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Mid-December in one of the worst years in history, praise Satan, found Dagon in Prince Beelzebub’s office revising Hell’s annual newsletter (of course Hell distributes an annual newsletter) while the Lord of the Flies attempted to adjust their supposedly ergonomic desk chair. It didn’t work. It never did, but Beelzebub never tired of trying. Hell offered plenty of opportunities to do the same thing over and over expecting different results, and never getting them, and it was sublime. Although they had secret aspirations to someday own a chair that hadn’t been designed for the members of the fucking Washington Generals basketball team, for Someone’s sake, but that was nobody’s business but their own.
“About the mailing list,” Dagon said.
Beelzebub laughed. “Send it to everyone. 2020 has been a banner year for us. Between the pandemic and politics and … whatever happened to those murder hornets we sent up?”
“Thriving, my lord. Stinging with might and majesty.”
“Excellent, excellent.” The flies above their head buzzed in contentment, if not in harmony.
“However,” and here Dagon paused uncomfortably, the best sort of pause, “I’d like to send out one special, personalized newsletter to Aziraphale and –“
“There’s no demon by the name of Crowley, and there never has been.” Beelzebub rattled off the spiel quickly. In fact, if it had been anyone other than Dagon … well, it wouldn’t pay to incinerate the being who kept track of the murder hornets.
“No doubt, my lord,” Dagon said smoothly. “But I have a slightly adjusted version of the newsletter for, uh, the business named A.Z. Fell and Co.” She consulted her clipboard. “That can’t be right. Angels don’t and Co.”
“They do. They just don’t usually advertise it. Is there a point to this?” Bless it, the chair didn’t even swivel right. Beelzebub was forced to lunge menacingly at Dagon without any help from the furnishings whatsoever.
“The retired Principality is known to be an elitist snob,” Dagon said. “And, keeping in mind first and foremost that there never has been such a thing as a former demon, if there were to be a purely hypothetical former demon, it’s a good bet that he’d be a prideful bastard with an overblown sense of his own worth.”
Beelzebub nodded, although they were already tuning out this conversation. Plausible deniability was part of it, but also, Dagon could be demonically long-winded. They threw a hasty miracle on their chair to raise it three inches (Hell is definitely not on the metric system) while Dagon shuffled through the pages on her clipboard. They could tell when she found what she wanted because her honed fangs began to drip ichor.
She read out loud: “Hell is proud to announce the formation of the Tenth Circle, an exclusive, invitation-only club of the most accomplished occult beings. If you haven’t received your invitation, be assured that you are excluded from the Tenth Circle.”
“Assured?”
“I’ll change that,” Dagon said. “What do you think of the concept of the fake exclusive club, my lord?”
Meh. It would irritate Crowley, although Beelzebub hated that all they could safely throw at Crowley were minor irritations. Still, there was some poetic justice in that.
“Replace Hell with my name. That will really make him grind his teeth. Wait, does he have teeth?”
“Who?” Dagon asked. “The Principality? I believe so, yes.”
“No, you paper pushing dolt, the serpent. Do serpents have teeth?”
Dagon blinked. “I have no idea who you’re referring to, my lord.”
Right. “Go ahead and send the blessed letter.”
As Dagon gathered her belongings, the chair collapsed, throwing Beelzebub to the floor. Dagon pretended not to notice, of course, but Beelzebub heard a distinct intake of breath.
“By the way,” they said, “no particular reason for asking, but does anyone else keep track of the murder hornets?”
“I need your help,” rasped the voice on the phone.
A tingle ran through Michael’s ethereal being. She ducked under a stairwell to hear better. The cellular connections from Hell were unreliable, and she really, really had to be sure she was hearing this correctly.
She sighed. “I’m very busy right now.”
It wasn’t quite lying. It may have been a misrepresentative sigh, but Duke Hastur was a demon, and not half as clever a demon as her hereditary adversary Ligur had been, so she felt no guilt. Her new contact in the underworld wasn’t the brightest candle in the menorah. Took some of the fun out of these secretive exchanges, really. Although having Hastur owe her a favor could come in handy. Anyway, Hastur was just going to ignore whatever she might say, so why not indulge a bit?
Sure enough, Hastur barreled on as if she hadn’t spoken. “I need information on the Tenth Circle.”
“There are only nine circles of Hell.” Hastur should know that, but there were lots of things Hastur should know.
“The Tenth Circle is an exclusive club formed by Prince Beelzebub. For the most accomplished demons. I read about it in Dagon’s office when I was snacking in the underwater spider pit.”
What in benighted hell were underwater spiders? “Crabs?” she asked.
“Nah, I’ll pass, I’m full from the spiders. You know anything about the Tenth Circle or not?”
“I take it you weren’t initiated into the Tenth Circle.”
“Oi, where’d you hear that?!”
Honestly. The worst part was now she’d have to bring this to Gabriel’s attention, and that conversation wouldn’t even be this productive.
“I’ll get back to you,” she said, and cut the connection.
Hmm, an exclusive club of accomplished demons formed by Beelzebub, and after the year Hell had been enjoying on Earth, too. 2020 was making the side of the angels look like a bunch of slackers. And nobody was going to convince Michael that losing Aziraphale had made the difference. Not that anyone had tried.
Still, if it was something new and unusual, there was a very slight chance that Aziraphale and his pet snake were behind it. At least it could be presented that way. She’d tried and tried to tell the Council of Archangels that they needed to do more surveillance on that sneaky serpent. Maybe she could use the unknown threat of the Tenth Circle to get her way at last.
“I think that concludes the Council’s ongoing business,” Gabriel said.
The Archangels assembled around the conference table nodded in unison. Uriel was immensely relieved. If she had to listen to another “debate” about the compatibility of vaccines and faith, she was going to find Pestilence herself and hurl a few thunderbolts in their sticky direction.
Come to think of it, why wasn’t she allowed to do that now? Why did they always have to resort to nonviolence these days? Ever since Armageddon had been cancelled, nothing made the slightest bit of sense. Nobody could look at Earth in 2020 without coming to the conclusion that Hell was winning. There were murder hornets, for the love of Somebody. And here the archangels were, sitting and talking, endlessly talking, while Pestilence stalked all the cities of Earth.
Michael stood. “I have some new business for the council. My surreptitious contact tells me—”
Sandalphon interrupted. “Excuse me, Michael, but what’s a serpiginous confab?”
“No, no, she said a serendipitous cataract,” Gabriel said. “Really, Sandalphon!”
Michael stared at the ceiling. Uriel counted to three and then kicked Michael’s leg under the table.
“Prince Beelzebub,” Michael said, “is forming an elite cadre of demons called the Tenth Circle. I think we need to ask ourselves why. What’s changed in Hell that now requires an elite group?”
“Hold up a moment,” Gabriel said. “Beelz gets to have an elite strike force? Why don’t we have an elite strike force?”
Suddenly, light bloomed in the darkness of Uriel’s thoughts. Everything began to make sense again.
“I volunteer to lead the elite strike force!” she cried.
“Excellent initiative, Uriel!” Gabriel clapped his hands together.
“I never said anything about a strike force,” Michael grumbled. Jealousy, Uriel was sure. How uncharacteristically petty of her.
“Now all we need is a name,” Gabriel said. “Wow, that’s a good name, the Tenth Circle. That’s a doozy.”
Sandalphon cleared his throat. “We could call our group the Elite Strike Force.”
Gabriel’s jaw dropped. “By God, that’s genius!”
Michael sat down with a thump and clasped her hands in a silent prayer. Uriel wasn’t too concerned. She’d already silently christened her new strike force to personally hunt down Pestilence as “the Final Justice League,” not that she planned to let anyone else join the strike force.
“I think we should consider the possibility that Beelzebub is using the Tenth Circle to replace their former Earth field agent,” Michael said.
Uriel dutifully considered that and rejected it. The Tenth Circle was obviously about Hell congratulating themselves for a successful viral campaign. Well, Beelzebub and the Tenth Circle would be crying themselves to sleep when she smote Pestilence back to the Stone Ages.
“This is exciting,” Gabriel said. “The Elite Strike Force! Let’s see, we’ll need custom golf shirts with a new logo. Oh, and new stationery. Ooh, maybe even a webpage.”
“Perhaps first we should recruit members for the Elite Strike Force,” Sandalphon said. “We could invent a grueling initiation ceremony of some sort.”
“First we should discuss surveillance tactics in London,” Michael said. “If Hell’s aim is to replace Crowley, they might be meeting with him.”
Michael had a point. The Serpent of Eden might know where the Tenth Circle had stationed Pestilence, and he was definitely Hell’s weakest link. It wouldn’t take much … persuasion … to convince Aziraphale and Crowley to give her some information. A trip to Aziraphale’s bookshop-slash-demonic lair was her logical next step.
“Mmm, I don’t know about all that.” Gabriel was pulling his fake apologetic expression. It made him look slightly ill. “We promised to stay away from all that. London and … all that.”
And there was the problem in a nutshell. They were Archangels, for Heaven’s sake. The only promises they were meant to keep were promises directly to God. Uriel pushed her chair away from the conference table.
“Hey, we’re just getting started,” Gabriel called after her. “Where are you going?”
She turned back, and in the most menacing tone she could muster, she said, “Holiday shopping.”
2020 was drawing to a close, leaving the world kicking and screaming, and Aziraphale was trying to stay hopeful. First, there had been the long shutdown, and he’d been stuck inside the bookshop all by himself while Crowley napped. The theaters closed, and the restaurants, and the universities. The streets of Soho were eerie in their silence. Prayers crowded all around him, prayers for the ill, for the exhausted doctors and nurses, prayers from the prisons and schools, from young parents, from scared people who couldn’t meet in churches or temples or mosques. Even though Aziraphale had been through quite a few pandemics, it was impossible to become numb to them. The humans’ anxiety rubbed off on him, and he couldn’t sit still and read. Crowley, meanwhile, slept through the spring and into the summer.
When the lockdown eased a bit in the warmer weather, Aziraphale had started visiting the hospitals to loan the staff a little of his energy. It was the least he could do. By Christmastime, people were already waiting their turn for vaccinations. It was miraculous what people could do when they joined forces. They just needed a little more strength to get them through the dark days of winter.
It wasn’t entirely Crowley’s fault that he slept through the first wave; Crowley always took pandemics hard because he’d never been allowed to help. But this wasn’t the fourteenth century! Everything was supposed to be different now! No, no, Aziraphale wasn’t going to feel resentful. He wasn’t. Crowley had the right to sleep whenever he wanted. He wasn’t owned by Hell anymore. They were their own side, even if, in practical terms, that meant Aziraphale was all alone for months. Crowley was awake now. Time to stop dwelling on the past.
Aziraphale made his rounds through the hospital’s corridors, right up until he sensed the nearby presence of an archangel. It tickled his ethereal essence. His corporation felt it in the back of his throat, somewhat like a hairball he couldn’t cough up. He hurried to the queue for a taxi. The closer he got to home, the more his throat itched. The archangel was quite nearby, possibly in his bookshop. That was supposed to be off limits! How dare they!
The Bentley was parked in front of the shop; Crowley must’ve sensed the archangel, too. It calmed his uneven breathing, that undeniable proof that Crowley expected them to face their enemies as a team. But what if he’d come to rescue Aziraphale and gotten himself caught? Aziraphale darted inside, but there was no archangel in the shop. Yet.
Instead, the tableau that greeted him was practically domestic. Crowley sat cross-legged on the floor with admirable serpentine flexibility. His laptop was in front of him, propped up on some out-of-print nineteenth century gothic novels. A huge stack of slightly damaged books, which Aziraphale hadn’t gotten around to fixing, teetered on the carpet behind him, and he had five more books sandwiched between his palms.
“Alright, you little hell raisers, I’m going to add these books to the pile behind me, and let’s see if it topples,” he said to his laptop screen. “Twenty-five plus five is how many books?”
An incoherent jumble of children’s voices shouted out answers. Aziraphale waved off camera and headed to the back room to put the kettle on. He was too tense to chastise Crowley about using his books as a prop for one of his guerrilla classes.
Crowley had explained very thoroughly that his new habit of taking over online classes to give the teacher an unexpected rest was pure mischief in that he was disrupting carefully made lesson plans while instructing the next generation in how to effectively crush their enemies underfoot. Aziraphale hadn’t interrupted even once while Crowley unnecessarily rationalized his actions. Obviously, he wasn’t ready to talk about the future. Obviously. He’d been napping while Aziraphale paced the floor of the bookshop looking for bread recipes, worrying about the state of the world and their new place in it and what it all meant. In Crowley’s world, those months of thinking had never occurred.
Oh, well. Maybe after the pandemic, maybe then they could make some changes. But not now, and especially not while archangels were haunting Soho.
The books tumbled to the floor, the thumps making Aziraphale wince. Crowley signed off, reminding his students to keep bending reality to their wills. He was at Aziraphale’s elbow before the Darjeeling had finished steeping.
Crowley ran a shaky hand through his perfectly coiffed hair. “What the fuck, angel?”
“I’m sorry you were worried,” Aziraphale did his best to keep his voice level. “I haven’t been contacted by anyone yet.”
“Worried?” He could almost hear Crowley mash his back teeth into each other. “I got here. And. You weren’t here.”
“I’m fine. We’re both here now.” He reached out to pat Crowley’s hand in reassurance. Crowley flinched, and Aziraphale pretended that he’d been reaching for the sugar bowl.
“You really haven’t heard anything from them?” Crowley stared at his hand. “You’re not holding anything back from me, are you?”
Aziraphale shook his head. This was his own fault. He had said so many awful things to Crowley trying to keep him safe from Hell, and it had been for naught, and Crowley was never going to fully trust him. No wonder Crowley hibernated. If he decided to do it again, Aziraphale might go completely mad.
The shop door blew open, and the Archangel Uriel floated in with a stiff wind behind her. Aziraphale lunged in front of Crowley as Crowley grabbed his sleeve to pull him back. The tea slopped over his mug as Uriel closed the distance between the door and the shop’s back room with inhuman speed.
“Where are they?” she bellowed, her voice echoing with celestial power.
“I haven’t the foggiest clue what you mean,” Aziraphale said. Crowley tightened the grip on his arm, somewhat like a boa constrictor.
“Pestilence.” Uriel flared her nostrils. “Tell me where Pestilence is right now. I know they’re in a big city. Are they in London?”
“Oh. Ah, no, it doesn’t work like that anymore.”
Crowley barked a sarcastic half-laugh. “You don’t even know how it works, do you? Sure, Pestilence made a cameo appearance last year for a minute or two. The humans did all the rest on their own.”
“You’re wrong.” Uriel didn’t turn down the echo, and it would give Crowley a headache. “I know Pestilence stalks the Earth. You’re just afraid to face them. I’m going to slay Pestilence on my own and stop the pandemic. Tell me where they are, cowards.”
Crowley hissed menacingly. “You’re not supposed to be here. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted promises from Heaven.”
Wonderful, now Aziraphale had to figure out how to defuse Uriel while Crowley was being aggressive. They all needed to calm down immediately, Aziraphale and his rabbity heartbeat most of all. “Uriel, the pandemic is just about over. We don’t have to slay Pestilence to end it because people invented vaccines.”
“It’s a human thing,” Crowley sneered. “You don’t understand it. Now get out.”
Instead, Uriel stepped closer. “Just give me the name of the city.”
“Stay the fuck away from him.” Crowley’s grip on his arm intensified. He tried to pull Aziraphale away from Uriel, jiggling the mug of tea, which splashed onto Aziraphale’s coat.
“Oh, blast, the Darjeeling,” he muttered involuntarily. Stupid thing to be worried about at the moment, when he should be getting Uriel to leave before she did something regrettable.
“What did you say?” Uriel demanded.
Aziraphale squared his shoulders. “Crowley is quite right. You’re not supposed to be here. If you would please leave the premises—”
“Darjeeling?” Her tone of voice was normal now, at least. “That’s in India, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but—”
Celestial wind swirled around her, the shop door slammed in the gale, and she was gone.
Crowley released his arm immediately, as if it burned. “So. You sent her to India.”
“Not on purpose!” Crowley was going to tease him about this cockup for at least a decade, he just knew it.
“Nah, it was clever, angel. She can’t get into too much trouble there.” He shrugged. “Least, we probably wouldn’t notice if she did.”
“Oh, that’s just lovely.” Aziraphale collapsed into his desk chair. He closed his eyes for the space of a fortifying breath. “Did she give you a headache?”
“”M fine.” Crowley took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, which were bright, glittering gold from corner to corner. A sign of aggravation, to be sure, but also very pretty.
“I’m glad you were here,” Aziraphale said truthfully.
“Don’t know what I did.” Crowley’s voice was still strained, and he began to stare at a suddenly interesting shelf of painted porcelain snuff boxes. “You, uh. You know if that happened when I was sleeping, you know it would’ve woken me up. I’d still be here. No matter what. So. Just so you know that.”
“Thank you, my dear, I do know that.” But what if Crowley was saying it because he planned to go back to sleep? It didn’t matter that they used to go years without seeing each other. That was before the Antichrist. Aziraphale couldn’t live like that anymore. He couldn’t be entirely alone again.
He cleared his throat. “Just in case … well. Perhaps it would be best, in, ah, in light of this new situation, if you stayed here for a while.”
Crowley dropped onto the sofa with a whomp that indicated it had not been entirely on purpose. His eyes grew even wider. “You … you want me to stay here?”
“Oh, we could stay at your flat, if that’s better. It’s not as if I’ve had the shop open since March.” He was wringing his hands, and now Crowley would know he was a nervous wreck. “Just whatever works best, dear. I suppose it’s silly, but I’d feel better. While Uriel is earthbound, I mean.”
“’Course. Course that’s what you mean.” Crowley nodded. “Maybe, you know, my place? Uriel probably doesn’t know where it is.”
“Right, good point.” Aziraphale nodded, then nodded again. Why had it been easier to face Uriel than finish this conversation?
But they’d made progress, hadn’t they? Even if Aziraphale hadn’t said everything in his heart, Crowley wanted him to stay at his flat. Or at least Crowley had invited him to stay at his flat. One step at a time, he supposed. The important thing was that he’d know exactly where that wily serpent was at all times.
“And until this blows over, you need to tell me where you’re going,” Crowley said, as if he could read Aziraphale’s thoughts. “No more disappearing.”
“I didn’t disappear. I was doing rounds at the hospitals, as you well know.”
“There are a lot of hospitals in town. As you well know.”
“If you need to keep tabs on me, perhaps you should accompany me.”
Crowley’s jaw dropped. “Pfft. Ha. Come with you? To ….”
“To help support the doctors and nurses.” Aziraphale tried not to sound argumentative. “You’re allowed to do that now. You’re allowed to do whatever you want.”
Crowley jammed his glasses on his face. “Get your stuff packed, angel. Let’s get you settled before you start asking about dinner.”
“I was thinking Thai, actually, if you’re interested.”
Crowley grinned sharply. “Why not Indian?”
“Ooh, I do hope I didn’t make a mess of things over there.”
In all likelihood, though, Uriel would go to Darjeeling and Pestilence wouldn’t be there, and by then, Gabriel or Michael would pull her back into compliance. Well, they’d have to figure it out themselves because Aziraphale wasn’t going to lift a finger to help them.
And if that meant it was a long time before he and Crowley knew Uriel was back where she belonged, and he had to stay at Crowley’s place all that time, so be it.
Although Heaven and Hell hadn’t officially replaced their Earth field agents after the failed Apocalypse, there were other ways to keep track of events on Earth. Since the records of Crowley’s existence had been erased from Hell, Dagon had been tasked with the responsibility for Earthly reconnaissance. (Dagon had been tasked with many responsibilities because that was the only way they got done.)
As Master of Torments, Dagon was especially skilled in delegation. She had cleverly delegated the collection of data on Earth events to Eric, the disposable demon. This was clever because Eric could create other versions of himself to quickly infiltrate several places at once – and it was also clever because if Beelzebub didn’t like the news from Earth, nothing of value was lost if they killed the messenger.
The first version of Eric sent to Earth after the Apocalypse was stationed at Megiddo in Northern Israel. However, Eric was immediately bored, demons requiring a certain level of amusement before they wandered off looking for trouble. In fact, there were many occurrences of import in Israel in 2019, most of them troublesome, but Eric didn’t understand medicine, history, politics, or, unsurprisingly, religion. Eventually, he found something local he understood, and he soon developed a crippling sports gambling addiction.
By early 2020, Eric had created copies of himself to keep up firsthand on the international football scene. He could watch games in Sydney, Seoul, and Santiago simultaneously, all while threatening his bookie in Tel Aviv. Best of all, there was always something to put on his reports to Dagon, and Heaven was never the wiser. He had found his niche.
Then the pandemic hit, the stadiums closed, and Eric’s desperate search for live matches to bet on took him to smaller and more remote settings, where he was able to convince people that “COVID was just like the flu” and “it’s important to keep up morale.” To his utter shock, this earned him several commendations, so he doubled his efforts, and then doubled them again.
By the time Uriel came to India searching for Pestilence, there were 665 copies of Eric walking the Earth in a quest to keep professional sports a going concern. He kept trying for 666 copies, but, as Aziraphale could’ve told him, were he not terrified of London, there’s no such thing as earthly perfection. And Eric truly was terrified of London. He’d personally witnessed the renegade angel breathing a column of hellfire, and due to his unique properties, he’d also witnessed Someone Who Never Existed surviving a bath in a tub of holy water. (It was only through his great good fortune as a follower of Satan that he hadn’t known about gambling back then. He would’ve lost his shirt.)
So Eric stayed far away from London, and kept a low profile in all of Europe, in case the Principality Aziraphale and his Nameless Co-conspirator were looking for signs of their former coworkers. India, though, loved a sporting match, and the people were desperate for distraction from the suspiciously not-flulike pandemic. There were hundreds of Erics in India, and every single one was on high alert for a sign they were being monitored by the Principality, or by someone or something like him. Game on.
“This is stupid,” Crowley said for the sixth time that day. Aziraphale kept ignoring him. As he and Aziraphale walked past a reflective window in the passageway from the parking garage to St. George’s Hospital, he tried a sexy pout, but it was obscured by the mask Aziraphale had given him. The mask depicted a piece of Monet’s Water Lilies, which had always been one of Crowley’s favorites, but. That was not the point.
It wasn’t just losing the pout. The problem was that he didn’t sound annoyed. He tried to sound annoyed, but he loved the terror involved in parking around the hospital, and worse, Aziraphale knew it. For sheer pandemonium, Hell had nothing on a hospital parking lot.
He also didn’t sound annoyed because Aziraphale was living in his flat, which meant Crowley had a 24/7 struggle on his hands not to sound giddy with glee. He still couldn’t figure out how he’d pulled it off. One moment, Uriel was daring to advance on his angel, and the next moment, Aziraphale was moving into his flat. He must’ve done some amazingly clever tempting in between those moments, but he couldn’t recall exactly what he’d said. It hardly mattered because Aziraphale was living with him, in his flat.
It was a far cry from the spring of 2020, when Aziraphale wouldn’t even let him come over because they had to “socially distance themselves to set a good example.” He hadn’t thwarted the Apocalypse and thumbed his nose at Satan himself just to find his relationship with Aziraphale unchanged from before Adam’s birth. Naturally, he’d needed a long angry nap to recover from that. Fuck, 2020 had been the worst year in a long, long time, and his ridiculous hopes that things would be different after the failure of the Apocalypse had been dashed in so many ways.
But now Aziraphale was living in his flat. Still, seemingly good developments had a way of biting Crowley in the ass. As long as there was a threat from Heaven on Earth, he’d be watching Aziraphale very closely, guarding his back. And, apparently, waking up to Aziraphale making tea and scones while he hummed show tunes. Who knew Aziraphale could learn to bake? Maybe, after all this blew over, there’d be other new things they could try.
Not this thing, though. “This is stupid,” he said. Seven times for luck. “I can’t reassure the dying that their afterlife will be wonderful. I don’t have easy answers for that. Or, you know, I do, but they’re too easy. Huh. Either way, they won’t bloody like it.”
Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. You can do whatever you prefer.”
“Brilliant, I’m going to watch something on my phone.”
“Why did you insist on coming along then?”
Duh, because he wasn’t letting Aziraphale out of his sight. “You know I like the parking.”
Aziraphale had a pretty good tempting voice himself. “You could cheer up the staff. Send them home with bottles of champagne for New Year’s Eve shenanigans.”
He held up his phone. “Nope. Already watching something. Go have fun, angel.”
Aziraphale might have replied to that, but someone behind the front desk recognized “Mr. Fell,” and he got trapped in one of those lengthy conversations he loved about people’s extended families and how they were keeping in touch for the holidays. Crowley tuned it out. He’d listened to people natter on to Aziraphale about their petty problems for centuries, and even back when he had to worry about tempting quotas, it got old fast.
He hadn’t had to tempt anyone to sin to fill a quota for over a year now. He’d be damned again if he could figure out what to do with his time instead, other than sleep or hover over Aziraphale’s shoulder watching out for danger.
There was always social media, where it was way too easy to stir up trouble. Almost effortless, and hardly worth it if you didn’t have a quota to meet. It left a lot of time for watching gardening videos. Life sure looked attractive outside of the city. Although today, even accounts he followed purely for horticultural purposes were reposting and commenting on news clips from … oh shit, from India.
A well-coiffed news presenter clutched a microphone, saying, “This seems to be the work of a flash mob, possibly a cult. The men appear at first glance to be identical, and number in the hundreds, but what their purpose is for converging in Darjeeling is unclear at this time.”
Behind the news presenter, the view was blurry. The camera work was shaky, but Crowley recognized an old work associate, Eric. A few hundred Erics, as a matter of fact.
A newscaster from a studio asked, “What of the reports that a shadowy figure in a white suit has been apparently making these men vanish without a trace? Publicity stunt?”
A very angry Archangel Uriel was smiting Erics as fast as they spawned at her. She used her bare hands instead of a sword, shooting lightning waves of celestial energy from her palms while she bellowed. Crowley couldn’t make out what she was yelling, but it sounded a bit like “Pestilence.”
“Uh, angel.” He tugged on Aziraphale’s precious coat. “Think we have a situation here.”
“Crowley, I’m in the middle of a conversation. What’s so important?”
He beckoned Aziraphale away from the middle of the lobby, pretending not to see the human giving them the old “aren’t they a cute couple” look. One day, and soon, he was going to make Aziraphale admit he could see that look, but today was not that day.
“Weeell,” he said when he had Aziraphale’s attention, “there’s good news and bad news.”
“What’s the good news?”
“I found Uriel. She’s smiting hundreds of demons who’re hanging out on Earth for some reason.”
Aziraphale gasped. “That’s … that’s the good news?”
Crowley shook his hand back and forth, his gesture trying to convey something, he wasn’t quite sure what himself. “Good and bad is all relative, right? Right. It’s relatively good news. You know. Relative to the bad news.”
“Dare I ask what the bad news might be?”
“Yeah, the bad news is that the kill switch for spawning Erics is in Dagon’s office.”
“I didn’t understand a word of that,” Aziraphale said. “No, actually, I understood ‘bad news’ and ‘Dagon’s office,’ and you are absolutely not going down to Hell, Crowley.”
Uh-oh. He knew the stubborn bastard set of that jaw. This was going to turn into a public row. Unless Crowley decided to ignore the whole Uriel versus a host of Erics grudge match. Which he could do. Aziraphale was right – he could do whatever he wanted now.
“You’re right.” He flashed his most enticing smile. “Let’s forget about it and go pick up a bottle of champagne for New Year’s shenanigans.”
“We can’t leave now. We just got here.” Aziraphale began walking, leading them down a short hallway to a waiting room. “Er, what shenanigans did you have in mind?”
“Oh. Right. Not much going on this year with everyone in lockdown.” The hospital corridors were surprisingly clean and attractive. He supposed it had been a few decades since he’d needed to set foot in a hospital, depressing places, and he was glad conditions had improved. “What does shenanigans even mean?”
“Hijinks, I suppose.” Aziraphale’s gaze flitted from corner to corner of the ceiling. “It looks like it will just be the two of us for New Year’s Eve.”
Crowley’s brain stuttered to a halt. “Gahk. Um, sure, uh-huh. That’s … that’s …”
But Aziraphale’s wandering eyes had landed on something that sucked his attention away from Crowley, and Crowley hated when that happened. They’d reached the waiting room, where large screens hung from the ceiling, blasting news reports from Darjeeling, India.
“I think I recognize that demon,” Aziraphale said. “Why are there so many of him?”
It was just as well that the mask hid the curl of Crowley’s lips. “That’s Eric. I’m guessing he stuck himself in infinite spawn mode to stop Uriel from smiting too much of him in one go.”
“I … don’t think that makes any sense.”
“None of our business, right?” Crowley gave his most expressive shrug, flailing his arms a bit to show Aziraphale how much he really didn’t care.
Only the broadcasts weren’t helping him prove his point. “Last year, similar reports of strange happenings around the globe hinted at a worldwide cataclysmic event. This was followed by the COVID pandemic soon afterwards. What are we to make of this unexplainable crowd of identical men disappearing one by one in flashes of light? Is it another sign of disastrous events to come?”
“Oh no,” Aziraphale whispered. “They’re so close to getting through this pandemic.”
Despite the clean corridors, the waiting room was overcrowded with sick, scared people staring at the televisions. Despair and frustration rose from the crowd in a thick fog. Crowley couldn’t stick his tongue out from the mask, but he thought it smelled like the leaky pipes in Hell’s storage basement.
A quick mental check of the people in the neighborhood surrounding the hospital yielded the same musty stench of impending doom. His phone was blowing up with desperate notifications. People were transfixed by the news, but also gutted by it, as if this one additional inexplicable happening was the proverbial last straw. It was definitely going to ruin the New Year’s mood, that was for blessed sure.
What exactly was Aziraphale proposing for New Year’s? What the fuck were hijinks? Would Aziraphale decide instead to spend the holiday here at the hospital, trying to reassure an exhausted, skittery public?
Or, worse, would he go back to the bookshop for another extended lockdown, refusing to let Crowley in again?
And then, and then, oh he could picture it too clearly, Gabriel would show up blaming Uriel’s actions in India on Aziraphale. Aziraphale already felt too responsible for Uriel. A visit from Gabriel would totally screw up his head. Could Crowley afford to take that chance?
“I could be in and out of Dagon’s office like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Nobody would even know I was there. Just hit the emergency Eric switch, and all this goes away. We tell Uriel that Pestilence was in the tangle of Erics somewhere, and ta da. We’re done in time for New Year’s Eve dinner.”
Aziraphale lifted his eyebrows. “How do you know there’s a way to stop the demons from multiplying just sitting around unattended in Dagon’s office?”
“Funny story. I had a plan to improve my cell reception, and it sort of went sideways. Anyway, Dagon made me clean up the excess Erics by hand, which is when she showed me the kill switch.” Hell’s favorite punishments were the obviously unnecessary ones.
He couldn’t see Aziraphale nervously bite his lips through his Sunflowers mask, but the pleading expression in his shining eyes was impossible to miss. “It’s not worth the risk. Gabriel and Beelzebub will sort it out. Let’s … let’s concentrate on the people of London.”
“Oh, sod London.” He knew it, his worst fear was already coming to pass. Aziraphale was going to freeze him out.
“Please don’t go.”
The words were spoken so softly. Had Aziraphale ever asked him for something in such clear terms? Crowley could feel the fear bubbling up in Aziraphale’s corporation. He couldn’t be that afraid of Crowley leaving, not unless … It didn’t bear thinking about, not here, not now.
Aziraphale would be safe in the hospital, surrounded by thousands of people, far from Darjeeling. The faster Crowley got things back to normal, the safer Aziraphale would be.
“You’ll barely notice I’m gone.” After all, he usually didn’t. “And pick up a bottle of the good champagne, none of those Italian knockoffs.”
He left before Aziraphale could say anything else. Please don’t go. Who said things like that to a demon, even a retired one? Anyway, Aziraphale knew how skillful he was at sneaking around and other spy moves. He wouldn’t be too worried, not on Crowley’s account. This was an easy job. In and out. No worries. Everything would be fixed in no time. He could do it alone.
Gosh, 2020 really, truly sucked donkey’s balls.
Hell was such a cacophony of discordant sounds that they’d rigged up an alarm that broadcasted awkward silences. It was the only way to get it noticed. The heavy weight of an especially ugly pause blanketed the executive suites, completely overriding the squeaks of Beelzebub’s chair. Before they could demand her presence, Dagon burst into their office. Her gaping mouth worked soundlessly until the alarm finished tolling.
“ … breached the outer ring. The invasion could be heading this way,” she was yelling.
“I can hear you now. Stop screaming.” Beelzebub cocked their head to listen to their surroundings. Wails, cries of despair … it was business as usual. “Are you sure we’re being invaded?”
“I think so.” Dagon seemed confused by the normal appearance of the halls herself. “I suppose it could be a lone intruder?”
“Or a malfunction of the alarm system.” This was Hell, after all. One couldn’t go around trusting alarms would sound in case of danger. In Beelzebub’s experience, the time to be alarmed always snuck up on a person without warning. “Find Hastur, see if you can’t get to the bottom of this.”
Dagon nodded grimly and darted into the crowded corridor. Beelzebub leaned back to apply some serious thought to the matter, only to have the chair dump them onto the grime-covered floor. What the fuck, they were a high-ranking demon – the highest, an actual prince for eternity – and they were stuck with a chair unfit for an imp. They hadn’t worked their ass off for 6000 years only to have their authority subverted by a goddamn piece of furniture. Everyone had a better office chair than they did, there were better office chairs floating through the corridor, for Satan’s sake. Wait, there were what?
Someone was crouched behind an office chair, pushing it down the hallway, using it as a combination shield, hiding place, and battering ram. That was very … creative. “Coming through, coming through,” the chair said as it broke through a group of sullen succubae.
Crowley. The nerve of that snake, sneaking down here to steal good furnishings.
Beelzebub marched into the hall, boots pounding, and grabbed the chair by an armrest. Who in Hell merited a chair with actual cushioned armrests? They wheeled it into their office, admiring how smoothly the wheels worked. Crowley followed meekly as if he was afraid to blink. Or maybe he couldn’t blink; Beelzebub had never been sure about that and never cared enough to find out. The chair smelled like rotting crab meat, an odor that was all too familiar. They slammed their office door, trapping Crowley inside.
“What are you doing down here with Dagon’s office chair?” they asked. “You’re not supposed to exist. Are you trying to make me force your nonexistence?”
Crowley muttered something under his breath about being an idiot. Beelzebub continued to stare. Demons all talked eventually when faced with their stare. They went to sit and get comfortable for a good, long staring session, but their chair was floored, tipped over on its side.
Suddenly, Crowley pushed Dagon’s chair towards them. “To bring in the New Year, my lord. A present … uh, I mean, a tribute. For you.”
As Crowley crouched into a half-assed curtsey, Beelzebub tried out Dagon’s chair. It molded to their back, where massaging electric currents (eel power!) sent tingles down their spine. And their ass had never been so comfortable. Dagon had been holding out on them.
And why shouldn’t they get tribute? 2020 had been Hell’s triumphant success.
“Take the exit behind my office,” Beelzebub offered generously. “Make it quick before I change my mind and have you flayed. I’ve always wanted a pair of snakeskin boots.”
Say what you would about Crowley, he never needed to be told anything twice. Beelzebub switched on the lumbar support and called out to Crowley’s quickly disappearing corporation, “And make some trouble up there, for Satan’s sake.”
“Got shenanigans and hijinks planned,” Crowley called back. “You can bet on it.”
As if Beelzebub was stupid enough to bet on anything where Crowley was concerned.
Nothing had gone according to Uriel’s plan. Aziraphale had been telling the truth about Darjeeling. She’d sensed the presence of a demon there as soon as she arrived. But then it had all gone off the rails. There hadn’t been one demon guarding Pestilence – there had been hundreds of them! Was this the mysterious Tenth Circle? She was too overwhelmed to find out. It was all she could do to send the word up to Heaven that she needed backup. She shouldn’t have come alone. She should’ve remembered that pride went before a fall.
And so she fought, and fought, and fought, slaying demons left and right, until she could barely see from exhaustion. There were too many demons coming from too many directions. They were legion, and she was losing the battle and burning through her celestial energy stores.
Then, just as she struggled to keep her corporation from sagging to the ground, someone came up behind her, supporting her. It was … it was someone in an immaculate suit, smelling of ozone. Gabriel! He’d gotten her message and come to her rescue. He was a God-given gift, unlikely, unanticipated, and appreciated all the more for it.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Don’t thank me,” Gabriel said expansively. “I’m here to congratulate you! So congratulations!”
“Congratulations,” Sandalphon said, appearing at her right elbow. “You’ve won!”
“Come on, up you go,” Michael said, hoisting Uriel by her armpits.
Uriel blinked repeatedly, trying to clear her cloudy vision. “What happened to the demons?”
“You smote them, you champion you!” Gabriel grinned from ear to ear. “As a matter of fact, you broke the department record for demon slaying. 517 demons in one day before you stopped their onslaught! Sorry, Michael, it looks like the trophy will be moving out of your office and into Uriel’s.”
“But. But.” Her brain was foggy, her reserves depleted. “What about the Tenth Circle? What about Pestilence?”
“You must’ve taken care of Pestilence during the fight,” Gabriel said. “They’ve definitely been defeated. The humans have vaccines now!”
Michael pushed Uriel’s hair out of her eyes. “Come along, let’s get you home.”
She let Michael and Sandalphon support her while Gabriel continued his victory speech. “The Elite Strike Force has been just as successful as we planned. Beelz will be green with envy!”
“So much for Hell being triumphant in 2020,” Sandalphon said smugly.
Which all sounded nice, but not exactly right. Still, Gabriel couldn’t be too off base if Michael was going along with it. And Uriel must’ve done something monumental, if the aches in her corporation meant anything.
Michael bundled her into the backseat of a waiting automobile. The air inside the vehicle was warm and still. The hum of the combustion engine lulled her, and the feel of the tires on the road rocked her like a baby in a cradle.
Michael sat in the passenger seat up front. She twisted her corporation around to pat Uriel’s knee. “There, there, the pandemic is almost over,” she said reassuringly.
But Uriel didn’t hear it. Her head rested on Sandalphon’s large, pillowy shoulder, and she was fast asleep.
Beelzebub faced Dagon from across their imposing desk. “So, the alarm was triggered by a malfunctioning Eric switch?”
Dagon nodded. “He was stuck in spawning mode, apparently. Fortunately, it fixed itself.”
“Right. Sure it did.” As if anything in Hell ever fixed itself. Beelzebub leaned back in their new office chair and put their feet up. Bless Someone, this chair was comfortable. Dagon’s face fell as she watched them swivel.
“Oh, before I forget,” Dagon said, “in the excitement, I never got around to sending that newsletter we discussed. You know, to the London bookseller.”
“The Tenth Circle?” Beelzebub chuckled. “It was a ridiculous idea. We had so many real accomplishments in 2020 that we certainly don’t need to make things up.”
Dagon bared her fangs. “It was a banner year, wasn’t it?”
“We’ll never see its like again. Any idea, though, on why Gabriel Wankwings left me message of condolence?”
“Jealousy, I’m sure, my lord.” Dagon always knew what to say.
“Why don’t you take some time off?” Beelzebub said. “Satan knows you’ve earned it this year.”
Dagon bowed in gratitude. “Perhaps after I corral the murder hornets, my lord. There are a few politicians I’ve been meaning to get to know better.”
All in all, Beelzebub couldn’t complain. With the new vaccine, 2021 wouldn’t be as spectacularly evil as 2020, but there was still a lot of scope for trouble up there. They turned up the intensity of the massaging currents on their back. Not that Beelzebub believed in New Year Resolutions – anyone who’d met as many doomed souls as they had knew that making mental resolutions was just wasted effort. But if they could make a resolution for 2021, it would be to enjoy the little things more. It’s the little things that make it all worthwhile.
The champagne had been chilled, Dvorak had been queued on the state-of-the-art sound system, and a guaranteed-safe gas fireplace manifested itself in Mayfair. An angel and a demon said a quiet but heartfelt farewell to 2020.
Crowley stared at the flames reflected in his cut crystal champagne flute like stars. “I was an idiot going down there by myself. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You were trying to make things right,” Aziraphale said. “You have an appetite for rushing to the rescue like a knight in shining armor.”
“Oh, that’s my appetite, is it?”
Dammit, he never learned. Why would he try to start an argument now? Aziraphale had been so happy to see him return from Hell unscathed, yet so angry that he’d gone. There had been tears and foot stomping and dramatic gesturing, and not all of it had been from Crowley. But there was one thing he hadn’t encountered – the silent treatment.
“I thought you’d give me the cold shoulder for another year after that stunt,” he admitted. It wasn’t a full admission. He didn’t say that he’d been terrified of the cold shoulder.
“Even though you’re embarrassed about it, I know you want to help people.” Aziraphale’s cheeks were rosy in the firelight, and his eyes seemed to sparkle.
Crowley took a deep breath. He owed his angel more than breeziness. All he’d been able to think about in Beelzebub’s office was how stupid he’d been. Please don’t go, Aziraphale had said, and he’d waltzed out the door. When Beelzebub nabbed him, he’d thought for sure that he’d never see Aziraphale again. The terror that had cored him at that moment wouldn’t stop lurking in his mind. There were no guarantees of immortality anymore, not for either of them. He couldn’t keep hoping for time to work out his personal hangups, waiting for the pandemic to end or the Archangels to stay put or the crises to stop. The world wasn’t going to stop changing just to give him some peace and quiet.
“It’s hard, trying to figure out what to do with myself now,” he forced himself to say. “London doesn’t feel right anymore. It’s … it’s too much. It’s like I’m always carrying around the weight of all the bad things I’ve done here.”
“Oh, Crowley.” Aziraphale sat next to him on the sofa and put a hand on his forearm. “It’s been difficult for me, too. I’m not used to so much uncertainty. I suppose, after we stopped the world from ending, I thought the hard part was behind us, but it’s been so eventful.” He sighed. “I could certainly wish for a simpler life.”
“You keep telling me we can do whatever we want now.” The hand still rested on his forearm. Aziraphale’s warm, soft-looking hand, still touching him. Crowley sat very, very still, hoping Aziraphale wouldn’t realize it.
“You’re right,” Aziraphale said. “Maybe we should leave the city for a while. We could rest up and find our equilibrium.”
We. Aziraphale had said we. He wanted them to leave the city together. And his hand was still wrapped around Crowley’s arm. There was so much Crowley wanted to say in return, but the words bunched up in his mind, and all he got out was, “Yeah, yup, sounds good.”
But maybe that was enough because Aziraphale leaned towards him and gingerly rested his head on Crowley’s shoulder. That took all his words away.
Aziraphale lifted his flute. “Here’s to a wonderful new year.”
Crowley tilted his head until it rested against Aziraphale. Now they were supporting each other, holding each other upright on the sofa. It didn’t trigger his panic. It felt peaceful, restful.
“You know what?” he said. “I think 2021 is going to be the best year ever.”
And who could disagree with that?