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“... Which brings us to the results from the third quarter for the sixth Circle of Hell…” Dagon’s voice droned on with irritating stats and boring graphs, which Hell STILL insisted on printing on ancient acetates to use with the OHP.
Crowley groaned inwardly. A lesser imp had already discorporated from boredom. Several tortured souls were seated at the back of the room as an innovative test on new ways to make Hell even worse for them. Condemning ex-executives to literally thousands of hours of pointless meetings was a delightfully ironic punishment for all their underhanded insider trading and petty bullying of employees they’d committed themselves when they were alive.
Crowley glanced at his watch. As always when he was below, the only time it showed him was “Too Late”*. He sighed and discreetly texted Aziraphale under the table.
“S.O.S.”
He tucked his phone in his jacket pocket again and stifled a yawn, resting an elbow on the table and feigning interest, nodding along where he thought he should, as Dagon’s monotone numbed his ears and turned his brain into something like cottage cheese.
He shivered, feeling it starting, and tried to suppress a grin, then raised his hand.
“Uh, Sorry to interrupt but, uh.. I’m being sum…………………….”
Crowley glowed bright red all over for a moment, and disappeared mid-sentence.
“......moned. Oh. Thanks Aziraphale. Was beginning to think you’d left your new phone somewhere.”
“Sorry dear, I forgot how to open it to look at the text thingy.”
“‘S ok. Damn that was boring. So, what should we do?”
“Well, technically, you have to do something for me before you’re freed from the circle’s hold, dear.”
Crowley raised an eyebrow. Aziraphale had a distinctly bastardly look on his face.
“Uh, Angel? What exactly d’you have in mind?”
“Oh, I don’t know - there are rather a lot of cobwebs building up…” the angel picked up an ancient ostrich feather duster and held it out to Crowley, who groaned.
“Oh you have GOT to be kidding me.”
“Well you could continue sitting in the circle for the rest of eternity if you prefer, darling.”
“Bastard.”
Aziraphale smirked. “Well you did say you’d do anything if I got you out of that meeting.”
“I was imagining rather more enjoyable ‘anythings’ when I said that, you realise?”
“Surely as a demon you should know better how to be precise in your wording when making a deal with a supernatural entity?”
“You were too good by half at doing those temptations for me all those years.”
Crowley snatched the feather duster from Aziraphale’s hand, and leapt up at the ceiling in defiance of gravity - now he was doing the task he was given the freedom to move around, but not leave until it was done. He crawled about on the ceiling dusting cobwebs and sneezing as he went.
About twenty minutes later, Ethel P. Windstone, of 14A Featherhaugh Crescent, Ealing, wandered into the bookshop, idly wondering if she might find a birthday gift for her Stanley in there. What she hadn’t expected to find, however, was a demon crawling about on the ceiling dropping disgruntled spiders on her head.
Crowley promptly fell off the ceiling when her scream made him lose concentration. He landed with a thud in the middle of the circle again and swore. The fall had dislodged his shades and as he glared up at Ethel, the screaming achieved heretofore unheard-of levels of both volume and frequency. Crowley hissed and stuck his fingers in his ears. Unfortunately his hissing revealed his rather too serpentine forked tongue, which only made the screaming worse.
There was a snap, and suddenly it abated. Aziraphale rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Crowley, while I do appreciate you frightening off customers for me, I’d really rather you didn’t actually give them heart failure in the process.”
“Well I wasn’t expecting you to leave the damn door unlocked, Angel,” the demon grumbled, retrieving his shades and putting them back on, then standing and brushing the dust off his clothes.
Aziraphale smiled at Ethel and tried to gather his thoughts. The screaming had been rather distracting for him as well. “You couldn’t find the book you wanted, but you did find an extra £5 in your purse that you’d forgotten about, so you’ve decided to visit that lovely café two doors down and have a nice calming cup of tea and a slice of cake. You didn’t see a demon from the pits of hell crawling on the ceiling, you will forget that entirely. You’ve had a lovely day out shopping.” He snapped again and Ethel blinked, then turned and left in an untroubled daze. Aziraphale locked the door behind her.
“Honestly, Crowley, whatever am I to do with you?”
“Well tell me I’ve done a good job and release me from the damned obligation would be a good start.”
“But you haven’t dusted the mezzanine level yet, dear, come on, chop chop.”
Crowley growled and launched himself upwards again.
Crowley handed in his paperwork. Beelzebub’s secretary glanced over it. “'Summoned: tasked with causing a rain of spiders and terrifying a human into incoherence at behest of summoner.' Nice one, good traditional use of demonic powers there. Ok, there’s another meeting in ten minutes. Hastur has a presentation on proper lurking etiquette, he feels that standards have been dropping recently, everyone is to attend, there will be a test at the end.”
Crowley pulled the fakest of fake smiles, and slunk along to the meeting room. Hastur may be an Olympic-grade lurker, but Crowley was no slouch at it himself, no, he WAS a slouch at it - slouching being one of the 34 subtleties of body position in a good classical lurking. But he had to sit through Hastur’s bloody presentation AGAIN, he never varied the damn lecture, never added any new material. It was going to be three hours of wishing he could have his own ears gnawed off by rats.
Ten minutes in, he caved and texted Aziraphale.
Three minutes after that, he felt the tingle, and the demon next to him noticed Crowley beginning to glow red.
“Uh, dude - you’re gettin’ summoned.”
“Oh, yeah, guess I am, see ya later I sup……………..”
“........pose. Hi Aziraphale. Right. What do I owe you this time?”
The damned angel wiggled with mischief. Crowley looked wary. “Well you seemed rather put out at the task last time, so I thought I’d make it rather more interesting this time…”
He held out a skimpy French maid’s outfit, short black mini skirt with lacy trim, complete with lacy collar and cuffs, and a pair of highly impractical stiletto heels. He had very clearly just bought it from the novelty sex shop three doors down.
“Sweeping the floor and more dusting this time, but if you’re going to be my cleaner you should look the part.”
Crowley eyed the outfit thoughtfully, slowly licking his lower lip as he thought through how this might end up going in his favour if he played nicely.
“Alright,” he agreed, and snapped himself into the outfit. Aziraphale handed him a dustpan and brush, along with the feather duster, then patted him on the bottom as he ushered him off between the shelves.
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“Go on then, foul fiend, get going.”
Crowley realised that with only having a normal short handled brush to go with the dustpan, he was going to have to do a lot of this bent over, arse in the air and lacy frilly knickers on display, not to mention the stockings and suspenders. Welp, if this was what his angel wanted, this was what his angel was going to get. He wondered how long it’d take before Aziraphale caved in.
This time it took about ten minutes before Father Cassidy came into the shop on the search for a nice antique bible, only to be met with the wiggling derriére, stockinged legs and lithe form of a particularly fetching redhead as they dusted in the nooks and crannies between the shelves.
He stopped dead, eyes wide, and muttered under his breath. “Forgive me Father, for I am about to sin…” He took two steps forward and was about to reach out to pinch that ever so tempting backside when Aziraphale’s hand slapped his out of the air and he found himself facing a furious angel, wings out and all 10,000 eyes glaring at him in icy blue anger.
“THAT DEMON IS MINE!” Aziraphale growled.
This time it was Crowley who snapped to stop the screaming. He rounded on Aziraphale. “What the hell, Angel? Why would you leave the shop door unlocked again?”
“Well,” Aziraphale ruffled his wings slightly and straightened his shoulders. He resembled a puffed-up, angry pigeon. “I was rather hoping to show you off actually, but I didn’t expect the customers to attempt to get handsy with you, so had to intervene.”
Crowley shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Right, ok, fine,” He looked up at the immobilised vicar and addressed him directly. “Ok, y’know what? Sod it. You’re gonna remember this one, if only to stop you trying to do it again to someone else, BUT you’re not going to remember it until you go to bed tonight and have it as a nightmare. Now sod off.”
Beelzebub’s secretary scanned through Crowley’s paperwork. “'Summoned to tempt a priest to lust, and gave him nightmares.' Good job - sounds like you’re doing all the traditional ones again eh?” They rubber stamped the form and handed it to an imp to file for them.
“Another meeting in half an hour, presentation by Beelzebub on swarms and infestations, manifestations and plagues of insects, with an extra module on cockroaches. There will be demonstrations, try not to stand on any, you know they get tetchy when that happens. Everyone to attend except Hastur. Damn frog can’t help eating the exhibits.”
Crowley rested his feet on the chair in front of him and flicked a cockroach off his knee. It landed in the coffee cup of a demon in the next row. Another one landed on his hair so he plucked it out and launched it across the room with an elastic band so it flicked Dagon on the ear.
When a locust jumped onto his own coffee cup he caved in and texted Aziraphale.
This time it took about ten minutes before he felt the tingling and began to glow. Beelzebub gave him a sharp look.
“Well aren’t you popular this month, Crowley? You’re excused.”
“Thanks, see you lat……….”
“.......errrrrrrrrrrrrrr AZIRAPHALE?”
“Yes dear?”
“You placed the summoning circle around your bed?”
“Well noticed. You may also notice the handcuffs. You have 2 minutes to strip and put yourself in them. The safeword is aardvark. Paddle or cat’o’nine tails today?”
“Can I have the riding crop?”
“Of course dear. Any other requests before we begin?”
“Black spiky collar please, Angel.”
“No problem darling.”
Beelzebub’s secretary rubber stamped the paperwork. “Seducing an innocent bookshop owner into fornication,' not bad going. Gotta say your stats have been pretty good this month - lots of summonings, here…” They handed over an envelope. Crowley opened it cautiously. A fly flew out of it as he withdrew the shiny gold-edged certificate.
“Another commendation?”
“Yeah, bonus in the paypacket, mention in the Infernal Times, and a voucher for hell’s gift shop again.”
Crowley was sauntering back to the lobby when he felt a tingle and began to glow again. He grew uneasy, as this one wasn’t expected. “Oh shiiiii……………..”
“.....iiiiiiiiiiiit. Huh? Aziraphale? I didn’t even text you.”
“Oh I know, darling,” the angel purred, dressed in a negligee and sprawled out seductively on the bed. “But this one is for you, not me....”
“So what can I do for you Angel?” Crowley winked.
“Come here and let me make you feel special.”
Crowley grinned. “Your wish is my command.”