Chapter Text
BETHLEHEM, 4 BC
A cry rang through the night, and it was the cry of the most important infant in the universe.
The infant, freshly newborn, wasn’t aware of his own cosmic significance yet. All he knew was that he was cold, that his backside hurt from being slapped by an unfeeling wretch who wouldn't stop tossing him around for some inscrutable reason, and that he wanted to go back to whatever warm, dark place he just came from.
Inside the candle-lit manger where he was born, the child’s radiant young mother held the baby boy close to her chest. Meanwhile, three extravagantly dressed men gave three gifts to the mother’s overwhelmed husband, who politely unwrapped them and made a show of appreciation for each gift.
Aziraphale watched it all through a window while a light drizzle of rain pattered on his hair.
“The incense is nice, and all, but wouldn’t the mother get more use out of nappies?” Crowley asked, slithering up beside him.
Aziraphale startled.
“Crowley, you shouldn’t be here. Satan already agreed there will be no hellish intervention tonight.”
Crowley squinted as he peered through the manger window, holding his hand at his brow to block out the rain. “Don’t worry, I just wanted to see what the commotion was about. I’m not meddling this time.”
“You had better not. Heaven cares a great deal that the advent of Christ be an immaculate affair. So to that end– and I’m sorry for this– I know I’ve never smited you before, but that doesn’t mean I won’t,” Aziraphale said, hoping the demon wouldn’t call out his bluff.
“I might as well ask you what you’re doing out here yourself,” Crowley said, entirely unworried about the threat. “Shouldn’t you be in there blessing the bonnie little babe?”
“Not tonight, no. There’s no point in blessing the child— he’s already as blessed as one can possibly be. No, I’m here to warn the parents. King Herod, you know him? He’s hell-bent on destroying the child. He’s afraid he’ll steal the throne of Judea, given that he’s the king of kings and the messiah and all that fuss.”
“Right,” Crowley said slowly. “And remind me again, what exactly is the messiah supposed to do?”
Aziraphale brightened. “Well, he’s going to save the world. He’ll spread the word of God amongst all mankind, teaching about love and forgiveness, all while performing miracles of healing and abundance, then at the end sacrifice himself so that humanity can be forgiven for their sins.”
“Right,” Crowley repeated, “But can’t God decide to forgive humanity’s sins without having Her only son kill himself? I mean, she’s God, right? She can do whatever she wants.”
“Well, he won’t be killing himself, the Romans will do that bit…” the Angel trailed off.
“Oh?” Crowley shivered as the rain picked up. “That’s better, then.”
“And it’s the symbolism,” Aziraphale pressed on. “It’s a message to all the humans that God loves them so completely that she’d let her own son suffer to save them.”
Crowley tilted his head away from Aziraphale and looked at him down his nose. “Does this mean the humans are free to do whatever they want now if they’re all forgiven? No threat of eternal damnation?”
“Absolutely not. They still have to repent and live virtuous lives if they want to make it into the kingdom of heaven.”
“Then what’s the point? If humans are still going to hell for sinning, they’re not exactly being entirely forgiven, are they?” Crowley insisted.
“Are you listening? It’s the symbolism. It's the suffering for the sake of love.”
Crowley sucked on his teeth and shook his head. “Personally, I don’t see any virtue in suffering for its own sake. No one ever lived a better life just because someone else lost their coat.”
“Except for a coatseller,” Aziraphale added, unable to help himself. “Crowley, this is the holiest night in the history of the world. I know it’s hard for you to accept such a thing as a demon, but the first coming of the messiah is purely a harbinger of good, and his advent is a testament to the Lord’s mercy. So why are you seeing only the bad bits? Do you have to try to defile everything?”
The rain continued to fall, watering the eyelashes of the nearby camels and sheep and collecting in the damp rills of formerly dehydrated earth. Crowley and Aziraphale were both soaked through to their sandals.
“Just my nature, as you say. Suppose I was made this way.”
Lightning struck in the distance, and the fronds of nearby palm trees shook their seed pods to the ground. Crowley retreated into the rain while Aziraphale stayed beside the manger, his wings tucked behind his back. He wondered, not for the first time, but perhaps with more apprehension, just what sort of life the child inside the manger was going to lead.
THE PRESENT DAY
In the innermost sanctum of heaven, sealed away from the curious eyes of the lower-ranking angels, rests a leather-bound book on a glass lectern. It is the Book of Life, and it is as heavy and old as time itself. Its pages, though ancient, are as crisp as they were on the day they were cut from the fabric of space and gleam with the residual light of creation.
Few have ever seen it, but it has seen everything.
Whenever anyone deliberates making a mildly immoral decision, like spitting out a piece of gum onto an already gum-blackened square of pavement, and then thinks, "Ah, what the hell, no one is watching," they are wrong. The book is watching. It’s not judging, though— that part comes later.
Most theologians say that the book contains the names of all the souls who will be allowed into heaven on the day of reckoning, but it contains much more than that. It contains every name, saved and damned alike. Other theologians, especially those in the calvinist persuasion, would say that the book was written at the foundation of the world. This is also not true, primarily because the book of life is still being written. More accurately, it is writing itself.
It is neither a book of prophecy nor the universe’s most exhaustive and exclusive VIP list. It is more akin to a choose-your-own-adventure novel— one with infinite choices and infinitely expanding pages, each containing a different name and a different ending that doesn’t reflect a change of narrative so much as it does a change of mind.
For all its existential significance, however, the Book of Life is still, fundamentally, a book. That means that, in this case, it has a foreword, a prologue, a glossary, footnotes, and little graphite annotations and doodles scribbled into the margins by an ineffable hand. It also has an epilogue, which no theologian has ever surmised, because why would a story that is simply one long ending suggest the existence of an after the end?
Aziraphale didn’t know it yet, but from the moment he stepped into the elevator to heaven, the epilogue in the book of life began to change.
A thousand angels were seated in heaven’s auditorium. Each angel held a yellow envelope, sealed with golden wax on their lap, which they had discovered when they took their place in the audience.
The letter read as follows:
Dear Earth Angel,
If you’re reading this, then it is inevitable that you will find yourself lost and confused on Earth. There were many occasions that I wished I could have asked for advice or had a superior explain to me all that I was so overwhelmed by when I started out in this role. While I can’t predict every scenario you may encounter, I have gained a bit of wisdom in my 6000 years on the planet that I am happy to share. You already have your Earth Readiness Handbooks, but I have a few additional pieces of advice for you in case the handbook proves insufficient.
Without further ado, here are Aziraphale’s Top Ten Tips for Angels Who Want to Thrive On Earth in the 21st Century.
- Never point out a human’s physical flaws unless it’s something that can be fixed in ten seconds, like smudged lipstick or a partially untucked shirt.
- If you’re ever talking to a group of humans, never invite one of them to a party without inviting the rest. (You shouldn’t do this to angels, either.)
- Never trust anyone who asks for payment in the form of gift cards.
- Never give a gift card to someone you consider a true friend. They deserve better than that.
- Never say “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.” It never made anyone feel better about aught, and it’s not true, anyhow.
- Don’t sing at restaurants unless it’s for Happy Birthday, and even then, you should reconsider saving it for the dinner table at home.
- Just because a shop has a long queue doesn’t mean they’re selling anything good. Therefore, never stand in a line unless you have a good reason to.
- Never assume people know the same information that you do. By extension, if something seems painfully obvious to you but is news to someone else, don’t give them a hard time about not knowing. You don’t know where they’re coming from.
- Real friends are rare, so if you find one, then never take them for granted. If you do, then regret will become your loyal companion for life.
- Above all else, always choose kindness. If you’re ever confused about anything, refer to this rule first.
With all of my blessings,
Supreme Archangel Aziraphale (Or Mr. A.Z. Fell if you need to find me on Earth).
The supreme archangel was behind a podium now, finishing a speech.
“Congratulations, everyone,” Aziraphale said, his voice miraculously amplified by the auditorium itself. The hall was so sleek and sculptural in form that, if it were a sports car it would be able to break the sound barrier. “Your role in Project Second Coming is one of the most important duties for an angel since the creation of the earth,” he continued. “The brave souls in this room will herald a new age of heavenly influence and divine happiness amongst humanity in preparation for Jesus’ return. Now be off with you all, and Godspeed! Too-da-loo!”
Despite the Supreme Archangel’s cheerful dismissal, hesitation hung over the rows of uniformed angels. There was a great deal of frantic glancing at handbooks and sweaty hand wringing. One junior angel in the third row looked as though they were attempting to disappear into their chair. Then, with the grim acceptance of soldiers jumping off a ship onto a foggy beach, they began to depart. They vanished one by one in polite flashes of pale light until the auditorium was empty.
Aziraphale’s heart ached for them. He remembered his first few magical days on Earth and how bright and strange and surprisingly itchy it all was, and felt a pang of nostalgia.
He turned around to face the other Archangels, who were seated on the stage behind him in a row. At his glance, they all stood up, chairs scraping the floor.
“How was this unit’s progress during training?” Aziraphale asked, straightening his bowtie.
Uriel consulted their tablet. “There was some confusion amongst the group regarding the purpose of motor homes, but overall they responded well to the human culture readiness curriculum.”
“Excellent, excellent. I believe that concludes step 3,947 of the Great Plan: And there shall descend upon the Earth one hundred thousand angels who shall walk in the righteous path of Jesus Christ.”
Michael sneered. “Angels walking the righteous path originally meant that they would arrive as an army of holy warriors set out to vanquish evil on earth with might and vengeance,” they said mockingly, “not as charity workers spreading mercy and kindness.
Aziraphale ignored the tone. “Yes, perhaps that’s what the Divine Plan could have meant. But what is vanquishing evil if not spreading a little good? Let’s see if the divine approval board agrees with me.”
Aziraphale miracled in front of them a large standing board that nearly stretched across the entire stage, covered in thousands of disk-shaped lights arranged in neat rows. Roughly half the lights were lit up green, and the other half were powered off.
All except for one light– number 666– which was yellow. Aziraphale frowned at it as he always did when he brought out the approval board.
“Uriel, hand me that task summary, please.”
Uriel miracled a scroll into existence and handed it over, which Aziraphale slipped into a slot on the side of the board.
Aziraphale stepped back and waited. He held his breath, hoping nothing turned red, or worse yet, another yellow.
The next sequential light on the board, number 3,947, turned green with a ping.
Aziraphale beamed and clasped his hands together in delight. “Ah, see! There, God approves, and all those angels are going to do so much good on Earth. And now let’s move on to the next phase of armageddon, number 3,948, in which a terrible pestilence infects four-fifths of humanity. I was thinking a new strain of cold sore should suffice. You four get started on the distribution strategy, I’ll get started on the virus design.”
“Those angels will not be prepared to fight when the war begins, you know,” Michael said.
Aziraphale took a calming breath and closed his eyes for a moment before giving Michael a placating smile. “Thank you for the feedback, Michael. Feel free to leave a suggestion in the suggestion box if you’d like, and I’ll review it later. Take care!” Aziraphale waved, then vanished in a flash of bright light.
“What an utter fool,” Michael muttered.
Uriel shot a sidelong glare at Michael. “I know you don’t want to hear this,” they said, adjusting their tablet to rest under their arm, “But Aziraphale is doing a decent job. Most angels like him, and the numbers coming back from blessings are better than they’ve been in ages.”
“He’s kinder than Gabriel, certainly,” Saraqael added.
“I thought he would have broken something by now,” Sandalphon said. “I’m almost disappointed by how functional everything is around here.”
Michael crossed their arms and seethed.
“Are you out of your minds?” They said furiously. “Aziraphale is butchering the Great Plan, can’t you all see that? Every time he completes a step,” Michael said with air quotes, “all he is doing is circumventing what God actually intended for the Great Plan to entail. He wants all of heaven to be soft and weak like him. How can you be on his side?”
“We’re not on his side, we’re on God’s side. And God,” Uriel indicated the board, “approves of his methods. Who are we to question what God finds acceptable? So long as Her plan comes to fruition, we are accomplishing our purpose.”
Michael fumed. “This isn’t right. This isn’t how the great plan was supposed to happen, and you all know it. You’re all spineless cowards, every single one of you.”
Michael disappeared in a burst of angry red and white sparks so incandescent that, if a demon were nearby, they would have likely singed their eyebrows.
Uriel rolled their eyes. “Always a flair for drama, that one.”
There was no night in heaven. Effervescent white light perpetually streamed through heaven’s windows, so passing hours faded together like chimney smoke in fog. For that reason, Aziraphale didn’t know what day it was, and he’d lost track of how many of them he’d spent sat at his desk studying the Great Plan.
The Great Plan, as it turned out, was indeed separate from the ineffable plan, which, being ineffable, had no tangible transcription or reliable oratory record. The Great plan, however, had 7,777 itemized steps all neatly transcribed onto a 262-meter-long scroll with checkboxes and an accompanying visual aid in the form of the approval board, which meticulously tracked the plan’s linear progress.
A few thousand years ago if he had gotten the chance to see the Great Plan with his own eyes, he would have practically launched into benedictions while performing backbends and pirouettes out of sheer joy. Other angels often watched him with unbridled envy whenever he pulled the ponderous scroll out of its case.
Aziraphale only felt troubled by it. There was one step of the Great Plan that bothered Aziraphale more than the others, number 7,757, mostly because of how maddeningly airtight it was. And in the Last Days shall the angels and demons wage war upon one another, until but one people remaineth; and of the humbled foes, not one soul shall live.
He dropped the scroll on his desk and pinched his nose, too irritated to keep ruminating on it, when the shimmering peal of an angel arriving in his office snapped him out of his thoughts.
“Archangel Aziraphale,” Muriel curtsied.
“Ah, Muriel! Always a pleasure to see you, my dear. And it’s just Aziraphale. What brings you to my office today?”
“I brought you the book you requested,” Muriel said cheerily, then held up a heavily damaged, faded red leather book that was shamefully warped at the spine.
Aziraphale retrieved the book with a careful touch and flipped through the first few pages fondly. “How wonderful, thank you for this.” Then, an apprehensive expression settled on his face. “And... has he been around at all lately?”
“Which he?” Muriel asked, “There are a lot of he’s in the universe, you’ll have to be more specific.”
Aziraphale lowered his voice. “You know. He? The ginger who comes by the bookshop sometimes?”
“Oh!” She exclaimed loudly, “Do you mean the demon Crowley?”
“Keep your voice-” Aziraphale started harshly and held up his hands to shush her, then looked around to see that no one was nearby. “Quietly, please.”
“So sorry, your grace,” Muriel whispered. “No, he has not been around recently.”
Aziraphale nodded. “And still no word on where he is, either?”
“No word, I’m afraid.”
Aziraphale tried not to feel too disappointed. “Well. That will be all then. Carry on.”
Muriel smiled and tapped her feet on the ground happily, then returned to Earth in a flash.
Aziraphale approached the gates of paradise with the same clenched feeling in his stomach he always had in this part of heaven. The gates of paradise, contrary to popular belief, were not a gilded wrought-iron affair encrusted with rainbow gemstones operated by naked baby angels wielding trumpets and harps. In actuality, it was a fenced-off, video-surveilled, high-security double door at heaven’s edge with a pearlescent force field that could annihilate any angel or demon who attempted to enter without proper clearance.
Aziraphale had never stepped past the gates prior to his promotion, as it was off-limits to everyone but Seraphims and the Archangels, but now, all he had to do was enter the passcode on the access panel next to the gate, and it slid open for him with a welcoming breeze.
While people were wrong about the state of the gates of heaven, they were not far off about what paradise actually looked like on the inside.
Paradise, the penultimate resting place of the souls deemed righteous enough to pass God’s opaque morality test, came here to the valley of light. Stretching endlessly was an expanse of sky that was resplendent with shades of blue, pink, and orange, and brimmed in every direction with clouds. A warm, yellow light shone from above, and the air shimmered as if filtered through a pane of prismatic glass.
Marble pillars, both tall and wide, cut through the clouds and leveled off as staggered platforms with seats and tables and little patches of grass and trees where human souls dwelled. Small islands drifted between the platforms, waterfalls spilling from their edges and trailing into mist in the infinite expanse below. Golden staircases extended between clouds, connecting the islands and platforms.
It was undeniably, transcendently, splendidly beautiful. It made Aziraphale feel sick.
Aziraphale materialized his wings and took off. He passed a myriad of clouds, each one populated with small groups of humans, until he found a cloud vaguely shaped like a smoking pipe.
Sitting atop the cloud at a small garden table was a man with thinning brown hair who sported a frizzy, door-knocker style beard. His outfit, naturally all white, was that of a well-heeled Victorian gentleman who was fond of velvet and three-piece suits.
Aziraphale landed next to the man, then took a seat at the empty chair beside him.
“Hello, Mr. Dickens,” Aziraphale said gently. “I brought you this.”
Aziraphale placed the copy of A Tale of Two Cities that Muriel gave him next to Mr. Dickens’ hand.
Charles Dickens stared at the book with vacant eyes. He slowly placed a hand on the cover, fingers running over the raised lettering, then removed it and returned his focus to a nearby waterfall.
“Look here, do you remember writing this?” Aziraphale pleaded. He opened up the first page and read a segment from the first passage, “It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way. Don’t you remember writing that?”
“I don’t recall being a writer,” Charles said, “I remember those words, but I don’t recollect what they mean.”
“These words are about the duality of civilization,” Aziraphale said with an encouraging smile. “It’s about how in times of great upheaval there can be both great joy as well as great sorrow, not unlike in your own life. You must recall how you were born into poverty, then authored your way into the heights of prodigious wealth.”
Charles furrowed his brow. “I do recall that.”
“And how do you feel about all that struggle and success, all these years later?”
Mr. Dickens shook his head and shrugged. “I suppose I don’t care.”
Aziraphale deflated. “You don’t? Why not, pray?”
“Why should I?” He asked dispassionately. “What is there to care about? I have everything I need right here,” he said, gesturing to a nearby waterfall, his eyes glazing over with a faraway stare once more.
Aziraphale nodded, crestfallen. He patted the cover of A Tale of Two Cities. “I’m going to leave this book with you. Feel free to peruse it. And Charles,” Aziraphale leaned in. “If we’re successful with the second coming, then Jesus will perform his final judgment and all the dead will return to life, and the Kingdom of God will be on Earth as it is in heaven. You won’t have to be here anymore, and I’m trying my absolute hardest to make it so that the new kingdom won’t be anything like this.” Aziraphale put his hand on his shoulder. “I’m going to get you out of here. Everyone of you.”
The former writer turned to him with a placid smile.
“God bless us, everyone,” said Charles Dickens.
Aziraphale’s shoulders fell.
“God bless us, everyone,” the angel repeated.
When Michael was in a bad mood, they didn’t need to say a word for the other angels to automatically know to avoid them. Even when Michael was in one of their rare good moods, Angels still typically steered clear of their presence. They were, after all, the very angel who cast Satan himself down from heaven, and no one was curious enough to find out what else such an archangel was capable of.
As Michael stormed through the corridors of heaven, metaphorical steam billowing behind their head, every angel they passed parted to either side of the halls like a terrified red sea.
Thankfully, it was a short walk to where Michael was going, but then again, every walk in heaven is a short one. Floor plans in heaven’s offices, unlike the ones on earth, are more of a suggestion than an ironclad mandate. On Earth, buildings are made of rooms and floors that are always in the same place relative to one another, with few exceptions. In heaven, however, if you want to go somewhere or find someone, you simply have to think about it, walk forward, and within a minute of Earth time, you will be there without ever having to turn more than one or two corners. It was a convenient form of transportation for every angel except for Aziraphale, who always got a little motion sick during the transitions.
Michael never got sick from anything. That was part of the job of being heaven’s fiercest warrior.
They turned a corner and entered a narrow hallway replete with firmament pillars. At the end of the hallway was a wall dominated by a vaulted silver door. Michael took off their shoes, crouched behind one of the pillars, and waited.
Even though Michael was the cruelest angel in heaven, they still had the patience of a saint. So Michael waited behind the pillar for hours, watching the vault and the entrance to the hallway, praying that no one would need their attention, and no one did.
Eventually, a male presenting angel with light hair approached the vault. Beside the entrance, the angel placed his hand on an iridescent glass panel etched with angelic symbols. Upon his hand's contact, the panel glowed teal and chimed like a harp. The door swung open, hissing out cool air, and when the angel walked inside the heavy steel door closed lethargically behind him.
A few minutes later, the door swung open again, and the angel exited holding a grey box. As the vault door began to close, Michael slipped away from their hiding spot and stopped the door from shutting with an outstretched hand. They placed one of their shoes between the door and the wall, propping it open.
The lights of the vault flickered on, humming with a soft blue glow. The room resembled a museum archive, if museums had the resources to build storage that extended on into eternity. There were thousands of rows of free-standing shelves packed with lidded grey, beige, and pale cardboard boxes, and at the end of each shelf was a cabinet door with a gleaming silver handle.
Michael walked amongst the shelves until they found the one they wanted. They opened a cabinet door, revealing a storage compartment that held only one object: a lacquered wooden case with a polished handle and brass clasps. Michael took the case, unlatched it, and smiled at its contents before latching it shut once more.
With the box in hand, Michael closed the storage compartment, pushed the heavy vault door open wide enough to fit through, and grabbed their shoe off the floor with their free hand. The vault door shut behind them with a soft click.
Crowley was grateful for the December sunshine as he waded into the shallow end of Brighton’s pebble-lined beach. It was a bracing nine degrees Celsius outside, and no one was masochistic enough to join him in the water, which was exactly what he hoped for. The water wasn’t cold for him anyway. The nice thing about being a demon was that all he had to do was think about the water being warm, and then it was.
Crowley had gotten used to the perpetual low-hanging gloom of London weather, but in this part of England, southwestern winds pushed clouds away from the city and the surrounding country. They instead amassed towards the more unfortunate municipality of Crawley, which was Crowley’s old fifth-century stomping grounds. (Crowley won a high-stakes card game against a local magistrate and added a winning condition that he’d get to name the little hamlet developing there after himself. At the time, he thought it would be funny to brag about it to Aziraphale. He couldn’t remember why it was funny anymore.)
He sighed and took a swig from the bottle of Gray Goose in his hand, then tipped his head toward the clear sky.
“Aziraphale,” he started, his voice low. “I have no idea what you’re up to right now, and I don’t know if you can hear me. I also don’t know what I’m doing or what I should do with myself, but… what I do know is that it’s beautiful here in Brighton.”
He admired the view for a moment. In the summer, sailboats dotted the coastline with their white sails, but in the winter, it was mostly cargo ships and freighters and the odd military ship in the far distance.
“I don’t know why we didn’t spend more time here when you were still on Earth. Did we ever go here together? I don’t think we did. I know you would have liked it. I know you would have loved the sunshine, and all these people playing in the water, the festivals in town, and there are bookshops, don’t you know? And art galleries– they’re not as exciting as the ones in London, but nothing is, really. But you would have liked the pace of this town.”
He hung his head and watched as the water lapped at his legs and soaked his trousers up to his knees. He felt it bleed into his socks and shoes.
“I’m trying to enjoy it,” he continued, looking up again. “I really am. I’m trying to find a reason to go on because I’m still here whether I want to be or not. And until you’re not in the universe at all, I’ll keep going on. I’m going to keep waiting for you, even though I’m angry at you, and I still don’t understand why you left.”
A larger wave crested at his thighs and sent sea spray up to his arms and chest. Nearby, seagulls brayed as they flew overhead in V-formation. Along the horizon, storm clouds gathered, but it didn’t look like they’d come in any time soon. It really was a beautiful day, despite the cold.
“I’m going to keep trying. Just don’t make me wait much longer.”
Michael placed a glass tablet on Aziraphale’s desk.
The Supreme Archangel set down the Great Plan and furrowed his brow. “What is this?”
“Security improvements,” Michael said. “With all the new angels on Earth, I took the liberty to draft an upgrade to the Earth Observation System. It includes refinements such as an increased frame rate for picture capture and minimized blind spots in remote zones, as well as a new audio monitoring feature.”
Aziraphale picked up the tablet and swiped through various screens of esoteric diagrams, his expression growing dubious as he skimmed.
“This seems dreadfully excessive. I can’t imagine any angel being so insubordinate down there as to merit this much panopticism."
“Not a single angel?”
Aziraphale gave them a chagrined look. “It’s a lot of miracle power, anyhow.”
“It would also grant us greater visibility on demonic activity,” Michael insisted, placing the palms of their hands on Aziraphale’s desk. “As armageddon escalates, they’ll start moving their players on Earth. The more information we have, the better prepared we are to respond.”
That made Aziraphale consider. You could never be too careful with hell, he thought, and Crowley’s not entirely out of their circle of peril. If they were going to do anything that could harm Crowley, it was better to know as soon as possible.
He sighed. “I don’t like it, but… very well. Go ahead and implement those changes. Good work as always.” He waved his hand dismissively and returned his focus to the Great Plan.
Michael flashed him a cold smile he couldn’t see, then left Aziraphale’s office. They turned down a long, sterile corridor that opened into a cavernous monitor room. The room teemed with thousands of floating screens displaying live footage from Earth. Michael passed a grainy feed of a man standing at a Shanghai street corner eating a sandwich, a far-away shot of a low-ranking demon kicking a tombstone in a cemetery, and security footage of an angel wandering into an Anne Taylor’s.
At the center of the room was a sprawling horseshoe-shaped console. Michael sat at the console and, with a few expert keystrokes on a control panel, transferred the update from their tablet into the Observation System.
Every screen in the room turned black.
An update progress bar appeared on the control panel screen, crawling towards completion at a pace so sluggish it made glaciers look reckless.
Michael took out their angel phone (or aPhone as heaven had been calling them as of late), tapped the glass, and held it to their ear. The other end answered almost immediately.
“If we’re going to meet, then it has to be right now,” Michael said. “You know where to go. Don’t make me wait.”
It was overcast and humid in Mayfair, London. The sun was beginning to set, and Christmas canopy lights lit up along Picadilly street. Wealthy Londonites flocked to the neighborhood after work to buy expensive watches, clothes, and dinners, some for themselves, some for spouses, and some for lovers that the aforementioned spouses were not aware of.
Michael sat at a heavily graffitied London Underground entrance beside Green Park, feeling disgusted by it all.
A middle-aged man who looked like he had lived a hard and fast youth that had since caught up to him ambled up to Michael, an unlit cigarette resting between two fingers.
“Oi love, have you got a light?”
Michael bristled. Then, with an eye roll and a snap of their fingers, a small flame flickered into existence and rolled to the end of their index finger.
The man’s eyes widened and his lower lip trembled, but he leaned in and lit his cigarette with Michael’s flame anyway. Once the tip of his cigarette glowed red, he hurried away while muttering about how it was time he let up on his drinking habit.
“Smoking kills, you know,” said a voice next to Michael. Shax had appeared sitting by their side, looking like she had just returned from an eccentric funeral hosted at the Epsom Derby.
“They’ll all be dead soon enough,” Michael replied.
Shax scowled. “This better be worth my time. You interrupted a particularly amusing round of pin the tail on the adulterer."
“You’ll find this worthwhile. I have a proposition for you.”
Shax narrowed her eyes with equal amounts of suspicion and interest. “Do tell.”
“The second coming is in the works and it’s all gone topside. Aziraphale’s approach to Armageddon is to avoid as much bloodshed as possible.”
“But the bloodshed is the point,” Shax said.
“Precisely, which is why I need your help.”
“With what?”
Michael leaned in conspiratorially. “I want to destroy Aziraphale.”
Shax’s eyes widened, and she leaned back in her seat. “A mutiny against the prince of heaven? Wouldn’t that be considered a rebellion against heaven itself?”
“Not necessarily. If Aziraphale were to bring about his own destruction, we’d hardly have to lift a finger. He’s had plenty of issues with deviancy in the past; I’m sure he can be tempted into straying even further from righteousness.”
Shax hummed. “That all sounds very well, but where do I come into this?”
“The temptation part of it all. As you know, I am an angel, so I wouldn’t know the first thing about temptation. Someone is going to have to tempt Aziraphale into committing a sin so grievous that not even the Metatron could object to me eradicating his existence.”
Shax hummed and considered it. “If I were to help you,” she continued, “what would be in it for me?”
“If you help me become the supreme archangel I’ll make conditions more favorable for your side in Armageddon. As of now, our side has a clear advantage over yours, with the antichrist neutralized. But I have something that’ll be of great interest to you.”
Michael picked up the wooden box they had grabbed from heaven’s vaults. Shax unlatched the lid and discovered inside a hammered bronze bowl encrusted with glittering jewels that gleamed like venom dripping from a serpent’s fang.
“The Seventh Bowl of Wrath," Michael said. “Fill it with any liquid, then pour it onto the Earth. Once the bowl is empty, it will commence the return of Christ."
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought there were a myriad of steps that needed to happen before the return of Christ. The war, for one. The end of the world, for another.”
“Precisely,” Michael said. “If we jump to the end, then heaven is thrown off kilter, and Aziraphale is forced to catch up with the rest. Armageddon done the proper way is guaranteed, and your side gets to call the first shot.”
Shax gave Michael a skeptical look. “You’d sabotage your own side just to enact some petty vengeance on an angel you have a vendetta with? Sounds like something that a demon would do.”
Michael stuck their nose up and pursed their lips primly. “It’s for the greater good of my side, though I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
Shax nodded thoughtfully, then smiled a Cheshire grin. “You have yourself a deal,” Shax said and held out her hand. Michael eyed it with apprehension, then slowly took it and shook.
“Now, for your side of the bargain. Do you have any ideas how to make Aziraphale fall?”
Shax furrowed her brow and thought deeply, which was not easy for a demon like herself to do. Then, she brightened. “Aziraphale seems to have more than a sweet spot for the demon Crowley. I have a suspicion that they’re secretly lovers.”
Michael rolled their eyes. “You’re probably right, knowing the traitor.”
Shax leaned in closer with a devious gleam in her eyes. “So use him. Attachment is vulnerability. Hold a knife to the demon's throat and see what depths the angel would fall to have it removed.”
Michael tipped their head back, the corners of their mouth curling up.
A bus screeched to a stop at the bench. A few bored humans stepped off and walked toward their next destination. When the bus rumbled away, both Michael and Shax were gone.
In the world of linguistics, homographs are words that share a common spelling but hold different meanings and pronunciations. One homograph in the English language is the word “slough,” which takes on a different meaning and pronunciation depending on who you ask. To doctors, slough refers to a type of dead, pustulent, yellowing necrotic tissue that festers in bacteria-ridden wound beds. To fishermen and hydrologists alike, a slough is a brackish, swamp-like body of water that stinks with sulfurous algae and collects swarms of mosquitoes at its surface. For a large portion of residents of South East England, Slough is a town that is the municipal embodiment of the two aforementioned definitions.
Needless to say, it was a popular gathering spot for demons. A whole legion of them was there.
They waited until the evening was sufficiently dark and menacing before they congregated in a dead grass field beside an abandoned bottling plant. Their leader stood before them on a stack of littered mattresses, regarding her subjects with equal measures of bloodlust and enmity.
“Legions of the damned, servants of Satan, children of darkness,” Shax began, “I have gathered you all on this woeful night to witness one of the greatest moments towards our victory against heaven.”
The demons let loose a low rumble of malevolent approval.
Shax reached down, unlatched the case by her side, and held up the jeweled Bowl of Wrath.
“We have come into possession of an artifact of the apocalypse, which we will activate tonight!”
The demons cheered louder.
“Rejoice, for these are the final moments that the world shall remain whole. Eric, a liquid for the bowl.”
The demon Eric stepped unsteadily onto the mattresses beside Shax. “Right here, your darkness: one of the most evil beverages ever invented in human history.” He uncapped a bottle of Coca-Cola and poured the contents into the Bowl of Wrath.
The demons hissed amongst themselves in sharp, eager whispers, and excitement rippled through them in waves. Some craned their necks to get a better look at the great bowl cradled in Shax’s hands, while others grinned with the breathless delight of children waiting for fireworks. The air itself seemed to tighten around them, hot and electric with the promise of catastrophe.
Shax smiled, baring her obsidian teeth, then tipped the bowl forward, spilling the Coca-Cola onto the earth.
At the northwestern edge of the Eurasian tectonic plate along the Mid-Atlantic ridge, 608 kilometers from the eastern shore of Iceland and 3,872 meters below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, a fissure opened on the ocean floor. In the coming days, bewildered seismologists would discover that the Eurasian plate, starting at this epicenter, shifted a record-shattering 25 meters over 35 seconds. As the Eurasian plate shifted east, it pressed down with trillions of tons of force on the Indian plate, which slid diagonally against the Arabian plate, whose southern angles cut into the African plate, and so on, until across the globe large tremors shook every continent, rippling out from faultlines into cities everywhere.
The effects were most catastrophic in cities built in Earthquake zones. All over the world, great architectural landmarks buckled and heaved into oblivion. The cables of the Golden Gate Bridge twisted and ruptured, lurching the bridge and all of its 2,500 vehicles into the Golden Gate Strait. The Tokyo tower folded in on itself into a skeletal heap of crimson steel, to the horror and peril of nearby residents and tourists. Along the Pacific Ring of Fire, iconic coastlines crumbled and disappeared into the Ocean, leaving behind raw, new silhouettes on old land.
The British Isles were not hit as hard as countries harboring fault lines, but for UK residents who had never felt a tremor before, the shake was petrifying.
The nightlife of Soho ground to a halt. Surprised Londonites looked up from their phones and conversations, frozen in surprised immobility, while others ran out of buildings toward the center of the road. Drivers slammed on their brakes to avoid hitting pedestrians, triggering a chain reaction of fender-bender pileups.
In the bookshop on Whickber Street, Muriel was a quarter of the way through The Phantom Tollbooth when the bookshop started shaking. Above, the chandelier swung in wide, panicked arcs, and dust dropped from the ceiling. When the Mystery and Thrillers section groaned and began a slow, heavy tilt toward the floor, Muriel snapped her fingers, and it obediently righted itself.
In Brighton, Crowley was walking out of the German-themed discotheque Danse Pacha Pacha when the earth started shaking. He lost his balance and, falling to his hands and knees, was nearly stepped on by hordes of screaming people. The wires from a nearby powerline snapped, the cables writhing in the air like electric eels. A streetlamp toppled over and crashed into a two-story Tudor-style building in a plume of sparks and rubble.
“Oh. It’s happening again,” Crowley said, his voice both grave and petrified. “This is the beginning, isn’t it? The beginning of the end.”
Aziraphale and the archangels were examining schematics of a new cold sore design when heaven began to shake. An alarm in heaven flashed red lights, and Aziraphale shot out of his seat and knocked his chair over.
“Warning. Great Plan sequential error,” the alarm said from an undefinable source. “Warning: Great Plan sequential error.”
“What’s happening?” Aziraphale yelled.
“Massive earthquake,” Saraqael said, checking their aPhone, “The whole planet.”
Aziraphale hurried through the office doorway, the other archangels following, and ran down a short corridor lined with triangular windows before emerging into Heaven’s vast central chamber, where Heaven’s model Earth hung suspended in the air. The surface of the planet trembled, emitting a low-pitched buzz. He rushed forward and seized the planet with both arms, pressing his feet into the polished ground as he strained his body weight against the world.
After several agonizing moments, the trembling subsided. The alarm did not.
Breathing hard, Aziraphale pulled his aPhone from his pocket and held it to his mouth.
“Stop the alarm.”
The blaring ceased at once.
Aziraphale tapped the surface of the Earth over Eastern Asia, pinched his thumb and index finger together, then spread them apart, zooming in on the globe toward Manila. Buildings lay in ruins across the city, and along the western coast, the ocean had already begun to withdraw into the forming maw of a Tsunami. He rotated the Earth westward and descended again. Tehran was in no better state, nor were Istanbul, Tokyo, Reykjavík, or Mexico City…
Then, heaven went dark.
It was the kind of darkness Aziraphale remembered before light existed, when he was only a shapeless entity drifting through an immeasurable void.
Thousands of years ago, heaven went dark on another unfortunate occasion. It happened in the main city where the angels once lived together before the war, but that was the darkness of smoke passing over the sun. This darkness was so vacuous that, for a moment, he thought the universe somehow came to an end in a moment of unguarded complacency.
Then, like the sun emerging from the horizon, light arose in the windows. It wasn’t the amorphous holy white light of before, however. Rising into view came the indigo and golden lights of a vast and teeming galaxy.
Aziraphale marveled at it. There were spindly clouds of space dust and nearby planets spinning in miraculous orbits around an unseen celestial body. A nearby comet sprayed a plume of glowing white ice as it seared along its trajectory. In the center of their panorama was the Earth, visible only by a silhouetted ring of light and the pinprick glow of human civilization still awake in the night, reeling from calamity.
The Archangels looked at one another in stunned silence. Their features were mild and soft in the ever-shifting stellar light.
A technological ping demanded their attention.
Aziraphale looked for the source of the sound. The room was still dim, and in the shadows, the floors of heaven looked as black as night and shone like ink, but the middle of the dark floor beamed a narrow rectangle of red light.
“Have you ever seen that before?” Aziraphale asked.
“Definitely not,” Saraqael said. “I didn’t know the floors had lights.”
Gingerly, Aziraphale approached it. He crouched down and reached out a tentative hand.
The instant his fingertip connected with the rectangle, another one pinged into existence in front of it. He approached that one as well, and when his foot touched it, a third one appeared, followed by dozens more after. The rectangles, all appearing one in front of the other, formed one long dashed line that disappeared around a corner.
“I think we’re meant to follow it,” Aziraphale said.
He slowly followed the line, with the other archangels walking close behind. As they walked along, the line began to pulse faintly like a calm heartbeat.
They turned the corner and entered a narrow hallway. The only light came from the glowing red rectangles.
Eventually, the line stopped, and at its end was a large scarlet circle, which swirled like a hurricane.
Aziraphale stepped into the circle. It glowed brighter and emanated a melodious jingle.
White floodlights burst on above them, nearly blinding the archangels. They squinted, throwing up their hands to cover their eyes. A grating screech made them realize, too late, that they were standing before a large, opening, metal door.
The door revealed a massive room with corrugated steel walls and a ceiling ribbed with exposed steel beams and trusses painted white. On the other side of the room was an opening into the vastness of space. Then Aziraphale spotted what was in the center of the room, and realized that it wasn’t a room at all, but a hangar.
Resting before him like a dragon in slumber was a massive silver airplane, hot vapor rising from its jet engines. Bold letters across the side of the fuselage read Thine Kingdom Airways. Two engines were on and spinning, but emitted no noise. Above the jet hung a digital clock that was as nearly large as his bookshop. In crisp white numbers, it read twenty-three hours, fifty-seven minutes, and thirty-three, thirty-two, thirty-one…
“No,” Aziraphale said, horror mounting in his voice. “This can’t be happening.”
“How is this happening?” Uriel asked. “We’re all here, aren’t we?”
“Maybe it’s a false alarm,” Sandalphon murmured.
Aziraphale shook his head. “This is the Messiah’s plane. There are no false alarms for this.”
Michael hummed and stepped forward, clasping their hands in front of them.
“That’s right. He’s in there now, waiting.”
At the front of the plane was a single window that shone with golden light like a candle in a storm.
“The second coming has begun.”