Once there, she closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths.

“You know,” she murmured once she opened her eyes, “I used to think that maybe the churches that felt good to me used to be old temples of earth goddesses – sort of theological recycling, you know? But if you feel the same way I do …”

“It could be the humans,” Aziraphale said. “Their powers of belief are quite extraordinary, you know. If they believe – truly believe – that a place is good and holy …”

Ariadne didn’t answer right away, gazing into the vaulted ceiling of the little church. “They … they really do remake the world in their own image, don’t they? What they believe …” Her voice caught, and Aziraphale had to restrain himself from physically reaching out for her. “Can I—can I ask you something?”

“Of course, dear.”

“What do you know about Asterion?”

Her voice was small and frightened, and Aziraphale knew he would have to tread very, very carefully.

“Well, I’ve heard stories,” he replied in as simple and casual a tone as he could muster. “But I don’t think I’d say I really know anything about him. Every story I’ve ever read has gone through so many hands, I’m fairly certain the truth got lost somewhere along the way.”

Ariadne nodded, and swallowed, and stared at her lap.

Aziraphale leaned forward, trying to catch her eye. “Why don’t you tell me a bit about him? If you don’t mind, that is.”

She laughed, the sound thin and watery as a raincloud. “Gods – where would I begin?” She wiped at her eyes in a way that set Aziraphale hunting for a handkerchief.

But before he could find one, she was speaking again. “Well, for starters, he never ate people. That was just—ugh. Athenians. They—they’re the ones who wrote everything down, so, you know, all anyone knows is their side of the story.”

Aziraphale nodded.

“And—he wasn’t a monster. Not even after what Minos did to him! And who does that? Just—just takes someone and throws them into a maze they can’t get out of? Even if—even if Asterion was dangerous, you don’t—you don’t do that! He was doing the best he could, and he would have done better if people would just let him be!”

Hearing that, what Aziraphale wanted to do was put an arm around her and perhaps a wing as well, hold her close, and let her get it all out. He had no idea how that would be received, though, so he restrained himself to a nod, his most nonjudgmental expression, and the most encouraging noises he could manage.

“Mamá and I could keep him happy, most of the time, keep him calm—but when Mamá died—no, when Androgeus died, because that’s when it all went wrong—” Ariadne took a deep breath. “And I still don’t know what happened to him. Every freaking messenger who came from Athens told a different story. One said he’d been killed on the road to Thebes, another said that he’d been killed by the Athenians after winning the games, and someone else said he’d been killed hunting a boar! Just—make up your minds!”

Ariadne took a deep, shaky breath, and made another pass at her eyes. “S-sorry—where was I?”

“Your brother, Androgeus—”

She shook her head. “Before that.”

“Ah. You and your—your mother, attempting to keep Asterion calm and happy.”

“Right. Mamá – Mamá did most of the work, when we were little, but I could usually—I thought it was a twin thing, you know? That could get through to Asterion when others couldn’t. Now …”

Ariadne’s eyes went unfocused. “Maybe—maybe it was that nobody else really understood what it was like, to just … not fit. Mamá did – half-nymph, half-Titan, trying to shrink herself down to fit in the mortal world. Minos didn’t. He—he was a son of Zeus; he made the world grow to fit him. And I …”

Ariadne twined and twisted her fingers around each other, nervous energy seeking an outlet. “Asterion just wanted to be left alone. When we were younger, before the labyrinth, when I could take him outside … sometimes we’d go to the foothills around the city, where nobody was around, and he could just be. He loved chasing birds and squirrels, and when Mamá and I would pat his head or scratch him behind the ears, he loved that. And—and he couldn’t speak, but he always understood what you told him, and—and he could communicate; you just had to know how to listen to him.

“But …” Ariadne closed her eyes and seemed to shrink into herself, and once again Aziraphale ached to put an arm around her. “Then he started getting bigger … and he couldn’t handle being around people … they were all just too loud and too much … and …”

“Ariadne,” Aziraphale said quietly.

She blinked owlishly at him.

Aziraphale held out a hand to her, like he’d seen Dionysus do. Smiled. And said nothing.

Ariadne didn’t just take the hand. She clung to it. “I just—I should have done more for him. After Mamá died, I was the only one on his side. Xenodice was already married, Acacallis and Glaucus were scared of him, Phaedra was a baby, Catreus and Deucalion were always on Minos’s side, and Androgeus – Androgeus was dead …”

“How old were you?” Aziraphale asked. “When Androgeus died?”

“F-fourteen,” Ariadne said. She wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. “Mamá was a few months later – and—and Mamá was barely even cold before Minos shut Asterion up in the labyrinth. He must have been planning it for years; there was always construction in the basement that I remember, but I didn’t think—I didn’t know—”

“My dear,” Aziraphale said. “You were fourteen. And had just lost your mother. You could hardly be expected to understand what he was planning or move against it.”

Ariadne snorted; well, they could work on accepting that later. “Somebody had to. And I was the only one who could have cared enough to try. Although …”

She went quiet, staring at the altar and letting go of his hand to wrap her arms around herself. “Maybe it’s better I didn’t …”

The logical question to ask would have been “Why?” Aziraphale did not ask that. He remembered a thing or two from the legends the Greeks had told themselves. And given what Ariadne had said in the café …

Well, the question rather answered itself. “Theseus?” Aziraphale asked.

Ariadne turned back to him, eyes swimming with unshed tears. “I thought he was going to help.”

There was, Aziraphale could tell, a story here. One that it would probably do Ariadne some good to tell, if not to him, then to someone who could listen and be objective about it. Someday.

The nice thing about being quasi-immortal beings was that there would be plenty of time for that – later.

“Oh, my dear girl,” Aziraphale murmured, this time not able to stop himself from putting an arm around her shoulder.

That broke the dam. Ariadne stared, hiccupped, and collapsed against him, her sobs echoing through the small church.

“It’s all right,” Aziraphale said into her hair, not sure if she was listening but knowing it was what she needed to hear. “My dear, you did the best you could.”

And though he didn’t have the courage to say it out loud, he promised her something.

Nobody was ever going to do anything that would make her feel like this again. Not if he and Crowley had anything to say about it.

[1] Or lowlights, depending on how one wanted to look at it.

[2] Which really could do with some improvement.

[3] No offense to Dog.

[4] Rather like the M25. Sure, it had done a number on the Bentley, but it had also discorporated Hastur.

[5] Or Someplace, at any rate.

[6] The door had been locked, but the lock that could withstand the belief of an angel who saw no reason why the House of the Lord should ever be closed to children who needed Her shelter had yet to be invented. The force of this belief also ensured that the burglar alarm found nothing to complain about.

Chapter Text

Samael stomped away from the corporation office, craving a cigarette with every inch of her celestial being. Not that she could have a cigarette. Besides lacking a corporation with which to smoke one, all of Heaven was a non-smoking area.

Not for the first time, Samael wondered who had come up with that rule and if she could get away with smiting them.

She probably shouldn’t have been indulging in these feelings, but she did anyway, because it was easier to be annoyed about wanting a cigarette and the intransigence of the quartermaster than to think about her real problems. Although really, the Quartermaster Sariel was being ridiculous. “Corporations don’t grow on trees, you know,” he had said smugly, which was news to Samael. She could remember an early prototype of humanity that had grown on trees, thank you very much, so why couldn’t modern corporations do the same?[1]

Her hand had itched to smack the sideburns right off him, but Samael had restrained herself and simply walked away. Now, she just had to—

“Archangel Samael?”

“What now?” Samael snapped, turning on her heel to face whoever dared to—

She froze.

The Almighty knew. The Almighty must have heard every uncharitable thought about Sariel, about forms signed in triplicate, about interminable meetings that gave eternity a run for its money.

There could be no other explanation for the six interns standing before her with vaguely hopeful and expectant expressions.[2]

“What—what do you want?” Samael asked, throat dry.

There was much shuffling of feet and glancing askance at each other on the part of the interns. Samael realized with a start that they looked almost as afraid of her as she was of them. Or, well, of the Almighty who had certainly set them on her.

“That is,” Samael cleared her throat, “can I help you?”

More shuffling of feet and glancing around. There was a ripple of nudges, and finally one male-shaped intern with black hair shaped like a cloudpuff stepped forward. “Excuse us, Archangel Samael, but Liel was saying—”

“Who?” Samael interrupted.

“M-m-me, ma’am,” said a female-shaped intern. Samael squinted at her. She knew—

Oh.

It was the intern – the one who’d gone along for the shootout in the traitor Aziraphale’s bookstore and the chase through London and the discorporation by explosion.

“All right. Liel, what were you saying?” Samael asked.

“About—about what we saw,” Liel squeaked. “The—the half-breed? The half-demon, half-angel?”

What? She’s talking about that? Who said she could—

Oh. Oh HELL.

In their haste to kick the underlings out of the meeting, they’d never actually said the underlings were to keep their mouths shut.

And if rumors were just starting in Heaven, they’d probably already spread like wildfire through Hell …

Samael schooled her face into her most forbidding expression and tried to think. Denying everything would get her nowhere. Even in Heaven, there were fewer things that could convince everyone that something was up than a stern declaration from management that there was nothing to see here, move along.

But at the same time, she couldn’t go making the rumors worse. So … she’d have to play this by ear.

“What about her?” Samael asked.

The rest of the interns gasped.

“What?” Samael let her glare fix on each of the interns in turn.

“So it’s true?” asked a female-shaped intern with green eyes.

Samael let herself raise an eyebrow. “Are you accusing a fellow angel of lying?”

Green Eyes gasped. “What? No, no, sir! Ma’am! We’d never say an archangel—”

“Who said anything about archangels? I’m talking about Liel over there,” Samael said, nodding at Liel, who had bowed her head and blushed fiercely as soon as Green Eyes began to speak. “If you don’t believe what she’s saying, then why are you asking me about it?”

“She, uh,” that was Cloudpuff Hair again, ducking his head in a way that suggested he’d be flushing if his complexion could show one, “she could be wrong. Not lying. Just … wrong.”

“B-because,” now another male-shaped intern was speaking, this one the shortest in the group, “an angel and a demon having a … a child, that’s …” He glanced at the rest of the interns, asking for backup. “Is that possible?”

“That’s the working theory,” Samael replied.

“But how?” asked another female-shaped intern, this one the tallest of the crew.

“Haven’t a clue. Was trying not to think about it, to be perfectly honest.”

That got a few snickers. Samael kept her face as stony as she could make it.[3] The snickers died.

“Any more questions?” Samael asked.

“… What does it mean?” asked the only intern who hadn’t spoken yet.

Samael blinked. “What do you mean?”

The formerly quiet intern gulped and shuffled from foot to foot. “Angels – angels can’t have children with other angels. Demons can’t have children with other demons. And angels with humans—”

“I am not getting into a discussion of the Nephilim with you lot.”

The interns exchanged glances, and there was a general nodding of heads. “Fair enough,” said Formerly Quiet One. “But this—this child the traitors made—she’s not like the Nephilim?”

Samael bit her lip. She restrained herself to a shrug. “We don’t know much about her.”

“If—if she was like the Nephilim,” Liel squeaked, “wouldn’t we have found out about her by now?”

“Perhaps.”

The interns glanced at each other again, communicating in raised eyebrows and skeptical glances that they’d seen right through Samael’s attempt at hedging. Well, even if Heaven and Hell didn’t know exactly how long the traitors had hidden their child, they could certainly guess that she wasn’t as destructive as the Nephilim had been. The Nephilim had been pretty damn conspicuous when you came right down to it.

“So, if she’s not like the Nephilim,” Formerly Quiet One went on, “then a demon helped to create something good.”

Thinking back to the chase through London and her own discorporation-via-explosion, Samael replied, “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves on that.”

Formerly Quiet One’s eyes narrowed, but they went on, “And an angel had congress with a demon and didn’t Fall for it.”

Samael had no choice but to nod.

“So,” Formerly Quiet One asked, “what does all that mean?”

Samael hesitated. Then she took a deep breath and went for the bare, unvarnished truth. “I haven’t the foggiest idea. I’m not the archangel you go to if you want philosophy. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting with the Archangel Gabriel.”

To dissuade the interns from attempting to ask more questions or follow her, Samael strode right for them, forcing them to part like the Red Sea, and stalked away.

And to be fair, she did have to get to an urgent meeting with Gabriel. He didn’t know about it yet, but he’d forgive her once he learned what the meeting was for.

The archangels’ offices – such as they could be said to have offices – were in the Ninth Sphere. There were no walls between them, but nonetheless each of them had their own space, and every archangel had ways to ensure that they would not be interrupted by interns, powers, virtues, or principalities unless they wanted to be.

Luckily, as another archangel, none of those ways applied to Samael. So it didn’t take her long to find Gabriel in his not-office, scowling at the documents on the podium before him.

“We have a problem,” Samael said without preamble. “We never told Liel to keep her mouth shut, and now all the interns know about the girl.”

Gabriel’s head jerked up.

“What.”

“And if Liel told the interns, you can bet that Legion and what’s-his-face – Mercurial? – gave all of Hell the complete play-by-play,” Samael went on, deliberately not giving Gabriel a chance to get his bearings. “We need to come out with some kind of statement before this gets out of hand.”

“Before this gets—it’s already out of hand!” Gabriel shouted. It was the sort of shout that would lead your average cherub or dominion to quake in their celestial boots and try to hide under the podium.

Samael merely raised an eyebrow.

Gabriel took a deep breath. “How many angels has Liel told?”

“Does it matter? We’re not going to be able to put the cat back in the bag. Didn’t work when we tried it after the Apocalypse, isn’t going to work now.”

Gabriel still scowled. Samael crossed her arms over her chest and waited for him to see sense.

His nostrils flared, and one after another, the muscles under that well-tailored suit tensed. “How did you find this out?”

“The interns had questions. And for some reason, they came to me for answers.” Samael gave Gabriel a quick recap of their conversation. “Like I said,” she said when she came to the end of her recitation, “the sooner we get out in front of this, the better.”

Gabriel didn’t seem to hear her. “A demon. Made something good,” he repeated.

“I told them that was far from certain—”

“If that—that thing is able to smite, it’s not nearly as evil as it ought to be.”

Samael opened her mouth, but Gabriel had turned away from her, to the window. He took a deep breath and put his hands behind his back, gazing out.

Samael took a deep breath of her own, shoved her hands in her pockets, and stood next to him.

“Uriel said she was going to talk to the Metatron,” she said. “Did she find anything out?”

“The Metatron,” Gabriel’s teeth sounded on edge, “has said that he will confer with the Almighty and get back to us.”

Samael barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes. Based on recent history, the Metatron would get back to them in a week, a century, or not at all. For nearly a thousand years – and perhaps even before that – the Almighty had been … quiet. Even the Metatron could barely get through to Her.

If Samael couldn’t still feel that warm glow of Grace and connection, she might have cried out, even as the Son had, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”[4]

“So, as we wait for an answer, we’re reduced to …” Gabriel gestured to the podium behind them. “Looking through old photos and trying to figure out where they hid the—that thing. Did you know that those two,” there was absolutely no doubt whom Gabriel was referring to, “have been fraternizing for centuries behind our backs?”

Samael glanced over her shoulder. Now that she was looking, she could see that the documents were photographs. “Are you going through Earth Observation records?”

“Michael has a pile for you as—”

“Gabriel.” Samael glared at him. “Put the pictures aside, write a memo, and get some interns to do the grunt work. That’s what interns are for.”

Gabriel’s scowl deepened.

“If you put a few interns on the task and have someone competent supervising, you’ll know exactly what they’re thinking, too,” Samael pointed out. “Much better than asking me. You know people don’t talk to me.”

Gabriel glared at her sidelong.

Samael flashed him a grin, the one she usually wore when she strode out into battle. “Besides, it’s transparency, isn’t it? Everything out in the open … clear and aboveboard, you might say. Emphasis on above.” Samael gestured to the vast, empty, brilliant expanse of the Home Office around them, letting their surroundings make her point. “Not like Down Below, laid out like a maze with pokey little offices and breakrooms everywhere. We might as well prove it and let the troops know what’s going on.”

“We’re not completely transparent, but … point taken.” Gabriel sighed. Then his eyes narrowed, and he turned to her. “How do you know what the offices Down There look like?”

Samael rolled her eyes. “You do remember we’re supposed to be fighting a war against them, don’t you? You want to know what the enemy’s fortress looks like if you’re hoping to take it.”

That was a lie; the only reason Samael knew was because Mephistopheles had complained about the layout after the last round of renovations.[5] However, Gabriel didn’t need to know that.

“Earth was supposed to be the battlefield,” Gabriel pointed out.

“Contingency plans.”

Gabriel snorted, but it was accompanied by a fond smile. “You and Michael and your battle plans.”

“We do what we can,” Samael said. “And what you can do is write a memo. Here …” She turned on her heel and gathered the pictures from the podiums. “I’ll get all the pictures and wrangle the interns – the interns already know.”

“You hate wrangling interns.”

“I hate writing memos more.”

Gabriel sighed and shook his head, but he marched to his podium. A sleek monitor and keyboard appeared, and Gabriel began to painstakingly type with his index fingers.[6]

As for Samael, she power-walked out of there, planning to find Uriel, Michael, and Sandalphon and their pictures, then, somehow, the interns.

And if she used the inevitable walking time to glance through the pictures and make sure that anything they revealed about the mysterious Ariadne, Samael knew first … well, nobody had to know, did they?

There were some conversations that needed to happen in private … which was why Ariadne was in the backyard of Jasmine Cottage, staring at her phone.

All she had to do was press the call button, so there was no reason for her to freeze up like this. She and Persephone had known each other for literal millennia. Abruptly breaking off a text conversation was far from the worst thing either had ever done or said to the other. Persephone would be annoyed, but when Ariadne explained …

Well. That was the rub, wasn’t it?

This is not going to get any easier the longer you procrastinate, Ariadne told herself. She took a deep breath, pushed the call button, and held the phone to her ear.

Ring … ring … ring …

“Well, look who FINALLY decided to pick up the phone!”

Ariadne winced and rubbed her hand over her face. “Hi.”

“If I recall correctly,” Persephone said, “I believe I invited you out for lunch, you said that the timing was bad, and then I told you that I really needed to talk to you face-to-face ASAP. And then, nothing. What the heck, Ari?”

Ariadne took a deep breath. Persephone didn’t sound angry. Miffed. Annoyed. But not angry.

Hopefully what she had to say would cure that. She swallowed.

“Did you, by chance, want to talk to me about a certain demon and a certain angel?”

The other end of the line was silent.

“By name of Crowley and Aziraphale?” Ariadne went on.

Another pause. Then, “You better just spit it out,” Persephone answered. “I think I know what you’re about to say, but I don’t know-know, and the suspense is killing me.”

In any other set of circumstances, Ariadne would have pointed out that Persephone was not technically capable of being killed by suspense. Now, however, was not the time.

“I found them. They, um …” Ariadne looked from left to right and back again, even though nobody was in the yard but her. She closed her eyes and told the universe that other than Persephone, she didn’t want anyone to hear what came next.

Hoping the universe was in a cooperative mood, Ariadne said, “They’re my parents.”

“I KNEW IT!”

Ariadne jumped and held the phone a foot away from her ear.

“I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT! I knew it the second they showed up here and said they wanted to talk to Minos! Their wings are just like yours! And you even look like them!”

Ariadne brought the phone back long enough to say, “Yep,” before jerking it away again.

“So what happened? How did they find you? It’s only been a couple of days since they left, and they didn’t spend nearly long enough in the archives to trace you across thousands of years!”

Persephone’s volume had modulated enough that Ariadne felt comfortable bringing the phone back to her ear. “I found them.”

“Wait, what? How?”

Ariadne took a deep breath. “You, um, remember the PowerPoint?”

“Yeah …”

“And the wings. In the PowerPoint.”

“The wings—oh. Oh. Oh wow, you were way ahead of me on that.”

Persephone couldn’t see, but Ariadne shrugged anyway. “Little bit nearer and dearer to my heart. Anyway … the name of Aziraphale’s shop was also in the PowerPoint.”

“What? No way. Father said he didn’t want us contacting any of the …” Persephone trailed off. “Ari. How much trouble are you in right now?”

Ariadne gulped. “A lot. And only partially for the reasons you think.”

“Partially?”

“Apparently your father already knows I disobeyed direct orders. But that’s not the worst of it.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Ariadne rubbed her hand over her face. There was a bench nearby, but she had no desire to sit on it. Motion, motion would help.

“Aziraphale’s and Crowley’s … former employers are, um, not pleased with them.”

Silence from the other end of the line. Then, slowly, deliberately, “Ari?”

“Yeah?”

“Hera sent us all an article yesterday. A bookstore in Soho suddenly sprouting a vineyard. Does that have anything …?”

“Yep.”

“Holy—are you ok? What about Dionysus, is he ok?”

“I’m fine. Dionysus is fine. We’re all fine. Not sure about the bookshop, though.” Ariadne did not mention Crowley’s injury. Or how he’d come by it. To say nothing of the car she’d blown up. “But, um …” She sighed. “I may have to ask for a favor.”

“A favor,” Persephone repeated.

“Yeah, I know, I know, I already owe you one for not feeding my parents to Cerberus—”

“Oh please, like Hades would let Cerberus eat an angel or a demon. ‘Specially not two who have been knocking around on the mortal plane for millennia. Who knows where they’ve been?”

In spite of herself, Ariadne laughed. “So Hades is attempting to save himself a massive vet bill?”

“No, he’s trying to keep the pampered pooch from feeling poorly. Anyway. You were saying. A favor?”

Ariadne forced herself to breathe deeply as she gathered her thoughts.

Because she had thought about this. She hadn’t said much about it, because she had no idea how her idea would be received – doubly so now that Eris had decided she was along for the ride.[7] But there were certain facts that had occurred to her, and those facts had led to certain inescapable conclusions.

Fact one: They couldn’t stay in Tadfield forever. Aziraphale and Crowley were confident that it was safe enough for the time being, because neither Hell nor Heaven would want to tangle with the Antichrist on the Antichrist’s territory. But that would only last for so long, and they needed to move before that grace period ended.

Fact two: Places had power. There was such a thing as a sacred space. In the old days, gods had claimed everything from cities to entire islands for themselves. Apollo had Delphi; Aphrodite had taken Cythera; Naxos had been sacred to Dionysus long before Ariadne had washed up on that particular beach. That power had faded from the old spaces as mortals found new gods and as the gods themselves had moved farther afield. But the underlying principle remained.

Fact three: Los Angeles was theirs. It belonged to Dionysus, and perhaps a bit to her, in a way that was at least as strong as any of the old sacred spaces. There was scarcely a demon who dared to show their pointy tail within city limits, and that wasn’t just because Sin City sucked them all in like a black hole. Dionysus had made sure of it. And angels had barely shown more than a hint of interest in the city ever since the movies had made it their home.

If it came down to a fight – and Ariadne very much suspected that it would come down to a fight – she wanted it to be on their territory.

“We need to get to LA,” Ariadne said. “And we might need to get there in a hurry. Would you be open to letting us use the Underworld as a stopping point?”

Before Persephone could answer, Ariadne hurried on, “We wouldn’t even need to cross the Styx, not if we played this right. There’s a liminal in London, I don’t know it off the top of my head—”

“Angel station,” Persephone replied in a tone that was impossible to read.

Angel station? Seriously? Ariadne shook her head; she’d ponder that later. “Right, ok, Angel station. And LAX is a liminal. If we can get from Angel station to the Underworld, and then the Underworld to LAX – then we’re home. Maybe not home free, but home.”

“So … you want to use the Underworld as a layover?” Persephone’s skepticism colored every word.

“… I wasn’t going to put it like that, but, yes.”

“I … hmm.”

Ariadne paced faster as Persephone made noncommittal noise after noncommittal noise.

“Can I ask some questions?” she asked finally.

“Shoot.”

“Ok, dumb question number one – why don’t you just take a plane? Wouldn’t that be easier?”

“Because angels and demons have wings, and I don’t want them starting something at thirty-five thousand feet. Not when we’re on a plane full of unsuspecting mortals. Flying over an ocean.”

“Ok, fair enough,” Persephone replied. “And taking a ship is out because?”

“Takes too long, and we have the same problem with angels and demons starting something in an enclosed space full of mortals. While on an ocean. Plus, once we get to New York or wherever, then we have to cross the country to get to LA.”

“Good points all. And. Well, as much as Hera would love to see angels and demons crash a flight in the mid-Atlantic, get the belief going in the right direction, I really don’t think I’d want to see that happen to a flight you and Dionysus were on. I’ll talk to Hades and we’ll get something set up.”

Ariadne let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Thank you. I owe you one.”

There was a telling silence on the other end of the line. Then, hesitantly, “You know … there is something …”

“Oh?”

“It’s just, every time Hades shows up in a movie, he’s a cheap knockoff of … well. Crowley’s former boss.”

“Just his boss? Aziraphale’s former boss doesn’t strike me as a particularly pleasant person, either.”

Persephone laughed.

“But I get what you’re saying.” Ariadne buffed her nails on her shirt and thought about it. Usually she and Dionysus tried to stay out of movies depicting Dionysus’s relatives, because getting in the middle of mortals’ interpretations of their stories was a great way to invite a fight at the next family reunion.[8] But as payback for a favor …

“I’ll see what we can do,” Ariadne replied. “It won’t be immediate, but—we’ll come up with something.”

Persephone sighed. “Thank you. When you get down to it, it doesn’t matter what Hera says – you and Dionysus have a better route to mortals’ subconscious than all the miracles in the world.”

Ariadne chuckled but didn’t argue. With that done, there was little more to do but answer Persephone’s questions about Aziraphale and Crowley – and Persephone had plenty, not even counting those that Ariadne hedged on – and say goodbye.

As she walked back into the house, her mind was busy turning over potential plans – not just for their eventual escape, but how she’d talk Crowley, Aziraphale, and Dionysus into it, and how they might lay a few false trails in the meantime.

Thus, it was several hours later, when she was thinking of something else entirely, that it even occurred to her to wonder what Persephone had meant when she brought up Hera.

“So let me get this straight. An angel … and a demon … had a kid?”

Mephistopheles had only come into the break room to get coffee,[9] but upon hearing the conversation take that turn, he had a reason to take a seat at one of the cold plastic chairs and linger. He even grabbed an out-of-date copy of the Infernal Times and flipped it open, just to make the eavesdropping less obvious.

“Not just any demon,” said Ulgon. She leaned forward, conspiratorial, flashing her too-sharp teeth in a wicked grin. “Demon Crowley.”

Altadoth, the demon who’d first spoken, shuddered. Ever since that … performance in the bathtub filled with Holy Water, it was a common reaction to hearing Crowley’s name.

“And, you know, the other one,” added Migthaxad. He shifted, his shoulders undulating with the movement. “The traitor-angel. Azizofel—Aeropostale—Acetaminophen—how the bloody fuck do you say his name?”

“Who care? We know who you’re talking about,” Ulgon replied.

“But …” Altadoth was worrying her lower lip; she did that a lot. “But how?”

“What, how’d they have the kid?” Migthaxad asked. He stroked his perfect chin. “Probably the same way humans do. I mean, Crowley’s never been in the ‘cubus department, but he’s been incorporated since, you know, The Beginning. He’s probably figured sex out.”

“But wouldn’t that involve …” Altadoth shuddered and looked over her shoulder – literally over her shoulder – before leaning closer to her companions and whispering, as if she was saying a dirty word, “orifices?”

Ulgon made a face. “Ugh. Orifices.”

“You’re gonna have to be more specific than that,” said Migthaxad with a grin that could only be described as shit-eating.

“What do you mean? There’s only one – well, one on each – orifice that humans use for fucking,” Altadoth replied, head tilted and a puzzled frown on her face.

“Oh, honey,” Migthaxad laughed. “Sweetheart. No.”

Altadoth frowned. “But—but I thought …” She scratched her head. “Well, how many orifices do humans use during sex?”

“Try all of them.”

Altadoth’s jaw dropped. Ulgon’s eyes narrowed skeptically. Even Mephistopheles felt a few twinges of doubt. He’d never spent time in the ‘cubus department, either, but sex was a huge motivation for most humans, so any demon who spent significant time on Earth learned a thing or two.

A thing or two, however, wasn’t everything … and Migthaxad had been a ‘cubus for as long as there’d been a ‘cubus department …

“The mouth?” Ulgon asked.

“They have a specific word for sex involving the mouth,” Migthaxad said. “Well. Phrase really, but it usually gets shortened down to one word.”

“But don’t they use their mouths to eat?” Altadoth asked.

“Yep.”

“And they …”

“Yep.”

Altadoth shuddered.

“What about the ears?” Ulgon asked.

Migthaxad smirked and waggled his eyebrows.

“What? How?” Ulgon asked.

“Believe me when I say that the ears are extremely important to sex.”

Ulgon gasped and gagged. Altadoth, however, slapped the table. “The nostrils! They can’t possibly use the nostrils in fucking!”

Migthaxad’s only response was to grin.

“Oh, gross!!!!”

Ulgon was retching; Mephistopheles’s stomach was starting to turn; and Migthaxad was cackling. “You asked!”

“And I’m regretting every fucking choice that led to me asking,” Altadoth muttered. She stared at the battered laminate-topped table in what could only be called acute misery.

Until her brow wrinkled and her frown turned puzzled. “Wait. Back up. Humans—they need to opposites to breed.”

“Aren’t angels and demons opposites?” Ulgon asked, and Mephistopheles nearly fell off his chair.

“No—I mean, well, yeah, but—but not opposites like humans are. You need—you need a boy one and a girl one! If you want to make a baby,” Altadoth went on.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Migthaxad held up both hands. “That’s reproduction. Not my department. Well, ok, technically my department, but sooo not my specialty.”

Ulgon raised an eyebrow at him. “What the Heaven are you on about?”

“I prefer to stick to the fucking part, sweetheart. I avoid reproduction jobs like the plague.”

Ulgon’s brow furrowed. “I thought we weren’t supposed to reproduce with the humans.”

“Well, it’s not us doing the reproducing. We just. Move stuff around.”

“What?”

“It’s—look, let me just walk you through it. So, what you do first, is you do the succubus thing, get with whatever dude your boss wants to be the father of the kid – we’ll call him Human A. And then when he puts his, his stuff in you, you sort of – just hold onto it, you know? And then you shift over to incubus form, find the woman your boss wants to be the mother – we’ll call her Human B – and shoot Human A’s stuff into Human B. As part of sex, because that’s usually easiest.”

“What,” Altadoth said flatly. Ulgon, however, looked thoughtful, if a little faraway.

“But really, it’s such a pain in the ass; nobody would even do it if their bosses weren’t making them. The timing is so finicky, and you almost always have to waste a miracle to get the woman actually pregnant because I’ve yet to meet the demon who’s figured out when human mating season is—”

“Eggs!” Ulgon interjected, slamming her hand on the table and making Altadoth, Migthaxad, and Mephistopheles jump.

“… How did we get onto food play?” asked Migthaxad asked.

“I don’t know what that means,” Ulgon said. “And it doesn’t matter. Because eggs! That’s how they did it!”

“How who did what?” asked Altadoth, echoing Mephistopheles’s question.

“The angel and Crowley! How they made a baby!”

“… I am really not following,” Migthaxad said.

Ulgon sighed and rolled her eyes. “The demon Crowley. What’s his second form?”

“A—a snake,” Altadoth said.

“Right. And the angel—well, he’s an angel, right? Gotta have something in common with birds, then. With the wings and all.”

“But even fallen angels have wings,” Altadoth replied, mystified.

Ulgon waved a hand. “Doesn’t matter. In fact, it works better that way. So, how do snakes reproduce? And birds?”

The only response to that was two blank stares.

She sighed. “Eggs,” Ulgon said. “They both lay eggs.”

“All right … and?” Migthaxad asked.

“The demon Crowley and the angel must have laid an egg together, and that’s how they got a baby. No orifices required!” Ulgon finished with a grin.

Migthaxad’s jaw fell. Altadoth gasped, but it was a happy gasp, the kind that came when your friend just solved a particularly difficult riddle. Mephistopheles was trying to figure out why that explanation felt so horrifically wrong.

He didn’t get much farther than trying. “Is there a reason,” came a growl from the doorway, “why there are four demons in here when they should all be WORKING?”

Mephistopheles’s eyes flew wide. Oh, shit!

“D-Duke Hastur!” Altadoth stammered. “We were just—we were just—”

“Leaving! Break’s over!” Ulgon said, hauling her friends up by their elbows and hustling them out the door. Mephistopheles tossed his copy of the Times to the side and abandoned his coffee, hoping to sneak out behind them—

“Not you.” Hastur took hold of Mephistopheles’s shoulder and held him place. “Got orders about you, I have. His Lowliness wants to see you.”

Mephistopheles’s eyes widened and the bottom dropped out of his stomach.

Satan wanted to see him?

One of the very, very few advantages Mephistopheles had in Hell was his ability to keep his mouth shut, so he said nothing as Hastur practically frog-marched him down a long, dark corridor Mephistopheles had never been practically frog-marched down before. At least, he didn’t think he’d seen it before. But it looked like almost every other corridor in Hell, so how was Mephistopheles to judge?

At least this meant that Mephistopheles wasn’t being brought to the Lowest Throne. Every demon knew what the corridor to that room looked like. And none of them wanted to be dragged down it by Hastur or any other duke.

Finally, Hastur knocked on a door that looked no different than every other door. “Enter,” said a low, silky voice.

Hastur turned to Mephistopheles, grinned, and threw the door open. “After you,” he said and pushed Mephistopheles inside.

Mephistopheles stumbled into—

An office?

Something—something about this office was very wrong …

It was only after Mephistopheles had glanced around the room three times, taking in all the details, that he realized what it was. This office wasn’t like the other offices in Hell, with their weeping walls, flickering lights, and third-hand plastic furniture. This—this office had actual wood paneling, plush carpet, and invitingly low lighting. None of the furniture looked new, it might even be called shabby – but it was the sort of shabbiness that came when expertly crafted furniture made of the best materials is lovely used and cared for over the course of centuries.

The office was … comfortable.

It had one other occupant, and that wasn’t who Mephistopheles had expected to see, either.

Usually Satan’s form was chosen for maximum intimidation – gigantic body, red skin, leathery wings, crown of horns. But the person at the desk didn’t look anything like that. (Satan’s usual form probably wouldn’t have physically fit in the office.) This was a man-shaped being, dark-haired with wide-set pale blue eyes and high cheekbones. He looked … very human.

And yet he was about as human as Mephistopheles was avian.

Satan looked up. “Duke Hastur. And …?”

“Mephistopheles, Your Lowliness,” Hastur said, shoving Mephistopheles forward. “The other demon what was topside and saw the … spawn.”

“Ah, yes, of course. Mephistopheles. Do sit down.” Satan gestured to one of the two chairs opposite the desk.

Not trusting his voice, Mephistopheles nodded, drew the chair out with shaking hands, and collapsed into it.

Satan pushed aside the parchment he’d been writing on; Mephistopheles, who had trained himself to read upside-down in seven human languages and all three of the common runes of Hellspeak, barely dared to glance at it. Reading it would have meant taking his eyes off the infernal adversary before him. Who had folded his hands, fixed those strange, pale blue eyes on Mephistopheles, and—

Smiled?

“I’ve already spoken to Legion, but I should like to gain your impression of this – let’s call her a young lady. No need to go into the whole story,” he raised a hand, “I have already been thoroughly briefed on that score, just your thoughts about her.”

“Uh,” Mephistopheles said eloquently, “er, um.”

He heard a low growl come from behind him, but Satan fixed the space over Mephistopheles’s head with a look, and the growl became a choked gurgle.

“She—she was—quiet,” he finally said. That should be safe enough.

“Quiet?” Hastur growled. “Legion said she shouted at them.”

“Well, y-yes – but that was—I mean—” Mephistopheles found himself shooting a beseeching look at Satan, which was probably exactly the wrong thing to do. At least he looked amused. “When—when we all first came into the shop—when we were trying to get them to come quietly—she didn’t say anything. N-not a word. The angel had something to say, and so did the demon Crowley, and her boyfriend had a lot to say, but not her. She just—”

“Stop,” said Satan.

Mephistopheles shut his mouth so quickly that he bit his tongue.

“Go back,” Satan said. “What did you call the wine god?”

“P-pardon?” Mephistopheles asked, even as he realized—Oh, no.

“Her boyfriend,” Satan said. Now those pale blue eyes were fixed on Mephistopheles, and if Mephistopheles had been currently incorporated, he was sure they would have frozen every drop of blood in that corporation. “You called the wine god her boyfriend. Why?”

He could have deflected. He could have said something about the way they stood or how the wine god kept touching her or even that the young lady had led them, in a roundabout way, to the wine god. But Satan was watching him without a blink in a way that suggested he could see right into Mephistopheles’s soul. So Mephistopheles told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

“Sh-she was in his files, sir. All over his files.”

“His what?” Hastur roared. He grabbed Mephistopheles by the hair and hauled him half out of the chair. “When the Heaven did you—”

“Hastur.” Satan’s tone was even, almost casual, except for the tiny undercurrent of authority running through it.

“He didn’t say anything about this at our meeting, Your Lowliness!” Hastur said, flapping his hands—including the one still tangled in Mephistopheles’s hair.

“I d-d-didn’t—ow!—know!”

“Then when did you find out?” Hastur shouted, shaking Mephistopheles.

“Hastur,” Satan said again, in a tone that suggested that he would not be saying this a third time. “What have I said about manhandling lesser demons in my presence?”

Hastur didn’t answer. But he did let go of Mephistopheles, who fell back to the chair with a bump.

Satan didn’t look at him. He kept that unblinking gaze fixed on Hastur. And sighed. “Go.”

“S-s-sir—”

“Your presence is no longer required, Duke, and I should prefer not to have your odor befoul my office any longer. Go.” Satan leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers together. “And if you leave quickly, I may decide that Prince Beelzebub has no need to learn of this indiscretion.”

That got Hastur moving. Mephistopheles didn’t dare turn around, but he heard Hastur’s heavy tread quickly retreat as well as the door opening and shutting behind him.

Satan sighed. “Middle managers …” He shook his head and fixed the full force of his stare on Mephistopheles.

Mephistopheles gulped.

“Now. You were saying?”

“I—I—uh—”

“About the files,” Satan prodded, and though he sounded patient and even smiled, there was a hint—just a hint—that his patience was finite.

Mephistopheles nearly lost his train of his thought again, but self-preservation won out and he was able to stammer, “I—I looked in the Cabinets. After the meeting. I was curious!”

“Ah, yes, curiosity. The true original sin, no matter what our brethren above may have to say about the matter.” Satan was smiling. It was horrible. “I commend your initiative. So. What did you find?”

Mephistopheles gulped. “She—her name is Ariadne—”

“Ariadne,” Satan repeated. He made a complicated gesture with his left hand, one that Mephistopheles could barely follow and could never hope to repeat. And—

Several enormous, neatly stacked piles of files materialized on the desk. It was a demonic miracle that Mephistopheles and Satan could still look each other in the eye.

Satan’s eyebrows slowly migrated to his hairline. “You read all of these?”

“N-no, sir!” Mephistopheles gasped. “I—there were so many—I couldn’t—”

“But you read some.” It was not a question.

“Y-yes, sir.”

“And? Your impression?” Satan asked as he took the topmost file from the rightmost pile and began to flip through it.

“She’s—quiet.”

Satan stopped flipping long enough to quirk an eyebrow at Mephistopheles.

“If—if you look through the files,” he stammered, “I noticed that she’s not—doing much. Or s-saying much. She—the wine god takes center stage. Always. I—I can see why the, the writers thought she was a human that the Greeks made into a goddess.”

“Can you,” Satan mused. “But?”

“S-sir?”

“You are no fool, Mephistopheles.” Satan smiled, and it was an altogether too-knowing smile. “Do you know how your personnel files describe you?”

Mephistopheles shook his head.

“As quiet. Yet you’ve had some rather stunning successes. So I ask you, Mephistopheles, as a quiet person … what do you think of this Ariadne?”

Mephistopheles felt his jaw hang open. But he had to answer. Somehow. “S-sir, she … well, here’s the—here’s the thing. She—her boyfriend is big and strong and powerful, right? So—so why does she need to say things? He—he takes all the attention just by being, well, him. Everyone’s going to look at him. So if she’s smart—she stays quiet, acts like she b-barely has any power, and …”

“And?”

Mephistopheles’s throat was dry, but he forced the words out anyway. “Nobody’s going to look at her. Nobody’s going to think about her. So if—if there’s something her boyfriend c-can’t get them out of—”

“Nobody will be expecting her to pack a punch,” Satan concluded. “Or perhaps, given her parentage, I should say a bite?”

Mephistopheles was too relieved to do anything other than nod.

“As I thought,” Satan said, his gaze going back to the file before him. “Very good, Mephistopheles, I simply wished—”

He stopped.

He frowned.

Mephistopheles gripped the armrests of the chair to restrain himself from hiding under the first desk or table he could find.

“Did you happen to look at the dates on these files?” Satan asked.

“I—I did.”

“And what conclusion did you draw?”

Mephistopheles gulped. “She’s been around a w-while.”

The look Satan turned to him was so withering that Mephistopheles found himself gasping, “I’m not good with d-dates, sir! I—I wasn’t sure how long it was!”

“Ah,” Satan said, and the withering look was gone, replaced with an understanding nod. “Of course. These files,” he gestured, “predate Exodus by hundreds of years. I believe they were authored at the beginning of the Egyptian captivity, when we first began to evaluate the other gods in the lands near ours.”

Mephistopheles swallowed and nodded, because he didn’t know what else to do.

“And this Ariadne was already a known favorite of the wine god by that point. That means …”

What that meant Mephistopheles apparently wasn’t to know, because Satan stopped speaking. Instead, he fixed Mephistopheles with a speculative look. “Is there anything else you would regret not having shared with me now?”

Mephistopheles shook his head. He didn’t have the courage to lie to Satan’s face. But—well, regarding Ariadne, there really wasn’t anything, and hopefully that would be enough.

Satan watched him for ten seconds … twenty … thirty, then briskly nodded and drew another paper toward him. “I believe you were previously incorporated?”

The change of subject left Mephistopheles reeling, but he answered anyway. “Yes, sir.”

“And discorporated by this Ariadne.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How did you find your corporation?”

Mephistopheles blinked a few times.

Satan sighed. “Where there any obvious flaws with it? Things you would want rectified? Specifications you would like to have changed?”

“Oh! No, s-sir. It was a very functional corporation. I liked it.”

“Excellent.” Satan signed the paper with a flourish and snapped his fingers. It burned to ash with a stink of brimstone. “Head to the corporation office. By the time you get there, they should have a new corporation waiting for you, matching the specifications of your old one.”

Mephistopheles goggled.

Satan sighed and rolled his eyes. “You may go, Mephistopheles.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. “Thank you, sir!” he said, jumping out of the chair and heading toward the door.

“Oh, and Mephistopheles?”

Mephistopheles froze.

“If I should find out that you shared one word of this conversation with any other demon – even Duke Hastur, Prince Beelzebub, or another member of management – I shall be most displeased. And I assure you, you do not wish to deal with my … displeasure.”

Mephistopheles gulped. “Yes, sir. Understood, sir!”

“I am glad of it. Enjoy your new corporation.”

“Th-thank you!” And Mephistopheles bowed and fled.

As he loped away, trying to find a corridor that would lead to the corporation office, he allowed one thought – just one – to flit through his mind.

At least he didn’t say I couldn’t talk about this to angels …

[1] There is a difference between “growing on trees” and “frequently falling out of trees,” but someone with as shaky a grasp of biology as Samael should not be expected to fully appreciate it.

[2] Luckily, they weren’t on hoverboards. If they’d been on hoverboards, Samael would have known that the jig was up, that the Almighty knew about Mephistopheles and everything else, and there was nothing to do but commence groveling or simply fling herself down the elevator shaft and save everyone some time.

[3] Putting several canyon walls to shame in the process.

[4] Psalm 22:2, Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34.

[5] Not that Samael had had much sympathy for him. Hell might have been a hellish place to work, but compared to the mostly wide-open expanse of Heaven, it sounded like a dream to defend.

[6] Because of course an archangel could only use the biblical typing method.

[7] Ariadne was doing her best not to think about Eris. Thinking about Eris would mean thinking about how she’d blown up at the café, and she wasn’t ready to think about that yet.

[8] Not that not getting involved ever saved them. See: Ares, Wonder Woman, and objections to David Thewlis and that mustache.

[9] This, you may be expecting, is the part where The Author makes a joke at the expense of Hell’s coffee, perhaps comparing it to oil sludge or remarking on the state of the coffee maker and the last time it was(n’t) cleaned. That will not be happening, because as The Author knows very well, the less that is said about Hell’s coffee, the better.

Chapter Text

Getting everyone to agree that they couldn’t stay in Tadfield forever had been Ariadne’s first step. It had not been difficult. When arguing with a group of immortals, “forever” took on a quite literal meaning, and one thing every immortal learned very quickly was that there were very few things worth doing forever.

Getting everyone to agree on where to move next had been more difficult. Dionysus had been all for Los Angeles; Aziraphale had been much more skeptical; Crowley had been willing to be convinced. And once Crowley had been convinced, Aziraphale had gone along.

Speaking of going along – Eris would be doing that, too. And Anathema and Newt had considered it (Anathema pointing out that she could just stay with her parents, who lived in Malibu), since neither of them cared to tangle with angry angels or demons on their own. But Eris had said that wouldn’t be necessary – she had “a friend” who was “in the area” and who could keep an eye on Anathema and Newt, providing extra backup in case things went wrong.

“Don’t worry,” Eris had said when Newt had blanched and Anathema had raised an eyebrow, “he’ll keep things low key.”

That just made Ariadne worry more, but she had bigger things to worry about. Such as working out when they’d cut and run.

That was when she ran into the brick wall known as Aziraphale, because Aziraphale absolutely refused to make a move until Crowley was healed. And Crowley had agreed, in his own peculiar fashion.

“After all, if we make a move before I’m out of thisss,” he had said, jerking his head toward the sling, “ssssomebody who is not me will have to drive my car – and there’sss nobody in thissss room that I trussst.”

Ariadne was no Leonidas. When she saw a battle she couldn’t win, she retreated.

But a tactical retreat was not the same thing as a total capitulation. So they wouldn’t leave until Crowley was healed. That was fair enough. But just because they were staying in Tadfield didn’t mean that they had to sit on their hands. There were things they could do. Trails they could lay. Cards they could play.

And if Ariadne had anything to say about it – they’d play every last card until all they had left was the ace up their collective sleeve, and that was when they’d cut and run.

The way Eris saw it, a moderately smart person who was attempting to run away would try to convince their enemies that they were staying put. That way, the enemy would attack the place you weren’t.

Which was all well and good if you wanted to be moderately smart. But what was better was to misdirect the enemy not just to a place where you weren’t – but to a place where you had never been.

That was why Eris, Anathema, and Newt were sitting in a first-class lounge at Heathrow, waiting to board the 12:10 flight to Athens.

Not that any of them looked like themselves. Anathema had been magicked into Crowley’s shape and Newt into Aziraphale’s. And Eris …

Well, Eris had wanted to go as Lucy Ricardo, but the way Dionysus had shouted, “You are not going out in public in black and white!” had put the kibosh on that. So Eris had compromised and gone as Lucille Ball instead. Same signature poodle cut, same polka-dot dress with apron, same pearl necklace, same classic 1950s heels, only in living color.

Her face was also a dead ringer for dear Lucille’s, because honestly, if you were going to try to cross international borders in an I-Love-Lucy getup, why not go all in? It wasn’t as if Eris’s documents wouldn’t look exactly the way she wanted them to look and say exactly what she wanted them to say. It was only the very foolish security guard who dare to bat an eye at them.[1]

So Eris was fine. Eris was all set. Eris could be Lucille until the cows came home.

She was a little less sure about her companions.

Anathema seemed to have caught on to the fundamental tenets of being Crowley, folding her body into the chair in a way that bore only a very strained relationship to sitting. She held her phone loosely, but kept her eyes on it, and altogether acted like she was far too cool for any of this. If Crowley could see her, he’d probably have a dozen things to criticize … but he’d also probably be mortally offended, so that meant that Anathema had to be on the right track.

Newt … well, he was sitting up straight. More or less. And he had a book open in his lap. It looked old, too, and mildewed. And that was where the resemblance to Aziraphale ended. Because while Crowley insisted that Aziraphale could sit so long with a good book that he started to gather dust (and Aziraphale had pursed his lips together and frowned but hadn’t argued), Newt couldn’t keep his eyes on the page for more than five seconds. He kept looking up, looking around, glancing over first one shoulder and then the other.

“Would you relax?” Anathema said, elbowing Newt. The voice was right, the accent was right – Greek god shapeshifting would do that for you – but the gesture was wrong, and so was the choice of words. “There’s nothing the angels or demons could do to us that would stick. They said.”

“You’re not the one who’s going to get Hellfire tossed at them,” Newt hissed. “If anyone’s tossing anything. They’d just dump water on you!”

“Holy Water,” Anathema said, “and you don’t know that. They both seemed to think that their … former coworkers weren’t going to go for the obvious weapons.”

Yes, they had said that, and Eris would very much like to know why.

But Aziraphale and Crowley had been quite insistent that most if not all the weapons favored by the forces of Heaven and Hell couldn’t do much, if anything, to a human – even something as lethal-sounding as Hellfire. And if any avenging angels or demons should happen to be packing other types of weapons …

Well. That was what Eris was there for.

“And what about the—” Newt started, and stopped. His jaw fell open as his gaze focused on something behind and above Eris’s head. “What on earth?”

“What?” Anathema asked, looking up. The sunglasses made it hard to know where she was looking, but there was no hiding that dropped jaw. “Huh?”

With reactions like that, Eris had to look. She squirmed in the seat and looked around—

What caught her eye was the TV, and her first thought was that somebody had decided to put on a nature documentary instead of the inevitable airport news. And she could applaud that decision, really. Being in an airport was depressing enough without being reminded of how the world was constantly going to shit.[2]

Then Eris looked closer.

What she was watching wasn’t a herd of pure white horses running through the surf.

What she was watching was a herd of pure white horses coming out of the surf, manifesting as the cresting waves crashed against the shore.

“Did—did Adam get upset again?” Anathema asked, turning back to her phone and poking at the screen.

“Not likely,” Eris said. “Nothing to worry about. It’s probably just my uncle.”

Anathema and Newt froze.

“I’m sorry, your what?” Newt asked.

“Uncle. Father’s brother? Well, technically mother’s brother, too, because it’s all relative in the Greek pantheon … anyway. That,” Eris nodded toward the TV screen, “has Poseidon written all over it.”

Anathema paused in her typing. She actually looked at Eris over the sunglasses. “Um. What?”

Eris rolled her eyes. “God of horses. God of the sea. What better way to remind the mortals that he’s still alive and kicking than to … make some horses come out of the sea?”

Newt tilted his head to one side. “Why would he want to remind people that he was alive and kicking?”

Aw, shit. She probably shouldn’t have said that. Her mother would have a fit.

Eh, she’ll survive.

Eris sat up straighter, fluffed her skirt over her knees, even crossed her legs. “So,” she started, “the thing is—”

She stopped.

Her trouble-sense was dinging.

“The thing is?” Newt asked, but Eris held up a finger and shook her head.

Now Anathema was sitting up, too, and—yeah, that would break character, no question about it. Eris wasn’t even sure if Crowley’s spine worked like that. He probably could have done an Exorcist-approved 360-degree head spin if he’d really put his mind to it, and here Anathema was, actually turning her head and looking from side to side like a normal mortal.

Best to nip this in the bud. Eris leaned back, tapped her perfectly lacquered nails on the back of the seat beside her, let her eyes go unfocused, and trusted her instincts.

There, she thought, and—oh, that was trouble, all right. Eris could only imagine how much magic the three demons (and they had to be demons; Eris didn’t know much about angels but she was pretty sure they weren’t into wild makeup, dirty clothes whose rips may or may not have been artful, or a general all-black aesthetic) lurking near the entrance of the lounge were burning to keep from being tossed out on their asses by airport security.

They weren’t doing anything, yet, which could be good or bad. They were masking their auras, but aura-masking didn’t work on Eris’s trouble-sense – she might not know what a thing was, but she knew how much trouble it was, and that was really all she needed to know. But the amount of trouble she was picking up on was nothing she couldn’t handle.

But weirdly, they weren’t looking at Anathema and Newt, who Eris would have guessed would be their number one and number two targets.

They were looking at Eris. Drinking her in. Eris almost raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow, but thought better of it. Best not to let them know she’d seen them.

So she leaned back again, took a deep breath and grounded herself in her surroundings. She let her senses blanket the room once, twice, three times.

The only trouble she could sense continued to come from the demons.[3]

“’Scuse me,” she said, uncrossing her legs and rising in a fluid motion that might or might not have given everyone facing her a glimpse of Lucy’s underwear.[4] “Got some ass to kick.”

“But—but the plane—we’re boarding in—” Newt started.

“Relax, lizard,” Eris said, tossing a million-watt smile over her shoulder. “There’s no way that plane is taking off without me.”

Anathema’s eyebrows practically crawled up her face, but she eventually sighed and shook her head. “At least we have a direct flight.”

Eris chuckled and sashayed to the entrance of the lounge. What she needed to do was find someplace she could confront three demons with as few pesky mortals as possible getting in the way. In other words, what she needed was privacy in an airport.

Good thing she loved a challenge.

She walked right by the demons (definitely demons, they smelled like someone had let one gloriously rip, and as everyone knew, brimstone and sulfur were the same thing, and sulfur smelled like farts) and was not disappointed in their reaction. Eyes locked on her, nudging, even whispering to each other. Did they think she was blind?

She kept walking, not pausing as she dug the compact mirror out of her purse and flipped it open. Yep – she was being followed.

Eris looked left … looked right …

There was a ladies’ room right in front of her. The demons behind her weren’t all presenting as female, but she doubted a little thing like gender presentation would stop them if they really wanted to follow her.

Now all she had to do was clear the space. Eris made a complicated gesture with her left hand.

And waited.

“Unbelievable!” huffed the first woman to stomp out of the bathroom. “Every toilet in the place out of order!”

“What?” asked the first woman in line.

“Are you kidding me?” asked the second.

Eris folded her arms and smirked as the devastating news made its way down the line. Soon, the line was gone. Eris waved once and a generic “Out of Order” sign appeared on the door.

She gave it five more minutes to let anyone who was already in there finish their business and get out. Then she went in, ducked into a stall, and climbed onto the toilet.

She waited.

She heard the door open. Heard three sets of footsteps come in.

“Where do you think she went?” asked one voice.

“Shhh!”

“Look for feet under the stalls,” said the third.

Eris smirked. And waited.

One set of footsteps went past her. Then two. Then three.

“Where can she be?”

“We might have to blow a few doors down.”

“Do you think she went invisible?”

“… Can she go invisible?”

Eris wrinkled her nose. Who the heck did they think she was?

One way to find out.

Eris waved the door to the stall open, jumped down, and sashayed out. The exit was at her back, trapping the demons between her and the wall.

Just as she’d planned it.

“Looking for me?”

One of the demons shrieked. All three of them whirled around.

Eris grinned. She had a speech planned. Or something like a speech. It would definitely involve the words “smiting” and “kingdom come” just to watch the demons piss themselves. She might have even magicked up a little squirt gun for her purse so she could threaten them with “Holy Water.”

She didn’t get a chance to use any of it.

“You,” breathed one of the demons – a short one with greasy black hair and very sharp teeth. “You’re her, aren’t you?”

Eris blinked.

“Eh?”

“Everyone’s been talking about you,” said the demon, stepping forward even as her friends (colleagues? Coworkers? Brothers in stupidity?) tried to draw her back. “Ever since—well. Ever since we found out about you! Are you—are you really her?”

What the fuck are they—

Oh.

Oh good Gaia.

Eris drew her hand down her face and tried not to groan.

They thought she really was Lucille Ball!

… Actually, she could work with that.

Eris let her hand drop and grinned. Not an Eris grin, a Lucy-thinks-she’s-going-to-get-away-with-it grin. She put her hand on her hip and cocked her head to one side.

“Well, who else would I be?” she asked.

One of the demons – a tall, dark-skinned one – squeaked. Actually squeaked.

“You really are her,” said the third one with a grin that might have been shit-eating if it wasn’t so honestly gleeful. “You have no idea how much we wanted to meet you!”

“And ask some questions,” said the first one.

The tall one had half-buried her face in her turtleneck, but she was nodding vigorously.

“Ask away,” said Eris. “But be quick about it. I’ve got a plane to catch.”

“You can catch planes?” asked the second one, eyes goggling.

“… Figure of speech,” Eris said. Clearly, the denizens of Hell needed to get out more.

There was a great deal of wise nodding in response to that, which Eris interpreted as complete and utter confusion paired with an inability to admit said confusion. “So,” asked the first one, “what can you do?”

Eris blinked.

“What can I do? What can—oh!”

She grinned. Maybe a bit of Eris slipped through in that grin, because all three of the demons took a quick step back. Oh well.

“Hello, friends!” she said. “I’m your Vitameatavegamin girl. Are you tired, run down, listless? Do you poop out of parties? Are you unpopular? The answer to all your problems is in this little bottle.”

She reached into her purse and pulled out a giant prescription pill bottle that should not, strictly speaking, have fit into it in the first place.

“Vitameatavegamin! Vitameatavegamin contains vitamins, meat, vegetables, and minerals. Yes, with Vitameatavegamin, you can spoon your way to health. All you do is take a tablespoon full after every meal.”

She pulled a tablespoon out of her purse and poured some goop onto the spoon.

“It’s so tasty, too!”

She popped the spoon into her mouth.

And made a face. But not just a face. The kind of face someone would make if they swallowed a tablespoon full of cough syrup when expecting ice cream. She even made sure to shudder as it all went down.

“Just like candy!” she said, and it wasn’t convincing in the least – she made sure of it.

Then she held the bottle up again. “So why don’t you join the thousands of happy peppy people and get a great big bottle of Vitameatavegamin tomorrow? That’s Vita-meata-vegamin.”

Eris finished with the biggest grin she could muster.

What she got in response were three very confused looks.

“Oh, come on!” She pouted, putting both hands on her hips. “That was good! And it’s one of the most famous sketches!”

“… Come again?” asked the first demon, the short one.

“Philistines, the lot of you,” Eris sighed and shook her head. “What am I—”

She didn’t get a chance to finish that sentence. A voice over the loudspeaker stopped that for her.

“This is the final boarding call for British Airways Flight 606, nonstop service to Athens. All passengers should report to the gate at once.”

“Whoops!” Eris said. “That’s me! Gotta run, boys—boy—and girls!”

“Whoa, whoa, wait!” said the third demon. “We still—”

Eris didn’t wait. She snapped her fingers.

And at least a dozen toilets exploded.

“Have fun!” Eris called, even as the demons shrieked and danced away from the water. “Water may or may not be holy!”

And with that, she sprinted out the bathroom, pausing only long enough to magic herself dry and her hair back into place before power-walking back to the gate.

After all, as she’d told the demons, she had a plane to catch.

At about the time Anathema, Newt, and Eris left their hotel in Athens to head to the airport and fly back, Dionysus and Aziraphale were waiting at the small Tadfield train station, laying their own false trail.

Dionysus, disguised as Crowley, leaned against a pole and did his best embody the role. He itched to move, to pace up and down the platform, but he wouldn’t do that. He was too keyed up. Even in the shifted body and too-tight pants, his stride would be loping, feline, not … whatever it was that Crowley did when he attempted to move from point A to point B.

This was why he hated pretending to be a person. A character was one thing – even with a character with baggage, like an Oedipus or a Willy Loman or a Hamlet, audiences knew damn well that what you were putting in front of them was an interpretation. You weren’t supposed to get it “right”; there was no right to get. Whereas with an actual person, a living one or one that hadn’t been dead for that long …

Well. There was a reason why biopics were award bait.

“You don’t have to be so still,” Aziraphale said, quietly, so he wouldn’t be overheard. And he smiled, looking almost understanding. “Crowley’s usually on the move. Circling. Keeping an eye out.”

Dionysus took a deep breath, but considering that Aziraphale was the director in this little play they were staging for the benefit of gods-knew-who … he moved. Circled. Hoped he was getting the pacing and the stride right.

When he finally came to a stop at Aziraphale’s side, Aziraphale made a small noise of disapproval. “Er—usually it’s the other side.”

Dionysus’s eyebrows arched, and he reminded himself that the director having a clear vision was always a good thing. He ambled to Aziraphale’s left side. “Demon on the left, angel on the right?” he asked, attempting to shove his hands into his pockets. (There was not enough pocket to do so successfully.)

“Mmm. Not really. Sword arm free is more like it.”

Dionysus did a double-take. “Sword?”

Aziraphale looked up mildly. “Well, I haven’t got it with me now.”

“You. Have a sword arm.”

Now Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you have a dominant hand?”

He did, but that wasn’t the point. “I don’t call it my sword arm. And I know that people who do …” He shrugged, turning it into a roll of the shoulders that was trying desperately, and utterly failing, to be nonchalant. “Let’s just say, they can all reliably kick my ass without breaking a sweat.”

Aziraphale smiled and chuckled. “Oh, come now. I’m sure it’s not that bad.”

“Ever hear of Ares? Athena? Artemis[5]? And that’s just the letter A.”

Something like a smile twitched at the corner of Aziraphale’s mouth, but he didn’t have a chance to say anything before the platform was engulfed in the squeal of brakes and the letting-off of steam. “Ah,” Aziraphale said as soon as the din allowed, “that would be us. Mind the gap, my dear.”

Dionysus glanced sidelong at Aziraphale, but all he was able to see was the back of the angel’s head. Well, Aziraphale called everyone “my dear.” If he ever called Dionysus “dear boy,” then he’d be in trouble.[6]

They’d purchased a pair of first-class tickets that would get them to Inverness just in time to change appearances and turn right back around. Perhaps it would have been wiser to leave their false trail farther afield, but Inverness was as far away as they could go on major rail lines without having to leave the island. And neither of them was eager to leave the island.

They found their seats quickly enough, Dionysus constructing a wall of leave-us-alone that would keep other passengers from sitting too close or attempting anything as cruel as small talk. Dionysus threw himself into the seat and tried to find a way to sprawl/lounge that wouldn’t lead to a backache before the end of fifteen minutes. It was not nearly as difficult as he thought it would be. Were Crowley’s bones made of cartilage? Did he have a few extra joints thrown in?

Aziraphale, of course, sat up straight and almost immediately pulled a book out of the small bag he’d brought with him. Dionysus bit back a sigh of relief. Staying in character would be much easier if he didn’t try to keep up a conversation. He fished his phone out of his jacket pocket (magicked to look like Crowley’s, which the phone had not liked one bit) and flipped over to his email.

  The email didn’t occupy him for very long, especially since most of it wasn’t anything he absolutely needed to deal with or really could do much about, given his current status of Very Much Occupied Right Now. Although the one from Tom Hiddleston’s publicist’s office, asking if he had any idea what was causing the persistent rumors of the latter’s presence in Oxfordshire, was amusing. Dionysus wondered what sort of desperation had spurred the poor overworked assistant to send that out.

He glanced at the time. They’d barely been in motion for twenty minutes. The train ride was nearly thirteen hours. At least he had a few games on this thing and could use magic to keep it charged.

No sooner had he thought this than the phone buzzed in his hand, loudly enough that Aziraphale looked up from his book. And Hermes’s name and number flashed on the screen.

Dionysus almost answered it. Almost. Then he realized he had no desire to explain why he sounded like a middle-aged Englishman. So he sent the call to voicemail and dashed off a text.

Can’t talk now. Can text. What’s up?

Almost immediately the telltale ellipses blinked onto the screen. And in less time than Dionysus would have thought possible, were anyone else on the other end of the proverbial line, a message came through:

Direct. Male-line. Descendent.

If there was any doubt as to whom Hermes was talking about, it was resolved with the gif he sent – a man in vaguely seventeenth century clothes, sporting eighties rocker hair, sitting under an apple tree and getting bonked on the head by one of the aforementioned apples.

Newton.

Dionysus didn’t ask if Hermes was sure; he wouldn’t have reached out if he wasn’t sure. Instead, he typed, Why does male line matter?

Logically? Hermes texted back. It doesn’t. But this is Pater’s line, so it does. IDK man, I don’t make the rules.

It took him four texts to say all that, but Dionysus couldn’t have gotten a word in edgewise if he’d tried. And he hadn’t. Even typing with just his thumbs, Hermes had an average speed of infinite words per minute, so it was easiest to just let him get to the end of whatever it was he was trying to say.

BTW, Hermes went on, Aunt Hestia wants in. And by “wants in” I mean she wants to send the kid some baklava and welcome him to the family.

You asked her for help?

Had to. Nobody else does genealogy like she does.

Even though he knew Hermes couldn’t see him, Dionysus nodded.

You sure you don’t want to bring this to Pater? Or at least get some credit? Hermes asked. Might help to save your bacon.

Dionysus sighed and rolled his eyes. No, he typed. This one’s yours

All right, kid, your funeral.

That seemed to be all Hermes needed to say. Dionysus sighed and let his head fall back against the seat.

“Everything all right?” Aziraphale asked, quietly enough that no one beyond their little bubble would hear them.

Dionysus almost jumped. Almost. He held back just in time, channeling the energy that would have made an unfortunate reaction into studied nonchalance. “Didn’t realize I was being that obvious.”

“You forget,” and here Aziraphale smiled, even if he didn’t look up from his book, “I know your face very well.”

Gaia help me. Dionysus shifted, digging his shoulder blades into the not-plush-enough seat. “It’s nothing. Just my brother.” And the fact that my father is going to put my head up over the mantel if I don’t play this exactly right, but hey, what else is new?

“If you say so,” Aziraphale said in a tone that suggested that he knew damn well there was more to the story than that and that politeness was the only thing that kept him from pressing the issue.

Dionysus went back to his phone, flipping to the “weird shit” feed Hermes had made a few years ago and sent him the link to. He ignored the viral video of some horses playing in the Mediterranean surf in favor of something, anything, that would serve as a distraction.

He found one disturbingly quickly.

Dionysus squinted at one of the most recent articles. This was out of New York, an interview with a nurse at Sloan Kettering, the cancer hospital. Apparently … fewer patients were dying than usual? Why was that showing up in the weird shit feed?

He started scrolling.

According to Nurse Rao, the strangeness began shortly after her shift did. “I saw this man ducking into a patient’s room just after midnight. He was wearing a toga and carrying a weird staff with what looked like a snake wrapped around it.”

That paragraph was enough to make Dionysus nearly bolt out of his seat. “What the fuck?”

It was almost a shout, but his leave-us-alone wall was good – a few of the mortals jumped, looked around, but none of them looked at him.

Well, except Aziraphale, who didn’t really count as mortal. “D—Crowley? What’s wrong?”

Dionysus thought of explaining, thought better of it, and shook his head. He copied the link and went back into his text messages, pulling up Apollo’s contact with the intent of sending it to him with a WTF?!?! Because there was only one person who would be wandering around a cancer ward at midnight wearing what a mortal would call a toga and carrying a snake-wrapped staff, and that was Apollo’s pain-in-the-ass son—

He didn’t get that far. Aziraphale’s hand on his arm stopped him. “Do you feel that?”

“Feel—” Dionysus started, and stopped.

He did feel that. The first-class car was just empty enough that the four auras – brighter by far than most mortals’, burning like frozen fire – stuck out like sore thumbs.

He opened the camera app and switched to selfie mode, carefully angling the phone so he could see over his shoulder.

There.

“Don’t look, but we’ve got four angels by the back door,” Dionysus murmured. “How—”

He stopped.

He flipped his sunglasses up and squinted at the phone.

He recognized one of those angels.

“Shit.”

“What?”

“The one who shot Cr—the one who shot me—she’s here.” Dionysus took a deep breath and tapped the nearest outlet, sending his senses sparking along the wires and gathering a few threads of electricity to throw. “So, angel, how do we plan on handling this?”

Aziraphale seemed quite calm, which, now that Dionysus knew about the sword arm, didn’t surprise him as much as it would have yesterday. “I don’t suppose you could freeze time?”

Dionysus blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Guess not, then,” Aziraphale murmured. “Only it does help keep the humans from getting into trouble when … well, when we don’t want them to.”

“Principality Aziraphale!”

That was the one – well, one of three – angelic voice Dionysus recognized, and what it said was that the time for dicking around was over.

Well, Aziraphale wanted the mortals out of harm’s way, and that Dionysus could do. He began to wave—no, that wasn’t how Crowley did it, what he did was snap his fingers and move his hand up.

One upward snap later, and all the mortals in the train car slumped in their seats, their BACs having gone from zero to passed-out drunk. Dionysus used the moment of surprise to swing himself out of his seat.[7] “Sorry, Principality Aziraphale can’t come to the phone right now; instead you get to deal with his pissed de—his pissed-off demon boyfriend.” Right, Crowley was English, and pissed meant something rather different on this side of the pond.

None of the angels seemed to notice the slip, being too focused on the mortals. “What did you do?” demanded one of the male-looking ones, a black angel with an afro.

“Nothing you need to worry your haloes about,” Dionysus said, crossing his arms. “Now are you going to leave this car quietly, or do I need to throw you off the train myself?”

“I’d like to see you try, demon,” snapped the tallest angel of the lot. “It’s four on one!”

“Two,” said a quiet voice to Dionysus’s left. And in the silence that followed, Aziraphale got up and came to stand at Dionysus’s right.

Sword arm free, Dionysus thought with a smirk that, had he been able to see it, would have struck him as very Crowley.

“You sure you want to mess with us? You especially?” Dionysus turned his attention to gun-angel, flipping his sunglasses down so he could give her a full yellow-eyed demon stare. “Last I checked, when we last tangled, you and your idiot friends were blown to … what’s that poetic phrase … ah, yes, kingdom come.”

“Not until after I shot you!” gun-angel snapped, her nostrils flaring.

“And yet, here I stand.” Dionysus said, throwing his arms wide (and nearly hitting Aziraphale). “In the flesh.”

“First corporation he was ever issued, too,” Aziraphale said with a very faint smile. Dionysus hoped that meant something to the angels, because it didn’t mean anything to him. “Which, much as I don’t like to bring it up, is more than you can say, my dear.”

Gun-angel blushed, but she turned beseeching eyes on Aziraphale. “Please, Principality. We just have questions! About—”

“Don’t care,” Dionysus said. “Stopped caring about your lot a long time ago. Before any of you were ever—uh—hatched?”

Aziraphale blinked and stared at him. “Hatched?”

“Well, how else do you get little angels? You all have wings, makes sense that you’d come from eggs—”

“But see!” said gun-angel. “That’s what we have questions about! How you—”

“My dear,” Aziraphale interrupted, which showed how low on patience he was, “I promise you, whatever questions you have, you won’t like the answers you get from me. And your superiors will like them still less. Are you quite sure you want to ask?”

Gun-angel looked mulish, so Dionysus piled on, “I’ve heard that the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire starts with questions.”

As he’d hoped, all four of the angels jumped. Dionysus twisted the knife with a smirk and a flick of the sunglasses. “But what would I know about that?”

“You—” started tall-angel.

“Are about out of patience, which I’m told is a virtue, so, really, I can’t be having any truck with that, now, can I?” asked Dionysus. “And so, speaking of bonfires, I have to tell you that if you’re not packing heat, you’d best get packing, because …”

Dionysus lifted his left hand and snapped his fingers. “I am.”

It wasn’t Hellfire, of course. Just a regular flame, the sort even Poseidon could conjure with a bit of effort. But it did the job. The angels blanched, and without a further word, all of them ran for the door to the next car.

Dionysus grinned. “Think that’ll keep them out of our hair?”

“One can hope,” Aziraphale said, squinting at the door and making a complicated gesture. Wards. Dionysus would have added his own to them, but had he tried, it would have been obvious to anyone who cared to look just who had set them, and then what would be the point of walking around in this ridiculous body? Instead he occupied himself with waking the mortals up and fixing the liver damage he’d caused.

That done, he and Aziraphale took their seats once again, Aziraphale picking up his book as if nothing had happened. But before he started to read, he frowned. “Primrose way to the everlasting bonfire – where do I know that from?”

“Scottish play,” Dionysus said. “Every now and then, it’s good for something.”

“Ah,” Aziraphale said with a nod. “Yes, of course. The ‘primrose path of dalliance’ is Hamlet.”

“Well, well, well.” Now Dionysus had cause to smile, really smile. “I had no idea you could speak my language that well, angel.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Aziraphale said, licking one finger as he thumbed his way back to his place. “After all, it is Greek to me.”

Dionysus threw his head back and laughed. Really laughed. And allowed himself to think that maybe, just maybe, this ridiculous rail trip with an angel wouldn’t be so bad after all.

“Ssso,” Crowley said. He and Ariadne were standing outside of Jasmine Cottage, steps away from the Bentley. The rest of their motley crew was still seeking out locations known and unknown, laying false trails.

“So,” Ariadne said. She had one hand on her hip, one eyebrow raised, and one quizzical expression that kept volleying between him and the Bentley.

“We need to have a talk, young lady,” Crowley went on, “about what you did to my car.”

Ariadne winced. “Look, I’m sorry about the undercarriage, but I needed to get to the exit quickly, and need I remind you that we were being chased—”

“I’m not worried about the undercarriage,” Crowley said, even he silently cursed the fates and snapped the damage away. “I’m worried about the ressst of it.”

Now Ariadne looked confused. “What rest of it?”

“The modificationsss you made.”

Ariadne blinked slowly, and her eyebrow arched even higher.

Crowley sighed. “The flamethrower? The invisibility cloak? The ssself-dessstruct button?”

Now she looked taken aback. “Wait, what?”

Crowley snapped the doors open. “In—passssenger ssside, thank you,” he added.

Ariadne rolled her eyes at him, but she slipped into Aziraphale’s usual seat. Crowley took the driver’s seat, and oh, that did feel good, even if it was a bit awkward with the sling.

As soon as he got himself settled, he found himself surveying the familiar dashboard – well, what should have been the familiar dashboard. What he found were two extra switches. They were very nice switches, all things considered, looked right at home with the rest of the vintage gages and dials. (The Blaupunkt stood out far more.) One switch was labeled with a flame, the other a lightning bolt.

“You know,” Ariadne murmured, “I did think that was weird.”

“What was weird?”

“The invisibility cloak.” She gestured to the lightning-bolt switch. “I mean, when I was trying to think what it might look like, I said ‘lightning bolt’ because you say ‘invisibility cloak’ and my brain goes straight to Harry Potter – but you had to have had that mod a long time before Harry Potter, right? So why a lightning bolt?”

It was at that point that Crowley realized – well and truly realized – that Ariadne had no idea what she’d done.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and decided to just bloody well go for it. “I never added an invisibility cloak to my car, Ariadne.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Or a flamethrower. Or – and I really hate that I have to keep bringing this up – a ssself-desstruct button.”

“You really are focused on that one button, aren’t you?” Ariadne asked. “We couldn’t even find it!”

If she couldn’t find it … then perhaps it didn’t exist. That would be a relief. The invisibility cloak he could live with, the flamethrower was actually kind of cool, but he did not want to accidentally discorporate himself with an offhand gesture.

“It’s a ssself-dessstruct button! Not like changing the bloody radio station!”

For some reason, that made Ariadne smirk. “Radio station? In 2019?”

“What?”

“Oh, come on. The only time I listen to the radio is when I want to know how much traffic I’ll have to magic out of my way if I want to get wherever I’m going on time. I pay for Spotify for a reason.”

“Pay?” Crowley asked.

“Well, you sort of have to, if you want the premium …” Ariadne started. And stopped.

She’d seen his smirk. Must have. Because she answered with a smirk of her own. “Let me guess. Spotify is a few decades ahead of the curve for you, isn’t it?”

Now it was Crowley’s turn to blink. “I beg your pardon?”

“In fact,” now Ariadne’s grin nearly split her face, “I bet you listen to … oh, let’s see … dad rock?”

“And what is that sssupposed to mean?”

“Let’s find out, shall we?” Ariadne said. And pushed the “on” button on the Blaupunkt.

Strictly speaking, it should not have turned on at all, what with the car’s engine being off. But of course it did, because for all of their collective imagination, neither the demon nor the half-demon could imagine a world in which it did not.

So Crowley was not surprised by that. He also was not surprised when the dulcet tones of Messrs. Mercury, May, Deacon and Taylor filled the car.

He was more than a bit surprised by the choice of song and lyrics:

“Oh mamma mia, mamma mia! Mamma mia, let me go / Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me—”

“For me,” Crowley murmured—and with a yelp, jabbed the radio off and launched himself out of the car, self-destruct button and sling be damned.

“Crowley?” Ariadne asked, following him out through the other side and hurrying around the car. “Are you ok?”

Crowley shook his head and tried to breathe. He didn’t need to breathe, but it was helpful in moments like this.

“What—” Ariadne started, looking over her shoulder at the car. “Did I—is there something wrong with the radio? The car? I—”

“You’re fine,” Crowley said. “It’s not you. You …”

Now he looked back at the Bentley, his beloved Bentley. The one blessed thing, other than Aziraphale, that he’d managed to keep for longer than it took for it to cycle out of fashion. He’d held onto that car for longer than Aziraphale kept some articles of clothing.

But now all he could think about was Satan’s voice coming through the speakers, wearing Freddie Mercury’s timbre and inflection like a well-tailored suit, calling him darling and informing him just what his next infernal assignment would be.

He shuddered.

“Crowley?” asked Ariadne.

Crowley looked up. Ariadne’s eyes were blown wide and she was nervously tucking a curl behind her ear. It was the worst of all looks – worried and trying to hide it.

Crowley reminded himself to breathe. Again.

There was so much he and Aziraphale hadn’t told her. Not because they wanted to keep her ignorant, but because there hadn’t been bloody time. How in Go—Sa—Someone’s name did you go telling six thousand years of history and even more bloody lore and lessons to someone you’d not even known a week?

Well, you didn’t. Especially not when you had to keep running from people who meant you ill. But … Crowley could start to fix that now.

“Have you ever heard a voice talking to you from the radio?” Crowley asked.

Ariadne’s brows knit.

“Not a bloody talk show program,” he went on. “A voice. Sounding just like what you’d heard before, only talking to you. Telling you what’s what and what you need to be doing.”

“No,” Ariadne replied. Her voice was quite small.

“Good,” Crowley replied. He took another deep breath. “That’s how—that’s how they,” he pointed to the ground and raised an eyebrow, not saying another word until Ariadne nodded her understanding, “like to keep in touch with their earthbound agents. Speaking through the radio – television – movies – they haven’t quite figured out the internet yet, thank Someone, although if they ever do—”

“Movies?” Ariadne asked, her voice threaded with a hint of danger.

“Yes, movies, and if your partner decides to get angry about that and bloody well keep them out of his business, you won’t catch me complaining. Anyway. If they ever do, you run, you hear me? Get away from whatever thing that’s talking to you at top speed. I don’t care what you have to do or who you have to hurt to do it.”

Ariadne’s eyebrows slowly lifted. “Why?”

He probably deserved that. But what the Heaven, she was an adult and deserved an answer. “Do you know why Aziraphale was the one who brought you to Crete? Trick question, of course you don’t, because we didn’t tell you. The reason is—that is—we decided Aziraphale would be the only one to know where you were because …”

Something in that statement made Ariadne flinch, but Crowley didn’t have time to unpack that now. “I told you earlier that Heaven and Hell would want you dead if they ever found out about you.”

“Yeah,” Ariadne murmured.

“I lied. Well, sort of. Heaven would definitely want you dead. And they’d kill you clean. Nice thing about Heaven; they don’t go much in for long, drawn-out suffering. Well, unless you’ve signed up for martyrdom. Very efficient with their enemies, Heaven is. But Hell?” Crowley went on. “Hell likes to make things last. Likes pain in particular.”

“So—so if they got a hold of me …” Ariadne said. She looked pale – well, paler than usual, considering she’d inherited the ginger from him and the lack of melanin from Aziraphale.

“You would be looking at a very long time in the Pit, and you would enjoy none of it,” Crowley said. “And that’s the best-case scenario.”

Ariadne blinked. “What’s the worst case?”

Crowley swallowed. “Worst case … they don’t want to kill you. They want to keep you. Especially …”

He broke off, once again focusing on breathing. Breathing, and trying not to think.

Because the thing was, despite what maggots-for-brains like Hastur and Ligur might have to say about the matter, Crowley had been very good at his job. In its own way, Hell liked efficiency as much as Heaven did. And Crowley was always efficient where it counted, bringing in numbers that crushed the rest of the Temptation department – and while, yes, some of that was him taking credit for things that humans had come up with themselves, the point was no one else came close.

And Satan … he didn’t like Crowley; Crowley wasn’t sure Satan was capable of liking anybody. But Satan liked results. And he was prepared to be charming to the getters-of-results. And he was always, always trying to replicate those results.

And if he found out that Crowley had a daughter … especially a daughter in any way like him, as that chase through London had bloody well proven …

Crowley shuddered, a full-body thing that started at the crown of his head and didn’t stop until it had exited his corporation via his toes, several times.

“My old boss,” Crowley said, pointing insistently downward, begging Ariadne to understand without him having to say the name and risk drawing his attention, “is going to be looking to fill a spot on the team now that I’ve been, let’s say, fired.”

“And,” Ariadne licked her lips and swallowed a few times, “he’d make me an offer I couldn’t refuse?”

“No,” Crowley replied. “He’d tear your mind down and build it back up again, brick by brick, all in his image, so you couldn’t even think to refuse.”

Ariadne, if it were possible, went even paler. “So – so stay away from …” She pointed down.

“Bingo.”

“Ok,” Ariadne said. She took a deep breath. “Ok.” She looked over her shoulder. “I think … maybe we should go inside? You know. Before anyone gets any ideas.”

“Probably not a bad idea.” Between the human wards, the angelic wards, the demonic wards, and the Olympian wards, if Satan could get to them in Jasmine Cottage … well, they were all in very big trouble, and that was putting it lightly.

“And maybe we could grab some lunch,” Ariadne went on. “It’s about that time, isn’t it?”

Crowley shrugged; one meal was much the same as another to him. “Sounds good to me, as long as you don’t start any hot beverages by boiling water in the microwave.”

“Nah,” she replied. “I’ve been magically making water boil since my Maenad days. When a microwave can do it in microseconds, then we’ll talk.”

“Fine by me, but don’t let Aziraphale hear you talk like that. It’s a blessed kettle or nothing for him.”

“Noted,” Ariadne said, with a nod that tried to be serious but that couldn’t hide the mischief in her eyes.

And Crowley was glad of it. It wasn’t cheerful, but after the conversation they’d just had?

Crowley would take what he could get.

[1] Not least because any idiot security personnel who tried to investigate would find that their computers were suddenly infested with the most embarrassing porn out there, which would self-send to all of their colleagues if investigations continued. Starting with the boss.

[2] Especially since the world was not, in fact, going to shit. Eris had seen the world go to shit. More than once. Minor issue of the almost-Apocalypse aside, the world was doing better than it ever had.

[3] Well, not the only trouble. But Eris was pretty sure that the two-year-old who had missed her nap wasn’t an angel in disguise, so she was discounting the massive helping of trouble coming from that quarter.

[4] Which was the only part of her disguise that wasn’t straight out of Desilu Productions.

[5] Not that Artemis called it a sword arm. Bow-arm was more her style. But she could definitely kick Dionysus’s ass.

[6] Or acting better than he thought he was, depending on whose body he was wearing at the time.

[7] And nearly fell flat on his face because mortal legs were not supposed to move that way; who had designed this ridiculous excuse for a body?

Chapter Text

“This is getting out of hand,” Gabriel said, striding into the meeting late. “We’ve scarcely known about that … thing for an Earth-week, and already we’ve had three unauthorized trips to the surface! And those are just the ones we know about!”

Samael leaned back in her chair and schooled her face into as neutral an expression as she could. So there had been more trips than just the one she’d been briefed on. She wished she could say she was surprised.

If anything, it was comforting. Archangel or no, she’d known herself to be odd for millennia now. She doubted there many other angels who made a mutually-assured-destruction pact with a demon.[1] Yet when she and Mephistopheles had put two and two together about the traitors’ child, they’d both wanted to know more. And this sentiment was shared. Remarkable.

Gabriel, however, would not be sharing it, so Samael kept all those thoughts locked firmly in her own head.

“Make that four,” Uriel said, throwing another paper into the pile on the table between them all. “These ones from the traitor’s old platoon, believe it or not.”

Gabriel froze. “I thought all thoughts of rebellion began and ended with the traitor.”

“We thoroughly debriefed them after Armaged—well, what ought to have been Armageddon,” Michael replied. “And there was no hint of unrest in the ranks then. But that was before we found out about this.”

“And apparently now is when curiosity got the best of them,” murmured Uriel.

“Were they able to find the traitor or the young lady?” Samael asked.

All the archangels – and the Metatron, who’d been invited to the meeting but had yet to say a word – turned to Samael. “What?” she asked, rolling her shoulders testily. “Intelligence is intelligence.”

Michael sighed. “No,” she admitted. “The only ones who got close were the interns, who found the demon and the traitor on a train heading to Scotland. But there was no sign of the young lady. However …”

Those three syllables were enough to make everyone around the table lean forward, even the Metatron, who sometimes seemed just one stray eye-blink away from dozing off during their meetings.[2]

“I spoke with our counterparts Down Below, and it appears that one of their unauthorized trips to the surface brought back intelligence that the traitor, the demon, and a red-haired young woman were spotted in an airport near London.”

“Red-haired young woman?” Gabriel asked, leaning forward.

“Yes, but …” Michael sighed and drew something out of her folder. “One of them was able to get this photograph, and …”

Once again, all the archangels (and the Metatron) leaned forward. This time, Samael wrinkled her nose. The redhead’s hair was too light; the body shape was all wrong; and the face wasn’t even close. “That’s not her,” she said, looking up.

“Precisely,” Michael said.

“But where were they going?” Gabriel asked. “I thought the traitors were on a train to Scotland.”

“Yes, well, that’s where it gets even, er, better,” Michael said. “From what our counterparts could piece together, they were about to board a plane to Athens.”

“The one in America or the one in Greece?” Sandalphon asked.

Michael’s tight smile and the frown lines between her brows said without words that they hadn’t been able to find out.

“Fantastic,” Gabriel said, leaning back and drawing a hand over his face. “Just – fantastic. We’ve got two sightings of them heading in opposite directions.”

“Quite,” Michael said.

“Any luck with the observation files?” Gabriel asked Uriel.

“We’ve pulled every file with the traitor or the demon in it. Nothing so far.” Uriel shook her head. “I’m tempted to say that we don’t have any observations on her at all.”

“We have observations on everything,” Sandalphon pointed out. “We’re supposed to be watching everything!”

“We are meant to watch what comes under our dominion,” Michael replied. “Which, lately, has been most of the planet. But before …”

Silence stretched over the table. Samael forced herself to stay still. If Mephistopheles’s intelligence was correct – which she thought it was – then Ariadne had come into being almost two thousand years before their dominion began to expand out of what humans now called the Middle East. And it didn’t matter how many times she showed up in the files afterward. The archangels didn’t know how or where to search for her, so they’d never find her.

Samael hated to do it, but she had to admit that the traitor (or the demon, or both) had been far smarter than she’d ever given him credit for.

“So it’s been a week,” Gabriel said, “and what you’re telling me is that, essentially, we don’t know anything more than we knew when Uriel plucked that memory out of Liel’s head.”

“Essentially,” Michael agreed.

“And even though we don’t know a damn thing, we’re getting insubordination left, right, and center, and that’s just the insubordination we know about,” Gabriel went on. Without warning, he turned to the Metatron. “Have you spoken to the Almighty yet?”

The Metatron jumped. “I—er—well, that is, I of course conveyed our, er, concerns and tribulations to the Almighty …”

“And?” Gabriel prodded.

“She has not, er, replied,” the Metatron admitted. “I am sure She will, of course. In Her own good time. We—simply must be patient.”

“Patience is a virtue,” Uriel said, and though Uriel said that often, Samael wondered when that catchphrase had gone from being a reassurance to others and when it had begun to sound like Uriel was trying to convince herself.

“A virtue taken too far can become a sin,” Gabriel replied. “Are we being patient, or are we just being slothful?”

Samael stiffened, and slowly, slowly shifted her gaze to him. The last time she had heard an angel speak of virtues and sins sliding into each other that easily …

Her blood ran cold. And judging by the temperature of Michael’s tone, she wasn’t the only one. “And what do you mean by that, brother?”

“Can we afford to wait for the Almighty’s time?” Gabriel asked. “The Almighty didn’t answer us when the Great Plan fizzled. So we decided to act.”

“And that went very poorly,” Uriel pointed out, shuddering. Which she should, since the traitor had blown a stream of Hellfire directly into her face.

“Well, we had to do something!” Sandalphon said. “Otherwise we could have had a second Rebellion!”

“And we need to do something now,” Gabriel said. “The traitor and the demon have been nothing but trouble since they were sent to Earth. And now they have a spawn that’s nothing but trouble. We need to nip this in the bud before we have another faction of angels go rogue and align themselves with Hell, tipping the balance—”

“Gabriel, were you not listening to a word I was saying earlier?” Michael snapped. “Hell is having the same problem. The lower – higher – whatever, the demons doing the grunt work are heading to the surface just as our interns and entry-level angels are! If our misguided angels were to attempt to reach out Down Below, they would find no welcome there.”

“From the Dark Council, maybe,” Gabriel said. “But you said yourself. The grunt demons are doing the same thing our angels are. What if they got together?”

“We could end up with a lot more spawn,” Sandalphon whispered, horrified.

“Now you’re getting ahead of yourself.” Michael rolled her eyes. “We still don’t know how the traitor and the demon ended up with the first one.”

“And do we want to find out the hard way?” Sandalphon asked.

“Spawn or no spawn, do we really want to risk the little rebellion started by the traitor and the demon spreading? Especially since the demons all already know that betraying the cause of Hell makes one immune to Holy Water?” Gabriel pointed out.

“And if the angels find out about … well … the Hellfire …” Sandalphon was looking a bit green about the gills.

Michael leaned back, pinched the bridge of her nose, and took a deep breath. “Let’s say, solely for the sake of argument, that I were to agree with your premise that another rebellion were in the offing. Right now, what we’re fighting against is rumor and ignorance. Precisely how would you suggest we go about defeating such an enemy?”

“The same way I’d suggest defeating any contagion. Find the source and eliminate it,” Gabriel replied.

Uriel sucked in a harsh breath. “Gabriel.”

“If the spawn no longer exists, the focal point disappears. The angels and the demons have no choice but to resume the status quo, while management can work on finding a new balance,” Gabriel said. “More importantly, do you have a better idea?”

Michael didn’t answer that. Instead, her eyes slowly swept around the table. And fell on Samael.

“Samael.”

Samael did not jump, but only because she was far too much of a warrior to be caught sleeping at her post.

“You’ve been very quiet. What are your thoughts?”

“Michael—” Gabriel growled, but Michael held up her hand, and he instantly went silent … though not without grinding his teeth.

Samael didn’t say anything. Not at first. She took a long breath (really, she was grateful to have a corporation again to give her an excuse to do that) and spread her hands flat out on the table.

Then she looked Michael in the eye.

“How does one go about killing a half-angel, half-demon, whose parents seem to be immune to Hellfire and Holy Water?”

“Firmament,” Sandalphon answered. “I mean, really, Samael, you ought to know that. Seeing as you saw firmament put a hole through the demon.”

“That didn’t last,” Samael pointed out. “If either of our sources of intelligence is correct, the demon’s fine now.”

“Samael,” Gabriel said with a slow smile that attempted to be chummy and … wasn’t. Just wasn’t. When had that changed? “Surely we don’t need to tell you that’s simply a question of aim.”

Samael didn’t respond. She turned back to Michael. “Putting aside the how, we have to admit that the Great Plan is in shambles and we still don’t know what’s coming next. We just got Heaven off war footing. Acting unilaterally might upset whatever working balance we have, and the traitor’s child isn’t important enough to risk that. Whatever we do … I can’t believe I’m saying this, but whatever we do, we need to do it in concert with Hell.”

A month ago, such a statement, coming from her no less, would have resulted in gasps and pandemonium. Now, Michael nodded, as did Uriel. Even Sandalphon and Gabriel didn’t object.[3]

It had truly been one hell of a month.

“Then I think that settles the question of action for now,” Michael said. “We don’t know enough to act in a way that’s wise, and …” She glanced sidelong at the Metatron. “We still ought to give the Almighty more time to respond to our inquiries. Right, I believe that settles that—”

“So we’re going to do nothing, then?” Gabriel demanded.

Michael turned to him slowly, one eyebrow deliberately arching up and then just as deliberately arching back down again. “I did not say we would do nothing.”

“Sounds like it to me,” Sandalphon grumbled.

“Don’t be obtuse,” Michael snapped. “There’s plenty we can still do. Speak more with Hell, send out scouts to get a location on the traitors and their child—”

“Scouts? You mean deliberately doing the one thing we told our angels not to do?” Gabriel shouted.

Michael rolled her eyes. “Well, even if killing the traitors’ child wasn’t an incredibly stupid idea, how, Gabriel, tell me how you would plan to do it if you don’t know where she is?”

“Not! By! Rewarding! Fucking! Insubordination!” Gabriel shouted back, punctuating every word with a pound on the table.

“Gabriel,” and now Michael’s voice was low, deadly, a timbre Samael hadn’t heard for a very long time, “if you take that tone with me one more time, I swear to our Creator—”

“You swear what? This is personnel management; you put me in charge of personnel—”

“Was that a mistake, I—”

“STOP!”

Michael stopped. Gabriel stopped. Sandalphon and Samael, who hadn’t been doing anything, stopped. Even the Metatron stopped.[4]

All stopped, and all turned to look at Uriel.

She was cradling her head in her hands and taking deep breaths. Slowly, she looked up. “Listen to yourselves,” she whispered. “Just listen. The last time I heard this type of argument around the archangels’ table …” She couldn’t finish, just put her hand over her mouth, got up and all-but-ran off.

“Uriel—” Michael started, then, when Uriel was gone, glared at Gabriel. “Now you’ve done it.”

“Now I’ve done it? You were the one—”

“This discussion is over,” Michael snapped, and without a further word, got up and hurried away. “Uriel! Uriel, wait!”

The rest of them sat there, dead silent, still as the sky after the lightning, waiting for the thunder.

The first to move was the Metatron. “I …” He shook his head blearily. “I must go report the—the minutes of the meeting to the Almighty. Yes. Of course. She will want to know …”

What She’d want to know was left unsaid, or at least unintelligible, as the Metatron walked away, muttering below his breath.

Samael took a deep breath, shook her head, and prepared to follow him.

“Samael. Wait,” Gabriel ordered.

Samael stopped. She raised an eyebrow.

“Please,” Gabriel added, flushing a little as he stared at the table. He made a great show of straightening his papers as Samael leaned back in her chair and gestured for him to go on.

Then he looked up. His eyes were the violet of the lightning flash that splits the sky. “You said we shouldn’t move without Hell.”

“And I stand by that,” Samael said.

“If I were to tell you that Michael isn’t the only one with a channel into Hell …” Gabriel raised an eyebrow, the question quite loud for all that it was unspoken.

Samael tapped her fingers against the glass-top table. “Having Hell join the hunting party does us no good if we can’t find the quarry.”

“We can find the quarry,” Sandalphon said. “Hell’s got ideas.”

A chill snaked down its way down Samael’s spine. It was only millennia upon millennia of battlefield training that kept it from showing on her face.

“So,” Gabriel asked, “can we count on your sword, Samael?”

Her corporation’s stomach clenched. But there was only one way she could answer, wasn’t there?

“Gabriel,” Samael leaned forward, “we have known each other since before time began. Tell me. When have you ever not been able to count on my sword against the enemies of Heaven?”

Gabriel grinned. So did Sandalphon. Samael did not.

“Good,” Gabriel said. “Keep an eye on your phone. We’ll be in touch.”

“I don’t understand,” Hera said, looking over Hermes’s shoulder at the laptop screen. “What, exactly, am I looking at?”

He sighed and rolled his eyes quite theatrically. Hera ignored both. The easiest way to deal with Hermes’s lack of patience and fits of pique was to pretend that neither existed.

“These are the analytics of all the articles, videos, etc. that have been published about the miracles we’ve been doing. Everything from page views to social mentions to bounce rates, with some segmentation and even predictive analysis thrown in—”

“I understand what those words mean individually,” Hera interrupted, “but not together. Can you explain what you mean in layman’s terms?”

Now it was Athena’s turn to sigh. “He’s showing us how many people are looking at the articles and the videos of the miracles we’ve been doing, along with more information about how often people are talking about these articles on social media and how long they stay on the page once they get to it. And he has some insights about what sorts of mortals are looking at the pages and ideas for getting certain people to give the articles another look.”

“All right,” Hera said, nodding slowly. “What I am seeing is a screen full of graphs.”

“That is generally how data is presented, yes,” said Hermes.

Hera should not have glared at him. She did anyway. “I know enough about graphs to know how easily they can be manipulated,” she continued. “So, I repeat myself: what am I looking at?”

Hermes’s shoulders slumped. “In as few, small words as possible? Bad news.”

“You’re going to have to be more specific. What kind of bad news?”

Hermes gestured to the laptop screen, for once at a loss for words – and if that wasn’t terrifying on an existential level, very few things would be. “Page views are pretty terrible to start with—”

“Not enough mortals are going to the sites and looking at the articles and videos,” Athena translated.

“Bounce rates are through the roof—”

“The ones who are coming are generally not staying long enough to read the entire article or watch the video.”

“Social mentions are, eh, negligible at best—”

“Mortals also aren’t talking about the articles on Facebook and Twitter and the rest.”

“And no matter how I segment the audience, the picture doesn’t change.”

“Hermes is looking at multiple demographics and can’t find any one that’s performing the way we want it to.”

“So basically,” Hermes concluded, “what we want is for this stuff to go viral, but it appears that the mortals have been vaccinated.”

“We’re hoping—”

“That metaphor I understood,” Hera interrupted.

And that was all she said, for the moment. She had too much to think about to speak. So she drew her glasses down to better stare at the screen over them, tapped the fingers of her free hand against her elbow, and thought. But for the faint whirr of the laptop fan and the incessant clicking of Hermes’s pen, the room fell silent as she did so.

When she spoke next, it was measured, thoughtful. “So what you are saying, overall, is that the response to our miracles has been … disappointing.”

“Yes,” Hermes replied slowly in his clearly-you-are-an-idiot voice.

Hera glared at him over her glasses and raised one eyebrow. Hermes replied with an excrement-eating grin.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “By what measure have our results been disappointing?” she asked.

“I told you, we want this stuff to go viral—”

“Yes, yes, I understand that; however,” Hera held up a hand, “Rome was not built in a day. The Abrahamics did not go from inconsequential desert gods to world-bestriding colossi overnight. I am not expecting our old temples to be full tomorrow. This a marathon, not a sprint.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Hermes replied. “Which is why I prepared this as well.”

He waved his hand toward the second screen on the desk. It flickered to life and showed an image quite like the first screen. Or at least, it was similar insofar as the configuration of bar graphs, line graphs, etc. went. But on the second screen, all the bars and lines were higher.

Much, much higher.

“These are the numbers the Abrahamics were pulling with their little stunts like the kraken attacks, pulling Atlantis out of the sea, re-growing Amazon rainforests, alien invasions, setting the M25 on fire, etc., etc., at about the same point in time relative to when they started pulling all that stuff that we are now,” Hermes explained. “I think the graphs speak for themselves – and before you point out that graphs can be manipulated, I didn’t, or, well, yeah, I did, but only so we could have an apples-to-apples comparison.” And then he laughed. “Ha. Apples.”

Hera didn’t ask what about that was funny; the fruit was overlaid with so much symbolism that it could have been anything. Instead, she looked at the second screen, then the first, then the second again.

“How do those numbers play out over time?” Hera asked. “Is the viewership still growing, or did level off, or—”

“Oh, the numbers fell off a cliff as soon as the Antichrist kid pulled the plug on the Apocalypse,” Hermes said. “It didn’t hurt that all the damage he’d done got fixed overnight. Well, most of it. And I think he might have done a mortal memory reset or something. Reboot from a restore point. The only reason the articles even survived is because, well, it’s the internet, nothing is ever deleted from the internet.”

Hera nodded, slowly. “So what you’re telling me is that we have time.”

Athena sighed. “Hera—”

“I believe I already said that this is not a sprint. We have more miracles to work. We have more articles to run. And most importantly, we have plenty of time to get those numbers up.”

Hera very deliberately took her glasses off, let them dangle loosely from her fingers, and raised an eyebrow at Hermes. The question – and what is your plan to do that? – was clear.

Hermes ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I’m not going to pretend that we don’t have options, but, uh, none of them are what you might call ethical, and they involve a lot more mortal involvement than you’re going to want. Also, money.”

“You’re the god of commerce. I’m sure money is not an issue for you,” Hera said lightly.

Athena was not willing to let it go that easily. “Why do you need money?”

“To pay the mortals.”

Hera raised an eyebrow. “Pay the mortals for what?”

“Because they’re the ones who have the skills to do what we want. Make this stuff go viral even when it doesn’t want to. And look, whether you’re luring Russian psyops away from the Kremlin or hiring Macedonian fake news gurus, you need serious cash to make it worth their while—”

“Wait. Wait. Your solution to the problem of mortals ignoring – or theoretically ignoring – our miracles is to hire other mortals to get their attention?” Hera asked.

“Yep.”

“Why? Can’t you just …” Hera waved her hand at the computer and raised an eyebrow.

Hermes threw his head back and laughed. Actually laughed. “What, just snap my whole fingers and get the entire internet’s attention? Are you crazy?”

“Well, why not?” Hera asked. She was pouting. Actually pouting. “You’re a god of communication, why can’t you—”

“It’s the internet, Hera! It’s the entire mortal hive mind! I can’t control it. Nobody can control it! For me to be able to do that – even if I teamed up with Hephaestus and every other god who’s even remotely connected to communication and messengers and tech of any kind – it’d be like you being able to snap your fingers and make every marriage on the planet happy and healthy.”

Hera took a deep, shaking breath. Hermes had to know the depth of that insult; he was many things, but a fool was not one of them—

But whether he knew or not, he didn’t seem to care. He sighed and spun his chair so he faced the screen. “Face it, Hera. It’s the mortals’ world now. We’re just living in it.”

Hera was glad he was looking away from her. It meant he wasn’t able to see her flinch.

Then she took a deep breath, straightened her jacket and her skirt, and forced her attention back on the task at hand. “You’re certain you’re going to need Russian psyops and Macedonian fake news sites to get the mortals’ attention?”

Athena made a faint choking nose, which Hera ignored.

Hermes turned back to her, blinking slowly and eyebrows practically marching into his hair. “I mean, it’s probably the fastest way to get from A to B, but if you want to try to let organic traffic grow naturally, throw a few more miracles into the mix first and see where that gets us …”

“I believe one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” Hera replied. “I’m not going to have all of our forces – and all of the forces of the other pantheons – flooding the airwaves with miracles, so to speak, if the mortals aren’t even watching. We need to keep our powder dry for the bigger battles to come. So, Hermes, I would like a complete proposal for this strategy on my desk and your father’s by morning. Is that doable?”

Hermes groaned and rolled his eyes. “Since I don’t need to eat or sleep? Yeah, it’s doable. I am definitely buying more stock in Death Wish Coffee, though.”

“I thought you said they weren’t public,” Athena murmured.

“Details,” Hermes said, waving a hand dismissively. “Anyway, you done, Hera? Because I need to get to work on that proposal if you want something on your desk by tomorrow.”

“Yes, yes, I’m through. Thank you,” Hera said. Then, with no more delay, she frowned and left Hermes’s office, intent on going back to her own space to – to what, exactly? Fret? Convince herself not to fret? Talk to Zeus—no, she couldn’t do that, not until she had a solution—

“Hera.”

Of course her stepdaughter would be hot on her heels. “Athena,” Hera said slowly, coming to a stop, “If you say one word of ‘I told you so,’ I swear by the—”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Athena interrupted. “I didn’t foresee this, either.”

Some fraction of the tension wound its way out of Hera’s shoulders. She snorted. “Should I be including Apollo in our planning sessions, then?”

“If you think it will help.” And that—that was Athena. So bland and to the point it was impossible to know whether she was being serious or just doing sarcasm very, very well.

Hera took a deep breath and looked over her shoulder. “Well then. As I said earlier – this is a marathon. Not a sprint.”

“You did say that earlier. Twice,” Athena replied. By Athena’s faint frown, Hera guessed that it was growing less convincing with every repetition.

“Then what do you think of this matter, dear?” Hera asked.

Athena looked up. For a moment, she looked startlingly young and almost sad. But before Hera could blink, Athena’s typical stoic mask clamped down over her face, and she shrugged.

“I think that Hermes is right and that this is the mortals’ world now, like it or not.”

“And we’re just living in it,” Hera murmured. She looked away, toward the window. They weren’t high enough to have much of a view, but this was London. Even if Hera could only see the windows of the building across the street, she knew that nearly nine million mortal hearts were beating nearby. Millions upon millions of mortals going about their business in this city like teeming ants, unaware that literal gods walked among them … because once the mortals had withdrawn their belief, where else did the gods have to go?

Hera closed her eyes. And took a deep breath.

“Well, so be it,” she said. “Let them have the world. All we need is their faith.”

And somehow – by hook, by crook, or by dodgy Macedonian fake news sites, she would have their faith again.

The note dropped in Mephistopheles’s inbox was straightforward. Meting on fifth flore 12 tomorrow. Bee their oar ELLS! Hastur’s work, of course. He knew that Hastur’s ability to understand the changing mortal world had dwindled to nothing long before humans had invented standardized spelling, but sometimes he really wondered if Hastur was doing this on purpose.

Not that it mattered. When Hastur told you to be someplace or else, you got yourself to that place no matter how he spelled it.

Thus Mephistopheles found himself once again heading to the fifth-floor conference room. He was a few minutes early and thought nothing of pushing open the door to the conference room—

And found himself face-to-face with not one, not two, but three archangels. And it didn’t matter that one of them was Samael, looking not nearly as surprised to see him as he was to see her.

“S-s-sorry,” Mephistopheles stammered, “wrong room!” and tried to beat a quick retreat.

He didn’t get that far. “Ah, Mephistopheles.” That was Gabriel, hands folded before him and a stupidly jovial, yes-I’m-the-boss-but-I-can-be-your-best-friend-too, aren’t-we-a-family-here? grin on his face. “No, you’re not in the wrong room. Have a seat, young man.”

Mephistopheles nearly stared at him; he and Gabriel were the same age or close enough.

“Relax, Metabolic,” Samael said. “We’re not here to dump Holy Water on you. And your … compatriots should be here soon.”

Samael wouldn’t lie about that. Or if she did, it would only be so she would still have the element of surprise when she foiled the other archangels’ plot. Mephistopheles sat, purposely picking a chair as far away as possible from the archangels.

Speaking of which, the one who hadn’t spoken yet – Sandalphon, Mephistopheles certainly knew him by sight – was giggling. And Gabriel had raised an eyebrow at Samael. “Are you doing that on purpose?”

“Doing what on purpose?”

“Getting his name wrong. Every time you say his name, it’s wrong.”

“No, I’m not. I say it right – don’t I, Mendicant?”

Sandalphon giggled harder. Gabriel’s eyes narrowed.

“It’s fine,” Mephistopheles said. “I don’t mind.” A statement that was true, but that the other angels at the table would never believe – or if they did believe it, it would be because they assumed that the only reason Mephistopheles was fine with it was because not getting into a snit would spoil Samael’s fun.

Gabriel’s narrowed eyes showed him to be traveling on just that train of thought, but before it could come into the station, the door flew open and Legion spilled inside, followed by Hastur.

“We were coming!” Legion whined as they stumbled into the table.

“Not fast enough,” Hastur grumbled. “At least Mephistopheles knows how to show up to a bloody meeting on time. Now sit.”

Legion sat. So did Hastur, but not before taking a file folder out of his long trench coat and tossing it down the table. “The intel you wanted. Seems that the spawn’s name is Ariadne, and she’s been fucking the wine god since we started keeping tabs on him.”

Gabriel and Sandalphon eagerly leaned forward and opened the file folder. Samael flinched before doing the same.

And Mephistopheles?

Mephistopheles froze.

Oh FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!!!

Satan must have told the other lower-downs what he’d found. Given them the whole briefing. So now all of Hell knew what he’d managed to find out about Ariadne, and if Satan was sending Hastur up here to meet with archangels over the matter, then this was—

“Not as much as I wanted to find out,” Hastur went on, “given that somebody cleared out the wine god’s files,” he glared at Mephistopheles, “but there was a bit on her in the general Olympian files. Nothing about strengths or weaknesses, though, more’s the pity.”

Wait, he had to go hunting for information on her in the Cabinets? Satan didn’t tell him? But then why—

Oh.

Oh, no.

This wasn’t as bad as Mephistopheles had feared.

It was worse.

FUUUUUUCK!

“She seems to spend most of her time hiding behind the wine god’s toga,” Gabriel said. “That could make eliminating her … difficult.”

“Not if we separate her from the wine god,” Sandalphon replied.

“And how exactly do you intend to do that?” Samael asked. Mephistopheles didn’t pray, but he sent out a fervent wish to the universe that Gabriel and Sandalphon would interpret that as Samael’s usual tetchiness, and not anything … else.

“Something will come up,” Sandalphon shrugged. “They can’t be together all the time.”

“And in order to catch her at just the right moment, you’d need to have constant surveillance on her. Which will be difficult, seeing as we don’t know where she is,” Samael replied with the frustration of one making a very good point for at least the sixth time.

“Oh ye of little faith,” Gabriel said, smirking. “Hastur’s already figured that out.”

Samael’s eyes narrowed, and she turned her glare to Hastur.

Now it was Hastur’s turn to chuckle and smile. “Legion, tell us about the horseless carriage she used to discorporate you.”

Mephistopheles winced, but apparently Hastur had picked the right buttons to press to get Legion to forget themselves and start talking. “First, it’s not a horseless carriage, it’s a car, and it’s not just any car, it’s a vintage Bentley that the demon Crowley must have had custom-made back before the Nazi war. Do you have any idea how rare those are? Most humans would give their right arm for a car like that! Or someone’s right arm. And—”

“Enough!” Hastur snapped, loudly enough that Mephistopheles jumped, and he wasn’t the only one. “Don’t go on about bloody right arms, you—anyway.” Hastur shook his head, a full-body shudder seizing over him before he turned back to the archangels. “Car’s pretty distinctive, all right?”

“Your Disgrace,” Samael said, and oh, if she was being that icily polite, she had to be annoyed, “that’s lovely, but you’re assuming that anyone there’s anyone around this table who can tell a vintage bent-tree from a hole in the ground – Legion excepted.”

“Pffft. We don’t need to be able to see the bloody thing or know what we’re looking at. Infernal Communications has had a lock on it ever since the snake went and got himself that thing. We can’t trace it now, but we think that’s just Antichrist interference. Once it starts to move …”

Samael blinked twice, slowly, while Gabriel’s eyes lit up. “So you’re saying that you can trace the vehicle – and when we find the vehicle, we’ll find the spawn?”

“There’s no guarantee that the spawn will be with the vehicle,” Samael pointed out.

“If she isn’t, then we come up with a different plan,” Gabriel dismissed. Then he raised an eyebrow at Samael. “I thought you were with us.”

“I am. I’ve also been discorporated once by this spawn and would prefer not to repeat the experience. Which means I’d like us to have a plan that’s not held together by – how do humans put it? Duck tape and spit?”

“Duck tape? Like tape that quacks?” Sandalphon asked.

Samael shrugged.

“Plans? We’re talking about plans?” Hastur grumbled. “Spent six thousand years following the Great Plan, now, didn’t we, only for some angel who can barely find his arse with both hands to come along and ask, ‘Er, that Great Plan, is it the same thing as the Ineffable Plan?’ and the next thing you know, everyone’s bloody plans have gone to Hell in a handbasket and Armageddon is off. And now you want to bring up a plan?”

Samael watched Hastur levelly throughout that speech, raised an eyebrow, and said slowly, “Your point?”

“Plans are overrated is my point.”

Samael’s eyeroll was long, theatrical, and utterly wasted, since Gabriel was speaking before she could even finish it. “What Hastur is trying to say is that we need to improvise. Think on our feet. For now, we use the car to track the spawn, because that’s the only lead we have. If it works, great. If it doesn’t – we come up with something else.”

“She can’t hide forever,” Hastur said. “And when she bolts from her hidey-hole …”

He grinned. Mephistopheles tried not to shudder.

“That’s when we get her,” Hastur said. “Sooner or later.”

Samael’s face went stony. Then, slowly, she sighed.

“If this is the bloody stupid plan you’ve got,” she said, reaching into the inner pocket of her jacket, “then I suppose I ought to give you lot these.”

She took her hand out of her pocket and revealed—

Mephistopheles’s jaw dropped.

It fell farther when Samael put what she’d taken out of her pocket on the table and slid them down.

And his corporation’s heart skipped a beat when one spun to a halt in front of him.

It couldn’t be.

“What’s all this?” Hastur asked, picking his up and glancing askance at it.

Mephistopheles didn’t have it in him to speak. Luckily Legion did. “A cel-phone?” they whispered reverentially, cradling the phone in their hand like it was a child.

“A what?” Hastur asked.

“Latest in angelic communication,” Samael said. “If we’re going to be going with a no-plan plan, we need to be able to talk to each other. And we’re not using those pagers I saw the last time we were all on the surface together.”

“So it’s like a … a phone that the humans use to talk to each other? Only for angels?” Hastur asked.

“And demons, now,” Samael replied. “Plus, I made sure they were all on the archangel protocol, so there’s no trace or record of your communications stored outside the phone itself. Of course, if you communicate with any angel not on the archangel protocol, the records will be stored on their phone and any traces their phones are linked to, but …” Samael smirked. “Since my contact and your contacts are the only ones programmed into the phone, that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Archangel protocol,” Gabriel whispered. “That’s brilliant.”

“Wait,” Sandalphon asked, “why aren’t our contacts in the phones?”

Mephistopheles’s stomach plunged; that had to be the weak spot in the plan Samael had cobbled together to keep this from getting out of hand … but the way Samael groaned and rolled her eyes put paid to that notion. “Sandalphon, what exactly would you have done to me if you found out I’d put your contact into a demon’s phone without your permission?”

Sandalphon blinked, then laughed.

“But you have our permission now,” Gabriel said. He snapped his fingers.

The phone in Mephistopheles’s hand buzzed. New contact added – Archangel Gabriel. Similar buzzes came from Hastur’s and Legion’s phones. And then there was another round of buzzing as Sandalphon snapped his fingers.

With that done, there wasn’t much left to say. Hastur promised to be in touch the second they were able to track the demon Crowley’s car, and Mephistopheles volunteered to be the first to take a stint in the human world “just in case,” to keep an eye on things.

He had a reason for that, and the reason was that there was no such thing as privacy in Hell. And he badly needed to talk to Samael where no one else could see or hear him. Luckily, she’d given him a cel-phone.

So while Hastur, Legion, and Mephistopheles all piled into the elevator together, Mephistopheles got off at the ground floor and quickly passed into London. He turned up his collar and walked to the nearest coffee shop, throwing every bit of demonic glamour up that he could.

Once inside, he snagged a table, took out the cel-phone with trembling hands, and found Samael’s contact. He put the phone up to his ear and waited.

Samael answered on the first ring. “Well, this is a fuck-up for the ages.”

Mephistopheles let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “So you don’t want her dead, either?”

“’Course not. She’s the first …” Samael ended the sentence with a wordless noise of frustration. “And so much for throwing a spanner in the works.”

“We can still do that,” Mephistopheles said, but without holding out much hope. They’d tried that at first, and look how far it had gotten them.

“We can,” Samael agreed, both with the statement and Mephistopheles’s lack of hope. “I mean, it’s not the worst plan. It’s just …”

“Not likely to work.”

“I wasn’t going to say that.”

“But it’s true, isn’t it?” Mephistopheles ran a hand through his hair and leaned on his elbow. “It’s like when the lower-downs have a bee in their bonnet, and you know what that means – whatever they want has to get done, by hook or by crook, or else you’re never going to hear the end of it.”

Samael said nothing. And Mephistopheles realized that maybe she really didn’t know what that meant. She’d never had multiple bosses breathing down her neck, all demanding that she do this thing and do it now or else there would be literal Hell to pay. And the only way to escape was to do the thing, or if you couldn’t do the thing, make them bloody well think you’d done the thing. Which could work, if you were lucky; if half the things that had been said at his trial were true, the demon Crowley had been pulling that con for centuries if not millennia—

And Mephistopheles gasped.

“Mephistopheles?”

It couldn’t be that simple, could it?

“Oi, Mephistopheles! You there?”

It would be difficult to pull off. And it might only kick the can down the road. But it would buy them time, and time was something they could all use more of—

“Mephistopheles! Are you still there? Are you all right? Do I need to come down there?”

“Wh—what?” Mephistopheles asked, thrown out of his reverie. “I—oh! Oh, I’m fine. I just—I think I know how we can get out of this. And get her out of this, too.”

There was a moment of silence. And

then a chuckle. “Well, well. Then say on, my friend.”

Mephistopheles smiled, and did so.

[1] The traitor was a statistical outlier, and thus Samael was not counting him.

[2] He couldn’t help it. Metatron had been human once, and unlike the vast majority of humans who were promoted to angelic rank, he’d been allowed to keep his memories and his sense of what it was to be human. Dozing was apparently part of the package.

[3] The Metatron didn’t say anything, but he may have been halfway to dreamland.

[4] Dozing.

Chapter Text

“You want,” Zeus said slowly, “to what?”

That was not the tone Hera wanted to hear. And the look on Zeus’s face – eyes narrowed, brow furrowed, frown deep-set – was not the one she wanted to see.

They were all sitting in Zeus’s plush office. Well, Zeus, Hermes, and Athena were sitting. Hera could have seated herself, had she a mind to; there was a second tall, throne-like desk chair that was only in the room so she could sit next to Zeus when the occasion called for it. But today, she was standing on the same side of the desk and slightly behind Zeus. A visual, should he need one, of the power behind the throne and the age-old aphorism, behind every great man, there is a great woman.[1]

“Dear,” she said, laying a hand on his shoulder. Adding a stroke with the thumb as well. Sometimes touch could get through to him in a way mere words wouldn’t. “I think we should hear out the rest of Hermes’s proposal before we come to any snap judgments.”

“And you know what’s in this proposal?” Zeus asked, craning his neck to scowl up at her. “No, wait, let me guess – you told Hermes what to put in the proposal.”

Hera rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. This is Hermes’s game; I don’t understand half of his internet—”

“Oh, I’m sure you had Hermes fill in the details,” Zeus interrupted. “You aren’t one to care much about the details, not when there are mortals to manipulate. And I don’t care much about them either, come to think about it. What I care about …”

He turned away from Hera, stared down Hermes and Athena instead. “What were you thinking?”

“You’re acting like we’ve given away the keys to the kingdom. We haven’t even done anything yet,” Hermes replied.

“All the more reason to find out what you were thinking now,” Zeus said. “Before you cause the damage.”

 Hermes sighed. While he did not look sleep-deprived, per se, his hair was even more a riotous mess than usual, his clothes were rumpled, and he held his travel mug in a death grip. “All right, maybe it’s a little shady, but this isn’t, like, murdering babies levels of unethical. We’re having trouble getting the kind of web traffic we need to make sure we’re getting the word-of-mouth we need to, you know, eventually get the belief we need. So all I’m saying we should do is hire some experts—”

“You want to hire mortals,” Zeus interrupted, “to get other mortals to believe in us.”

“It’s the quickest route from A to B.” Hermes took a defensive sip of his coffee. “And it’s not like the priests and priestesses at the temples weren’t paid. And some branches of the Abrahamics turn poverty into a virtue, and still their priests get paid—”

“There is a world of difference between mortals paying other mortals to intercede between them and the gods,” Zeus interrupted, “and us bribing a pack of mortals to get us believers. And if you don’t see that …”

He turned his glare to Athena, who flinched under it.

“Zeus,” Hera warned.

Zeus kept glaring at Athena, at least until Hermes started speaking again. “Look, what about this bothers you so much? The money? I mean, yeah, the experts might be expensive, but if we go for the Macedonian fake-news guys, we can give them all the ad revenue that the sites will raise and that should cut our costs, because let’s face it, it’s not like we need the money when we can just magic a little bit more into our bank accounts—”

“It’s not about the money,” Athena admitted, a sharp blush staining her cheeks. She stared at the hands she’d fisted in her lap. “What—what Father is trying to say that it’s about the principle of the thing.”

“Ah, yes, of course, the principle of the thing. Because that’s what the Abrahamics are about. Principles,” Hermes deadpanned. “Do you honestly think they didn’t cheat when they knocked us off our pedestals? Like, a lot?”

“Of course they did,” Zeus scoffed. “But not like this. This isn’t giving a few mortals access to power beyond their understanding and using them to convert others. It was still mortals using divine power. This? This is the divine admitting that it no longer can command mortals’ attention and using mortal power to access other mortals.”

He looked up, eyes locking with Hera’s. “And if you cannot see that, then there really is no hope for us.”

“Pater—” Hermes started.

Zeus glared at Hermes. Hermes snapped his mouth shut.

Zeus steepled his fingers and tapped them to his lips. Hermes squirmed under the scrutiny. Athena wouldn’t even look up, staring instead at her hands folded on her lap.

“Do you even want to do this?” Zeus asked. “Or are you just tossing ideas at the wall, hoping something will stick long enough to get your stepmother off your back?”

The question was clearly directed to Hermes; now the squirming was even more pronounced. “Look,” he finally sighed, “some of us have lives, ok?”

“I thought so. Out,” Zeus said. He glanced at Athena. “You too.”

Athena looked up, her blush deepening. “Father—”

“Out.”

They did not need to be told a third time. Hermes was out the door first, pausing only to make sure he still had his coffee. Athena followed slowly behind him, arms crossed over her chest and eyes trained on the ground.

Once the door had closed behind her, then and only then did Zeus turn back to Hera. “Sit.” He gestured to the just-vacated chairs on the opposite side of the desk.

Hera narrowed her eyes. She snapped her fingers, and the second throne-like chair silently scooted to the same side of the desk as Zeus.

Then, and only then, did she sit.

“Well?”

“Have you lost your mind?”

Hera’s nostrils flared. “We need believers. We cannot hope to get converts if we can’t even get the mortals’ attention. Is this really any different than a Chi Rho appearing in the sky on the eve of battle?”

What she thought, but did not say, was, They even stole our alphabet, Zeus. Our tongue. They couldn’t use their own letters to make their case. What is our borrowing the technological expertise of a few mortals compared to that?

“The Abrahamics didn’t convert the Roman Empire because of a vision. They converted the Roman Empire because they made sure Constantine won the battle.”

“Yet if he hadn’t been paying attention …”

“We’re not bribing mortals to do our work for us,” Zeus replied. “We do that, and we’ve already admitted defeat. No. We need …”

Zeus looked away from her, tapping his fingers on the desk before him. “We need to do this the old-fashioned way.”

Hera’s nostrils flared. “There are few things more old-fashioned than miracles. It’s only recently that mortals began insisting on finding a logical explanation for everything.”

“Mmm. More old-fashioned than that.” Zeus glanced sidelong at her. “The Abrahamics were just one more desert sect among dozens before their Almighty sent a demigod to earth.”

Hera froze.

It was as if time itself had stopped. Zeus moved not a muscle; neither did she. All she could hear was the pounding of her heart, just barely louder than the siren screeching in her mind.

She forced herself to breathe in. Slow, shaky. It rang through the room like a bell. “You wouldn’t dare,” she breathed out.

Zeus held her gaze, unflinching. “It worked for the Abrahamics.”

“Zeus. No. Their Almighty – They can’t even decide on a gender, They certainly don’t have a wife—”

“And a lot of good my wife is doing for me and my cause right now.”

“Zeus!” Hera couldn’t help it; the sound tore from her throat like the cry of a wounded animal. “You promised. You promised you’d be faithful.”

“Then what do you suggest instead?” Zeus snapped. “That isn’t hiring mortals to trick other mortals into believing in us? Believe me, I’m all ears.”

Hera’s mouth was dry, her mind full of cotton. She didn’t have time for this, she had to think. But all that ran through her mind was demigods and nymphs and Titans and mortal women and Zeus’s broken promises; he could never keep a promise to her, could he? He’d promise his mortal brides the sun and the moon, would try to keep those promises even if saying no would be for the mortals’ own good, but her—

Hera gasped.

Zeus raised an eyebrow at her.

She had it. She actually had it. The answer to her conundrum – and if that failed, certainly an answer to Zeus’s.

“Dionysus.”

 It is a truth universally acknowledged that when a group of immortals from varying pantheons gets together in a situation that is not out-and-out conflict, sooner or later, war stories will be traded. When at least two of the immortals occupy moral alignments far closer to “chaotic” than “lawful,” this goes double.

The character of the trade, and the stories, varies. Sometimes the trade is a subtle or not-so-subtle game of one-upmanship. Sometimes it is the exchange of vital intelligence necessary to the task at hand. And sometimes …

Well, sometimes, it’s just shooting the shit.

Which was the situation Dionysus found himself in, hovering at the edge of the living room in Jasmine Cottage. They were all together – Anathema and Newt, Crowley and Aziraphale, Ariadne, Eris, and him. The false trails had been laid; Crowley was out of the sling. They were only waiting for Persephone to say when their transport would be ready, and then they would return to London.

In the meantime … there were stories.

“All right, so,” Eris said, leaning forward. She was grinning like a maniac, which was to say, like Eris. “You got a bunch of rats to infest the tower.”

“I did. He helped,” Crowley replied, nodding at Aziraphale.

Aziraphale gaped. “I did not!”

“Sure you did. You kept feeding the rats in the alley outside the bookshop. Got them used to angelic/demonic presences.”

“I …” Several expressions made their way across Aziraphale’s face in rapid succession: denial, disbelief, and finally, dawning comprehension. “Oh, good Lord.”

“That’s debatable. Anyway,” Crowley leaned forward, elbows on knees, massive grin lighting up his face. “So once the tower is well and truly infested, I show up, claiming to be from Rataway Pest Control, saying I’m here to inspect the rat problem.”

“Question,” Ariadne interrupted. “Was Rataway Pest Control even real?”

Crowley just grinned.

“That’s a phishing scam for the ages,” Newt said. “What?” he asked when Anathema raised an eyebrow at him. “Just because I can’t touch a computer without it exploding doesn’t mean that I don’t understand how many ways they can go wrong.”

“And oh, can they go wrong,” Crowley laughed. “Naturally, security lets me right in.”

“Naturally,” Eris agreed. “Because who wouldn’t, when the alternative is that ‘the floor is lava,’ except the lava is rats?”

Crowley grinned and nodded. “So I head up to the top of the tower, right where all the expensive equipment that keeps London’s mobile network up and running is. Security guard leaves me alone as soon as she can, maybe – just maybe – because of the rats.”

Eris clapped her hands and leaned forward.

“Once I get there, I have to give the rats a pep talk, thank them for their service, as one does.” Now Crowley leaned back with an expansive wave. “Can’t very well not thank the rats. And once I’m done with that and the rats are on their way out, I open up the central console …”

He paused. Everyone in the room – even Dionysus, jaded as he was; even Aziraphale, who looked as if he knew he ought to be disapproving – leaned toward Crowley.

“And I pour my tea into it.”

Silence. Dead silence.

And then, cacophony.

“That’s it? That’s it? That’s all you did?” Anathema demanded, while Newt let out an embarrassed guffaw.

The sound that came from Ariadne could have been a laugh, a snort, or both at once, and Aziraphale put his head in his hands and sighed, “Oh, Crowley.”

Eris, though.

Eris threw back her head. Waggled her arms and kicked her feet and shrieked with laughter.

“Aaaaaaah that’s the BEST!” The squeal she let out left Dionysus listening for the telltale tinkle of shattering glass. “You poured your tea on it!”

“Knocked out all of London’s mobile networks for the better part of a day,” Crowley said with no small amount of pride. “Of course as luck would have it, that ended up coming back to bite me in the arse, since that was the same day Hastur and Ligur showed up a few miles from here with the Antichrist, but hey, it was still a bad job well done, if I do say so myself.”

“You are incorrigible,” Aziraphale sighed, resting his forehead on his palm and shaking his head.

“Demon,” Crowley said. “So, Eris, your turn?”

“Not yet,” Dionysus said. Perhaps because he hadn’t spoken in some time, everyone turned to him. “I want to hear more about when you were working with British counterintelligence. During World War II.”

Aziraphale smiled fondly into his teacup. “You did a lot of good in those days,” he said, putting a hand on Crowley’s knee.

“I did no such thing. I diverted a bomber to destroy a church, if you’ll recall. Which you should; you were there.”

“Indeed.” Now Aziraphale gazed at Crowley with the sort of impossibly fond, heart-in-eyes look that could melt a heart of stone. Since Dionysus’s heart was not made of stone and he still needed it, he looked away.

At Ariadne. Who hadn’t looked away, but was instead watching the angel and demon with a small half-smile. At least until she felt Dionysus’s gaze on her and glanced at him.

She smiled. Fully. It was a lot like Aziraphale’s.

Dionysus’s heart did a somersault, and for a moment all thoughts of script treatments and director choices and driving home the moral that Nazis are so fucking evil, even literal demons from Hell will drop a church on them at the first opportunity fled his mind. For a moment there was just him and Ariadne.

It couldn’t last. It shattered with the ringing of Dionysus’s phone.

“Ah—sorry,” he muttered as everyone in the room jumped, even Eris. He fished the phone out of his pocket, glanced at the caller ID—

And blanched.

“Sorry,” he heard himself say, making his escape on autopilot. “Need to take this. ‘Scuse me.” He stumbled from his chair and out of the living room, toward the back door. He could hear footsteps following him and ignored them.

Only when the door clicked shut behind him did he dare to answer the phone. He swallowed hard and threw every shred of acting ability he possessed into keeping his voice steady. “Father.”

“Son.”

Dionysus should say something. Some innocuous, like How are you? or What did you need? But the words didn’t come, and even if they had, his mouth was too dry to force them out.

A sigh came from the other end of the line. “Where are you?”

Dionysus’s mouth grew even drier, but he forced himself to swallow and answer. “Haven’t left Eng—the island,” he corrected, because he had left England, technically, what with going to Inverness.

“That is not an answer to my question.”

Dionysus took a deep breath and said nothing, even as the words Look, I can explain and It’s not my fault and other admissions of guilt clawed at his throat.

“Why did you leave London?”

Dionysus’s hackles rose and the words came out before he could stop them. “We were being chased. And shot at.”

Most fathers, Dionysus believed, would have asked who was doing the chasing and the shooting. He wondered what it would be like to have a father like that. “Who is ‘we’?”

“Me. Ariadne.”

“And?”

Dionysus closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“Dionysus. Do not test my patience.”

The tone hit Dionysus like a lightning bolt straight to the spine; he stood up straight and swallowed hard. “The angel Aziraphale. The demon Crowley. Ar—”

He clamped down on the rest of that, hard. He couldn’t sell Ariadne’s secret out like that, not unless he had to. Hera might already know or have guessed, but that didn’t mean his father knew, and if his father didn’t know, he shouldn’t go revealing it until he could use that knowledge to save all of their skins—

“Ariadne’s parents.”

Once again, Dionysus flinched. “You knew,” he said, and the tone was not nearly as conciliatory or deferential as it ought to have been.

“Of course.”

“How long?”

“That is none of your concern.”

“How. Long?”

A pause. “Son.” There was only the tiniest hint of warning left in that tone. “This conversation will go much easier for you if you remember that I am the one who will be asking the questions.”

Dionysus shuddered, swallowed, and said nothing.

“And this is not a conversation we can have over the phone. I expect to see you at Olympic Holdings this evening. Seven o’clock. Alone.”

Dionysus blinked. “Father—”

“Seven o’clock,” came the reply, followed by dead air and the faint beep, beep of a disconnected line.

Well … shit.

He glanced at the clock on his phone as he headed back into the cottage.

At least he had plenty of time to get back to London. He could take the train – England was good when it came to trains – be there in plenty of time to spare. Or take an Uber; it would be exorbitantly expensive, but it wasn’t like he was hurting for money.

Thoughts and plans still whirring through his head, he opened the back door and nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw Ariadne not five feet off, leaning against the kitchen table and tapping anxiously at her phone.

She looked up immediately, face pale and peaked. “Well?”

For a wild moment Dionysus considered lying – saying it was a producer or a funder who wanted to see him, he needed to head back to London, won’t be gone long, sweetheart, don’t worry about a thing.

But he couldn’t go through with it. For one thing, she’d never believe it.

His shoulders slumped. “My father.”

Ariadne’s eyes widened.

“He knows. He wants …” Dionysus ran a hand through his curls. “He wants to see me at seven. Alone. So—so I need to check the timetables, figure out when the next train leaves …”

Ariadne swallowed and nodded. “I’ll get our stuff ready then.”

“Ari, he said alone—”

“I don’t care.” Ariadne stood up straighter, nostrils flaring. “I don’t. He wants to shout at someone about disobeying him, he can shout at me. I’m the one who flipped him and his orders the bird.”

“And you can bloody well forget about taking the train,” said Crowley. Dionysus really did jump this time. “I’ll drive you back.”

Crowley was standing by the kitchen door – Aziraphale, Newt, Anathema, and Eris crowded behind him. “We’re both going back with you,” Aziraphale said, in the sort of tone that would not brook argument. “We can discuss whether or not it would be wise for us to accompany you to the meeting as we drive, but you certainly shan’t face this entirely on your own.”

Dionysus blinked, swallowed, and blinked again.

“I’ll go too,” Eris said. “Even if Persephone doesn’t have all the transport lined up, I can get us all into the Underworld as soon as Father’s done chewing you out. You can crash at my place, and we wait down there for Persephone to figure out how we’re getting to LAX.” She grinned. “If only to keep you from selling me out to Father to save your own sorry skin.”

He almost laughed. Almost.

Instead, he gulped and forced himself to breathe deeply. “You’re sure about this? All of you?”

He asked “all of you,” but he looked at Ariadne.

Her face was stony and set, and she nodded. “Absolutely.”

And that was all that needed to be said.

The drive back to London promised to be tense and fraught, and not just because Crowley’s driving would have done terrible things to the blood pressure of at least two people in the vehicle, had they been human enough to need to worry about blood pressure. As it was, Aziraphale made very few comments about the many times they courted death, and Dionysus barely seemed to notice. In place of conversation, they had Queen playing through the car’s stereo.

And Ariadne sat silent, wondering how it was that Dionysus wasn’t angry at her. This was, after all, entirely her fault. She could have groveled before Zeus and begged for express permission to contact the first people in literal centuries that she had hoped could have given her some answers. He would have said no, or demanded a price for compliance that was higher than what she was willing to pay, but she still could have done it. But she hadn’t, and now Dionysus was getting called on the carpet for it. Alone.

Maybe he wasn’t angry with her because it hard to fit anger at her around the anger at his father.

Ariadne glanced sidelong at him, but Dionysus wasn’t looking at her. Instead he scrolled through his phone with the single-minded focus of someone who wasn’t actually seeing anything he was looking at. He’d said practically nothing since they’d departed Jasmine Cottage and made it quite clear that for Aziraphale and Crowley to stick around at Olympic Holdings would hurt far more than it would help. And Ariadne hadn’t even been able to disagree.

She almost wished that Eris was in the car with her, tight squeeze though it would have been. She would have taken them all out of their own heads. But Eris was driving her motorcycle back and had already left them in the figurative and literal dust.

As Ariadne stewed over that, Dionysus shifted, looked up, and spoke. “What is this, Her Majesty’s Most Ominous Playlist?”

“I—what?” Aziraphale asked, glancing first at Crowley and then over his shoulder at Ariadne for a translation.

“Dionysus is objecting to all the Queen that’s playing, and …” Ariadne frowned, remembering the songs that had played since they got underway.

“This is the third time we’re hearing ‘Another One Bites the Dust,’” Dionysus pointed out. “If it has to be Queen, could we maybe work something a little more cheerful into the rotation? ‘Bicycle Race’? ‘Flash’? ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’?”

“I’m afraid I’m not in charge of the musical selectionshere. The Bentley plays what she likes,” Crowley replied. “Although perhaps Ariadne might be able to convince her otherwise, given what else she’s talked this car into.”

Ariadne winced, even though the tone was mostly teasing. Dionysus, however, narrowed his eyes. “Have any of our cars achieved sentience?” he asked Ariadne.

“Not yet.”

“Oh, good.”

He lapsed back into silence, now not even pretending to look at his phone, instead staring out the window.

And that—that just wouldn’t do.

Ariadne fished her phone out of her pocket and opened Spotify. She may or may not be able to knock sense into Zeus’s head – and she certainly wasn’t about to tell the Bentley what she could or couldn’t play – but this, this she could do.

It took no time at all to set up a new playlist. “Would you mind turning off the radio?” Ariadne asked, even as she turned the volume up on the phone.

The music cut out without a single argument from Crowley, which said quite a lot.

Ariadne pressed play.

Boom, boom, CLAP.

Boom, boom, CLAP.

Dionysus started and turned to her. “Really?”

Ariadne shrugged. “You wanted something a little more cheerful.”

“Buddy, you’re a boy, make a big noise / Playing in the street, gonna be a big man someday!”

“This is still Queen … isn’t it?” asked Aziraphale.

“Yep,” Crowley replied.

“We Will Rock You” segued easily into “We Are the Champions,” just to set the tone, and then, as requested, “Bicycle Race,” “Flash,” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” played in rapid succession. And so on and so forth, all of the most upbeat, happy Queen songs that Ariadne had been able to find on Spotify.

And for the coup de grace, “Don’t Stop Me Now.”

Dionysus raised an eyebrow at her. Ariadne smirked. “Most uplifting song on the planet, according to science.”

That got the first real smile she’d seen out of him since his father had called.

It couldn’t last, because just as “Don’t Stop Me Now” did, in fact, stop, so did the Bentley, rolling up outside the nondescript office building that served as Zeus’s base of operations in London. As Ariadne untangled herself from the seatbelt and put her phone away, Aziraphale looked back at her. “Are you sure you don’t want us to stay close by?”

“Yes,” Dionysus said, swinging himself out of the car.

And with that, there wasn’t much more to say. “I’ll text you as soon as Zeus is done,” Ariadne said, meeting Crowley’s eye in the rearview mirror. “And then we can plan next steps.”

Crowley sat very still – Aziraphale practically vibrated with tension – but after a long moment, both nodded.

And with that, there was nothing for Ariadne to do but get out of the car and join Dionysus on the sidewalk. She made sure to wave as the Bentley pulled away.

Dionysus didn’t. He was too busy staring up at the building, taking deep breaths.

“Hey,” Ariadne said, bumping his hip lightly with her own. He jumped and looked down, his eyes falling on the hand she’d held out.

With a swallow that said more than words ever could, he took it and clung to it.

“It’s going to be ok,” Ariadne said, because someone had to. She didn’t ask what’s the worst that could happen because both of them had far too active imaginations to head down that road.

Dionysus nodded and squared his shoulders, and together they headed inside.

They made it through the first set of double doors without issue. The second Dionysus passed through easily.

Ariadne did not. One moment she was holding Dionysus’s hand and following him into the building, the next she’d walked into an invisible wall, stumbled back and let go of Dionysus’s hand in shock. “Hey!”

Dionysus stopped too, spinning on his heel. “Ari?” He reached back for her—

There was a flash like lightning, and Dionysus pulled his hand away from the doorway as, yelping. “What the—”

“You were told,” said a very familiar, very annoyed voice, “to come alone.”

Dionysus stiffened. “Father.”

And not just his father. At Zeus’s left hand stood Hera, coolly surveying Ariadne with a cocked eyebrow, one hand on her hip, and a faint smile on her lips. It was the sort of look that was designed to remind the looked-upon of every wrinkle in her shirt, hair out of place, and blemish uncovered by makeup, and by every god and goddess out there, it worked.

“If you want to yell at someone, you can at least yell at me!” Ariadne snapped. “I’m the one who went looking for Aziraphale and Crowley; Dionysus wasn’t involved until—”

“Ari. Please,” Dionysus said.

It was about the only thing that could have gotten her to shut up. Ariadne bit back the rest of that sentence and settled for a glare.

Dionysus shot her a smile before turning to Zeus. “Can we just get this over with?”

“There’s certainly no reason to delay,” Hera said. “Come.” And she turned and led the way deeper into the building, Dionysus squaring his shoulders and following.

Ariadne watched him go and forced herself to keep breathing. She might not be allowed inside, but she’d be damned if she was just going to leave him there. She’d stay out in the vestibule if she had to—

Zeus raised an eyebrow at her. “I would have thought you were clever enough to take the hint. He was told to come alone.”

There was absolutely nothing Ariadne could say that wouldn’t be a deathly insult to the king of the gods, so she said nothing.

Zeus snorted and snapped his fingers. There was a sharp crack—

And Ariadne found herself stumbling back, out the door and onto the sidewalk outside the building.

What the—She tried to run back in—

And ran into the invisible wall five feet before the door with enough force that she was spent sprawling backward.

So that was how it was going to be. “Well, fuck you too,” Ariadne muttered.

Then she crossed her arms over her chest and wondered what the hell she was supposed to do next.

[1] Often, but not always, rolling her eyes.

Chapter Text

There were any number of sensible things Ariadne could have done upon being locked out of Olympic Holdings. She could have gone back to the Ritz, collected the luggage, and formally checked them out of the room. Or headed to a coffee shop or (given the hour and the city she was in) pub to drown her frustrations in caffeine or liquor. Or even texted Crowley and let him know she’d been kicked out, so she could have someone else to be frustrated with.

She was quite aware that she could do all these things, but she had no intention of doing any of them. Instead, she paced outside the building, testing the wards that had been set.

The idea that she’d be able to brute force her way past wards set by the king of the gods was, of course, ludicrous. If magic power could be measured in horsepower, Ariadne would be a mustang (the type Poseidon made) and Zeus a Mustang (the type Ford made). She could no more hope to break through those wards than Achilles could have hacked his way through the walls of Troy with a spoon.

But the Achaeans hadn’t asked Achilles to hack his way through the walls of Troy with a spoon, because they had known that would be idiotic. They’d found another way in. And power, like certain other tools, was not just about size. It was about what you did with it.

There could be a weak spot. No – there had to be a weak spot. She’d known Zeus for millennia, knew that he was powerful and that he knew this. Oh, he could be crafty and cunning when he set his mind to it, but often he didn’t. He leaned on the strongest weapon in his arsenal and only used the others when needed.

Even the king of the gods wasn’t immune to a spot of hubris.

Ariadne took a long, slow breath, gazed up at the building, and tried to think. If she was Zeus, confident that she was stronger than just about any single being in any other pantheon, and she was trying to defend her domain, what would she guard against? What would she not think was a threat?

Her gaze tracked the doors, and the windows, and the brickwork surrounding both, tracking up to the roof …

She blinked.

It couldn’t possibly be that simple. Zeus couldn’t be that blind and obvious – could he? The Greek gods could shapeshift; any one of them could change into an owl or an eagle or a crow and simply fly up to the roof and break in that way, just as Ariadne could.

But would they?

As if in answer to her question, a pigeon came in for a landing and began to roost on the roof.

It didn’t have to mean anything. It was certainly possible to key wards to keep out people and supernatural entities while leaving animals free to roam. It was even possible to key the wards to just one person (her) and let everyone else in or out as they pleased.

Still, it was worth a shot.

Ariadne set off to find an alley. The last thing she needed was to bring her wings out on a busy mortal street and end up featured in a dozen YouTube videos. But as long as she was out of sight when she brought the wings out, well, mortals didn’t often look up. And even if they did, her gray wings would blend into the gathering twilight quite nicely.

Her mind already buzzing with the next stage of her plan, Ariadne ducked into the first alley she saw, wrinkling her nose at the smell—

“Wow,” said a voice from behind her. A voice that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. “You’re not even making this hard for us, are you?”

Ariadne hiccupped and spun.

The Xerox goblin, Legion, stood at the end of the alley. Weird rabbit-ear hair and all. And grinning.

She wasn’t going to stick around long enough to see if he was packing heat. She called her wings out, bent her knees, and jumped.

She didn’t look up. And that was her hubris.

Something that felt like a linebacker tackled her from above and slammed her into the nearest wall.

Ariadne’s head hit the brick with enough force to make her see stars, and her wings screamed in agony. When her vision cleared, she was staring into the eyes of a portly, middle-aged balding man. With brilliant white wings. Who was pinning her to the wall and leering.

Ariadne did exactly what she would do when presented with any portly, middle-aged balding man leering at her and pinning her to a wall, wings or no wings, and kicked him between the legs.

He made a faint “oof” and jerked back, but his vise-like grip stayed put. “Now, now,” he said, and there was that leer again, “is that any way to greet an old work friend of your dad’s?”

WHAT.

Ariadne shrieked and slammed the heel of her palm into the balding man’s nose.

He shouted as blood began to pour from it, letting go of her shoulder. That was enough for Ariadne to wiggle free and drop to the ground.

She hit it with enough force to cry out, but she didn’t have time for that. Her wing—her wing was hurting enough that she wasn’t sure she could fly, so she had to run, out of the alley and into the street where people were—they wouldn’t be stupid enough to keep going after her where there were people—

She staggered to her feet—

There were three people between her and the entrance of the alley. One was Legion. The other the dark-haired demon from the bookshop – Mephistopheles. And a third one, this one with a thick thatch of white-blond hair and a skin condition.

Ariadne stumbled a step back and turned around. Maybe the other—

There three people between her and the exit of the alley. One was the leering, now-bleeding angel. The other was the tough angel from the bookshop – Samael. And a third one, this one with thick black hair and insultingly handsome features.

The third one stepped forward, smarmy smirk spread across his face. “Ariadne. Hi. Pleasure to finally meet you. Allow me to introduce myself. I’m the Archangel Gabriel …”

His wings popped out as if on cue, their ethereal glow lighting up the alley.

“And I’m your dad’s old boss.”

There were so many ways a girl like Eris could get in trouble in London at this time of night, and she wasn’t taking advantage of any of them. Instead, she was about five blocks away from Olympic Holdings, sitting on her bike just close enough to traffic to be a nuisance, and scrolling away on her phone.

What a waste, she thought, cheerfully flipping the bird to the latest driver to lay on the horn as they careened past her.

Of course, she could cause plenty of trouble with a cell phone and an unlimited data plan. That wasn’t the point. The point was that it was more fun to do so in person. Blowing up Reddit threads and trolling the neckbeards on 4chan were better saved for nights when it was too cold or wet or miserable to leave the house.

Yet here she was, and here she would remain for the foreseeable future, all because Ari hadn’t covered her tracks well enough and Zeus was getting into a snit about it—

It was at this point that it became clear that Eris was in no way a prophetic deity, because her trouble-sense did not so much quietly ping as wake up from a dead sleep and shout, A-WOOOOOOO-GA!

Eris sat up straight and looked around, mouthing, The fuck? but unable to hear it over the cacophony in her head.[1] The klaxon call of the trouble-sense didn’t quiet down a bit.

Eris dropped her phone in her jacket pocket, kicked the bike to life, and roared into the street without looking.

Finding the source of the trouble wasn’t at all like playing that kids’ game, “Hot and Cold.” It was more like following the sound of a dozen nuclear bombs going off. It was not, in other words, hard to miss.

And it led her straight to an alley not far from Olympic Holdings.

Eris didn’t head inside – she was chaotic neutral, not chaotic stupid. She killed the bike’s engine, drew every bit of don’t-see-me magic she possessed around herself, and crept to the alley’s entrance.

Slowly, she edged around the corner and looked inside.

Oh fuck oh fuck OH FUCK!

Eris jerked back, breathing hard.

There had been seven people in that alley. Three close to her with black wings out. Three at the other end with white wings out. And one in the middle, huddled on the ground, with gray wings out.

FUUUUCK!

And there was no way she could help. Eris wasn’t one of the Twelve. The amount of trouble radiating out of that alley was more than she could hope to handle, even with Ari by her side. And with the two of them outnumbered three-to-one? For-fucking-get about it.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK!

She needed backup. And her favorite partner-in-crime was MIA, still stuck in Tadfield and wearing Tom Hiddleston’s face thanks to his father’s orders. She would have to—

She glanced at the Olympic Holdings building.

… Now that was an idea.

But first things first. Eris pulled her phone out of her pocket and shot off a text to Crowley.

Then she ran to her bike and hopped back on it, racing toward the Olympic Holdings building and tossing Discord magic like cherry bombs every few feet.

If that didn’t get her parents’ attention or Dionysus’s attention or another of her siblings’ attention—

Well, then they were well and truly fucked, weren’t they?

Zeus had been lecturing Dionysus for fifteen minutes straight, barely a pause for breath and forget about getting a word in edgewise. Were it happening to anyone else, Dionysus might have almost found it funny.

Almost.

And since it was happening to him …

Dionysus took a deep breath and wished for a drink.

Not that he had been offered one – not even water. Zeus had been too intent on his recitation of every way Dionysus had been a disappointment, starting back in sometime BC, each paling in comparison to this epic screw-up, of course. And Dionysus had no choice but to sit there, take it, and hope that whenever Zeus got to the point of consequences, that they wouldn’t be too severe.

And in all of this, Hera had said nothing. She stood near Zeus, to the left of his desk chair and a little behind. Her arms were crossed, perfectly manicured nails tapping lightly on toned biceps. And the look in her eyes was not joyful, or annoyed, or even disappointed, but speculative.

Dionysus had made the mistake of meeting her eyes more than once, and each time he had shuddered.

Now Zeus actually paused, and Dionysus held his breath, bracing himself for whatever chapter of the tirade was coming next—

And froze.

Even within whatever wards were keeping Ariadne out, he felt the unmistakable pop of Eris’s Discord.

“Did you feel that?” he heard himself ask.

It was the first thing he’d said since taking the uncomfortable chair on the other side of Zeus’s desk. It was the wrong thing to say.

Zeus slowly raised an eyebrow. “What,” he asked, “does that have to do with anything?”

“It’s Eris,” Dionysus said. He found himself craning his neck to look out the window. “She—”

Pop!

“She did it again!” Now Dionysus was out of his chair and loping toward the window, hackles rising and stomach dropping. If Eris was causing trouble so close and so blatantly, then she had to have a reason for it – and the reason couldn’t have been trying to save Dionysus’s hide—

“Dionysus,” Zeus said in a tone that suggested this would be Dionysus’s first and final warning, “I am not finished. I suggest you sit down.”

“But she’s—”

Pop!

“She’s up to something!”

Hera blinked; Zeus only snorted. “Obviously. But if I were to drop everything every time I felt your sister getting up to mischief, I’d never get anything done.”

“But—”

“Dionysus. Sit. Down.”

The tone of command very nearly made his knees buckle. Dionysus swallowed, returned to the chair, and sat.

“Now, as I was saying …”

But Dionysus wasn’t listening. Every time there was another pop! of Discord, he jumped, gaze going to the window.

Zeus’s glower deepened every time, until he was forward to interrupt his rant and say in his lowest, most ominous rumble, “Son—”

“Zeus.” Hera put her hand on Zeus’s shoulder. “Why don’t you go and see what Eris wants?”

“What? Why would—” Zeus started.

And stopped, raising an eyebrow at Hera.

If Dionysus had been any less distracted, he might have noticed the speaking look that passed between the pair. As it was, he was too busy straining his senses for any hint of what was behind Eris’s antics, wondering if he dared to take his phone out and try to get some answers in the mortal way.

Zeus sighed. It almost sounded theatrical. “She’s not going to let up until we see what she wants, I suppose. Right. I’ll go deal with this. You.”

Now Zeus fixed Dionysus with a glare, and now Zeus had his full attention.

“Don’t move.”

And without a further word, he stood and strode to the door and out of it.

When the door closed, the room was blanketed in a cocoon of quiet. Even the ticking of the clock on the bookshelf seemed hushed.

And though Dionysus continued to strain his senses, he couldn’t catch so much as an echo of Eris’s magic.

“That’s better,” said Hera. And she slipped into Zeus’s chair.

She smiled at him.

Dionysus held his breath.

“Now you and I can have a chat.”

Crowley drummed the fingers of one hand on the steering wheel even as the other tossed a coin into the air. “Call it.”

“Heads,” said Aziraphale.

The coin landed. Tails. He’d be flipping again. “Call it.”

“Tails.”

This time the angel got it. Crowley rearranged the traffic so he could get into the right-hand turn lane and turned at the light.

This certainly wasn’t the most creative way he’d thought of whiling away the time, but … it was something, and they had to do something until Ariadne texted him and said that Dionysus was done being raked over the coals. They couldn’t go back to the bookshop; Heaven or Hell or both could have trap waiting for them there. His flat was out for the same reason. And stopping in a pub or a restaurant felt too much like being a sitting duck.

So they were reduced to driving aimlessly through London’s darkening streets, varying the route by means of coin tosses. After all – it’d be blessed hard for Heaven or Hell or both to predict where they were going next if they themselves didn’t know which way, or even if, they’d be turning at a given intersection.

A psychologist might have called the game a sign of paranoia. Crowley would have retorted that it was bloody hard to be paranoid when they actually were out to get you.

“I wish they would have let us stay with them,” Aziraphale sighed.

“I’m inclined to believe Dionysus when he says that would only make things worse.”

“True, I just …” Aziraphale shook his head.

Crowley put his hand on the console between them, a silent invitation. Aziraphale took it, threading their fingers together.

Crowley might not have moved his hand until the next intersection and coin flip – or he might have asked Aziraphale to flip the bloody coin; he still had a hand free – but his phone chose that moment to buzz.

Even as he disentangled his hand with reluctance, he told himself not to be annoyed. It was probably Ariadne, texting to say that she and Dionysus were done and they could figure out their next move now. He pulled the phone from his pocket—

It was a text. It wasn’t Ariadne.

ARI GOT JUMPED THREE OF YOUR FRIENDS THREE OF AZ’S GET YOUR ASSES BACK HERE!

The text was from Eris. And for a split second, the message refused to make sense. Ari? Az’s?

And then it did.

“FUCK!” Crowley shouted, and threw the Bentley into a U-turn that broke every rule of the road and at least one law of physics.

“Crowley! What on earth—”

“It’s Ariadne—she’s in trouble!” And he tossed the phone to Aziraphale.

Aziraphale yelped as he caught it. There was a half-second of silence as he read the text. Then, quietly, “Oh, God in Heaven.”

“Can we not bring Her into this?!”

Aziraphale didn’t answer, just slipped his left hand into the oh-shit bar and held on tight.

He didn’t say anything until Crowley practically invented a lane so he could slip between a lorry and a bus. “Crowley, is there any way—”

“Angel, if you ask me to slow down now, I swear—”

“I was actually going to ask if you could go faster.”

Crowley should not have taken his eyes off the road, but still he turned and goggled at Aziraphale.

Aziraphale was pale. And his knuckles were white. But even though he gulped, all he asked was, “Well?”

Crowley slammed the accelerator to the floor, and the Bentley sped off into the night.

Archangel Gabriel? Ariadne thought, glancing from one end of the alley to the other and back again. The one who goes around telling virgins they’ve been knocked up? Heaven’s OB/GYN?

If she was in a movie, she would have said that. And perhaps it would have knocked Gabriel and the rest of them off balance for a second. And that second would have been enough for Ariadne to pull some power that had been vaguely hinted at in the first act out of her ass and use it to make a daring escape.

She really wished she was in a movie.

“Nothing to say for yourself?” asked Gabriel.

“We sure this is Crowley’s spawn?” asked the white-haired demon. “He couldn’t shut up if his continued existence depended on it.”

So much for hoping they’d only figured out the one half.

Her heart thudded in her ears, her breath came faster, and something—something white-hot and incandescent came to life just under her skin—

YES! Ariadne thought, grabbing the power and throwing it at the nearest opponent. Gabriel.

The jet of white light shot out, hit him square in the chest—

And fizzled.

Gabriel stared at his chest, then at her. “Did you … just try to smite me?”

Legion laughed. “She just tried to smite an archangel!”

The white-hot power was still there. Ariadne grabbed it again, gasping with the effort, and lobbed it at Legion.

“Oh FUCK!” Legion yelped – and then there were two Legions – and then the light hit – and there was only one Legion.

“T-t-try that again,” Legion gasped. “There’s more of us than there are of you!”

Ariadne had a better idea. She grabbed another thread of power and threw it – this time at Mephistopheles.

Mephistopheles yelped and dodged, the light soaring harmlessly where he’d been standing.

And Ariadne ran. The opening was all she needed; if she got out of the alley, if she got to where there were people—

She barely registered the white-haired demon lazily reaching up and snapping his fingers.

A jet of fire leapt up from the pavement – Ariadne shrieked, throwing her arm over her face and stumbling back – the flame licked her arm and good gods, that hurt—

“Oi, watch it!” shouted the leering angel. “You could bloody well kill us too!”

“If she can smite, she can burn!” the white-haired demon shouted back.

“That was not the plan!” Gabriel yelled.

The flame surrounded her on all sides now. It smelled like sulfur and reached for her.

Ariadne’s wing still hurt – her arm too now – but what other choice did she have? She looked up and jumped.

The thermals from the fire lifted her up—one flap worked for two—a few more and she’d be high enough to take to the open sky and—

Mephistopheles burst through the flames and caught her around the waist.

Ariadne screamed and kicked and pounded whatever parts of him she could reach. She reached for his hair and pulled, still flapping, still trying to get up—

Except—he was pushing her up—

“Sorry!” Mephistopheles whispered to her—Ariadne had no idea how she was able to hear him, but she was—and then he threw her—

Ariadne twisted in the air, ignoring how her wing cried out in agony with the movement—

A strong arm locked around her, pinning her arms to her side and her wings between her body and that of whoever had grabbed her.

Ariadne shrieked and started kicking.

“Stop struggling, you idiot girl!” hissed a female voice in her ear – Samael? “Are you trying to get yourself killed? Never mind, don’t answer that.”

A hand slapped over her mouth before Ariadne could disobey. Ariadne bit.

“Ow!”

But Samael’s hand didn’t move.

“Ariadne, listen to me,” Samael said. This wasn’t just a low voice—she was practically whispering in Ariadne’s ear. “I’m going to discorporate you, and then I’m going to stab the body with a firmament blade. Just like your father’s. When I discorporate you, you need to get the hell away from this body before the blade hits – or else it’ll do to you what Hope should have done to your other father. Do you understand?”

No?!?! Ariadne tried to shake her head.

“I know you don’t want to trust me, and I don’t blame you, but I am literally your only hope right now,” Samael said, shifting her hold on Ariadne’s mouth. “And one more thing. When you get discorporated, don’t show up in Heaven or Hell. Neither is going to be happy to see you. Find somewhere else to be.”

Still Ariadne struggled—she didn’t understand; she couldn’t trust this bitch; she didn’t even know what discorporating was—

It didn’t matter.

Samael’s fingers found Ariadne’s jaw. There was a twist and a crack and an explosion of white light before her eyes—

And then everything went black.

[1] And the traffic.

Chapter Text

When the corporation that had once housed Ariadne Tavros hit the ground, a small psychic burst, something like an electromagnetic pulse, shot across London.

It traversed through most humans and even plenty of immortals harmlessly, leaving no trace of its passing. It was not meant for them.

Those immortals whom it was meant for experienced it differently.

To the angels Sandalphon and Gabriel, it was a familiar experience from a different angle. They had seen a similar Wrath before, even wielded it as their own. But they had never felt it directed at them. They paled, exchanged glances, and without a word to each other or to their counterparts on the other side of the ring of Hellfire, took flight.

To the demons Hastur and Legion, the Wrath was more than familiar. It was the push before the Fall. And without a word to their counterparts on the other side of the ring of Hellfire or even a glance at each other, they burrowed into the earth and sank down, down, down.

To the angel Samael and the demon Mephistopheles, there was no Wrath. Anger, yes, but anger with and for rather than at, and with the anger came sadness and understanding, however reluctant. It was that understanding that gave Mephistopheles the courage to catch Samael’s eye and nod before following his fellow demons down, and it was that sadness that allowed Samael to nod back before following her fellow angels up.

The pulse reached Eris next, still circling Olympic Holdings and throwing Discord every few feet. This time it was sad, but there was an undercurrent of respect and gratitude. Eris pulled the bike to a stop and took her helmet off, looking wonderingly at the cloudy sky above.

When the pulse reached the Olympic Holdings building, it found Dionysus first, still seated across a desk from Hera, attempting to listen to her offer. It came to him as grief, at first, but tinged with comfort, running a hand through his hair like a mother’s soothing caress. It made Dionysus jump and look around, wondering where the phantom touch had come from.

Hera felt it next, and to her it felt like fury, and what was worse, disappointment. She quite forgot what she had been saying to Dionysus, sitting up straight with her mouth agape. Zeus, pacing outside the door, felt much the same thing, and it bowled him over like a punch to the gut.

Lastly the pulse found a vintage Bentley careening through the street, only a handful of blocks away from the fateful alley. Now it was the full-throated grief of the Virgin in the Pietà, though underneath the grief was a spark of hope, a sense that all was not yet lost and that the story was not over.

“Did you—” Aziraphale asked, or began to ask, while Crowley swore and pounded the accelerator with even more extreme prejudice.

The pulse faded. Its message was sent, its mission finished.

And softly, rain began to fall.

“Call Eris,” Crowley said, swerving around a taxi at a speed that, at any other time, Aziraphale would swear was sure to get them discorporated. “We need to know where Ariadne was when she—”

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!!!!

A motorbike pulled into the lane before them; Crowley slammed on the brakes and Aziraphale squeezed his eyes shut and held on for what could only be called dear life—

He didn’t dare to open them until his head had nearly knocked into the dashboard and he heard someone tapping – pounding, really – at his window.

Crowley snapped his fingers and the window was gone. “Eris!”

And it was Eris, her long blond hair plastered to her head, her helmet hanging useless off her arm. “Fucking finally! Come on, Ari and your buddies are this way!” And without a further word, she kicked the bike to life, her hair streaming out behind her in the wind.

Once again, Aziraphale held on for dear life. Luckily, they were close enough that even Eris and Crowley couldn’t accelerate to dangerous speeds before they had to stop. Eris drove her motorcycle onto the pavement; Crowley snapped a space to park into being and threw the Bentley into it.

Aziraphale was out of the car as soon as it had come to a more-or-less complete stop. Crowley was right behind him.

If he’d been thinking clearly, he’d realized he should have waited for Eris to lead the way and say exactly what she had seen and where Ariadne was. But he wasn’t thinking clearly, because as soon as he’d stepped out of the car, he’d caught a whiff of sulfur on the breeze.

Sulfur. Brimstone. Hellfire.

“ARIADNE!”

He followed his nose and started running.

“AZIRAPHALE! AZIRAPHALE, WAIT!”

He didn’t wait. Never mind that he didn’t have any kind of weapon or any idea how he’d take on three angels and three demons. Because all he could think was Hellfire and Ariadne and no no no no no!

He rounded the corner of the alley, gathering every shred of power he had in him and preparing to throw it. He normally didn’t smite in fear or in anger, but he didn’t have a choice if Ariadne—

There was no one in the alley. Just a crackle of ozone and a low-burning circle of Hellfire, more embers than flame. And in the middle of the circle—

“Ariadne!”

She lay in a crumpled heap, curled up on her side with her hair spilling loose and her poor wings twisted and bedraggled. She wasn’t moving or breathing, but that was all right, it didn’t matter, they didn’t need to move or breathe or—

Aziraphale jumped over the dying remains of the Hellfire and almost immediately fell to his knees next to Ariadne. Now that he was closer, he could see more damage. Redness around her mouth, a bruise on her neck (which was bent at entirely the wrong sort of angle), a nasty-looking burn on one arm—

But it didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter. All of it was fixable. It was just damage to the corporation, that was all. Crowley could fix the Hellfire burn if he couldn’t—

Aziraphale passed his hand over Ariadne’s head and neck, then her arm (no good, he’d have to ask Crowley), then her poor wings. The bones snapped back into place; the bruise faded.

“There you are, dear girl, all better,” Aziraphale said. His voice was shaking, but that couldn’t be right, because he’d fixed the damage, hadn’t he? All the worst of it, at least. “Open your eyes now; that’s a good girl.”

She didn’t.

“Ariadne?” Aziraphale whispered.

“Angel!”

That was Crowley, dropping next to him. Something metal clattered to the ground beside him. “For the love of Someone, angel, don’t—”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale forced a smile; he had to, he couldn’t—he couldn’t lose faith now. Not in front of Crowley. “She’s got a Hellfire burn; I couldn’t do anything with it, could you …?” And Aziraphale gently pushed her, angling her so Crowley could more easily get to her arm.

Except Crowley, who had somehow lost his sunglasses between the car and the circle, wasn’t looking at her arm.

“Angel,” he said, voice sounding strangled. His corporation had gone several shades paler.

Aziraphale forced himself to look where Crowley was looking.

There was a hole in Ariadne’s side and a pool of blood. The hole was just under her armpit, a spot much favored by the Romans with their short gladiuses.

But no Roman gladius would leave burns on its victim’s clothes …

“No …” Aziraphale gasped.

“I can fix this!” Crowley’s voice was desperate, as if he were trying to convince himself. He closed his eyes, put his forefingers to his temples, then put the fingers to Ariadne’s temples. “Wake up, Ariadne.”

She didn’t move.

“Ariadne. Ariadne. Come on. Wake up, sweetie. Your dads are here, and we need …” Crowley’s voice grew more panicked with every syllable. “We need you to wake up!”

“You’re not fixing her.” Eris. Aziraphale turned to see her staring at them, at Ariadne, chalk-white and trembling. “Why can’t you fix her? This—” Her hands balled into fists and she started to shake. “This is your whole schtick! You’re supposed to be able to bring people back from the dead!”

Dead? No, no, she couldn’t be—

“Ariadne!” Crowley was shaking her. “Wake! Up!”

But a firmament blade, a flaming sword right to the heart—

“Crowley,” Aziraphale heard himself say.

Crowley looked up. His eyes were all yellow and a thin-slit pupil, not a hint of white to be seen.

“She …”

“No,” Crowley shook his head. “No, don’t say it. She isn’t—she can’t be. We have to be able to fix this.”

“She’s gone, dear boy.”

The rain began to fall harder.

It was pouring buckets by the time Zeus and Hera let Dionysus go. And given the rain, the sensible thing would have been to wait in the lobby while he called Ariadne, or maybe even Crowley, and figured out their next step.

Dionysus was not in the mood to be sensible. Not after he’d felt Eris tossing Discord around like beads at a Mardi Gras parade. He stormed into the night.

The second he set food outside, he could feel faint hints of Discord lingering like the smell of burnt popcorn. He couldn’t get more of a read on them than that. They seemed to surround the building, the rain and the wind further muddling the trail.

Sighing, Dionysus took his phone out and called Ariadne.

Ring …

Ring …

Ring …

Why wasn’t she picking up?

Ring …

Ring …

“Hello, you’ve reached the voicemail of Ariadne Tavros. I’m not available to take your call, but leave your name and number after the beep, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

Beep!

Dionysus hung up. Ariadne would call him back as soon as she saw the missed call.

And her not answering was nothing to worry about. Really. It was, after all, pouring buckets. Ariadne, being a sensible person, would have found shelter from the rain. Probably in a pub too loud to hear herself think. She’d be checking her phone every few minutes, no doubt. He just had to be patient.

In the meantime …

He fired off a text to Eris – Felt you making trouble, what’s up? – then looked up and got a face full of rain for his trouble.

Maybe he could be a sensible person and find a pub. Or a bus stop or tube station. Someplace dry.

Hands plunged into his pockets and shoulders hunched against the cold, he started walking.

But he couldn’t outwalk his thoughts. Or his fear or his worry. His mind jumped like a drug-addled grasshopper from one thought to the next. Eris’s Discord – and his father’s yelling – and Hera’s quite frankly bizarre offer – and then there was that feeling, the one that seemed to want to comfort him while spooking Hera – and Ariadne still hadn’t called him back—

His thoughts were distracting enough that he didn’t even notice the motorcycle parked in the middle of the sidewalk until he walked right into it.

Who the hell parks a—Dionysus began to think, all while swearing and hopping away from the motorcycle, until he got a closer look at it.

He recognized that motorcycle.

Eris? But if her motorcycle was here—then where was Eris?

Something like panic began to rise in him—

And then his phone rang, and the relief that flooded through him was more intoxicating than the best damn wine he’d ever tasted, even if it did make him jump. He didn’t even look at the caller, just answered. “Ari?”

Silence.

The panic began to rise again. But before he could act on it, a voice spoke on the other end of the line.

“Oh, fuck.”

“Eris?” Dionysus pulled the phone away from his ear, and—yes, that was Eris’s name on the screen. But he’d never heard her sound so miserable before. “What’s wrong?”

“Where are you?”

This wasn’t the time to get into stupidity like I asked you first. “Right by your bike – where are you?”

The torrent of swearing – all of it in Greek – that followed that was fierce enough that Dionysus jerked the phone away from his ear.

It was at that point he realized he was hearing the swearing from two different angles – one the phone, the other the alley about ten feet in front of him.

“Eris?” he called, hanging up.

And Eris spilled out of the alley.

Her hair was straggling and soaking wet, her leather jacket hanging limply off her shoulders. And her makeup was smudged and smeared, especially around her eyes, where it looked like—

“Have you been crying?” Dionysus asked, horrified – and worried – because unholy terror though she was, Eris was still his sister, and anything that would make her cry would … realistically not get its ass kicked by Dionysus, but he’d happily call up Ares and let him handle the ass-kicking while Dionysus helped Eris drown her sorrows in her substance of choice.

“I’m sorry,” she said, lower lip wobbling, “I’m really sorry. It’s just—there were six of them, ok, and all together they were way more than I could handle on my own, and I thought, fuck, it’s not going to do us any good if I just get flattened, so I called for backup, but by the time we all got here, she—” Eris stopped, hand pressed to her mouth and breathing sharply through her nose.

“She?” Dionysus asked, looking toward the alley.

“Nooo!” Eris grabbed his shoulders and rooted him to the spot. “No. No, you don’t—trust me, you don’t want to go in there, you don’t want to see her like that—”

The rising panic in his mind couldn’t stand to listen to any more of that. Dionysus shook her off and ran for the entrance of the alley.

He rounded the corner—

The first thing he noticed was the whiff of rotten eggs, lingering despite the pouring rain. The next was Aziraphale and Crowley, clinging to each other so hard Dionysus couldn’t tell who was holding who.

The third thing—

Lightning flashed, turning the alley into a photo negative. And maybe that was why he saw what he did. A scene from Sleeping Beauty, 1959. Maleficent at the top of the little tower room, contempt written all over her face as she stared down at the three good fairies. A bit of gloating, a mini-monologue really, and then a pulling back of her dark cloak and a triumphant, “Well, here’s your precious princess!”

Because Ariadne looked like that. Limbs spread every which way, hand stretched uselessly before her, red curls spilling over the pavement.

Except … all that red wasn’t just her hair …

“ARI!”

The thunderclap that followed shook the city.

Time passed. Crowley wasn’t sure how much. The rain was letting up, which was … something.

Funny. It’d been raining the last time he’d felt this bloody awful, too. Not that he’d cared. He’d been too busy finding a pub, then getting utterly pissed and waiting for the world to end and take him with it. Hadn’t seemed to be much point in doing anything else.

And now …

Well, now he had the angel with him, holding him like it was the last tether holding him together, and Crowley … he’d savor it while it lasted. Because it wouldn’t. The angel would want nothing to do with him once his brain caught up with his heart and he realized this whole fucking mess was all Crowley’s fault.

Because, the thing was, in the space between Aziraphale’s agonized She’s gone and Dionysus running into the alley and clutching Ariadne to him (and oh, didn’t that dredge up memories Crowley had been trying to beat down with a shovel for literal millennia) and whenever now was, Crowley had been thinking. Thinking about things like he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel and how an Eva turned into an Ave and how, in the greatest cosmic joke of them all, God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son.

Six thousand years ago, Crowley had been told to go up there and make trouble, and so he had. And because of the trouble he’d made, the Almighty had to send Her Son or an aspect of Herself (he still wasn’t sure on that) down to earth to be nailed to a tree and slowly suffocate and/or drown in His own bodily fluids. And now, some two thousand-ish years later, right after Crowley had deliberately attempted to fuck up the Apocalypse and dragged the angel with him in that endeavor …

He glanced up – forced himself to look at Dionysus holding Ariadne, rocking back and forth, brushing her hair back from her face.

The Almighty was getting Her revenge.

He shuddered. Aziraphale felt it and pulled him closer.

And Crowley, like the craven coward he was, let him. Huddled near and basked in his warmth. Took what he could get now, because the minute Aziraphale pulled away, he’d let him go. Even a demon could only hurt the one he loved so much.

But between You and me, O Lord, he thought, this? This is fucked up even on Your scale. Because Your Son, He bloody well knew what he was getting into. Read the whole contract and still signed on the dotted line. Ariadne didn’t know; she didn’t ask for any of this; she just—

Crowley held his breath and bit his lower lip until blood came to keep the sob in.

She just had questions! Why is that the one sin You can’t forgive?

He might have stayed there for days, or weeks, or eons, or as long as Aziraphale would let him, shouting silent questions at an Almighty who wouldn’t answer, but for one thing. He heard something. Footsteps at the end of the alley.

And because some habits simply didn’t die, no matter how much stress you put them under, he looked up.

There was a demon lurking at the end of the alley. A demon Crowley recognized.

“Mephistopheles!” He was up then, snapping the tire iron he’d dropped next to Ariadne into his hand without breaking stride as he marched to the other demon.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale called out, scrambling to his feet and taking hold of Crowley’s free hand.

Mephistopheles blanched and tried to back away. “Crowley—Crowley, whatever you’re thinking—”

“Did you have sssomething to do with thisss?” Crowley asked, swinging the tire iron to gesture widely to the alley, to Aziraphale, to—to—Ariadne.

“N-n-not in the way you’re thinking—”

“Liar!” That was Eris, shouting from where she’d taken up station by Dionysus. “You think I can’t tell one flavor of trouble from another? Besides, I saw you, asshole!”

Mephistopheles glanced at her, and that was all the opening Crowley needed. He dropped the tire iron, dropped Aziraphale’s hand, grabbed Mephistopheles by the collar and slammed him into the wall.

“WHY?!”

It was a bloody stupid question. He knew why. He’d known why since the moment he’d picked that sleeping newborn up, seen her red hair and blue eyes, and figured out just what he and the angel had done. But Crowley would be damned again if he didn’t force at least one denizen of Hell to look him in the eye and answer him.

Maybe, when Aziraphale left him, he’d head Downstairs and make a few more demons tell him why, at least until the inevitable happened. It would be one way to pass the time.

“It’s—it’s n-not what you think!” Mephistopheles stammered, trying to struggle out of Crowley’s grip, but there was no way in Heaven, Hell, or any other spiritual or material plane that he was wiggling out of this one. “And it w-wasn’t my idea—well, it w-was, but—”

“What?” Aziraphale demanded in a tone Crowley hadn’t heard in years.

“I d-d-didn’t have m-much choice! D-Duke Hastur—”

Hastur. Of course. A bit of Crowley leapt up and snarled in anger, but the much larger part of him sighed in resignation. Crowley had killed Ligur, so Hastur would kill someone important to Crowley. As if he needed more confirmation that this was all his fault.

“So you were just following orders, is that it?” Aziraphale asked, and this was definitely a tone Crowley hadn’t heard in a long time, or perhaps ever.

Crowley dared a glance over his shoulder, where Aziraphale stood stone-faced and obdurate. There wasn’t a flicker of pity on his countenance.

And Crowley understood suddenly why Gabriel and the rest of them might have thought that Aziraphale would make a very fine Guardian of the Eastern Gate.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale ordered, “let him go.”

“What?” asked Crowley.

“What?” gasped Mephistopheles.

“Why?” demanded Eris.

Aziraphale answered Eris’s question, but it was Crowley whom he addressed. “Because I’m going to smite him, and I certainly don’t want you catching a backdraft of that, dear boy.”

“Wait, no!” Mephistopheles’s struggles intensified. “You d-d-don’t understand—”

“Then explain,” Aziraphale snapped, “because while patience is a virtue, I’m feeling a bit short on it at the moment.”

“SHE’S NOT DEAD!” Mephistopheles shouted. “She’s discorporated! Just discorporated!”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened, but Crowley … Crowley could not let himself go down that road. Not without more proof.

He slammed Mephistopheles against the wall again. “Why should we believe you?”

“Because I’m the one who discorporated her. Now I suggest you let my friend go …”

Crowley felt the breeze, smelled the ozone, and glanced to the right to see Samael coming in for a landing.

“Or you’ll see exactly what the Archangel of Destruction can do when she gets angry.” Samael folded her wings away, and with a flick of her wrist, manifested a flaming sword out of nowhere.

There were far too many bits and pieces of that demanding Crowley’s attention at once, which was probably why Aziraphale was able to do what he did. “Crowley, let go and get behind me. Now.”

And Crowley obeyed.

Mephistopheles sagged in relief, but not for long – Aziraphale’s hand shot out, not touching him, just pointing. With intent, one might say. “I suggest you explain what is going on here,” he said, posture ramrod straight and not taking his gaze off Samael, “or your friend will be smitten in very short order.”

Samael raised an eyebrow. “Principality. Do you really think you can stand against me?”

“One,” Aziraphale said.

Now Samael blinked. “Let Mephistopheles go, and then we’ll talk.”

“Two.”

“Do not meddle with me, Principality—”

Even Crowley couldn’t have said what would happen when Aziraphale got to three. So perhaps it was a good thing he didn’t. A flash of lightning stopped his counting, followed almost immediately by a rumble of thunder.

Except it wasn’t thunder.

“Shut. Up.”

It was Dionysus.

He’d put Ariadne down, so gently, but that was about all the resemblance he bore to the worried young man who’d burst into Aziraphale’s shop and immediately started a lovers’ spat. This was a god of Olympus, with grape leaves in his hair and divine madness in his burgundy eyes. And he was not happy.

“Explain,” he said to Samael, “exactly what discorporated means, or you are going to wish I let my father-in-law smite you and your friend.”

Samael blinked, taken aback. “You don’t—you don’t know?”

“To take the name of one of your bosses in vain, Jesus H. Christ,” Eris snapped. “Why the fuck would we know what means?”

“C-c-corpus!” Mephistopheles stammered. The gazes of both gods locked on him. He quailed but kept going. “The Latin! Body! And—and dis, not! So … not in the body!”

Dionysus frowned. “What? What’s not in the body?”

“Ariadne!”

“The corporation,” oh, and there was the Aziraphale Crowley knew, never missing a chance for pedantry, “it’s not – it’s not Ariadne the way humans think of a body as being them. It’s a tool for when she’s on earth. And if something happens to the corporation, then …”

Aziraphale’s hand dropped. “Oh, God. She never Fell.”

Crowley didn’t think he’d ever heard the angel sound half so scared.

“She’s not in Heaven,” Samael said. “I checked. Discorporation office, infirmary, even with St. Peter. There’s no sign of her Upstairs.”

And now it was Crowley’s turn to feel like he’d been punched in the gut. “Original sssin?”

“Not in Hell, either,” said Mephistopheles. “I checked, too.”

“And I told her to find somewhere else to go,” Samael said.

“What the Heaven would that do?” Crowley shouted. “She wouldn’t know what you were talking about!”

Samael stared. “Wait. You—”

“SHUT UP!” Dionysus shouted. “You’re talking about Heaven. And Hell. Are you saying that Ari went to an afterlife?”

Samael blinked. “Well, I—”

“Yes!” Mephistopheles answered – and shrank into himself when the rest of them stared at him.

“An afterlife,” Dionysus said. “So—Persephone!”

Dionysus pulled his phone out of his pocket, hands shaking. He stabbed the home button and demanded, “Call Persephone!” And he put it on speaker.

Ring …

Ring …

“Hey, Dionysus!”

Hearing that voice again – sounding so chipper, too – almost made Crowley stagger. Perhaps it had a similar effect on Dionysus, because his voice cracked when he asked, “Is Ari with you?”

“… What?”

“Ari. Is she down there? In the Underworld? With you?”

“Huh? I haven’t gotten the transport sorted out yet; I was waiting for Ari to tell me you guys were ready—”

“Not like that!” Dionysus’s voice cracked again. “Like—like a mortal. She got—they’re all calling it discorporated—it’s—I think it’s the soul separating from the body—”

“What?! She’s dead?”

“No, not dead!” Samael said. “Discorporated! The corporation got too damaged, so she got out of it!”

“Who’s that?” Persephone asked. “And why are we talking about corporations?”

“Some angelic asshole, and it’s—complicated,” Dionysus said, glaring at Samael. “Is she down there, Persephone? Please tell me she’s down there.”

“I … I will find out!” Persephone said. “I’ll call Charon and—and I’ll get Thanatos on the case too. If she’s down here, we’ll find her. You just hang in there, ok?”

Dionysus gulped hard and nodded.

“And what about you?” Persephone asked. “Where are you? Who’s with you?”

“London. Close to Father’s office. And—and Ari’s parents are here, and some demon and some angel, and …”

Dionysus stopped, looking from side to side. “Wait. Where’s Eris?”

Chapter Text

The rain was still coming down as Hera stood in Zeus’s office, staring out the window, trying to determine just where the meeting with Dionysus had gone wrong.

She couldn’t quite blame Zeus’s rant, much as she wished she could. It had been very well done – the sort of thing designed to get a younger Olympian quaking in their sandals and remembering Zeus’s frequent insistence that he was stronger than the rest of them combined.

Then again … perhaps she could blame that rant. Certainly Dionysus’s distraction had started in the midst of it, or perhaps before. Hera had not been surprised that he’d seized on Eris’s mischief in order to put off the inevitable, but …

He shouldn’t have still been focused on it after Zeus had left the room. Especially not when Hera all but handed him a way out of his current predicament on a silver platter.

There had to be something else there. Dionysus and Eris were not close, not like Eris and Ares were, or even Eris and Hades. Eris did enjoy rankling Dionysus and Ariadne, which was a sign of affection from her, but that affection did not necessarily go both ways.

It just didn’t make sense.

Hera continued to let that line of thought worry her. Because it was either fixate on Eris or fixate on the other thing that might have caused Dionysus’s distraction and remarkable intransigence. That—that feeling that had made its way through Zeus’s wards. A feeling Hera did not want to contemplate in too much detail, even though it seemed to affect Dionysus much differently than it had affected her. Because if Hera were to think about that feeling …

She might come to certain inescapable conclusions, like how that feeling felt far too much like her handiwork, even though no one had heard from her in centuries.

“Hera.”

Hera turned around.

Zeus stood before her, two wineglasses in hand, holding one of them out to her. “Have a drink.”

Hera sighed and took it. “You realize that nothing about this evening went according to plan?”

“Yes, but this was going to be a long-term plan. A few extra conversations are nothing in the grand scheme of things. As you’ve said …”

She smiled. “A sprint. Not a marathon.” Then she lifted her glass in a silent toast. “To our future grandchild?”

An amused light danced in Zeus’s eyes; he clinked glasses with her. “To our future grandchild.”

They drank. Or tried to. Hera was immediately reduced to coughing and sputtering; Zeus spat his wine clear across the room.

“What in Tartarus’s name was that?” Hera gasped.

“I’ve had vinegar that tasted better. What the—” Zeus stomped to the bottle, scowling at the label. Hera followed.

“Well, if I had to guess,” said a voice from the door, “I’d say it’s what happens when the God of Wine finds his girlfriend dead in an alley. Pretty sure none of the wine in a five-mile radius is going to be drinkable.”

Hera’s eyes widened, and she looked over her shoulder.

And instantly turned around. Because Eris, while exasperating, impossible and seemingly designed to dance upon Hera’s last nerve, was still her child. And there was no mother who would not turn around upon seeing their child stumble into the room looking like a drowned rat playing dress-up in a borrowed leather jacket, with eyes red-rimmed and face blotchy to boot.

“Eris,” Hera said, “darling, what’s wrong?”

Eris didn’t answer her. Didn’t even look at her. Stared at her father instead. “Why was Ariadne in an alley all by herself?”

Zeus narrowed his eyes as a few pieces began to come together in Hera’s head. “Eris—”

“You told Dionysus to come alone,” Eris said, taking three steps closer. Eris was tall by mortal standards – they all were – but Zeus still dwarfed her by a head. All the same, she seemed to look down on him. “And Ari, being Ari, said ‘fuck that, I’m coming with him.’ But she wasn’t with him. She was in an alley. By herself. So she could get jumped by three demons and three angels and get stabbed. So answer the question, Father. Why was Ariadne in an alley all by herself?”

Stabbed? The blood left Hera’s face. If—if that was true, then—

“Eris,” and here Zeus’s voice held the note of warning, “there are some things which are none of your—”

Eris threw her head back and laughed. Hera gasped. That laugh was not Eris’s usual pleased cackle or hearty chuckle. It was something older, something deeper, something that came right from the heart of the goddess Eris was. It was careless and powerful and feral.

And Eris seemed to be enjoying every second of it.

“You denied her xenia, didn’t you, Father?” Eris asked.

Zeus blinked and blanched. “Xenia is for homes, not for places of business—”

“Bullshit!” Eris shouted, and that was closer to the everyday Eris Hera knew. She crossed over arms over her chest and glared up/down at her father. “You denied her shelter and she died! You once destroyed an entire town because they wouldn’t give you and messenger boy a meal! What the fuck do you think is going to happen to you now?”

“You know not of what you speak—”

“Zeus, enough!” Hera snapped. She turned to Eris. “What do you mean, died? She can’t die, she’s—what happened to Ariadne?”

“I told you,” Eris replied with a withering glance. “She got jumped by three angels and three demons and stabbed. Here.” She gestured to her armpit. “Do I need to explain to you what happens when you stab a mostly mortal body there, Mother? Or can I just throw on the last ten minutes of Gladiator and let that tell you?”

Hera hiccupped, and the room spun so hard that she had to grope for the back of a chair to steady herself. Because if what Eris was saying was true – then—

She needed Ariadne alive for this to work!

Eris watched her without pity before turning back to Zeus. “Did you hear the thunder earlier?”

“Believe it or not, some meteorological phenomena have perfectly natural causes.” Zeus’s words were nonchalant, but his eyes were wider than they ought to have been.

“Oh, sure,” Eris said, “except, you know, I’d bet that lightning that flashes when Dionysus first sees Ari’s body – and then thunder that goes off when he finally realizes what he’s seeing – isn’t one of those.”

The sound Zeus made as he sucked in air could have been another thunderclap.

“And he’s the youngest, isn’t he?” Eris grinned. There was something fey lurking behind her eyes, a sharp-toothed bite to the smile. “The youngest Olympian. You tried to set that up, didn’t you? You gave the last throne to the God of Wine and Orgies because you wanted to avoid going the way of Ouranos and Kronos.”

“Eris,” Zeus growled, and—it should have sounded like thunder. It should have shaken the ground. It should have come with the crash of cymbals and the roll of drums.

It didn’t.

“Guess the joke’s on you though, isn’t it?” Eris went on. “Because you gave the last throne to the half-mortal one. And he got his ability to love from the moral half. He loves even though he might lose it. And now that he has – and because you denied the one he loved xenia …”

Eris giggled. “This is going to be so much fun!”

The world shifted, spun sideways on its axis. Stars clicked into alignment; a prophecy took its first breath. And a vision streaked across Hera’s eyes: the Fates in their Underworld cave, Klotho spinning a golden thread shot through with strands of lightning-like silver, Lachesis measuring it out, and Atropos clicking her silver scissors as they inched closer and closer—

NO! Hera thought, stumbled to the desk, and jabbed the intercom. “Hermes and Athena to Zeus’s office, now.”

She leaned against the desk, panting. And dared a glance at Zeus and Eris.

Neither had moved, and the air between them was still charged. Zeus’s hands were balled into fists at his sides. “Even if what you say is true, Dionysus could not defeat me – defeat us – on his own. He’d need allies.”

“And you think he won’t have them?” Eris asked.

As if on cue, a brisk rat-a-tat-tat came from the door, followed by Hermes opening the door and sticking his head in. “You rang?” Athena was right behind him.

It had been Hera’s plan to lay out the situation as clearly and dispassionately as possible. But the best laid plans of any goddess were bound to go askew when Eris was in the room. “Ari’s dead. Murdered by her parents’ old coworkers because Father denied her xenia,” Eris said.

“What?” gasped Athena, while Hermes shouted, “Dead? What do you mean, dead?”

“What one usually means by dead. Body got too banged up, so the soul peaced out,” Eris replied.

Athena threw both hands over her mouth, eyes wide, but Hermes’s eyes narrowed. “So where’s Ari’s soul?”

Hera gasped again, both hands clutching the desk to keep herself upright. Of course. Of course. Even if Ariadne’s body was beyond repair—if her soul was out there somewhere, that could be worked around. Bringing souls out of the Underworld and fitting them with new and even improved bodies was hardly without precedent – Dionysus had done it before!

Even as that hopeful vista opened before her, Eris dashed it. “Well, isn’t that the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question?”

Zeus glared at Eris, but Hera may have been the only one to notice it. Hermes swore; Athena gasped again.

“Where’s Dionysus?” Hermes demanded.

“Alley that-a-way,” Eris pointed. “My bike is parked out front. Can’t miss it.”

Hermes nodded and turned on his heel. But before he could take a step, Zeus said, “And where do you think you’re going?”

Hermes whipped around. “Where the bloody fuck do you think I’m going? To take care of the kid! Same as I’ve been doing since the day he was born! Because someone has to, and Gaia knows it won’t be you!”

He didn’t wait for a response before darting away, leaving Athena alone in the doorway.

But not for long. “I—I’d best go with him. Make sure …” She shook her head and hurried off, calling, “Hermes! Wait for me!”

The door shut behind them.

Hera tried to catch her breath.

Eris didn’t give her the chance. “Looks like you just lost Hermes and Athena,” she said cheerfully to Zeus.

“Young lady—”

“Who do you really think you’re gonna be able to keep?” Eris asked. “The wonder twins, maybe, but between you and me? Given Apollo’s whole ‘prophecy’ deal, I don’t think he’s gonna stick around on a sinking ship, and Artemis will go wherever he goes. Ares will stick with me, and Aphrodite will stick with Ares. Hephaestus might stick with you … or he might decide to switch sides to the god who didn’t throw him off Mount Olympus. Kinda hope he does, to be honest, it’ll be better than therapy for him. Now, you might have had a prayer with Persephone and Hades, since the last thing Hades wants is another war … except, whoops! Persephone and Ari are tight, so the best you’re going to get out of the Underworld is neutrality, and I wouldn’t bet more than a couple drachmas on that. So that means Demeter’s not going to be on your side, either. Aunt Hestia might want to be on your side, because family, but you broke xenia and that’s kind of her thing, so you can kiss her and her baklava goodbye. That leaves Poseidon, who, yeah, is still sore over the whole Theseus debacle. Oh, and Mother.”

Eris smirked at Hera, then turned that smirk back onto Zeus. “Face it, Father. You’re fucked.”

“ERIS!” Zeus bellowed.

It should have reduced Eris to a quivering wreck. She didn’t blink. “You can yell all you want. It’s not gonna save you.”

Zeus took a deep breath. The air crackled with static. And Hera – staring aghast between her husband and her child – realized that she might have to make a choice—

“Although if you listen to me and do exactly what I say,” Eris said, “I might save you.”

The static subsided. Zeus narrowed his eyes. “What?”

“Persephone isn’t the only one who likes Ari. And the thigh-baby.” Eris shrugged. “Like Hermes said – Ari’s soul has to be out there somewhere. And if we help Dionysus get it back, then he might decide he’s got better things to do than tear Olympus down to its foundations and bury you in the rubble. After all,” and here Eris’s smile turned sharp-toothed again, “isn’t that what he’s been deciding ever since he and Ari got together?”

Zeus snorted the question away. “So what do you want me to do?”

Eris laughed. But it wasn’t the careless laugh of earlier. This was her normal cackle – a sign that Eris was up to mischief and ready to cause problems on purpose, but nothing deeper than that.

“I thought you’d never ask,” she said. And told them.

Dionysus had no idea what they were going to do next.

He’d—taken care of Ariadne. He had to think of it like that, because if he thought about it any other way, what little control he had over his thoughts would snap. Persephone had walked him through it, had pointed out that Ariadne couldn’t cross the Styx without it. A little bit of dust, a couple of coins on her eyes, and that was … that.

He hadn’t been expecting Ari to just disappear when he was done. And now he was trying hard to just breathe and not panic.

“Standard discorporation protocol,” Samael had said. “The protections against bacteria tend to wreak havoc on decomposition. So it’s better—”

“Would you just shut up?” Crowley had said, and honestly Dionysus had never been more grateful.

At least whatever happened to Ari hadn’t included her purse. That was good. Her phone was in there, and she’d be annoyed if she had to get a new phone and figure out how to recover data that had literally vanished into the ether.

He was holding onto her purse now. Part of him wanted to take her phone out and—what? Cling to it like it was the last bit of Ariadne he had, because—

No. He couldn’t go thinking like that. If he let himself think like that, he’d lose whatever threads of sanity he had left.

Despite how things looked, Ari wasn’t dead. Not really. Not in a way that counted. To hear the angels and the demons talk about it, this sort of thing happened all the time. They just had to find Ariadne and make sure she was safe, and then get a new body for her. Easy. Totally doable. Even Dionysus had done it before, with his mother.

Except Semele used to be mortal, and that’s a completely different story, and we have no idea how or if we’ll get another “corporation” from the bastards in Heaven and Hell and—

“DIONYSUS!”

Dionysus looked up.

“Now what?” grumbled Samael, earning her glares from Aziraphale and Crowley and a wince from Mephistopheles. (Why were they still here? Samael and Mephistopheles. Aziraphale and Crowley weren’t likely to go anywhere until they figured this out, and if Dionysus was being honest with himself, he didn’t want them to.)

“DIONYSUS, WHERE—oh, thank Gaia.” That was Hermes, rounding the corner of the alley. He looked like he’d run all the way here from Mount Olympus, or maybe just Olympic Holdings.

Dionysus swallowed hard and let out a shaky breath.

Hermes looked him over once, twice, three times. He didn’t even glance at the other occupants of the alley. “You look like shit, kid.”

And Dionysus couldn’t help it. He laughed. It came out sounding more like a sob.

Quicker than thought, Hermes stepped into the alley, not just into the alley, up to Dionysus, sweeping his arms around him and holding on tight. “It’s ok. It’s ok.”

Dionysus shook his head. “Ari—”

“I know. Eris told us.”

Us? Dionysus thought, and, Eris? He supposed that answered one question, even if it raised a bunch of others—

“Just let it out,” Hermes said.

“I—” I can’t, he wanted to say, I have shit to do, we have to get her back, I don’t have time to fall apart right now—

But then … a few lines streaked through his mind. The Scottish play, Act 4, Scene 3. Macduff having just learned that “all my pretty chickens and their dam / At one fell swoop” were cut down by Macbeth’s hired hands. And then Malcolm, useless as ever, insisting that Macduff “dispute it like a man.”

And Macduff – once again proving himself to be the only one in the play with two braincells to rub together – retorting, “I shall do so / But I must also feel it as a man!”

Dionysus was not a man. But he did need to feel it.

He threw his arms around Hermes and sobbed.

He had no idea how long he stood there. Time hadn’t been working properly since he left Olympic Holdings anyway. All he knew was that eventually the storm passed, as all storms had to, the sobs turned into hiccups, and Dionysus was able to breathe and think enough to pull back.

Hermes shot him a small sideways grin and absently brushed a few tears away, eyes flickering over Dionysus’s face. For a second Dionysus was just a kid again, hiding in the bushes after Hera drove his first foster-mothers mad, having no idea what would happen next but hoping against hope that his cool big brother would somehow be able to fix things.

“Ok, kid?” Hermes asked, just as he had then.

And just like he had then, Dionysus shook his head. “No. Not at all.”

“Yeah, I know.” Hermes ruffled his hair. “But it will be. Not now, maybe not for a while, but it will be.”

Dionysus swallowed and nodded. Because this – this wasn’t like when he was a kid. Back then he hadn’t been able to do anything to protect his foster-mothers from Hera’s wrath. Now? Now Ari was counting on him, and he’d be damned before he’d let her down.

“Dionysus?”

Dionysus jumped and looked around Hermes. “Athena?”

She smiled tightly; emotions were not Athena’s thing. “I—I talked to … everyone,” she gestured around the alley. “I—I think I understand what happened, so you needn’t go into it if you’d rather not. I just—I am very sorry.”

“Thanks,” Dionysus said, and meant it.

“And we’re gonna fix this,” Hermes said, slinging an arm over Dionysus’s shoulder. “Ok?”

Dionysus nodded. “Yeah. I know.”

“Good.” Hermes squeezed Dionysus a little closer. Then he glanced at Mephistopheles and Samael. “You two,” he snapped his fingers, “are you here to help, or do we have to take you out? And don’t try to lie; I’ll know.”

Perhaps to their credit, they did not try to lie. They exchanged the kind of speaking glances that only entities who had been friends for centuries or longer could manage. Mephistopheles was the first to speak. “We—we’re here to help.”

Hermes narrowed his eyes, nodded once, and turned to Samael. “Why?”

Samael sighed explosively and ran a hand over her face. Mephistopheles nudged her, and—held out his thumb? Which was on fire?

Samael saw it, grinned, and snapped a cigarette into her fingers. She lit it and took a long drag. When she breathed out, she turned back to Hermes.

“Do you have any idea how fucking miserable Heaven is?”

Aziraphale choked. Crowley’s eyebrows practically escaped into his hairline.

“Not firsthand, but I’ve met enough of your most holier-than-thou believers to not dispute the idea.” Hermes glanced sidelong at Dionysus and grinned. “Anyplace our brother Thou-Shalt-Not-Commit-Adultery would want to go can’t be a place we’d much enjoy.”

Dionysus laughed, ignoring for the moment Athena’s shocked look and the sudden widening of Aziraphale’s eyes.

Samael, however, just nodded. “Right. Well, Heaven’s awful. Hell is …” She turned to Mephistopheles, one eyebrow raised.

“Worse,” he said, “but even I wouldn’t want to go back to Heaven just to escape it.”

“Right. Both sides are miserable enough that we were counting down the days to Armageddon because at least that’ll be a fucking end. And then those two,” she gestured at Aziraphale and Crowley with her cigarette, “had to go and ruin everything. Or so we thought.”

“Because we thought you’d gone native,” Mephistopheles did. “That you just … liked earth, and humans, so you saved them. And didn’t spare a thought for the rest of us.”

“And why the bloody Heaven should we, you blithering—” Crowley started.

Samael glared at him, but if Dionysus knew Crowley half as well as he thought he did, that wasn’t what stopped the rant. It was Aziraphale’s hand on his arm that did that.

“But then we found the redhead. Ariadne.” Samael took another drag of her cigarette. “And realized that maybe …”

“Maybe there’s another way,” Mephistopheles said quietly.

“Because she shouldn’t exist.” Samael glared at Aziraphale and Crowley. “Never mind that the two of you should have been too busy trying to discorporate each other to get to the point where making her would even come up—”

“Archangel,” and now Aziraphale sounded almost as he had when he’d been threatening Mephistopheles, “shouldn’t she who is without sin cast the first stone?”

Samael shot a sideways glance at Mephistopheles, who smiled and shrugged. She smiled back. “All right, point. My point is, though, that angels and demons, even if you can find a couple pairs that don’t want to kill each other on sight, shouldn’t be able to make—to make life. But you two did. Which means either you two are a lot more special than we gave you credit for, or we’ve been wrong about a lot of things.”

“We’ve definitely been wrong about a lot of things,” Mephistopheles said quietly. “We just don’t know what they are yet. And we’ll never find out if Ariadne is dead.”

“Hmmmm,” Hermes murmured. “That checks out to me. Athena?”

Athena started, drawn from a reverie that had involved a great deal of staring at Mephistopheles. “I—think what they’re saying makes a certain amount of sense, yes.”

“Then today is your lucky day,” Hermes said, “because if I believe you, and Athena believes you, then your odds of getting chained up in Tartarus next to Granddad just got a lot lower.”

Mephistopheles went white. Samael narrowed her eyes, took another drag of the cigarette, and breathed the smoke out forcefully through her nose, like a dragon.

Dionysus could sense the tension ratchetting up, and even as it settled between his shoulder blades, he ached to shrug it off and just be done with it all. The last thing he wanted to deal with was a tetchy archangel who clearly needed something a lot stronger than nicotine to take the edge off—

He was wrong about that.

Lightning split the sky just as the actual last thing he wanted to deal with appeared at the end of the alley.

Dionysus blinked, and his heart started to hammer. Apparently there were more things he had to feel as a man, because he found himself pushing Hermes’s arm off and marching down the alley, both hands balled into fists—

He didn’t even know what he planned to do with his hands until the thunder cracked – or maybe that was just the sound of his fist hitting Zeus’s jaw.

And Zeus – king of the gods and stronger than the rest of them combined, or so he claimed – stumbled back a full step.

“Dionysus!” Hera gasped, and Eris cackled, and Athena and Hermes probably had some comments to make as well, but Dionysus wasn’t hearing any of it. Instead he stared at his father and raged.

“Would it have fucking killed you to let her wait in the lobby?!”

Lightning flashed again.

And Zeus looked up.

He rubbed and worked his jaw experimentally, first open, then closed. Then he swallowed.

Then he spoke.

“No.”

The thunder rumbled, low and almost apologetic.

“If we had any idea that she’d be in danger, we never would have sent her out,” Hera said, hands out before her, grasping at Dionysus, as if she’d—as if she’d—

Dionysus wasn’t sure what she was planning to do, but he stumbled away from it, backwards into Hermes, who once again put an arm around his shoulders. “Hera. Leave the kid alone.”

Now Hera raised both hands in mute surrender. “I mean you no harm, Dionysus. And we meant her no harm. I swear by the—”

“No! I don’t care. There’s no point. You needed her alive.” Dionysus shook his head and turned to his father. “You swear.”

Zeus opened his mouth, even raised his right hand. But he didn’t get any farther than that.

“Tell him,” Eris said.

Dionysus and Zeus both turned to her in confusion. But Eris was only looking at Dionysus. “Tell him exactly what you want him to swear. Otherwise it won’t mean anything.”

Dionysus blinked, and—right. Right. Of course. Leave the wording to Zeus and he’d manage to swear something that was technically true and entirely meaningless. Dionysus swallowed hard and closed his eyes and tried to think.

“Swear,” he said finally, “that—that you didn’t mean her any harm. Any!” He swallowed again. “And swear that if you’d known that she’d be in danger, that you would have found a way to protect her.”

“And swear,” Eris added, “that since you fucked up so epically earlier this evening, you’ll do everything in your power to help fix things now.”

Zeus glared at her. Eris smiled sunnily back at him.

He sighed and rolled his eyes. But once again, he raised his right hand. His eyes began to glow. “I, Zeus, King of the Gods, do swear by the Styx that I meant Ariadne, lover of Dionysus, no harm. Furthermore, I swear by the Styx that had I known she was in danger, I would have protected her. And finally, I swear by the Styx that I will now lend my son Dionysus my aid as he restores Ariadne to her rightful place among gods and men.”

Styx’s power reached out from the Underworld, and Dionysus felt the binding. Zeus neither blinked nor flinched. Not even when a gale-force wind ripped through the alley, plastering their clothes to their bodies and sending Mephistopheles stumbling.

Only when it was gone did Zeus close his eyes, and when he opened them, the glow was gone.

“Does that satisfy you, son?” he asked.

“We’re here to help,” Hera added, and she didn’t reach out for him again – thank Gaia – simply slipped her arm through Zeus’s.

Dionysus glanced at Eris. She grinned at him and winked.

… He’d probably owe Eris a century’s worth of favors by the time this was done. But they’d be worth it, once he had Ariadne back.

Dionysus took a deep breath and looked up at Zeus. “We need to get to the Underworld. Persephone said they’d keep Ari safe if she’s down there.”

Zeus nodded. “Then to the Underworld we shall go.”

Wherever Ariadne was, it was dark. Warm, too, that perfect tropical beach, fall-asleep-and-wake-up-golden-brown warmth. There was softness and coolness underneath her, and around her, birds sang, a breeze whispered through leaves, and a brook babbled.

There was something deeply wrong about everything she could hear and feel, but Ariadne’s thoughts refused to cooperate for long enough for her to figure out just what it was.

She shifted and was rewarded with an all-over ache that was akin to a hangover, but at the same time, not at all like a hangover. Instinct took over, and she blinked her eyes open.

Ow!

There was light. There was lots of light, and it was all stabby.

Ariadne winced, brought one hand up to shield her eyes, and tried to sit up. Everything hurt more, but she kept going. It wasn’t unbearable; she just—for starters, she wished she could remember what she had been drinking or smoking or snorting or whatever last night, so she knew to never, ever do it again. And she wished—

Ariadne blinked.

She’d been looking at the hand she was using to shield her eyes from the light, and it—Ariadne blinked again. Blinked a few more times, just to be sure she was seeing what she thought she was seeing.

Why was her hand translucent?!

Ariadne brought her hand down and stared at it. It wasn’t fully translucent, just wavy and watery. And as she stared at it, it got worse.

Ariadne put her hand back on the ground in a hurry. And doing so, she got her first proper look around.

Where in Tartarus’s name was she?

It looked like – a park? A wilderness? Were there any true wildernesses left these days? It was grassy, with trees growing every few feet – not thick enough for a forest, not sparse enough for a plain or savannah. Improbably, three trees near her managed to be flowering and fruiting at the same time. And the same could be said of two of the bushes.

Even more improbably, there were three deer not five feet away: a stag, a doe, and a fawn. The fawn gazed at her curiously, its head tilted to one side. The parents didn’t pay her any mind at all.

And—Ariadne’s stomach lurched and she started to scoot backward. There – maybe ten feet back from the deer – was a lion. Freaking Mufasa come to life. Except it wasn’t looking at her, it was looking at—

That was a lamb.

And the lion was giving it a bath?!?

“The fuck?!” Ariadne heard herself say, and that was probably a huge mistake, because that would alert the lion she was there, and she really didn’t want to have to find out whether she could fly when she felt like—

“Mmmrrph?”

Ariadne froze.

She knew that voice. That vague questioning lilt. And the timbre too – the sound that bovine-style vocal cords would make if they only had human-sized lungs powering them. It had been nearly thirty-eight hundred years since she’d last heard it, but she’d know it anywhere.

It was coming from behind her.

But it couldn’t be who she was thinking.

Slowly, Ariadne turned around.

Her breath hitched.

And her voice, cracked, broken, a little teary, asked without getting permission from her brain, “… Asterion?”

The half-man, half-bull behind her didn’t smile. His mouth had never worked that way. But he clapped his (large, man-like) hands, he huffed, and he wiggled in a way that suggested if he hadn’t been kneeling that he would have been pawing at the ground.

And his ears. His ears flapped!

That was what told Ariadne that this was Asterion – because even if there had been other half-men, half-bulls wandering around, with Asterion’s exact reddish fur and the same white blaze over the left eye, none of them would have flapped their ears when Ariadne said Asterion’s name.

“Asterion!”

It was half a sob, half a shout, and Ariadne didn’t care. She stumbled to her feet and forgot that Asterion could be shy about sudden movements and didn’t like to be touched, especially after he’d been locked in the labyrinth. Because in that moment, all she saw was her brother.

And Asterion threw his arms out wide, and Ariadne launched herself into them, and Asterion caught her and held her tight, and Ariadne wrapped her arms around his neck and sobbed into his shoulder. “Asterion! You’re ok, you’re ok …”

She didn’t know how long she might have repeated those two words like a mantra, except Asterion had something to say.

“… Mmmrph?”

Confusion. Ariadne leaned back to see Asterion looking down at her, fixing her with one eye and tilting his head to one side.

“Asterion?” Ariadne asked, voice very small and frightened, because clearly she’d gone wrong somewhere and—

“He doesn’t speak English,” said a voice from over Ariadne’s shoulder. “He knows his name, but he can’t understand anything else you’re saying to him.”

The voice wasn’t speaking English. It was speaking Greek, Minoan Greek. And clearly Asterion understood it, because he nodded and patted Ariadne’s head – his favored way of showing affection, because that was how he most liked to receive it.

Ariadne understood it too, because no matter how many centuries had passed since she’d spoken it aloud, she couldn’t very well forget her own mother tongue.

She leaned back, wondering if she dared to turn around. Wondering what she’d find, because she hadn’t recognized that voice.

But what choice did she have? She turned.

If the voice had come from the only human-like entity she could see, then it belonged to the blond woman with short, curly hair sitting on a rock about ten feet off. She looked to be in late middle age, with smile lines crinkling around her eyes and her lips. She had large dimples, which Ariadne knew because she was smiling.

“Hello, Ariadne,” she said, still in Minoan. “How are you feeling?”

How was she feeling? Out of all the questions this mysterious smiling woman could ask, that was the one? Why would she—

A great deal of memory chose that moment to come rushing back to her. Getting kicked out of Olympic Holdings. The alley. Three angels and three demons surrounding her. And the bitchy one, Samael, carrying her up in the air and twisting her neck—

“Oh, fuck,[1]” Ariadne gasped. Asterion made a noise that was his equivalent of a gasp. “I’m dead, aren’t I?”

“No, not at all.” The woman smiled at her. “Just discorporated.”

“Discorporated” was in English. She looked up at Asterion, who looked as confused as she felt.

“And …” Ariadne swallowed. “What does ‘discorporated’ mean?”

The woman blinked. “Oh—of course. You wouldn’t know unless your fathers told you, would you?”

“My fath—”

The woman waved her hand as if Ariadne’s stuttering panic meant nothing. “Yes, yes, I know all about them. And don’t worry, I’m not here to harm you or them. Now as for your question …” The woman flopped back on her rock, hands under her head and staring at the sky. “Think of it as being something like an out-of-body experience with a dash of only mostly dead.”

“As in, ‘mostly dead is slightly alive’?” Ariadne asked.

“Oh, I do love that movie. Between you, me, and Asterion, it’s some of your and Dionysus’s best work.” The woman sat up on her elbows, grinning even as Ariadne’s mind began to shout unhelpful things like what the fuck and run and Somebody, Anybody, help me! “Now, to answer your question – well, in your case it’s a lot more than slightly alive. The corporation is … a tool, really. Something like a hazmat suit that angels and demons put on when having to deal with humans.”

Ariadne rubbed her temples and told herself now was not the time to panic. “When you say corporation—”

“Body,” the woman filled in.

“Right. And that is—”

“Very much dead. Samael took care of that quite thoroughly, bless her.”

Great. Just great. “So—how is that functionally different from me being dead?”

“Well, when a human or … human-adjacent person,” the woman gestured to Asterion, who flapped his ears, “is dead, then that’s usually it for them. The soul goes on to the afterlife and there they stay. Or they move on to the next life, if that’s where their faith leads them. The point is, the soul won’t be returning to that life again. Oh, there are exceptions,” the woman went on, “but those are few and far between and need quite a bit of divine oomph behind them, if you know what I mean.”

Ariadne wasn’t sure what this said about her, but she rather did think she knew what the woman meant.

“Whereas with discorporation … well, if your hazmat suit gets too banged up to be used again, you just go and get a new one.”

“A new body?” Ariadne asked.

“Corporation, technically, but yes, a new body.”

Ariadne blinked. She again looked up at Asterion, wondering if he understood this any better than she did.

He grunted and patted her head.

Ariadne closed her eyes, took a deep breath, opened them, and looked back at the woman. She had dozens of questions she could ask, but decided to limit herself to the simplest and most important one.

“How?”

“Ah! That is the question!” the woman said, kicking her heels and sitting up in a motion far too fluid for a body as old as that one looked. “Come on. Walk with me. We have much to discuss.”

Walk with—Ariadne thought, but she felt herself getting up, heard Asterion get up behind her and put a steadying hand on her shoulder. She opened her mouth—

The woman was walking away.

“Wait!”

If they had been on Earth, Ariadne’s shout would have made every bird in the trees nearby take flight. The deer would have run away, and the lion—Ariadne didn’t want to think about the lion.[2] As it was, the stag and fawn barely flicked their ears; the doe shot her a look that seemed to say, How rude!; the lion kept bathing the lamb; and the birds didn’t even notice.

Meanwhile, the woman stopped, turned around, and raised an eyebrow, as if Ariadne had simply politely requested that she slow down instead of shouting it. “Yes?”

Once again, Ariadne had questions. Too many questions. She focused on the simple ones first. “Who—who are you? And where are we?”

The woman smirked. “To answer your first question, ehyeh asher ehyeh – though you can call me …” The woman tilted her head back, surveying the sky and the birds as if they held the answer to her question. “Eloise! That’ll do. And to answer your second …”

Eloise smiled and spread her hands. “Welcome to Eden.”

[1] Or rather, the Minoan equivalent.

[2] The lamb didn’t enter into her thinking, because the lamb would have already been lunch.

Chapter Text

Ariadne was not in the Underworld.

“The Styx shores are not as crowded as they once were,” Hades told them, not unkindly, shortly after they arrived. “And even if they were, Ariadne would be rather conspicuous. If she’d ended up there, we would have found her.”

To say that had not been what any of them had wanted to hear would be a massive understatement. And it doubtless would have led to several rounds of fruitless argument, except that one of them (Athena) had the wisdom to nip that in the bud.

“Then if she is not here, if she is not in Hell, and she is not in Heaven, we ought to seek wisdom from someone who can see beyond the borders of what is commonly known. I propose that we consult the Fates,” Athena said.

“Why?” Dionysus asked. “Ari’s already tried talking to them. They couldn’t help her find …” He gestured vaguely at Aziraphale and Crowley. “Said something about—”

“The thread of her fate was not theirs to spin, yes, I know,” Athena said, causing Dionysus to give her a hard look. “But that was a different question.”

Athena looked ready to go on, but Eris interrupted. “And there’s nobody more gossipy than prophetic gods and goddesses. Even if they don’t know where to find her, they probably know who does.”

Zeus gave Eris a speculative, distrusting look. “How do you know that?”

“Well, first of all, have you met Apollo? About yea high, blond, has a twin sister he is, shall we say, disturbingly close to?” Eris answered, one eyebrow raised. “Second – and more importantly – I talk to people. People outside the family, even. Us pain-in-the-ass divinities have to stick together.”

Zeus seemed ready to argue further, but Hermes was having none of it. “Well, I’m sold. If Athena and Eris actually agree on your next step, you’re pretty dumb to do anything else.”

Hermes’s point carried the day. They would consult the Fates.

The Fates lived in a cave only a short walk from the city where Hades, Persephone and the other deities of the Underworld lived. At any other time, Aziraphale would have been goggling all around, taking everything in. Consorting with other pantheons had definitely been above his (proverbial) paygrade, back when he’d been on Heaven’s (proverbial) payroll, but he’d been in the human world so long that he’d heard all the tales, and to have the chance to compare what the humans had created with reality—at any other time, it would have been manna from Heaven.

Now, it was all he could do to hold tightly to Crowley’s hand – or was he allowing Crowley to hold tightly to his? – and hope with everything he had that the Fates could tell them how to find Ariadne and bring her home again.

They had barely stepped up to the cave when an eldritch voice called from within, “Enter, questioners, for here you will find answers.”

Crowley had gone quite still at that, and Aziraphale gave his hand a squeeze that was meant to be reassuring. Crowley squeezed back hard enough to have given Aziraphale’s hand some pain, had he had any ability to pay attention to such things.

They went in, all twelve of them – Hades and Persephone, Dionysus with Hermes at his elbow, Aziraphale and Crowley, Athena and Eris, Zeus and Hera, and finally Samael and Mephistopheles bringing up the rear.[1] Hades was the first to speak, once they were all inside. “Venerable Ones,” he said, inclining his head. “We come—”

“We know what you seek, Sons and Daughter of Kronos, Sons and Daughters of Zeus, Sons and Daughter of She Who Is That She Is,” said one of the – Aziraphale would call them women; they were all female-shaped and quite ancient. This one must have been Klotho, since she carried a spindle and focused nearly all her attention on the thread she was spinning between her fingers.

“We know that you wish to return to the mortal world the One who was Lost and then Found and Lost Again,” said the second woman – Lachesis, who held the thread her sister had spun and measured it in her hands.

“We know this, for we know all,” said the third sister, who had to be Atropos, cutting the thread Lachesis had measured with her silver scissors.

Looking at the scissors glinting in the low lamplight and knowing what they meant, Aziraphale tried not to shudder.

Hades took a deep breath, the sort one would take while gathering one’s patience. Persephone put a hand on the small of his back. “Yes. Of course. You’ve mentioned. May we—”

“We will speak to the lover of the Lost One,” said Klotho, “the God of Wine and Revelry, Son of Gods and Mortals, Wild One—”

“Where’s Ariadne?” Dionysus interrupted.

Aziraphale winced; someone gasped; and Hades smacked his forehead.

“Kid,” Hermes said reprovingly.

Dionysus simply raised his eyebrow at the three women.

Lachesis answered, never taking her eyes from the thread she measured in her hands. “That, we cannot tell you.”

Dionysus took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders, sending power rippling through the cave. Aziraphale gulped. The power wasn’t quite what Dionysus had unleashed when Zeus had come to the alley, but it was close. Worryingly close.

“Our responses are limited,” said Atropos with a snip of the silver scissors. “You must ask the right questions.”

Something in that reply made Dionysus startle and snap to attention. “The right questions.”

“Perhaps—” Athena began.

Dionysus waved a hand at her. “Do you know where Ariadne is?”

“That is not the right question,” Klotho said.

“And is that what you truly wish to know, Roaring One?” Lachesis added.

Dionysus’s eyes narrowed, and he frowned. “How do we get Ariadne back?”

“Ah,” said Atropos, and perhaps Aziraphale was hallucinating, but he thought – he truly thought – that he saw her smile. “That is the right question.”

Then, carefully, she put her scissors on a nearby table. Klotho did the same with her spindle. And Lachesis set her thread to the side.

The three of them stood and moved to the center of the room in eerie unison.

There was no logical reason why such simple actions should be so weighed down by meaning, except, of course, for the magical power building around them – something like the change in air pressure when flying, the type that made the ears of one’s corporation start to hurt, except no amount of yawning or swallowing would relieve the building pressure, and one’s ears felt rather less likely to pop than to explode.

Aziraphale wasn’t quite certain how it happened, but as the pressure built he and Crowley inched closer until they were standing shoulder-to-shoulder. And they were not alone. Hera and Zeus; Hades and Persephone; Athena, Hermes, and Eris – even Samael and Mephistopheles – all had moved closer together.

Only Dionysus remained alone, arms crossed over his chest, gaze not moving from the three sisters in front of him.

The three of them came together, hands up, fingertips just brushing. Then they moved apart, a glittering web of power spun between them. The power-web hung still in the space they made.

And in the web, three ghostly images appeared: a sword, a crown, and a set of scales.

Aziraphale’s stomach plunged. Oh, no …

“These are the three harbingers of Armageddon. The Sword of War,” said Klotho.

“The Scales of Famine,” added Lachesis.

“And the Crown of Pollution,” said Atropos.

“To put these objects in the hands of their Horsemen would be to start Armageddon over again,” Klotho said.

“And should that happen, there is no force, mortal or immortal, that could halt its progress,” Lachesis said.

“The world, as we know it, would end,” Atropos said.

“And make no mistake – there is a thread of Fate in which Heaven and Hell learn from their mistakes, devise a stronger strategem, and send these objects back out into the world, into the hands of their waiting Horsemen,” said Klotho.

Crowley groaned. “We never should have given the bloody things back to the deliveryman.”

“Well, we couldn’t have very well kept them,” Aziraphale said.

“Quite.” More than one person seemed to start when Samael spoke. She simply raised an eyebrow at them. “Holy Water and Hellfire are a cakewalk compared to what we would have done to you if you’d tried keeping them.”

If anyone other than Samael had said that, Aziraphale would have replied, very gently, that the statement was not as reassuring as the speaker had intended it to be. Since it was Samael who had said that, Aziraphale assumed it was exactly as reassuring as she had intended to be and kept his mouth shut.

“Anyway. You were saying?” Samael asked, turning back to the Fates.

Lachesis smiled. It was—well. If Aziraphale slept, and if angels could dream, it was the type of smile that would have given him nightmares. “Yours is a stiff-necked people, and you know this well, Archangel of Destruction. But the tapestry of Time has many threads. It is not necessary that this particular future come to pass.”

“The Scales of Famine and the Crown of Pollution must be removed from their resting places and brought to the Underworld. This is the Fates’ decree,” Atropos said.

“I’m sorry, you want these highly dangerous, potentially world-ending objects brought where?” Hades asked.

“And—and,” Aziraphale stammered, “what about the sword?”[2]

The sword flickered, faded, and finally vanished from the power-web.

“The Sword of War is not your concern,” said Klotho. “A different strand of Fate will lead it to its destiny.”

“And though the scales and crown must be brought here, it is not the Fates’ decree that they remain here,” Lachesis said to Hades. “Their destiny will be revealed in time.”

Hades did not appear mollified by that statement. Next to him, Persephone’s nostrils flared, and she took what could only be called a deep, calming breath.

“As for the Lost One,” Atropos said, turning a gimlet eye to Dionysus, as if she could read his thoughts – which Aziraphale would not necessarily put past her, “she will not be Found until both of these objects cross the Styx shore and rest side-by-side in this very cave.”

Dionysus took a deep breath, staring at the power-web and the images of the scales and crown, and expelled it forcefully. “Right. So. Get the scales, get the crown, get Ariadne back. Fine. Easy.” He looked up. “So where do we find them?”

In unison, the sisters let their hands fall. The power-web disappeared, and with it, the images. “It is not our place to tell you that,” Klotho said.

“The knowledge and tools you need to succeed can already be found among your party,” Lachesis added.

“You simply must make use of them,” Atropos concluded.

And with that, the three sat down again. Klotho picked up her spindle, Lachesis her thread, and Atropos her scissors as if their guests had already left.

Dionysus still stood alone, though now his hands had balled into fists and trembled at his side. Hermes took a step forward and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Kid—”

Dionysus turned—to Aziraphale and Crowley. “They said we already know what we need to know to succeed. So—do you? Do you know where we can find these things?”

Aziraphale felt the blood drain out of his face and glanced at Crowley to find that he looked rather the same as Aziraphale felt. “Hell—this sort of thing is only shared on a need-to-know basis in Hell, and …” Crowley started.

“And all Gabriel would say was that it wasn’t his department,” Aziraphale fretted.

“Well, obviously,” said Samael.

Dionysus, Crowley, and Aziraphale – and for that matter, everyone else in the cave who wasn’t one of the Fates – stared at her.

Her hands were shoved in her pockets, and she rested on her heels in the sort of faux-casual stance that a trained warrior could turn into a kick, punch, or stab in the space of an eyeblink. Aziraphale resolved not to blink. “It was my department, not Gabriel’s.”

“So you know where we can find the crown and the scales?” Dionysus said.

“Sure. The crown is in Heaven, in the Reliquary,” said Samael. “The scales – well, I know they’re in Hell, but I’m not sure where—”

“The Bins,” Mephistopheles breathed. He started when all the gazes that had been trained on Samael turned to him. “It’s where everything important ends up. I mean, if it’s not a file …”

“Right,” Crowley said, nodding, and Aziraphale – he’d have to put his faith in that. It wasn’t the same as certain knowledge, but he would take what he could get.

“Ok, so, great,” Hermes said, sighing and running a hand through his hair. “We need to get a crown out of Heaven, a set of scales out of Hell, and … there’s absolutely no way we can all sneak in either of those places. Five Olympians, a realm-king and -queen, and Eris—no matter how much we try to mask ourselves, that’s going to light up every alarm they have, and that’s assuming we can smuggle the angels and demons past whatever anti-angelic/demonic defenses they have—”

“And to attack in numbers large enough to make a frontal assault feasible would simply bring about Armageddon by slightly different means,” Athena said.

“Unless, of course, we win,” Zeus pointed out.

“We wouldn’t,” said Hermes.

“That is hardly written in—”

“Are you all really that stupid?” Eris interrupted. “Or has it just been so fucking long since any of us had a real quest to run that you’ve forgotten how it works?”

Zeus, Athena, and Hermes all turned to her with raised eyebrows. But Hera was the one who spoke. “Your point, dear?”

“Medusa’s head,” Eris said. “The Erymanthian Boar. The Cretan Bull. The Mares of Diomedes. The—”

“You seem rather fixated on some of your brothers’ deeds,” Hera interrupted, one hand on her hip and glaring.

Eris glared back. “The Golden Fleece.”

Now Hera’s eyes widened.

“When we need something, do we get our hands dirty and fetch it ourselves? Of course not. Not when there are willing mortals – or the next best thing – and—”

“Tabletop,” Athena breathed. Her face lit up. “Oh, it’s been so long since we played proper tabletop! With actual heroes and monsters!”

“See, this one gets it.” Eris gestured to Athena. “Now come on, let’s head back to my place. I’ve got the perfect setup for it.”

Despite what he had claimed in several reports he’d sent down to Hell in the 1980s, Crowley had not been responsible for either Dungeons & Dragons or the various Satanic panics that had accompanied it. But he knew about it. He knew what the boards and maps looked like, what kinds of figurines the players might choose. He considered himself a minor expert on the matter of dice. After all, the devil was in the details, and he bloody well needed the details to write a convincing report.[3] So, all in all, Crowley certainly recognized what a good setup for Dungeons & Dragons or another tabletop game looked like.

And Eris had a very, very good setup. It wasn’t just a matter of ample snacks or comfy chairs – speaking of which, Eris had splurged on gaming-style chairs, the types with sinfully comfortable cushioning and built-in cupholders. It was the ample stock of writing implements of just about every kind – from wax tablets and styli to spiral-bound notebooks and pens to handheld tablets of the electronic type. It was the entire wall of dice to choose from. It was the gameboard itself, wrought in flickering godly magic, three-dimensional and beautifully intricate.

While Crowley found the fact that the gameboard currently showed an eerily accurate birds-eye view of Hell somewhat disquieting, he decided that wasn’t his problem to worry about. Hell could look after itself. He was frankly more curious about the bank of televisions on the wall opposite the dice.

Zeus, however, had different priorities.

“You did what?!”

“It wasn’t just me; it was Loki and me,” Eris said, not for the first time. “And it kept us occupied for the whole seventeenth century. I didn’t hear you complaining at the time.”

“If the Abrahamics had realized that you were sneaking into their strongholds and mapping them out – for a game,” Zeus said, “do you have any idea what they would have done?”

Eris raised an eyebrow. “Why do you think it took us a whole fucking century? We were making certain we didn’t get caught! Besides, we didn’t just map the places out …”

Eris waved her hand at the bank of televisions, which lit up in unison. On each screen was a different part of Hell from a different angle.

Eris waved her hand again, and the views on the screens switched from Hell to Heaven.

“We made sure we’d know what was going on when they changed things up. You’re welcome.” Eris flopped into the largest, most cushioned chair at the table and grabbed one of the electronic tablets. “Now, are we playing? Or are we yelling at me for things I did centuries ago that are coming in super handy now, which, again, you’re welcome?”

Zeus took a deep breath and let it out again, like a bull getting ready to charge.

“Father,” Athena said. She put a hand lightly on his elbow. “Though I cannot condone Eris’s foolhardiness in seeking this information in the first place, she managed to do it with impunity, and she’s given us a great gift. One that may yet be even more useful, should Hell and Heaven prove …” Athena cast a glance over her shoulder, one part calculating, one part guilty, as her gaze swept over Crowley, Aziraphale, Samael, and Mephistopheles.

“Bigger arseholes than usual?” Crowley asked. “And don’t give me that look, angel, they did their damnedest to kill us both, and—”

He choked, unable to finish the sentence. Aziraphale heard its logical conclusion anyway and winced.

“It’s all right, dear boy,” he said, giving Crowley’s hand a squeeze. “We’re going to get her back.”

And with that, Aziraphale swallowed and turned back to the gods, something like steel flashing in his normally mild blue eyes. “Right. So, how does this work?”

“Well, first, we all pick a hero to sponsor. And I pick Crowley,” Eris said.

Crowley started, not sure whether to be surprised, flattered, or terrified.

“Campaign master doesn’t get a hero,” Hermes said.

“There’s only a campaign master when the quest is running on Earth,” Eris replied. “Unless, of course, one of you has the ability to alter reality in Heaven or Hell – in which case, have at it, because Loki and I couldn’t quite figure that shit out.”

“Persephone and I can be campaign masters, if needed,” Hades said.

Every single god, angel, and demon – except Persephone – stared at him.

Hades simply smiled. “Mortals have long conflated the Underworld with Heaven and Hell. We do not rule there as we do here …”

“But we have influence. Hopefully it will be enough,” said Persephone. She grabbed a notepad, took a chair and snapped her fingers. A paper screen appeared before her and the notepad she’d placed on the table.

Hades took up a wax tablet and stylus and sat next to her, angling his tablet behind the screen.

“Right,” Hera said. “In that case, I shall sponsor Aziraphale.”

“I—beg your pardon?” Aziraphale stuttered.

“Thank me for the honor later,” Hera said, waving a dismissive hand at him and slipping into one of the seats next to Eris as if it were a throne.

Zeus glanced at Dionysus. “Son, I think it is only fair that you choose next—or if you wish to sponsor Crowley or Aziraphale, I’m sure—”

“Sponsor?” Dionysus asked. “I’m not sponsoring anyone. I’m going.”

“Is that so?” Zeus asked, a light catching in his eyes. “In that case—”

“And you’re out of your damn mind,” Dionysus went on, “if you think for one minute that I need—”

“Anyone other than your favorite brother to sponsor you, thank you,” Hermes said, collapsing into the chair on Eris’s other side and snapping a tablet – an electronic one – into his fingers. “Or rather, you, Dionysus, can thank me, Hermes, later.”

There was a moment of tossed glares, bunched fists, and raised eyebrows – the sort of silent fraternal disagreement that nevertheless managed to speak volumes. But when Dionysus sighed and let his head fall, Hermes grinned. “All right,” Dionysus said. “Hermes, then.”

“And I shall sponsor Mephistopheles,” Athena said, perhaps trying to stave off a second round of argument, this one between Zeus and Hermes. Or perhaps just trying to claim her favorite hero before he got snatched up, to judge by the smile she tossed Mephistopheles’s way.

He didn’t seem to know what to do with the sponsorship or the smile. “M-me, ma’am?” he stammered, blinking.

“But of course,” Athena said, sitting on Hermes’s other side. She took a wax tablet and almost immediately began writing on it. “Who else?”

Samael caught Mephistopheles by the elbow before he could do anything too embarrassing with that news. Then she glanced at Zeus with the sort of arch, glittering smile that could mask a great deal – and where, Crowley wondered, had an archangel learned to smile like that? “It appears we’re stuck with each other, Your Majesty.”

Zeus raised an eyebrow … and smiled. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” He sat next to Hera and drew a notebook closer to himself. “I daresay your stats are quite strong for a hero of your …” He cast a long, calculating look over Crowley, Aziraphale, and Mephistopheles. “Species, shall we say?”

Samael shrugged, hands plunged in her pockets, and nodded.

“Well, now that that’s out of the way,” Persephone said, “traditional next order of business would be gifts.”

“Gifts?” Aziraphale asked.

“It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this,” Eris said, which made Hermes snicker.

“I—what?” Aziraphale asked.

“The sponsors typically give their heroes gifts – weapons and other tools – to help them along the quest,” Athena explained.

If Crowley had been seated at the table, he would have had a moment of panic – because, well, when he’d started the evening, he certainly hadn’t expected an improvised godly D&D campaign to be part of it, and that sort of thing took some preparation, didn’t it? Certainly no one could pull the sort of quest-easing gifts were supposed to hand out directly from their bottoms.

Except, clearly, this bunch could, because almost immediately Zeus held out his hand, and with a crack of thunder that made Hades glare at him, a spear appeared in it. Or something like a spear. The shaft looked perfectly normal, but instead of being tipped with a typical spear-point, it had a stylized lightning bolt.

“Thunder-spear,” Zeus said, holding it out so Samael could take it. Which she did, hefting it experimentally and passing it from hand to hand. “Throw it, but don’t let go, and you’ll throw small lightning bolts. Now, twist your wrist—yes, that’s it—”

Samael flicked her wrist, and the spear transformed into a sword about the same size and shape as Aziraphale’s flaming sword – except this sword had crackles of lightning dancing up and down the blade, not flames. Samael’s face lit up. “Oh, I like this.”

That was only mildly terrifying.

“Good,” Zeus said, grinning. “Now press the button on the pommel.”

Samael did so, and the sword snapped into a small metal tube easily fit into a pocket.[4] Samael smirked and dropped the tube into the pocket of her trench coat.

“Thanks,” she said, nodding and stepping back.

“Mephistopheles,” said Athena. He nervously stepped forward. Athena waved her hand, and a simple knapsack appeared in it. “This should be sufficient to carry the items you seek. Once you put something in it, it will only be able to be retrieved by you, and it will come to your hands the moment you seek it.”

Mephistopheles took the knapsack and looked it over. Dionysus, however, had narrowed his eyes. “Isn’t that the same one you gave Perseus?”

“Wasn’t Perseus the one who chopped off the snaky-haired lady’s head?” Crowley asked Aziraphale.

Mephistopheles, who had been halfway into opening the bag, froze.

“The head of Medusa has long since found a new home; you need not fear being turned to stone,” Athena said.

“But can the head turn angels and demons to stone?” Samael asked. “Because that could be useful.”

“Would rather not find that out the hard way, thanks,” Mephistopheles mumbled.

“And you wondered why I sponsored you,” Athena said.

Mephistopheles looked up, rubbed the back of his neck, and looked down again. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“You are most welcome.” Athena said with a nod. She then raised an eyebrow at Hermes.

Hermes shook his head minutely.

Hera took that as her cue. “Aziraphale,” she said.

Crowley felt Aziraphale stiffen and stroked his knuckles with his thumb. “Your Majesty?”

Hera waved her hand. Before Aziraphale appeared a model of a small metal boat. “The New Argo,” she said, smiling. “At full size, capable of sailing on any element – air, earth, fire, or, yes, water – or any surface derived from one of those elements. And of protecting its occupants from the hazards of that surface. It will take you where you need to go.”

Aziraphale did not answer immediately, instead staring hard at the gameboard. Then he nodded to Hera. “Thank you, Your Majesty,” he said, and slipped the boat into his pocket.

“Crowley,” Eris said. She was grinning. Crowley glanced at his companions and saw that all of them – even Mephistopheles and Samael – looked more than a bit ill at ease.

He grinned. “Yes, Eris?”

Eris giggled and snapped her fingers. “Behold – the Wabbajack!”

What appeared in her hand was a carved wooden staff topped with the head of a man-like being, its mouth opened in a shout or scream. Crowley stepped forward, took it, and held it experimentally.

“Oh good Gaia,” Hermes groaned. “Seriously? A Wabbajack?”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Aziraphale asked, examining the staff from over Crowley’s shoulder. Crowley held it out so he could get a better look.

Eris pouted. “You … don’t know what this is, do you?”

Crowley cringed and shrugged. “Sssorry?”

“So then a demonstration is in order.” Eris snapped her fingers, and a Greek-style helmet appeared on the floor. “Wave the Wabbajack at the helmet.”

Crowley did, and—oh, he felt that, a wave of power that wasn’t at all like Hell’s power but that slipped through his fingers like the balm of Gilead.

The helmet turned into a chicken.

“A chicken?” Samael demanded.

“Wait for it,” Eris said. She waved her hand and a plexiglass enclosure appeared around the chicken.

“Eris,” said Hera, already edging her chair back, “why did you—”

She didn’t get a chance to finish that sentence, because the chicken exploded. Crowley stumbled back – or maybe he was dragged back by Aziraphale—

The explosion didn’t reach beyond the plexiglass. And in the center of the enclosure sat a Greek helmet.

“You,” Dionysus stammered, “you gave him a staff that will turn things into exploding chickens that then transform back?”

“No,” Eris said. “I gave him a Wabbajack.”

“Which does the exploding chicken thing, and also casts fireballs, thunderbolts, ice spikes, drain stamina, transforms enemies into cheese, and can cause explosions if you’re facing something like a dragon or a mammoth … oh, and sometimes it makes your target stronger, can’t forget that,” said Hermes. He turned to Eris. “What am I forgetting?”

“Lots!” Eris grinned. “Best way to see what it can do is to use it.”

“But,” Aziraphale stammered, “but how do you control it?”

“You don’t!” said Eris. “That’s the fun!”

Aziraphale’s corporation went a few shades paler than normal, but Crowley was tossing the Wabbajack from hand to hand and eventually into the air. “Can I keep this?” he asked. “You know, assuming we survive and all.”

“Only if you promise to let me take you on a playthrough of Skyrim,” Eris replied.

“Deal,” Crowley said, snapping his fingers and opening a small pocket dimension. He slipped the Wabbajack in there, easily accessible when he needed it next.

“Oh good Lord,” Aziraphale sighed.

That left only one god – or one pair of gods, technically. Dionysus glanced at Hermes, who smiled faintly. Then Hermes waved his hand.

Nothing seemed to happen at first – at least until Dionysus looked at his feet and pulled up his jean legs. The shoes he’d been wearing had transformed into sandals.

With wings on them.

“Seriously?” Dionysus asked.

“You’re traveling with four people with wings, kid, you have to keep up somehow,” Hermes replied, smirking. “And it’s not like I’m giving you smelly old gym sneakers; these things are brand spanking new.”

“This is exactly what you gave to Perseus,” Dionysus pointed out.

Hermes shrugged. “Well, what can I say except you’re welcome?”

Except he didn’t say it. He sang it.

Dionysus raised an eyebrow.

“There’s no need to pray, it’s ok – you’re welcome!” Hermes went on.

Now Dionysus glared. Or tried to. One corner of his lips twitched suspiciously upward.

“Well, come to think of it …” Hermes leaned back, hands behind his head—and just as swiftly sat back up. “Kid, I could go on and on—I could explain every natural phenomenon—the tide, the grass, the ground—oh, that was just—”

Dionysus broke, snickering and ducking his head.

“There we go!” Hermes leaned back again. “I was afraid I’d have to do the whole rap.”

“Which you have memorized,” Dionysus said.

“But of course. You have any idea how funny it is to respond to mortals with ‘what can I say except you’re welcome’ when you do something nice for them?”

“You’re not a demigod though,” Dionysus replied.

“Semantics,” Hermes said, waving a hand dismissively. “Anyway, now that you have your gifts – which, by the way, you’re welcome – don’t you have a quest to be getting on with?”

Dionysus’s reply was to glance over his shoulder, gaze flickering over Aziraphale, Crowley, Mephistopheles, and Samael.

His eyes glowed burgundy.

“Yes,” he said slowly, “we do.”

“So tell me, Ariadne,” Eloise said. They were walking by the sort of wide, blue lake that shouldn’t exist outside a movie. A pair of swans glided over the surface, and on the far side, a whole family of wolves lapped at the water. In the middle, a crocodile sunned itself on a large, smooth rock that seemed to have been placed in the lake purely for the convenience of sunning reptiles. “What do you know about Eden?”

“Um,” Ariadne said intelligently. She glanced at Asterion, who cocked his head back at her. “It’s—it’s where the Abrahamics start things off, right? With the two mortals, Adam and …” Why did she want to say Steve? Oh, right. “… Eve, yeah, Eve. Adam and Eve.”

“Anything else?” Eloise asked. She held out a hand, and a robin landed on it and trilled at her.

Once again, Ariadne glanced sidelong at Asterion. But he wouldn’t be much help – there were three songbirds on his horns, and a fourth was sitting in his carefully cupped hands. So she now knew that Eden turned everyone who set foot inside it into a Disney princess … but that probably wasn’t what Eloise was looking for.

“Um …” Ariadne shook her head and looked around, as if simply surveying the scenery of a place she’d barely given three thoughts to over the past two thousand years would help her remember what those thoughts had been. “There’s—there’s a story about how Adam and Eve got kicked out of the garden. Something to do with – an apple and a snake? Feeding an apple to a snake?”

Silence. A rather startling amount of silence. Not only was Eloise staring at her with wide eyes and an O-shaped mouth, even the birds had quieted down.

“Maybe …” Ariadne licked her lips. “Maybe they didn’t feed the apple to the snake …”

Eloise blinked several times. “Hmmm,” she murmured. “Your fathers didn’t tell you anything about Eden, did they?”

“I—no?” Ariadne replied. Her cheeks began to heat up—which, now that she thought about it, was weird. If she didn’t have a body, how could she be blushing?

“You’ve spent your entire life incorporated,” Eloise said, as if she could read Ariadne’s mind. At this point, it wouldn’t surprise her. “And this isn’t the ethereal plane. Some of the trappings of being incorporated are going to stick.”

That didn’t explain anything, but Ariadne nodded like it did.

“Anyway!” Eloise said, marching off. Ariadne jog-trotted to keep up until Eloise realized what she was doing and slowed her pace. Asterion lumbered along on Ariadne’s other side. “Your fathers were in Eden, you see.”

“They—wait, what?” Her fathers? In Eden? But they weren’t—they couldn’t have been—

“Oh, they weren’t Adam and Eve.” Eloise tossed her an impish grin. “The Garden was a bit more crowded than some of the humans’ stories let on, you see.”

“Uh—uh-huh.”

“Several angels were stationed there, you see. Cherubim, mostly, like your father, before …” Eloise sighed, suddenly wistful.

“Wait. Cherubim—like—cherubs? The winged naked babies mortals keep mixing up with Eros?” Ariadne asked.

The wistful look vanished, replaced by a laugh. If Ariadne had been any less keyed up, it would have been soothing. And there was something familiar in that laugh – something that reminded her of her mother braiding her hair, of giggling under the covers with Xenodice and Acacallis …

“Humans’ attempts to depict the divine are always amusing, don’t you agree?” Eloise asked. “Although in this case, I think that particular depiction has less to do with human minds being unable to grasp the infinite and more to do with your other father having some fun.”

“Crowley?” Ariadne asked.

Eloise nodded, smiling. “Quite. You should ask them for that story sometime. When they’re both together, mind. I don’t think it’ll be nearly as amusing if you ask them to tell it separately.”

“I’ll … keep that in mind,” Ariadne said, even as she wanted to ask, How do you know this? and How do you know my fathers? and Who are you?

But she’d already asked the first one once and not gotten much of an answer. She doubted asking it again would get her any farther.

“Now where was I?” Eloise shook herself. “Ah, yes – Eden being crowded. Several cherubim, your father among them—”

“Aziraphale,” Ariadne said, just to be sure.

“Indeed. And one demon. Crowley, though that wasn’t what he was called at the time.”

“Right. Ok. So they were – here,” Ariadne said, looking around.

Eden was … she could admit it, now, just a little, that it was a beautiful place, if very weird. She had to wonder why they left … or had they been forced to leave when the mortals were kicked out?

“Quite,” Eloise said, her voice as light as a tap on the shoulder, gently drawing Ariadne from her thoughts. “But even in that crowd, your fathers were unique. They each gave the humans a gift, you see.”

Ariadne blinked. “They what?”

“And Adam and Eve couldn’t have gotten very far without either of those gifts,” Eloise went on, as if Ariadne hadn’t said anything. “And while you’ve done very well so far without them – that was before Heaven and Hell learned about your existence. Which. Well. We’ve seen what happens, now that they know.”

Ariadne’s stomach twisted, and she pushed her hair back with one hand. Hard to argue with that reasoning. She’d gone thirty-eight hundred years and change without any angel or demon paying her a second glance; then, roughly two minutes after she’d found her fathers, she was being shot at, chased, and finally jumped in an alley and “discorporated.”

“So I don’t think we should discuss reincorporating you until you have those gifts,” Eloise went on.

“You—you think they’ll help?” Ariadne asked.

“Oh, immensely,” Eloise said. Then she glanced up at the sun – which, Ariadne was surprised to discover, had crept much closer to the western horizon while they were talking. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m afraid I have a few other things I need to see to before night falls. But you’ll be fine without me. No harm can come to you in Eden.”

“You’re—wait, what?” Ariadne stammered. “You can’t—don’t go! I don’t—”

“Au revoir!” Eloise said, waved—

And vanished.

“—even know what the gifts …” Ariadne trailed off. No point begging the empty air for answers. “Fuck.”

Asterion harrumphed in alarm.

Ariadne shot a watery smile at him. “Relax, Asterion—I’ve just gotten a lot saltier since you and I …”

Once again, she trailed off, as the enormity of what she was dealing with hit her. She thumped to the ground.

“Mmmrrph??” Asterion called, kneeling next to her, equal parts worried and confused.

Ariadne shook her head.

She was stuck, in Eden – wherever that was – apparently without a body. And if – if – this “Eloise” was to be trusted, she wasn’t going to get a body again until she managed to track down the gifts her fathers had given to humanity. Whatever those were.

And … and presumably her old body was still knocking around somewhere, unless “corporations” followed vampire or humans-trapped-in-Faerie rules and turned instantly to dust, in which case—the best-case scenario was that nobody knew where she was, the worst-case …

Ariadne pressed a hand to her mouth as the worst-case scenario unfolded in her mind. “Oh, gods.”

Asterion made another alarmed noise, now nervously patting her shoulder. For his sake, Ariadne pulled herself together and forced herself to look up.

“Asterion …” She swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “If I don’t figure out in a hurry just what my dads gave to the first Abrahamic mortals—I think I am royally screwed.”

[1] Hades had taken one look at Samael’s cigarettes and told her, firmly, that she was welcome to smoke if she wanted, but since there was no wind in the Underworld, she’d be doing so at the back of the pack.

[2] He had, after all, spent over six thousand years fretting over that sword, and he certainly wasn’t going to stop now.

[3] Which was the only reason why he’d looked into the matter of Dungeons & Dragons at all. Research. For his report. Not because he wanted to play himself.

[4] One of Samael’s pockets, at least.

Chapter Text

This, Dionysus thought, had to be one of the most ridiculous plans he’d ever taken part in – and he’d taken part in some ridiculous plans.

He paced a rough semicircle, every sense he had on the lookout for threats. No magic, or at least, not more than he could help. This close to Heaven’s and Hell’s head offices, any “big” magic was likely to set off every alarm bell they had.

Which, yes, that was a thing – that Heaven and Hell had head offices. In London. In the same building.

Dionysus wished he was making this up.

He glanced over his shoulder at where Crowley and Aziraphale were both busy unscrewing a screen in front of an air vent. Using actual screwdrivers, because using magic on the screen would be far too risky. But apparently nobody had thought to guard against hand tools.

Samael was on their other side, doing the same thing as him – ostensibly acting as lookout, really checking on progress. She caught his eye and nodded, one sentry to another, before turning back to her watch.

Dionysus rolled his shoulders and once again let his senses wash over the alley. Other than two angels, one demon, and rather more rats, cockroaches, etc. than he cared to contemplate, he felt nothing.

“All right,” said Crowley. Dionysus turned to see him and Aziraphale taking the screen down and lowering it gently to the ground. Or at least, Aziraphale was lowering it gently, and Crowley had perforce to follow suit. “Should be good. Everyone got their aspects ready?”

Aspects. Apparently angels and demons couldn’t just change their shape at will – or they could, sort of, but the air vent was warded against that, as Mephistopheles had reported. Simply making themselves smaller wouldn’t work.

But an aspect – a specific animal shape that had been granted to a particular angel or demon, presumably for a reason – that was a different story. A loophole in the wards, forgotten about because most angels and demons didn’t have aspects. Mephistopheles certainly didn’t, which was why he’d had to head in via the front entrance and would meet them down there.

Crowley did, though – he had a snake-shape he could shift into (and apparently did frequently, which was how he knew about the loophole). And Aziraphale “still had” a dove aspect “from the Flood,” which for some reason had made Samael pinch her lips and look sour. Dionysus suspected there was some story behind that and decided he didn’t care what it was.

Samael had an aspect, too, though she hadn’t shared it with the class. And as for Dionysus …

Well.

He was a Greek god.

With that in mind, he shook his curls out, rolled his shoulders again, and shifted.

Shifting could be disorienting, which was why he always closed his eyes when he did it. When he opened them, his vantage point was about a foot off the ground. Immediately he sat down, brought a paw up to his mouth, and began to wash his face. It was easier to just lean into some instincts.

He would have expected to be told off for that – by Aziraphale if no one else, since, well, any paw that had been resting on the dirty asphalt of the alley could hardly be called sanitary – but the hissed, “Sserioussly?” didn’t come from Aziraphale, and it wasn’t aimed at him. Instead Crowley – and the red-and-black snake with the lambent golden eyes had to be him – was glaring in the direction opposite Dionysus. “A mongoossse?”

Dionysus looked – and there, indeed, on the opposite side of the white rock dove was a pure white mongoose.

“Well, given that the first time a demon got the drop on us, he wore a snake shape,” Samael grumbled, “this seemed like a good aspect to pick up.”

Snakes couldn’t actually roll their eyes – or at least, Dionysus didn’t think they could – but the way Crowley rotated his head made it absolutely clear that was what he was doing.

“Besides, it’s the smallest aspect I’ve got, and if we’re going to be insulting each other’s aspects …” Samael glanced at Dionysus, nose wrinkling. “Really? A tabby cat?”

If his lips moved that way in this shape, Dionysus would have smirked. As it was, he chuckled. “Deadliest land predator on the planet, pound-for-pound.” To punctuate the point, he stood up, yawned, and stretched – every last fang on full view, and his claws extending in front of him for good measure.

“And on that note,” Aziraphale said, “we should probably get a wiggle on. Crowley? You know where we’re going, so you’d best lead the way – I’ll go behind you – Samael, you after me, and Dionysus, would you mind bringing up the rear?”

Crowley groaned. “What have I sssaid to you about that phrase, angel?” But he didn’t argue, instead slithering up the wall and into the air shaft. Aziraphale fluttered behind him, then Samael, and finally Dionysus jumped up and inside.

They’d barely gone three feet when the air shaft opened into a large hole. Another vent ran beneath it, almost but not quite perpendicular, with just enough of a slope to give the barest hope of survival.

“Yeah, thisss bit’sss alwaysss fun,” Crowley said. “Angel, you might want to just fly – Sssamael, Dionysssusss …”

“I’ll be fine,” Samael said, although her fur poofed up as she looked into the second air shaft.

Dionysus barely cast a glance into the descending air shaft. Another nice thing about being a cat – being able to rest secure in the knowledge that one’s terminal velocity was quite a bit less than one’s, well, terminal velocity. “Don’t worry about me. Immortal, remember?”

“Sssssee you on the other sssside,” Crowley said, and with no further ado, tipped himself into the shaft. “WAAAA-HOOOOOOOOOOO!”

The hoooooo echoed even as it faded.

“Oh, good Lord – Crowley!” Aziraphale shouted, taking flight and immediately entering a dive.

Samael was next, leaning over the edge with some trepidation. “Would you like me to carry you?” Dionysus asked.

“W-what?” Samael asked.

Dionysus’s only reply was to bare his teeth in what might have, in human shape, been called a smile.

Samael shuddered. “Thanks, but no thanks.” She leaned forward and tipped into the vent.

Dionysus followed, and—

HOLY SHIT!

The sensation was less “proton torpedoes charging down the exhaust pipe to the Death Star’s reactor core” and more “Luke rolling down the slip-and-slide at the base of Cloud City.” His claws extended, scrambling for any purchase, as rivets and stainless steel whipped past him. The more he tried to slow down, to regain control, the less control he had, until he was finally tumbling ass-over-head down the vent.

And as he tumbled farther and farther, he could feel pressure building all around him – first the telltale pop in the eardrums, but soon it was heightening on all sides, in his lungs, in his blood, in between every muscle and joint—

Then there was a snap, like a runner bursting through the tape at the finish line, and the pressure was gone. He must have passed the border between planes, out of the physical world and into Hell truly.

Dionysus took a deep breath—and nearly gagged on the rotten egg smell. And the humidity! This was worse than those days in Greece when his father got into a particularly bad mood and let the air get heavier and heavier until mortals and immortals alike begged for the relief of a thunderstorm.

And still he kept tumbling. Down and down and down, until—

“Oof!”

Dionysus landed on something scaly and coiled. He bounced, rolled, and skidded a few feet.

Ow, he thought, laying still and just breathing. Non-terminal was not the same as non-damaging. He closed his eyes and focused his will on his shape – demanding that bruises heal and stretched muscles fix themselves now, because he didn’t have the time to be at less than one hundred percent.

His body obeyed him, and only then did Dionysus open his eyes.

And stared right into a beady bird’s eye. Dionysus yowled and jumped straight up, into the top of the air vent.

“Sorry, dear boy!” Aziraphale said, hopping back. “Just wanted to make sure you were all right!”

So he was “dear boy” now. That had probably been inevitable. Dionysus shook his head and himself in the utterly nonchalant, I-meant-to-do-that way only a cat could manage. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. You?”

Even as he asked, he looked. Aziraphale looked none the worse for wear; he’d probably been able to fly most of the way down. Crowley, too, looked fine, shaking out his scales and stretching. Samael …

Samael was on the other side of Crowley, curled in a ball, head buried in her own fur and breathing deeply. Her pristine white coat was now a dingy, dusty gray.

Dionysus raised an eyebrow at Aziraphale. He got the sense that if a dove’s shoulders could manage a shrug, that’s what Aziraphale would have done. “She’s—”

“Fine,” Samael said. Slowly, she got up and dusted herself off. Based on the way Aziraphale’s feathers fluffed up, Dionysus guessed he wasn’t the only one to notice how she wobbled with the movement. “I’m fine. So. Are we going?”

“And I’m fine, too,” said Crowley, uncovering his head from his coils, “dessspite two of you landing on me, ssso, you know, thanksss for asssking.”

Dionysus glanced at Crowley, then looked up at the vent he and Samael had slid out of. Anyone with a reasonable understanding of physics probably would have guessed that they would land right where Crowley was resting. And there were plenty of other places where Crowley could have coiled up to wait for them – places out of range, even.

Dionysus turned to Aziraphale, question clear in the lift of his eyebrow, and Aziraphale slowly shook his head.

“We ready to go? Yesss? Good. Binssss are thisss way,” Crowley said, and without another word, slithered down the air shaft, past Samael and around the corner.

Aziraphale cast one glance at Dionysus, almost pleading, before hopping and taking a short flight to pass Samael and catch up to Crowley. “Do slow down, dear boy, you’re the only one who knows where we’re going.”

Samael followed Aziraphale, seemingly nonchalant, though Dionysus had to wonder if he’d merely forgotten how mongooses were supposed to breathe, or if she actually was panting slightly … and for that matter, if mongooses normally moved that slowly.

Well, only one way to find out.

Dionysus made a quick pass over his face with one paw, and then, as Aziraphale had asked him to, brought up the rear.

Meanwhile, in a lushly appointed game room in the depths of the Underworld, a sound rang out – something like, though not identical to, dice rolling across a polished wooden surface.

“So it seems,” Hades said from behind the screen, “that the main body of our party has made it into Hell without setting off alarms or ending up worse for wear … mostly.”

Zeus grunted and scribbled something on the notepad before him.

“And what about the rest of the party?” Hermes asked, glancing from Hades to Athena and back again, raising his eyebrows.

The sound of not-quite-dice on the tabletop rang out again, though this time it was Persephone frowning over the results. “Well …” she murmured.

Eris pressed a button on the table. A small drawer shot out, housing a sophisticated keyboard and mouse system. Eris tapped a few keys, and the image on one of the TVs in the bank before them zoomed in, while a crackle of static burst through the speakers and swiftly quieted.

Athena looked at the map before them, at the single red dot that represented Mephistopheles, and then at the television.

“I believe,” she said quietly, “that we are about to find out.”

Mephistopheles kept his head down, hunched his shoulders, and told himself to breathe.

He was being absolutely ridiculous. He was a demon. In Hell, where, arguably, he belonged. Just walking along and minding his own business. As long as he didn’t pick a fight with anyone or mouth off to a superior or try to lick the walls, he’d be fine.

Except guilt dogged every single one of his footsteps, and, well, guilt really wasn’t a good look on a demon. It was the sort of thing that called attention to itself. Demons weren’t supposed to feel guilty. Guilt was something they were supposed to inflict on others.[1]

And really, what did he have to feel guilty for? Other than, well, everything. But Hastur had started it, deciding he wanted to murder someone whose only sin was existing and making the troops restless. So if anyone should be feeling guilty—

“Oi! Mephistopheles!”

Before Mephistopheles could do more than register the voice, an arm reached out, grabbed him, and pulled him into an alcove.

He almost shouted. Almost lashed out. But somehow Mephistopheles grabbed hold of himself before he could do either. He took a deep breath and looked up at the person who had grabbed him.

And blinked.

It was Legion. And they looked worried.

“Have you heard?” Legion asked without preamble.

“Heard what?”

Legion looked from side to side, then opened the nearest door. The horrifying scents of ammonia, bleach, and piney freshness assaulted Mephistopheles’s nostrils just before Legion dragged him into the small closet.

Mephistopheles almost choked in the close air, not that he had time before Legion snapped a witch-light into being. “New orders from the Dark Council,” they said. “Surface trips now need to be authorized at the Prince level, signed in triplicate and filed with Dagon before you put so much as one toe topside.”

Mephistopheles blinked. That was annoying, but hardly merited the scared eyes or the quivering hair in front of him. “And …?”

“And they’re bloody auditing all surface trips since the traitor’s trial,” Legion said. “Double penalties for anything unauthorized.”

Mephistopheles tried to cast his mind back to what he’d been doing since Crowley had taken a bath in Holy Water and survived. He’d spent a lot of time on the surface, but most of that had been under orders, so he should be—

“Mephistopheles!” Legion grabbed Mephistopheles by the shoulders and shook him. “Hastur won’t sign our chitty!”

Mephistopheles blinked. “What?”

“For the trips we had to take to—you know! We asked him to sign, and he wouldn’t!”

Now Mephistopheles’s stomach plunged. He hadn’t even thought to ask Hastur to sign anything beforehand, because when was the last time surface trips had been audited? And now—

A thought occurred to him, and he almost laughed.

Here he was, actively smuggling two angels, Hell’s most notorious traitor, and a representative of another pantheon into Hell to steal one of Hell’s greatest treasures. If he survived that, he was going to bugger off to Heaven with that same motley crew to steal one of Heaven’s greatest treasures. And if they survived that … he had no idea what was coming next, but honestly? If Hell caught him and he couldn’t convince Crowley to share the secret of surviving Holy Water, he was probably looking forward to a sham trial followed by a very short and painful bath. If he was lucky.

And that was just for what he planned to do – not even counting the bit where he’d made a suicide pact with an archangel and actively worked with her for centuries! Or helped her trail a Greek god through London! Or anything else he’d done recently!

Yet here he was, worrying about being caught for an unauthorized surface trip. What in Heaven’s name could the Dark Council do to him for that that would in any way compare to what he actually had coming to him?

Realizing that? That was freedom. Dimly, he wondered if this was what Crowley felt like all the time.

Then he shook his head. Freedom wouldn’t do him much good if he was winked out of existence before he could enjoy it, now, would it?

So he brought his mind back to what Legion was saying. About chitties that hadn’t been signed, about orders from the Dark Council, about what Legion probably had waiting for them as soon as the audit—

Oh.

OH.

“Hastur – Hastur’s not on the Dark Council, is he?” Mephistopheles asked.

Legion blinked. “What? Well, no—that’s only princes and lords, right? And, y’know.” They pointed down. “Himself.”

Yes, Himself – Himself who hadn’t wanted Mephistopheles to talk about their conversation to any other demon, Himself who had been very interested in everything Mephistopheles had found out about Ariadne, Himself who hadn’t been sharing anything at all with the likes of Hastur.

Mephistopheles smiled. “Talk to the Dark Council.”

Legion’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“Tell them what happened. That Hastur ordered you to the surface, and for what, and now he won’t sign your chitty.”

“But …” Legion chewed their lower lip. “Hastur said we weren’t supposed to tell anyone! That—”

“Because he wasn’t supposed to be leading a mission to the surface to kill the redhead, obviously,” Mephistopheles interrupted. “And now that he’s done it, he’s going to want to cover it up. Which means throwing us under the bus. Unless …”

“We throw him under the bus first.” Legion’s eyes glittered – and narrowed. “Hey. If this is such a brilliant idea, why aren’t you doing it?”

“Because I can’t split off bits of myself and send an unimportant part to face the Dark Council and deal with their … displeasure,” Mephistopheles said. “You got smitten by the redhead twice and survived. If I’d gotten smitten once, I’d just be a smudge on the ground. Even if the Dark Council gets annoyed with you and decides to shoot first, ask questions later, you’ll be fine.”

Legion’s eyes went wide. “That’s … true …”

“And if they’re dealing with Hastur’s insubordination, they’ll be too busy to punish you,” Mephistopheles added. That was a lie; the Dark Council was very good at multitasking. But with any luck, Legion would take the hope offered and not realize it was bait until it was too late.

And if the Dark Council was occupied with Hastur and Legion and their audit … hopefully they wouldn’t pay too much attention to what was going on in the Bins.

Hopefully. Now Mephistopheles had to wonder who, exactly, was being baited.

“That’s … true.” Legion’s eyes lit up. “Thanks, Meph – d’you mind if we call you Meph? You’re a lifesaver.”

He did mind. He minded quite a bit. But he supposed that was his punishment for what he was doing to Legion.

Legion patted Mephistopheles’s arm, cracked the door open, looked both ways and hurried out. Mephistopheles did his own check that the coast was clear and followed.

Then he turned his collar up, hunched his shoulders again, and hurried toward the Bins.

If Crowley’s memories of how Hell’s ventilation system worked were correct – and Mephistopheles sincerely hoped they were, because if Crowley didn’t remember they were all very screwed – then there was an air return vent that connected to the main vent tunnel in a small dead-end corridor a few turns away from the Bins. That was where they’d be waiting. Mephistopheles just had to find it and hope that the corridor was empty and would stay empty long enough for everyone to get out of the vents and changed back.

And before he got there, he needed to scrounge up some clothes for them – something that would fit better into Hell’s aesthetic than Crowley’s flash bastard wardrobe, Dionysus’s careful casual style, Samael’s angelic standard issue, or Aziraphale’s period piece of an outfit. At least that part would be easy – all he had to do was nip into the laundry, grab some coats and shirts and accessories from the unlaundered[2] pile, and nip back out again.

And it was. Nobody saw him, nobody questioned him, and nicking stuff from the laundries was such a cherished Hellish pastime that nobody would care if they did see him. He stuffed the laundry in his knapsack and hurried out again.

He’d spent millennia learning the art of being inconspicuous, and he put every last bit of that knowledge to work now. On the off-chance that anyone did notice him, they wouldn’t have seen anything suspicious. “Oh, that’s just Mephistopheles, skulking around and pretending like he’s too evil to give anyone the time of day, as usual,” would be what they’d say, if they actually cared enough to say anything.

There were benefits to working in an office where the best you could hope for out of your coworkers was apathy, and Mephistopheles planned to milk them for all he was worth.

 Now he just had to find everyone else …

“Hssst! Mephissstopheless!”

Mephistopheles looked up.

If his nerves had been a tad less hardened, he probably would have yelped and fainted – and he’d like to see the person who would react better to seeing two glowing yellow eyes staring at them from an air return vent. As it was, Mephistopheles just had to bite his tongue, hard, take a deep breath, and nod to the snake in the vent.

He looked side to side. Coast was still clear. Then he took a breath, made himself tall enough to reach the vent, fished the screwdriver out of his knapsack, and got to work.

“I’ll keep an eye out – you just ssscrew,” Crowley said. “And fill in your own one-liner after, I’ve got my handssss full playing lookout.”

Mephistopheles heard a snigger and a long-suffering, “Crow-ley!” in response to that. They actually coaxed a smile out of him. But like Crowley, he had his hands full, so he kept to his work.

He did have to wonder, though, why Samael hadn’t pointed out that Crowley didn’t have hands in this shape. He’d walked right into that one, and usually Samael would only be too happy to point out the obvious …

He didn’t have to wonder long. Like everything else in Hell, the air return vents were poorly made and never maintained, so they were only one sneeze away from falling apart at the best of times. Mephistopheles had the cover off the vent in no time, leaving him with nothing to do but step back and let the rest of them jump down.

While they changed back, Mephistopheles dug in his knapsack for the clothes he’d nicked. They came to his hand instantly. He loved this thing. “Got you some disguises,” he said. “Not much, but it ought to make you a little less conspicuous. And, you know, won’t cost us any miracles to make them. Here.”

“Thanksss,” Crowley said, grabbing the first few articles of clothing from Mephistopheles had to hand. “Believe thessse are yoursss, angel.”

“I’m not sure they’ll fit …”

“Don’t have to. Ragged urchin iss very in thiss year.”

Mephistopheles dared a look up to see Crowley putting the worn and stained jacket over Aziraphale’s shoulders and tying a scarf around his neck, then covering the white-blond curls with a cap that had seen better days. “There. Nobody’d take you for an angel now.”

Mephistopheles had his doubts about that – even when eyeing his disguise with distaste, there was still a decidedly undemonic air of goodwill and cheerfulness that settled around Aziraphale like the opposite of a raincloud. But at least it was just an air now, not a flaming, blinking beacon.

Mephistopheles glanced next at Dionysus, who had grabbed one of the more modern pieces from the pile – Mephistopheles thought it was called a “hoodie” – as well as black fingerless gloves. He’d pulled the hood up over his head, shading his face. He actually looked … fairly demonic. And the tension with which he carried himself projected an aura of mess-with-me-and-you’ll-regret-it, which could come in very handy. The glowing burgundy eyes were a nice touch, too.

Speaking of which – Mephistopheles turned to Crowley. Crowley had gotten mostly into the spirit of things, picking a dirty trench coat that was too short for his arms and legs while at the same time double the width he needed. The gloves he grabbed were practically falling off his hands, and the trapper hat covered his hair quite well. The only problem was the sunglasses. “You’ll need to take the sunglasses off, Crowley.”

Crowley froze. “Eh?”

“Everyone knows you wear them. Almost as much of a tell as the …” Mephistopheles tapped his temple where Crowley’s snake sigil would be. “And this isn’t Earth. Nobody will notice your eyes.”

“Riiiight,” Crowley said.

“I can hold onto them for you, dear boy,” Aziraphale said.

“No, no—ssssss’fine,” Crowley said. Which, clearly it wasn’t. But Crowley nonetheless took the sunglasses off, putting them away in the breast pocket of his suit jacket.

So that was three down, now he just had to worry about Samael. “Samael, how are you—”

He blinked. “Samael?”

“H-h-h-here.”

The voice was smaller than he was used to, and came from near his feet—

Mephistopheles looked down, and his corporation’s stomach plunged. “Samael?”

She hadn’t changed back. She was still in whatever form she must have used to get through the vents – weasel, maybe? Ferret?

And she was shaking.

“What’s wrong?” Mephistopheles asked, crouching next to her.

“Just—just g-g-give me a m-minute, I—” Samael shuddered and coughed.

Dionysus crouched beside Mephistopheles, ran a hand over the air just above her fur, and murmured something. He hissed. “Ooh, that’s not good.”

“What isn’t?” Mephistopheles asked, as his corporation’s stomach somehow sank even lower.

“It’s—something like radiation sickness?” Dionysus replied. “I think it’s the air down here – seems to be affecting her badly. She was a bit off when we first crossed the barrier between planes, but I thought it was just the rough ride we had. Now, though …” Dionysus glanced down at her and bit his lip.

Behind him, softly, but still loudly enough to be heard, Crowley asked, “Angel?”

“I’m fine,” Aziraphale said – and not in the stubborn, don’t-mind-me tones of one who was one stubbed toe away from passing out, but in the mystified voice of someone who truly was fine and couldn’t, for the life of him, understand why.

“M-m-maybe you lot sh-sh-should …” Samael started.

“No,” Mephistopheles said. “Absolutely not.” He picked Samael up and cradled her close. “We’re not leaving you behind. We’ll—we’ll think of something. Somehow. We always do.”

He just wished he had any idea what that something could be.

“If Crowley and Aziraphale are able to give each other limited immunity to their environments without even consciously willing it,” Athena said, eyes narrowed and glaring at Hades and Persephone, “then Mephistopheles and Samael ought to be able to do the same thing.”

Hades sighed. “These aren’t our rules—”

“You are campaign masters. You have influence!” Athena insisted.

“Not enough to rewrite the laws of Heaven and Hell,” Persephone said. “They’ve built up their defenses for millennia, and those defenses aren’t something we can demolish with the roll of a die.”

Athena’s nostrils flared. “Yet Crowley and Aziraphale—”

“It’s not the same thing,” Hera interrupted. “Their bond goes back millennia. It’s romantic and sexual – they have a child together; it’s—”

“Look, I’m sorry,” Hermes did not sound sorry at all, “but does anyone in this room actually think that love is a necessary ingredient in making babies? Or sex? Because, if so—”

Hera silenced him with a look. “For us? No. For mortals? Certainly not. For them? Quite possibly.” She turned back to Athena. “What Crowley and Aziraphale have is essentially a common-law marriage. Samael and Mephistopheles are just friends.”