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Night had fallen over the small church. The full moon provided a dim spotlight onto the pulpit; the stained-glass windows cast an unnatural smattering of color across the dark wood interior. Crowley almost thought it was pretty, had he not been so terrified.
Historically, his assignments to America had always centered around the bigger cities. There were more people to tempt in a higher concentration – it was only logical to kill two birds with one stone. Crowley actually didn’t mind these big-city jobs so much, despite the fact that they took him away from London; they afforded him the opportunity to experience some stellar nightlife.
Jamestown, Georgia, population 34 (in a good year), was not likely to produce any swank new nightclubs any time in the near future, or ever. There was one church at the center of town. (If, in good conscience, it could even be called a town, seeing as there was only a one-room post office and about six small farming households scattered at random throughout the dense surrounding woods.)
Crowley had been sent here on an assignment that was supposed to be a simple in-and-out sort of deal. The pastor of the church had been monitored by some of the temptations workers in hell for some time under the assumption that he was likely to begin the implementation of cult behavior and practices into his preaching, and they had been correct. For eight months now, Pastor John Gregory James, 53, had become the sole leader over every individual in his entire small community, and it was to be Crowley’s job to plant some seeds of temptation in his mind in order to transform his teachings from the fire-and-brimstone lecturing of a typical Southern Baptist to the teachings of a devout follower of Satan. If all went according to plan, it would secure an additional 34 souls for the price of one well-executed temptation. What a steal.
Crowley had not been pleased with this assignment, and had actually put some thought into how he was going to get out of it, but that was before he had been found out as an agent of hell by Pastor James. Now, as Crowley sat bound to a pew in the small church, he was starting to relish the idea of a successful demonic conversion and a job well done, just to feel some vengeful pride at the sight of the man in hell when he inevitably ended up down there sometime in the future.
The soles of his feet were starting to blister.
“It’s not too late for me to help you.” Crowley let the words slide from his mouth like dark silk, and tried his damndest to hide his pain from the man before him, who was violently praying over a suspicious clearing in a recession in the wall behind the pulpit. “I can change your whole life. Anything you’ve ever wanted can be yours, I assure you.”
Pastor James paused his frantic whispered prayer only for a moment. “Silence, demon.”
Crowley groaned. This was going nowhere fast. And nowhere good, either; what in the hell were his wrists and ankles tied together with that could possibly bind him so thoroughly? And hurt so badly? He tried to look behind him, over the back of the pew at his wrists, but was unsuccessful. It was simply too dark.
“Demon, you were a fool to think you could get me to listen to your lies.” Oh, great, here we go. Pastor James stood behind the lectern at the head of the church and faced Crowley, his eyes glittering with indignation. “I have worked my entire life to get to where I am now. My church is loyal and God-fearing. My word is respected as the teaching of God. The only thing I require from my life is the rightful respect I deserve from my congregation.”
The main door to the church opened behind Crowley with force, echoing a loud thump throughout the small building.
“Pastor James!”
The pastor smiled and extended his arms in a gesture of welcome. “Ah! Matthew, Paul, Solomon. Thank you all for coming on such short notice. You are truly the most loyal of our community.”
Three enormous men shrunk to a kneel before the pulpit, right below Pastor James’ lectern. “Behind you in the pews you’ll see that I’ve already taken the necessary measures to restrain the demon. All I need now is your strength.”
The three large farmers stood to face Crowley. The colored light from the stained glass windows cut a dramatic contrast across their imposing forms.
“Hi,” Crowley said, and waved a hand at them, although they couldn’t see it from its bound position behind the pew. It’s the thought that counts, right?
“Stand him up,” Pastor James ordered, and the three men leapt into action as quickly as if their leader had pressed ‘play’ on a remote control. “Be careful not to remove the cord binding him. It has been blessed.”
Just a regular cord, then? That’s new. I expected something... holier? Crowley thought before a hand in his hair wrenched him upright.
Crowley bit down on a groan, and let the men drag him sideways into the walkway between the two rows of pews.
“Gentlemen, I assure you,” Crowley tried to feign confidence, and had no clue if it was sticking, “I assure you, I can strike you all a deal, and we can all laugh about this later as a big misunderstanding.”
“Don’t listen to his serpent tongue,” Pastor James spat, his words hard as marble.
“Well, you got me there,” Crowley mumbled.
“Make him walk!” Pastor James shouted.
Two of the three men flanked Crowley on either side, and secured him with an iron grip on both of his arms. The other followed behind. Crowley was unsure of why until he felt an electric shock rip through his entire corporation, stemming from the small of his back.
He would have fallen forward onto his face had it not been for the two men on his side keeping him upright. The man to his right leaned in close to his ear and gritted out between bared teeth, “Walk.”
As his ankles were bound together, Crowley could only shuffle forward at a miserably slow pace, and couldn’t even lift them for a moment of reprieve. It felt like dragging the soles of his feet across a stovetop.
“Faster,” Pastor James demanded, and the farmer leading up the rear of the party stuck the cattle prod into Crowley’s back again. He couldn’t hold back on a pained, shuddering gasp. His feet continued moving him towards the pulpit of the church where the pastor waited for him. Crowley wondered, if he looked behind him, whether or not he would see the smeared trail the melted soles of his shoes had surely left along the hardwood floor.
Another shock from the cattle prod forced him from his reverie. The men at his side wrenched him back into a standing position when his knees buckled. He shuffled forward until he reached the slightly raised platform of the pulpit. The men flung him down from their grasp; he caught himself on the pulpit with his forearms.
“Climb up,” the pastor demanded. The men watched him struggle, with his bound wrists and ankles, to ascend the two small steps. The cattle prod returned, this time between his shoulder blades. “Fuck!”
The pastor leaped forward and snatched him upright by his hair. “You’ll watch your mouth in the house of the Lord,” he ground out into Crowley’s ear.
The two men returned to their positions at Crowley’s side, and kept him moving forward as another torturing shock from the cattle prod nearly brought Crowley to his knees once more. As the party reached the clearing in the back wall of the church, Crowley could barely hear past the sound of the blood rushing in his ears and his own heavy breathing. The men walked him up to the large, recessed square in the wall behind the lectern at Pastor James’ instruction, and once the realization of what Crowley was looking down at dawned on him, he tried in vain to wrench himself backwards and out of the grip of the two men. Below him, only about a foot under the viewing window he was currently trying to be forced through, was a completely filled baptismal pool. The colored moonlight reflected over the surface of the still water, and the smell of ozone and celestial energy radiated from the pool in waves. Holy water.
“No,” Crowley begged. “Please, it doesn’t have to come to this.” He tried to squirm his way out of the bullish grip of the farmers flanking him on either side, but they did not budge.
“I promise, if you let me go, I will never return here again. And I’ll tell all those bottom-of-the-barrel demons down in temptations to take you off their watch list, I swear.”
“Solomon, hit him again.”
The man with the cattle prod delivered an excruciating shock to the back of Crowley’s neck, and Crowley tensed up as a throat-searing scream forced its way out of him. Matthew and Paul at his sides lifted his head and chest up over the lip of the viewing window and held his face inches above the water in the baptismal pool. Crowley was so close that his rapid breath created ripples over the surface, and his eyes and throat began to burn.
“Demon, I told you earlier that you made a mistake in trying to tempt me,” Pastor James spoke from behind Crowley. Crowley shouted pleas to the four men, desperate and flailing, his back arching to try and gain a few inches away from the surface of the water. “But I can assure you that it is the last mistake you will ever make.”
The men at his sides began to move, one grabbing Crowley by his legs and lifting, the other keeping an immobilizing weight on the front of his body, creating a fulcrum point out of the lip of the viewing window where Crowley’s entire existence currently see-sawed. Crowley wailed at the vertiginous feeling, and his hands instinctively tried to move to break his fall, but remained bound behind his back. Right before the men tipped him into the baptism pool below, a loud knock at the church door stilled their movements.
“Crowley?” The voice on the other side of the door shouted. “Are you in there?”
Crowley couldn’t form any words other than a panicked, “Yes! Yes!” that was spoken between sobs. Once again, the door to the church was flung open, and the men dropped Crowley back onto the solid ground of the pulpit before they turned to face their unexpected intruder.
Even though Crowley closed his eyes and wailed with relief, the brightness of Aziraphale’s true form nearly blinded him. He pressed his forehead into the hardwood floor and turned his head away from the heavenly light as the four men beside him screamed -- then abruptly stopped.
The light dimmed.
“Crowley!”
Rapid and fluttering hands pressed against him, lifting and turning him and untying his binds. Crowley tensed only for a moment at the touch before opening his eyes and finding Aziraphale before him, quite alone in the dark church.
“Oh, thank you,” Crowley cried, breathing heavily through his dizzying relief. “Thank you, thank you, angel, thank you.”
“Are you alright?” Aziraphale’s hands were trembling and gripping him so tight it was almost painful. “Crowley. Are you alright?” He waved a flurried hand through the air above their heads, and a warm glow filled the church.
“Talk to me,” Aziraphale said once he had a good look at Crowley. “Did they hurt you? Crowley, did they hurt you?”
Crowley was spared the humiliation of having to answer by Aziraphale’s discovery of the cattle prod that had been dropped and forgotten on the floor a few feet away. “No…”
Crowley tried to pull himself off the floor; the consecrated ground was searing down the length of his body as he laid on the pulpit. Aziraphale tore his gaze from the cattle prod as Crowley began to stir.
“Oh! I’m so sorry!” Aziraphale laced his arms around Crowley’s torso with the utmost gentleness and helped him stand. “Here, let me help you.”
Crowley tipped his forehead into the hollow next to Aziraphale’s throat and breathed him in.
Aziraphale wrapped an arm around him in return for only a moment before he froze, his posture becoming ramrod straight and as rigid as a statue. Crowley lifted his gaze and turned to face whatever had caused Aziraphale alarm.
Now that Aziraphale had miracled a source of light into the one-room church, gentle ripples of the warm light were being reflected off the surface of the water and back on the recessed wall above the baptismal pool. Aziraphale leaned over the edge of the viewing window and looked down. The holy water glittered in the miraculous light.
Aziraphale grabbed Crowley by the arms and hauled him away from the huge tub of holy water, down the few stairs of the pulpit, past the rows of pews and out the front door of the church before Crowley had the chance to get his wits about him.
As soon as his feet could touch the ground below him without burning, Aziraphale crushed him into a spine-splintering hug.
“Crowley,” he began, and his hands clenched and unclenched at the back of Crowley’s shirt. He couldn’t stop. “Crowley. Crowley. Crow-”
“It’s okay,” Crowley interrupted, but feeling rather frayed and emotionally worn down himself. “I’m okay, angel. I’m okay.”
“I’m so sorry,” Aziraphale apologized, and pulled away from the embrace only to have his hands flutter around Crowley in a repetitive loop, adjusting and readjusting his clothes, flattening and smoothing his pulled and tousled hair. “I am so sorry. I felt an unease for a while before I realized it was coming from you. I should have figured it out sooner. I’m so sorry, Crowley.”
“You don’t need to be sorry, angel.” Crowley tried to ignore the lump in his throat. “You don’t need to be sorry.”
“Are you okay?” No matter how many times Crowley assured him, Aziraphale thought it might never be enough. His heart felt like it had been crushed under someone’s heel and then dropped back into his aching chest.
“I’m okay. I promise.” Crowley gave one last look to the face of the church before him and failed to suppress a shudder.
“Will you take me home, angel?”
“Absolutely.” Aziraphale snapped his fingers, and the two beings vanished under the light of the full moon.