Archive of Our Own ^beta

Anathema was an angel. However, she often made as much of an effort as possible to be as un-angelic as possible without alerting a higher authority. This included such things as practicing rather a lot of magic, which in itself was not frowned upon by the angels, but the humans thought it was, so it counted. She also spent as much time with her best friend (and a bit more, depending on who you asked, and how drunk you got them before asking), the demon Newt.

Newt was a demon. However, he often made as much of an effort as possible to be as un-demonic as possible without alerting a lower authority. This included dropping dollars into donation boxes while claiming that he was “furthering the cause of evil” by frustrating the recipients with American money. He also spent as much time with his best friend (and a bit more, if you asked him), the angel Anathema.

They’d been friends since the very beginning, when Newt had actually been a newt, crawling through the Garden, just minding his own business. He’d felt bad for the poor humans, and showed them the best trees to get fruit from. How was he to know that the fruit was forbidden?

Anathema was stationed at the Gates shortly thereafter, and after one instance when he caught her showing the human woman to do a fire spell and was subsequently discorporated for spying, they’d been fast friends.

After a while, Heaven got a bit fed up with Anathema being on Earth so long and not doing a lick of good. They decided to make her their emissary, the only angel to be eternally stationed on the physical plane. She was pleased with the decision, as she’d never felt really at home among the other angels and assorted blessed human souls. However, it required her to do the occasional work of God, which she wasn’t so pleased about, but she bore it with a grin and an angelic look in her eye. Anything to get away from Heaven.

After a while, Hell got a bit fed up with Newt being on Earth for so long and not doing a lick of evil. They decided to make him their agent, the only demon to be eternally stationed on the physical plane. He was pleased with the decision, as he’d never felt really at home among the other fallen angels and assorted damned human souls. However, it required him to do the occasional work of Satan, which he wasn’t so pleased about, but he bore it with a frown and a demonic look in his eye. Anything to get away from Hell.

So really, being so similar in mentality, it’s no wonder they got on well. And if they fell in love too, well, that’s none of your business and you really should learn to respect others’ privacy, as Anathema would say. But as Newt would put it, it was only a matter of time.

XXXXX

Anthony J. Crowley was a banker. Actually, he was a rather important CEO at a banking firm, but he (and don’t tell his superiors this) loathed the job, and preferred to downplay it as much as possible. Not that he didn’t like the job stability and the decent pay. He had a nice, upscale flat in a nice, upscale part of London. He had a nice, upscale pub down the street and nice, upscale coworkers that would gladly go drinking with him if he asked, even if it was only to get in his good books.

However, his real passion was not banking, nor did he particularly enjoy the company of his coworkers. His real passion was in gardening. He loved plants. He loved plants more than he loved people. People were dull and cruel to each other and, in all, not very interesting. But plants were colorful and you could shape them however you wanted, if you cared to, and if you had enough time. Which, much to his dismay, he did not.

Poor Anthony—actually, he’d prefer to be called by his last name, if you don’t mind—was stuck at the office, at least twelve hours a day, at least six days a week. He simply didn’t have enough time to take care of much more than the regular garden variety (pardon the pun) fern or fichus. And there was no way he was paying someone to come water a plant for him. They wouldn’t do it right. If he were to get anyone but himself, they would simply dump water into the soil and traipse out. No, you had to talk to the plants. And not in a nice tone of voice.

The key to getting fuller, lusher plants, as he’d discovered, is to threaten them until they have no choice but to grow. And, being a banker, Crowley was rather good at being threatening. He could threaten plants very well, and people were almost as easy.

XXXXX

Ezra Fell owned a bookshop. Of course, he never sold anything. And no one called him Ezra.

He was more widely known as Aziraphale, though no one could say exactly why or when that started. If you asked him, he would put on a pot of tea, sit down, and think about it for a few hours before coming up blank. (But, since I’m the narrator, I can tell you that it all started when he was first getting a reputation as a rare book dealer, and one of his customers made a joke about how he was like the angel of rare books, so knowledgeable was he about them. He’d laughed and asked what kind of name was Ezra Fell for an angel, and his customer had muttered “Aziraphale” under his breath, and so it began.)

Despite owning a bookshop, Aziraphale never sold anything unless the customer specifically asked for it, by name and by author, and knew exactly what they were getting when it was sold to them. One of the things Aziraphale hated most about rare books was that they were so easily damaged by people who didn’t know how to care for them. Actually, it was the only thing he hated about rare books. Actually, it was the only thing he hated in general. He was a very kind, agreeable man.

Another factor that contributed to his lack of business was the mostly deserted, mostly poor street his shop and flat were on. None of the other inhabitants knew much about books, and as such weren’t very interested in his shop. They paid more attention to the empty flat across the street, either wondering how much it would cost to rent or taking bets on how long before it was occupied.

Actually, it took approximately six weeks before a large banking firm bought it, probably to send out some poor sap who would have to case the area for the best place to build a branch of their company. Aziraphale—which even he called himself, even in his own mind—pitied whoever they sent. It wasn’t exactly the kind of neighborhood a banker would enjoy, or fit in.

XXXXX

Tracy was a psychic. She was very proud of that fact, and because of this would never resort to giving readings for clients. Instead, she chose to do more practical things with her gift, such as predicting the weather for her friends, investing in stock for several companies that almost no one else invested in, and managing a small army of people like herself.

There were about a dozen of them, spread all over the country. They were all different sorts of people, ranging from fifteen-year-old Susanna who lived on the streets of London to Miss Potts, who was actually abroad in New York most of the time. Tracy was in charge, because she had the most ability.

She liked to call them her Witch Army.

(But don’t tell them that. Psychics get offended when you call them witches.)

XXXXX

Shadwell was a retired dancer. And before that he’d been retired from the army.

He was retired in general, and loving every second of it.

He didn’t have to go out and do anything. He could sit at home and read the newspaper and watch daytime television all day and nobody gave a damn. He was, really and truly, free of all societal pressures, expectations, and norms.

And he was, strangely, bored. He was waiting for something to come along and happen.

He owned a nice little house that he rented out in the summer months, divided in half, half for him and half for a tenant. The current tenant was a nice lady named Tracy, who teased him endlessly about his past as a dancer in a club and had strange visitors once every two months. They talked sometimes, but not a lot, and he sometimes brought her food when she’d been on the phone for hours on end without pausing to eat. He also lent her his car, a beat-up old thing that would probably fall apart if it ever tried broaching the speed limit. He supposed he could call her a friend.

XXXXX

And that brings us to the beginning of our story.

XXXXX

“You’re sending me where?” Crowley demanded, peering at his boss over the rim of his glasses. The action was a mistake, as he was mostly blind in both eyes, and it reduced his boss to a blurry outline of a tan and black shape. He quickly reverted back to viewing the other man normally. Much better.

“It’s a small neighborhood, full of nice empty buildings and a few people. I’m sure you’ll be fine,” his boss said dismissively.

Crowley gaped. He’d never been transferred in his life. In fact, he wasn’t even sure if his job allowed transfers. He was a rather important CEO. They don’t usually get transferred, unless “transferred” is a code word for “replaced.”

That was it. He was being replaced.

His horror and confusion must have shown on his face, because Ligur leaned forward, hands folded on his desk, a completely false expression of compassion on his face. “I know what you’re thinking, Anthony, and it’s not true. We aren’t replacing you. We’re just sending you out to see if this new location would be worth it.”

Crowley blinked at him, at a total loss for words. He knew Ligur would love, absolutely love, to see Crowley gone. They had never gotten along particularly well. Ligur was out of touch with technology, and his temper was about as small as his physical height, which is to say, not very big. And he loved to give Crowley all the hard jobs with the most unpleasant clients.

“How long would I be gone?” Crowley ventured, though the note of hatred didn’t leave his voice.

The hatred was equal in Ligur’s. “A month. Maybe two. Possibly three.”

“What could possibly take that long?” Crowley asked before he could stop himself. As soon as the words were out, he knew he’d made a mistake. He could practically feel the month count going up from maybe-two-possibly-three to as-long-as-it-takes-to-learn-respect-for-your-boss.

“You have to make sure it’s a good neighborhood, one we would like to be associated with. If you were only there a few days or a week, the locals would be nice to you because you’re new. If you’re there for longer, they’ll treat you like one of them.” Ligur shrugged as if he couldn’t help it, though Crowley knew for sure that it was Ligur that had recommended him for the job. Who else could have? Certainly not Hastur. Crowley hadn’t worked under Hastur in years.

Crowley sighed heavily, appearing to give in. Ligur grinned savagely, reminding Crowley vaguely of a Bosch painting. The two stood up and shook hands, effectively sealing Crowley’s fate as a small-town resident for the foreseeable future. And if his grip was a bit too tight, or if his fingernails poked Ligur a bit too hard, neither man said anything.

XXXXX

Anathema was running late, as per usual. Newt sighed and put his head in his hands, gazing forlornly at the ducks and suited men that so densely populated St. James Park at this time of afternoon. He sometimes hated her disregard for schedules, but always caught himself before he could think anything particularly demonic. He hated being demonic almost as much as he hated lateness.

Newt looked up, and there she was, hurrying toward him from the bus stop. She never bothered getting a car, unlike him, which he found both amusing and endearing. Although, she probably found his car repulsive. The thing was a large piece of junk only kept running by the demonic influence of its owner. If he’d been a normal human man, he’d have sold it for scrap years ago.

“Sorry I’m late,” Anathema said between gasps, bending double and putting her hands on her knees. Newt furrowed his brow in confusion. Anathema was the fittest person he knew, and in any case, she’d only run about ten yards. “I got held up at a meeting.”

“A meeting?” Newt asked, instantly on edge. “Like, a Heaven meeting?”

Anathema’s eyes were sad when she met his gaze and nodded, just once, slowly. Newt shook his head and patted the bench next to him, scooting over a bit so she could sit down. Not that either would have minded being close together. He just wanted to give her a bit of space.

“What happened?” he prodded.

Anathema sat down as if she were a ton of bricks. “They want to start the Apocalypse. The antichrist is turning eleven soon, you remember him?”

Newt nodded, suppressing a shudder. It was almost exactly eleven years ago that he’d been told to deliver the basket that contained the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness to a bunch of chatty nuns. He still didn’t fancy the memory.

“Well, when he turns eleven, your side is going to send him a hellhound, biggest one they have. If he names it, it’s the end of the world. If he doesn’t, it’s the end of us.” Anathema looked sad and worried, and Newt wanted nothing more than to make her not look that way. Sadly, as a demon, he was never very good with emotions. Almost as bad as he was with technology, which, like most demons, he somehow managed to kill with his mere presence.

“What are we going to do?” Newt said, for lack of things to say.

Anathema’s head snapped up. She turned to him with a fierce light in her eyes, almost seeming to glow with what could have been mistaken for heavenly conviction, if you didn’t know her well enough to recognize that she would rather eat nails than be filled with anything so purely angelic.

“What did you say?” she asked intensely, eyes boring into Newt’s. He shuffled self-consciously, wondering if he’d somehow managed to upset her, and if she was planning to discorporate him any time soon.

“I asked what we were going to do,” he ventured tentatively.

Anathema’s smile was more of a savagely delighted grimace, but it beat the worry that was etched onto her face moments ago. She grabbed Newt’s arm and held on tightly, leaning in and pecking him on the cheek. Blushing, Newt checked to make sure none of the assorted international spies noticed. It looked like the only one who saw anything was a tall man in a gray suit with an umbrella, who was smirking at them in a slightly worrying fashion.

“What? What did I say?” Newt asked, completely lost.

“We’re going to do something about it,” Anathema announced, halfway between insanity and contentment.

XXXXX

Aziraphale leaned against the counter, gazing at the shelves of dusty tomes that filled the shop. There was nothing better than a nice, clean bookshop with nice, neat rows of nice, neat books. Good thing his was anything but. In an effort to discourage the casual buyer, he’d made sure to keep haphazard piles of books all over the floor, and to keep things dim and slightly dusty. Only those who knew his reputation in the rare book community (which, despite what you’d think, is a thriving industry with hundreds of members, dozens of conventions, and even a secret handshake) would come in with the intentions of buying something.

Outside, a van was pulling up to the flat across the street. Aziraphale curiously peered through the blinds, wondering who the poor sap that would be living there was. It would be a banker of some sort, that he knew, because he’d seen the company cars coming and going all day. He felt bad for the poor sod. This was certainly not a neighborhood a banker would enjoy finding himself in.

The van was pulled up to the curb, and several men in blue uniforms got out. Aziraphale left the desk to watch more closely, standing with his nose inches away from the glass, which really needed a washing now that he got near it. The three movers were alone, meaning that the new occupant would be along sometime later in the day, possibly sometime the next.

In any case, the new neighbor would be a fairly wealthy person. If the high-scale furniture was any indication, they would be pretty high up on the metaphorical chain of command. And if the giant wall prints of several paintings were taken into account, and the complete lack of personal items, they would be one of those workaholics who almost never came home. Aziraphale felt even more pity for them. There wasn’t much to do on this street, and if the banker was from the city, they probably wouldn’t have a car to go anywhere else.

Aziraphale sighed and left the window, heading off to bake something and dust off a bottle of wine. The only shop on the street was his. Well, unless you counted the one on the corner, but that was less of a shop and more of a decrepit place people occasionally ventured into looking for the type of things you couldn’t get in many other places and would keep hidden from your parents and the authorities.

XXXXX

Crowley was not pleased. He was not pleased at all.

The street he was supposed to be living on was dusty, dirty, and empty of any signs of life. The flat was above an abandoned room that was probably once a shop, with a For Rent sign on the cracked window, the door sagging pitifully on its hinges. The narrow stairwell led up to another door, somewhat less pitiful, that would open into Crowley’s new flat.

The movers were in the process of getting his couch through the door, which was about an inch too thin for the couch to fit through it. Crowley himself was standing on the pavement, watching and marveling at the stupidity of humanity. If the movers would simply turn the couch a bit to the left, it would go in smoothly.

However, there was no way he was going to tell them this. It was far too much fun watching them curse at each other and flail around. The couch wasn’t even important to him. It was cheap, and he hardly used it anyway. If they accidentally broke it, then he’d have a chance to shout at someone and take out all his anger. Anger at being plucked from his nice cozy home and planted here, in Soho, on a dirty little street that he had no business being on.

Don’t get him wrong, he didn’t mind being in a small, loosely populated neighborhood. He actually came from one originally. His father had owned a very nice business on a narrow side street, making enough money to feed his multiple children with ease. But when he’d turned old enough to be tossed out of home, he was, and Crowley had harbored a minor dislike for small streets and towns ever since.

Up on the stairs, the movers finally managed to shove the couch through the door. Crowley was impressed. It was like if someone had figured out how to get the square peg through the round hole.

“Where do you want this?” one of the movers called down, his Yorkshire accent grating on Crowley’s already frayed nerves.

“Just put it up there. I’ll move it when I have to,” Crowley called back, and the mover nodded. Together the three men went inside, no doubt to argue over where to place the couch. They were a very argumentative bunch. It made Crowley want to pull his hair out.

XXXXX

Newt was driving toward a place called Tadfield at a remarkable rate. There was a military base there, and with the help of Anathema and her mysterious contact, they could get the next plane to the antichrist within an hour. He wanted to laugh at how idiotic that sounded. They were going to be catching a plane to the antichrist.

“Tell me again why you bought this thing?” Anathema asked, looking with absolute disdain and disapproval at the interior of Newt’s car. Newt didn’t have it in him to be offended. Even he had to admit that his car was a bit on the bad side, and not in a way his superiors would have approved of.

“It was cheap. I needed a car,” he offers, knowing fully well that he’s explained this at least once every month since buying it. “I don’t see you owning a car.”

“I don’t need a car. I live in the city,” was Anathema’s reply. Newt rolled his eyes and pushed the gas pedal closer to the floor. The car may be a piece of utter junk, but it could go as fast as demonically possible with a bit of urging.

He was currently going about three times the average speed of a car. Anathema wasn’t even batting an eyelash. She was the type of person who, upon being placed in a car that ought to have been crashing into every single thing that crossed its path, would insult the car and possibly insult the driver as well. She’d always been that way. Ever since the middle of the last century, when she’d last spoken to the Metatron, even Heaven had been on a silent-treatment basis with her. And since Hell certainly wasn’t talking to her, Newt was her only friend.

Not that she wasn’t his as well.

Newt sighed and went around a curve in the road that created such centrifugal force that it should have thrown the car off the blacktop, over a short hill, and into the small field of flowers below. Since said car was occupied by supernatural forces both occult and ethereal, it remained on the road.

“I’m just saying,” Newt offered. “The car works.”

“It wouldn’t if you were a human,” Anathema countered.

“But I’m not. That’s the point,” Newt replied.

Anathema snickered and turned to watch the trees racing by at high speeds.

XXXXX

Aziraphale was sitting calmly behind his desk, drinking a cup of tea, watching the dust motes settle. It was a nice, peaceful kind of day. Outside, the heat was murderous, so there would be no wanderers coming in off the street. He had a full twenty-four hours of relaxation to look forward to.

Of course, he was still watching the movers across the street. He wasn’t consciously watching them, but he occasionally caught himself sneaking glances at the window, which he still needed to wash. They were having trouble getting some of the things in through the narrow door, to which he could relate. It had been like pulling teeth to get his bookshelves upstairs into his flat when he moved in.

Aziraphale sighed and put down his tea. It was far too hot for tea, despite the air conditioning. Outside, it was sweltering, and he caught himself wondering if he should bring drinks to the poor movers. In their long-sleeved uniforms, they would get heatstroke and die easily.

Before he had a chance to even get up, the bell over the door chimed and the door slammed shut with the air of a door whose slammer hadn’t used such an old door in a very long time. The slammer in question was a sweaty-looking man in a black suit, complete with sunglasses and angry expression.

“Hello,” Aziraphale said, trying to seem absent-minded. He’d found that if he acted a bit off, any potential customers would feel uncomfortable and leave.

The man just offered him a nod and leaned back against the door with a contented sigh. He wiped a hand across his brow and if he wasn’t wearing sunglasses, Aziraphale would see that his eyes were closed.

“Here for any particular reason?” Aziraphale asked, frowning. The man shook his head, but detached himself from the wall to come closer, leaning heavily on the desk.

“Trying to get out of the heat,” he offered, sounding bone-tired. It was the voice of a man who has been moving furniture all day with the help of three particularly unpleasant movers. Aziraphale could sympathize. The same three men had been helping people to move into their new homes in this town for years. He could still remember vividly how they’d dropped half his books down a flight of stairs. It still made him shudder to recall.

Aziraphale sighed and held out a hand. “I’m Aziraphale.”

The other man shook his hand with the practiced ease of one who shakes hands quite often. His eyebrows shot up at the mention of Aziraphale’s name, but he masked his surprise well. Aziraphale was almost impressed.

“Crowley,” the new man said.

“Good to meet you,” Aziraphale replied. “You’re moving in across the street?”

A pained look crossed Crowley’s face. “Yeah. My job wants me to see if it’s worth it to build a new location around here.”

Aziraphale hummed noncommittally.

“Do you think it would be worth it?” Crowley asked, and if he wasn’t wearing sunglasses he would probably be staring at Aziraphale intently. (Actually, he was, but Aziraphale didn’t know that.)

“Possibly. Not many people around here would be opening up huge accounts, though. It’s a slightly poor neighborhood, if you haven’t noticed,” Aziraphale said, gesturing around to indicate the slightly poor neighborhood. Crowley nodded in understanding and crossed the room to run a finger over the dusty spines of a few rare books.

“You sell books?” he asked, looking rather impressed, with a small amount of surprise, at a first edition Paradise Lost.

“Yes,” Aziraphale replied, already wondering just how much his new neighbor knew about rare books. Probably not much, seeing as most people wouldn’t know a first edition from a second. So it was likely that he was only impressed by the sheer amount of dust and obvious age on the book. “Rare ones.”

“I can see that,” Crowley said, and whistled. “Really rare books.”

Aziraphale thought that maybe he and this new banker could get along.

XXXXX

“I don’t understand,” Anathema half-shouted, gazing with fury at anything and everything that dared to move. “It was eleven years. I remember when he was born!”

“So do I,” Newt offered, though he could tell it was a mistake. Anathema turned her eyes on him, and he could already feel that slight prickling on the back of his neck that came with having angry angels nearby. If he didn’t watch it, he’d find himself inconveniently discorporated soon.

“Are you absolutely certain that it was the right baby?” she asked, voice deadly soft. It was the voice of a lioness prowling the savannah, searching for tender young things to slaughter brutally and feed to her family. And, as far as Newt could tell, he was the tender young thing.

“Yes! That’s what Hell told me, at least,” he yelped, and Anathema let out a growl of frustration. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and appeared to count to ten.

“And how do we know Hell didn’t lie to you?” she muttered, tone flinty and cold. Newt hadn’t had that tone turned on him since the fourteenth century.

“We don’t,” he replied, sudden realization hitting him like a ton of bricks with the word moron painted in bold font on the side.

Anathema took her hands away from her eyes and made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat. She flopped back onto the hood of the car, limbs splayed in a show of utter, total anger and confusion. Newt stood by and bit his bottom lip, wondering exactly how to handle this situation without making a fool of himself.

“I think they probably did lie to me,” he offered, and Anathema laughed bitterly.

“Of course they did. I don’t know why we didn’t see it before. They don’t trust you because you spend so much time around me,” she said, some of the fight having gone out of her. “Now all we have to do is find the actual antichrist. Which, of course, is nearly impossible.”

Newt scratched his head and looked around the country road they had parked on. Just a few minutes ago they’d been in a small room surrounded by several very normal, very human children. One of whom was supposed to be the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness. And not a one of them had a single ounce of anything more demonic than cupcakes in them.

Suddenly an idea struck him, much like a baseball bat with a professional batter on the other end. “What if we did a location spell? You know how to do those, right?”

“Yes.” Anathema looked at him with a curious intensity that would make small rodents run for cover. All it did to Newt was make him proud of himself for lifting her out of her black mood. “I’ve never worked one on such a powerful force before, but I bet I could manage it.”

Newt grinned and almost laughed. Anathema stood up and returned the expression.

XXXXX

Adam Young was a fairly normal man.

Of course, normal is relative.

And in the small town of Tadfield, a young man of almost-twenty-two who had three friends and got into a fair amount of trouble fairly regularly was mostly normal. A bit on the annoying side, but normal. The only thing old women would gossip about involving him was how many times he’d been warned by the law to not do whatever he’d been doing. The only reason old men talked about him was to lament what a shame it was that he went into the sales business instead of being a nice farmer like themselves.

But Adam Young was good at sales. He was very persuasive, though no one could put their finger on why. Not even he could. All he knew was that people walked into his store with the intentions of buying absolutely nothing, and went home with a credit card in need of paying for and one television richer.

And if he and his friends rode their motorcycles on the weekends, so what? They were allowed to ride their motorcycles. The people in Tadfield just started calling them Them, mainly because they were like a gang but not, and there was no other word for what they did. They were nice people, almost respectable, and Adam was one of the best.

Yes, he was very normal indeed.

XXXXX

Crowley was going to die, plain and simple.

First he’d dealt with the idiotic movers. Then he had to deal with trying to shove enough boxes out of the way that he could find the thermostat. After that he had to deal with the fact that the air conditioning didn’t work in this “lovely” new flat. And then there was the hellish heat outside.

So, in a fit of desperation, he’d made for the dusty little bookshop across the street, and managed to meet the owner, who was a nice enough person, he supposed. Probably a bit on the stuffy side, and definitely a book snob, but nice enough, though his name was certainly a mouthful.

But then he had to leave the shop, because you can’t just stand around in a rare book shop without intentions of buying any, and though he had money on him, he already had a first edition of Paradise Lost and didn’t really fancy another, especially since he knew exactly how much one would cost. So he was forced back into his own flat, to try in vain to not die of heatstroke.

He was already fed up with this transfer and wanted nothing more than to go back to the city. Ever since leaving home, he’d absolutely hated being away from the lights and noise and cars. It reminded him too much of his childhood. And his childhood wasn’t something he really wanted to remember, seeing as it had been sort of oppressed with an overbearing father who always seemed to know exactly what Crowley was getting in to. And this place was almost identical to the street he and his siblings had grown up on, if not a bit less inhabited and a bit more lonely. It made him shudder.

It was far too hot for any sort of movement. Even trying to walk a few steps made him want to curl up and die. Any region of Britain had no business being this hot, not even in the middle of summer. What made it worse was that he left the house that morning in a suit, planning to go to work and come down to the new flat shortly thereafter. And he couldn’t figure out where the blasted movers had put his box of clothes.

He wasn’t going to make it.

XXXXX

They were children, though they hadn’t always been that way, and were not very happy about it now.

The redheaded one, a feisty little girl of about twelve, was the most livid. She shouted at her friends, “Who picked the bodies for this round? Is this a joke?”

One of the others, a frightfully thin boy who looked to be just a few months younger than her, answered. “I don’t know what we’re doing like this, but trust me, we’re going to fix it. Soon.” He sounded far too threatening for such a small child.

“I don’t really mind,” offered the third, a dreadfully dirty boy with a stained white shirt. “It’s easier to get away with things. No one cares if a kid breaks a law. They’re kids.”

The redhead looked at him appraisingly, though she was still slightly furious. (Although, furious was a regular state of mind for her, so not too much can be assumed from this.) “That’s true. But I still don’t like it. I can barely hold a gun.”

The thin child shrugged. “I say we make the most of it. It’ll be easier, in any case. Nobody suspects children of doing very much evil.”

“True,” Red allowed, and Sable grinned at her and White.

XXXXX

The fourth child was not with them.

He was too busy inspecting an interesting piece of roadkill in the street.

XXXXX

Anathema was bent over a table, which was laden with spices and candles and maps, with an intense expression. Newt watched from the shadows, observing quietly as she muttered nonsense words under her breath that probably would have made sense, had he more enthusiastically embraced his demon-hood and learned the languages of the realm. Not that magic was inherently evil. The language used for doing it was simply very similar to native demon tongue.

Suddenly the flames on the candles leapt higher, and one tipped over, setting fire to one of Anathema’s maps. He stepped forward with a protest on his lips, but Anathema held up one hand to shush him. He stopped in his tracks, watching her as she watched the fire burn a hole in the map.

And then all the fires were extinguished without cause, and Anathema was grinning. Newt came forward and stood at her elbow while she brushed ash away from the surface of the map that had been on fire. She held it up to the light, and he gasped.

On the map, there was a large circle that had been burned away, with a small pinprick of paper still showing through in the middle. He didn’t know very much about magic, but Newt figured that this was the location of the antichrist.

Anathema turned to him and smiled beatifically. “I found it. Lower Tadfield.”

“But we were just there! We got a plane from there!” Newt exclaimed.

“Irony,” Anathema sighed, and rolled up her scorched map. She wet her lips and cracked her knuckles. “Let’s go, then. We have some work to do.”

They hurried to Newt’s car.

XXXXX

Aziraphale was asleep at his desk, having dropped off at some point in the day, no doubt from the extreme exhaustion that came with having reshelved literally every book he owned. He was woken by the phone.

“Hello?” he asked, voice still thick with sleep.

“Ezra.”

“Tracy. How are you?” he said warmly. He would have recognized that voice anywhere. Ever since they’d met in a book store years ago, he and Tracy had been somewhat partners in crime, though neither would commit very many crimes unless under extreme duress. They would call each other up and gossip about other book dealers, or she would talk about her psychic dreams, or he would tell her about what was going on in his part of town while she clucked in disapproval. The two got on rather well.

“Not very well, I’m afraid. I had a dream last night. You’ll be wanting to hear about it.”

Aziraphale was awake instantly. When Tracy said he wanted to hear something, he wanted to hear it. He’d long since stopped scoffing at her premonitions.

“What’s going to happen?” he asked.

“I’m not entirely sure. There’s you, and a woman with black hair, and a man with her, and another man with black hair. And there are four little kids and four bikers. And it’s raining and there’s an earthquake.”

Aziraphale wasn’t sure whether to be worried about himself or Tracy. He decided to go with Tracy. “Maybe you’ve had a bit too much to drink?”

“It’s possible,” she said, sounding both worried and confused.

“Maybe you should go to bed?” Aziraphale offered.

Tracy sighed. “You’re right, I suppose. I’ll call around tomorrow, see if any of the others got anything. Maybe something else will turn up.”

The others she mentioned were a group of her own making and policing. They didn’t have a name, per se, but they did have a purpose, and that purpose was to watch out for any big plot twists coming in the fabric of the universe. Most of them were slightly psychic. Some of them were even sort of psychic. And one or two were actually psychic.

“Alright, then,” Aziraphale said, for lack of things to say.

“Goodnight, Ezra,” Tracy sighed, and hung up.

Aziraphale put the phone down and decided to go to bed as well.

XXXXX

Crowley was not having a fun night. His flat was hot as hell (not that he would know, being a human) and he still couldn’t find his clothes to change into something less warm. He was currently trying to sleep while wearing nothing but his boxers, and still drowning in his own sweat.

It gave him plenty of time to stew in his frustration. He just wanted to go back to work. Sure, he hated his job and hated his lack of time to do fun things and hated his boss and hated pretty much everything else about working in the city, but it beat this. This was a new form of torment. He was pretty sure he’d be baked into a crisp by dawn.

And it wasn’t even that bad of a town, objectively. If he hadn’t had a very difficult childhood, it would be great. This new place was peaceful and quiet and had a fraction of the people back in the city. It would give him time to try and keep a few plants alive, if he wanted. (He’d already bought a few lovely specimens that he couldn’t wait to begin terrorizing in the morning.) He could sleep in and enjoy some time off. It should be good for him. So why was he so angry?

He didn’t know, exactly. Possibly because he was just tossed out here like so much trash, or something else one can toss away at a moment’s notice. That was it, probably.

So he sat there, trying to get a few hours of fitful sleep, exhausted and sweaty and angry.

XXXXX

Anathema was torn between being thrilled and being terrified. Because, on one hand, she managed to locate the antichrist. And on the other, she managed to locate the antichrist.

Newt was driving, like he usually did, but he was putting more speed and intensity into his movements than usual. He took corners a bit more sharply, and nearly hit twice the pedestrians. She was almost tempted to ask him why he was so on edge, but that would be a stupid question. Of course he was on edge. They were both on edge.

“Watch out for the pedestrian,” she said absently, and Newt swerved.

“What are we going to do?” he asked, honking his horn at an old lady.

“Find the antichrist, I suppose,” she answered, studying the burned map. If they kept it up at this pace, they would be in Tadfield within two hours, but she still didn’t have a plan. “We could kill him. His birthday is tomorrow, and that’s when he inherits all his powers, so we have about eight hours to kill him.”

“I don’t really want to kill anyone,” Newt muttered, but Anathema knew that if he absolutely had to, he would.

“Neither do I,” she said. “Brake!”

Newt slammed on the brake and narrowly missed running over a small family of ducks. “Thanks.”

“Anyway, we might not have to,” Anathema offered. “He might not even name the hellhound.”

“Yeah, how did you know about that?” Newt asked, swerving to avoid a child who had run after her ball. “I didn’t even know about that, and I’m on their side. Technically.”

Anathema shrugged and toyed with the ends of her hair. “Heaven told me. They wanted me to sever all ties to the material plane and prepare for battle.”

Newt gulped. Anathema nodded in agreement. Things were beginning to get a bit serious.

XXXXX

In the forest, four children were meeting, though it was far past any bedtime that could possibly have been set for them, if they had someone to do the setting. If anyone happened by at that moment, they would have been very confused indeed.

“How are we going to get there, though?” the youngest of the four asked, trying in vain to get the grit off his glasses. “We can’t exactly ride in on flaming horses.”

“We could just walk,” offered the redhead. “Though that would get tiring after a while. And monotonous.”

If anyone had chanced upon the meeting, they would have walked away at that moment, because they must have been dreaming. A twelve-year-old, using such a large word? You’d have to be sleepwalking, and probably ought to call a psychiatrist in the morning. (Of course, this is not true. Twelve-year-olds are remarkably more intelligent than society would have you believe.)

“Are you all dumb?” asked the thin one. “Children ride bicycles. We could always do that.”

A fourth child, who was half in the shadows and as such cannot be properly described as no one could really see him, chuckled. “NOT THE BEST, BUT STILL A GOOD PLAN. WE’LL START TOMORROW. THAT’S HIS BIRTHDAY.”

The other three laughed and grinned viciously.

XXXXX

Crowley woke up freezing cold. He was shivering and everything, feeling as if he’d been dipped in the Arctic Ocean for a few days before being tossed into a freezer. During the Russian winter. Naked.

Actually, he was nearly naked, which only served to make his early-morning confusion even worse. He never slept in his boxers. He always, always wore something to bed. For someone with a tendency to sleepwalk, this was important. Especially considering that he lived in a flat in the busiest part of the city, and almost an entire wall was made of glass.

Crowley coughed and felt around for blankets, before remembering that he hadn’t put any on before falling into a shallow sleep. He also hadn’t put any sheets on the mattress. He nearly growled in frustration and sat up, rubbing his arms with his hands. The temperature had dropped drastically, much more than it ever had before, in his experience. Maybe something was up with the climate. (Actually, it was just the repercussions of the antichrist coming into his power, but Crowley didn’t know that.)

He swung his feet over the side of the bed, wondering where he left his glasses, and proceeded to bang each and every toe on the floor because the bed was closer to the ground than he was used to. Cursing and wincing, Crowley got out of bed, shivering harder than ever before. He stumbled a few steps, and tripped over an inconveniently placed cardboard box, hitting his head on the wall on the way down. He was flat on the floor in no time, still unable to see.

“Dammit,” he growled, and rolled over, accidentally hitting the box with his arms and sending it toppling onto his side, covering him with—his clothes. The same clothes he’d spent all day trying to locate. The same clothes that could have saved him from this mess in the first place.

Halfway out of his mind with exhaustion and cold, Crowley gave up on life, and fell asleep on the cold wooden floor.

XXXXX

The next morning dawned with rain. Aziraphale stared with disapproval at the spray thrown up by the pounding droplets. There hadn’t been a storm in a very long time. This one looked like it would be a big one.

There was a light on across the street, and Aziraphale could see a dark shape moving in front of the window, pacing. The poor guy must not have slept well, then. Aziraphale always ended up pacing if he skipped a night.

Maybe he could benefit from some coffee. After all, he’d just moved in, and probably hadn’t set up anything in the kitchen yet. Maybe Aziraphale should bring some coffee next door.

Nodding, Aziraphale slid his feet into his shoes.

XXXXX

It was the weekend, which meant Adam Young was washing his motorcycle before taking off with Them for the next day or two. They did this almost every weekend. It was a ritual.

Pepper was leaning on the side of the house, arms folded across her chest as she watched him work. Brian and Wensleydale were arguing vehemently about something none of them really cared about, complete with cheap insults and wild hand gestures to help make a point. All in all, it was a normal day for Them, and would foreseeably stay that way.

Adam tossed the sponge away and stood up, ignoring the crackling of his knee joints as they protested being crouched for so long. He gazed with pride at his shiny black bike, chrome covered, sleek and gorgeous. It was his favorite thing he’d ever owned.

“You done polishing that thing?” Pepper asked, a glint of mischief in her eye.

Adam nodded, still proudly surveying his bike.

“Good,” Brian announced. “Then we can get going.”

Adam nodded again, but he wasn’t really paying attention. His head hurt. It was pounding as if there was a construction crew hard at work inside, building a twelve-story apartment complex with nothing but jackhammers and buzz saws.

“Adam? You okay?” Wensleydale asked, concerned.

Adam snapped out of it, and his head stopped pounding. He looked around in confusion and shook himself, saying, “Yeah, let’s go.”

They were gone within the next ten minutes.

None of them noticed the large, hulking black dog-shape that followed.

XXXXX

Four children on bicycles are not out of the ordinary, even in the most rural parts of the world. No one suspects four kids of doing anything wrong, even if they are strange children that make you feel a small thrill of fear when they cycle past, though you’d never know it was them. So the Horsepersons were able to pass, mostly unnoticed, under the eye of all human authorities.

“Where are we going, again?” White asked, turning to Sable.

“There’s an air force base in Lower Tadfield,” Sable replied, swerving to narrowly avoid a gaping pothole. “That’s where we’re going.”

“Why?” White pressed.

Sable sighed heavily, and Red snickered. He shot her a quelling look, which she responded to by raising one eyebrow warningly. He sighed again—he seemed to do that a lot in the presence of his three colleagues—and answered the question, using one hand to steer while gesturing at the fourth member of their party with the other. “Because that’s where he wanted us to go.”

The fourth child nodded in affirmation. “THAT IS WHERE IT WILL HAPPEN,” he said.

Red laughed. “Bring it on,” she shouted, and was glared at by a man in a passing car.

“HUSH,” said the fourth. “WE MUST REMAIN UNSEEN UNTIL WE GET THERE. IT IS VITAL.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Red muttered, but fell silent. More or less. She still whispered several curse words completely unfit for anyone to speak, child or otherwise.

“How far away is it?” White asked.

“NOT FAR,” said the fourth. “IT WILL TAKE US LESS THAN TEN MINUTES.”

The other children grinned savagely. This was going to be fun.

XXXXX

Crowley rummaged through the box that had fallen on him in the night, getting angrier and angrier as time wore on. It contained not a single shirt. Not a one.

He sat back on the floor and stared in frustration at the box, now empty, and the wrinkled pile of clothing next to it. Nothing was going his way. If he didn’t know better, he’d say that the whole damn universe was against him. (It wasn’t, but it’s not like he knew that.)

It was official. He’d searched the entire flat, every single box, and he hadn’t found a single shirt. They’d been lost in the move. And that left him with no way of getting any new ones, as you couldn’t rightly go shirt shopping without one on in the first place. And unless he was going to put back on his sweat-drenched suit from last night, he was screwed. Totally, epically screwed. With a cactus.

Crowley made a rather angry noise in the back of his throat and climbed to his feet. He began pacing.

Shirtless and still a little bit cold.

He really hated his job. He was pondering quitting when—if—they transferred him back out to the city.

XXXXX

The rain was cold, so Aziraphale hurried across the street. He had a thermos of coffee in one hand and an umbrella in the other, and was soaked to the bone by the time he crossed the street. As always, the abandoned shop on the ground floor made him feel a pang of sympathy. His had looked just like it when he moved in.

The stairs to the door of the flat creaked under his shoes, but they seemed mostly sound, so he didn’t feel too afraid of anything awful happening. The awning, however, could fall and crush him at any moment. The sooner he was out from under it, the better.

Aziraphale leaned his umbrella against the door and knocked three times. There was a startled banging from inside the house, and he hoped that nothing bad befell the man inside. What was his name? Crowley. That was it.

“Just a second!” Crowley shouted, and a few more bangs followed. A pause, and then, “Um, is this important?”

“I don’t know?” Aziraphale replied through the door, though it sounded more like a question. “I brought you some coffee. I thought you might need it, since you haven’t had much time to set things up in the kitchen.”

There were a few more thumps, and then the door was opened by a bleary-eyed man with glasses askew. He blinked rapidly and made an attempt to hide behind the door, but Aziraphale could tell he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

“Did I wake you?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley’s smile was pained. “No, I was up most of the night. The reason I’m half-clothed is that the movers lost my shirts. All of them.”

“They did that to me, too,” Aziraphale said, with a small amount of bitterness in his tone. “I think they steal them and sell them.”

“They’d make a lot on my clothes, if they could find someone tall and thin enough to fit,” Crowley muttered darkly. “I’d let you in, but that would be awkward.”

Aziraphale smiled softly. “A bit.”

“Um, thanks, though,” Crowley said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “I appreciate it.”

“No problem,” Aziraphale replied, and held out the thermos. “Er, I made coffee. Might as well take it.”

Crowley gave him the happiest expression he’d seen in a while. “Thank you.”

Aziraphale handed him the thermos and picked up his umbrella, bidding Crowley farewell. Crowley thanked him again and Aziraphale left, hurrying back across the street before the wind could pick up his umbrella and take it away.

XXXXX

Crowley leaned against the door in mortification.

That could have gone so much better.

Although, it also could have gone a lot worse.

XXXXX

Newt was not pleased, at all.

He’s wrecked his car into a much larger, heavier truck and managed to get himself temporarily tossed out of his own body. The driver of the other truck was staring, dumbfounded, at the two bodies in the smoldering wreckage of the small Japanese car he’d just wiped from existence. As Anathema would say, were she here, good riddance.

Sadly, she was not with Newt. Her half of the car had been simply crushed a bit, and her body was knocked around the head, and would probably be healing itself for the next few minutes. Luckily neither of them was discorporated, or they wouldn’t get a chance to stop the impending Apocalypse. They’d be too busy trying to explain to their superiors exactly why they hadn’t prepared to fight each other yet.

Newt sighed angrily—or, he would have if he weren’t just a mere light wave at the moment—and headed off the find the nearest psychic.

XXXXX

Tracy was asleep, and then she wasn’t.

She also wasn’t completely Tracy.

“Hello? Who’s this?” a voice asked, one not hers, even though it came from her mouth.

Tracy put her hands on her hips and replied, sounding very pissed off. “I might ask you the same thing!”

“Still in the country. That’s good,” the voice muttered, and Tracy frowned. Before she could continue asking questions, and getting very angry indeed, the voice continued. “Do you know how to get to Lower Tadfield?”

“Yes,” Tracy replied. “I do.”

“Good,” said the voice. “Can you take me there?”

“Why should I?” Tracy demanded.

“Because I need your help,” the voice admitted grudgingly. “In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have a body right now. I can’t get where I need to be without one.”

“Why do you need to get to Lower Tadfield?” Tracy asked, both skeptical and confused.

“You should sit down,” the voice said. It sounded exhausted.

Tracy sat, and the voice began to explain.

XXXXX

Anathema woke up with a start and looked around at the fiery wreckage of Newt’s crappy car.

She sighed heavily, muttered about Newt’s stupidity, got out, and began to walk toward Lower Tadfield.

The man that had hit them collapsed in utter fear.

XXXXX

Adam wasn’t having a very good day. They’d only been out for about ten minutes when Brian’s bike got a flat tire, and they’d had to stop. What was worse, they’d stopped outside the air force base, and were being glared at by every single personnel on the scene. And his headache was back with a vengeance.

“Are you sure you didn’t go over any nails?” Pepper asked skeptically, spinning the tire to look for any possible punctures. As far as Adam could tell by looking over her shoulder, there were none. The tire had simply mysteriously flattened itself.

“I’m sure!” Brian protested, voice having gotten shriller and more insistent as time went on. If his pitch went up much more, he’d get stuck that way and end up singing soprano for the rest of his life. Adam pondered how this would affect the group. They could start a quartet. With his bass voice and Wensley’s tenor and Pepper’s contralto, they might even sound decent with a nice soprano thrown into the mix.

“Well, I’m not seeing any holes,” she announced, and stood up. She shook her head in disapproval and shrugged out of her leather jacket, glaring up at the sun. Just last night the temperature had plummeted far past the average temperature for a summer evening, and now it was climbing way back up again.

“That’s not possible,” Wensleydale said. “If the tire is flat, there has to be a hole. That’s the way tires work.”

“Apparently not,” Adam replied, massaging his temples. His head was pounding worse than ever.

“Are you okay, Adam?” Pepper asked, taking a step toward him. He nodded, but his heart wasn’t in it. It felt like someone had taken up residence in his skull and decided to nail some pictures to the wall, but couldn’t decide where to put them and was changing their locations regularly.

“My head just hurts, that’s all,” he explained, and Pepper frowned. But her concern didn’t last long. Her eyes slid slowly from Adam’s face to something over his shoulder, a look of horror budding there and blooming to full-on terror. Adam didn’t know if he should turn around or stand very still. “What is it?”

“A dog. At least, I hope it’s a dog,” Pepper whispered, and Adam spun on his heel.

XXXXX

Crowley was not having a good day, but the coffee was excellent. If only he could find a single shirt. But, sadly, he’d gone through every box again and again, and the only one he could find was an old blue one, tattered and faded and probably too small, that he’d been given as a joke for Christmas the year after his last flat caught fire because it was supposedly inflammable. He’d cursed a bit when he couldn’t find anything else (read: cursed a lot) and in his anger, decided to just drink the coffee and revisit the problem later.

As far as he could tell, the neighborhood would be perfectly fine for a new location. The locals weren’t too snoopy, and the man across the street was very friendly. Really friendly. As in, “I’d like to get to know that guy over dinner” friendly.

Crowley wanted to punch himself. The little morning incident had been the most awkward thing he’d ever done, and he used to be one of the poor saps who took calls for the bosses during meetings. He’d had plenty of experience with awkward—everything ranging from someone’s wife having a baby during a closed-doors meeting, to someone’s relative dying during a big contract signing. He’s seen it all

But yesterday was worse. Because he just moved in, and was going to live to live there for at least another month—possibly two, maybe three—and he’s just made a fool of himself in front of the only neighbor that showed any interest in him.

Crowley growled and drank more coffee. If anything could help quell the raging fires within him, it was caffeine.

His eyes roamed the bare white walls of his new flat, and landed on one of his new plants. It was drooping slightly, a few leaves having fallen off, looking rather dejected. Crowley tossed back the rest of the coffee and grinned maliciously. Now, there was something to get rid of his black mood.

XXXXX

The four children arrived at the air force base just in time to see the black dog overtake the bikers.

“Is that the hellhound?” White asked, a mixture of awed and frightened.

“Yeah. Isn’t it beautiful?” Red answered dreamily. Sable made a mental note to never let her anywhere near any hellish animals. Knowing her, she’d pick out a few to take home, and proceed to massacre the city with them. It was her idea of a good time. “What I would give for one of those.”

“You’re not allowed,” Sable said without thinking. Red grumbled but didn’t reply.

In the distance, the hellhound was advancing on the four figures on motorcycles, who appeared to be frozen in their tracks. Sable tried to turn to their fourth companion to ask if he could sense any deaths coming soon, but the fourth was nowhere to be seen. Sable sighed heavily and shook his head in exasperation. Sometimes, he felt like the only one keeping the others under control.

“I hope it eats them!” Red whispered intensely, and Sable wanted to sigh again.

“It’s not going to eat them,” he replied instead. “It’s going to go up to the tallest one—that’s the antichrist—and he’s going to name it. Its name will reflect its purpose. So if he names it Killer, or Slasher, or Ripper, that’s what it’ll do to his friends. But unless he names it ‘Eater’ or something equally idiotic, it won’t eat them.”

Red looked a bit put out, but leaned onto her handlebars anyway, intently watching the huge black dog-shape prowl toward the four adults. Sable mimicked her action, and White did the same.

This was going to be good.

XXXXX

The dog—because it had to be a dog—was massive. It came toward Adam like a summer’s breeze, smooth and flowing, but in his mind the breeze was coming off a nuclear power plant, because it carried death with it. Evil was visible in every aspect of the hulking hound, from its razor-like teeth to its powerful muscles. Adam had never felt such fear.

Brian made a rather pathetic sound, and Adam held up a hand for silence. If he knew one thing about dogs, particularly evil ones, it was that they could sense fear. Mrs. Tyler’s giant wolfhound could always tell when a passerby was nervous about getting their clothes slobbered on, and went out of its way to do just that.

For lack of better things to say, and not thinking preemptively about how stupid the statement was, Adam said, “Nice dog?”

The dog stopped. So did Adam’s heart.

“Nice dog,” he said again, struggling to keep his voice level. “Good dog. Nice dog.”

The dog shuddered, and blinked at him pitifully. All at once, it didn’t seem terrifying at all. He couldn’t really remember why he was so afraid of it in the first place. How could anyone be afraid of such a little, runty terrier? It was cute, and seemed very friendly.

Adam dropped into a crouch and reached out to pet it. “Good dog!”

XXXXX

Sable couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Red was murderous.

White was awestruck.

Their fourth companion was chuckling to himself.

XXXXX

For the second time that day, Aziraphale’s phone rang, which was twice more often than it usually did. He answered it on the third ring, and before he could even say hello, Tracy was babbling at him.

“You have a new neighbor. You have to get him and go to the air force base in Lower Tadfield. I’ll meet you there. Don’t ask questions, just do it! Please, Ezra, this is the most important thing you’ll ever do.”

“What?” he asked.

Tracy sighed heavily, and when she spoke again, it wasn’t her voice, not exactly. “You’re a rare book dealer. You have a book I need. Since you don’t have a car, and the guy across the street does, I need you to convince him to drive you and the book to Lower Tadfield, where you can give me the book and I can save the world.”

“What?” he asked.

“Just do it!” the voice half-shouted, and there was the sound of something being smacked. “Er, sorry. I haven’t had the best day, you see. I can’t help it if I get a little… demonic.”

“What?” he asked.

Tracy sighed, and her voice was her own again. “It’s a psychic thing, dear. Everything will be fine, if you can find the book we—I need. It’s called something to do with a woman named Agnes Nutter. Ringing any bells?”

It was, of course, ringing every single bell Aziraphale owned. He knew that book by heart. It had been sitting in his bookshop for several years, and he would never put it up for sale. For a rare book dealer who specialized in books of prophecy, it was the Holy Grail. It was the world’s only book of prophecy that was right, albeit in a roundabout way, all of the time. And he was the only one with a copy.

He was ridiculously proud of that fact.

“I have it,” he said. “Why do I have to take it to Tadfield?”

The voice on the line was no longer Tracy’s. “Because, the antichrist is going to blow up the world, and I need to know exactly how he’s going to do it, or else I can’t stop him.”

“Yes, that makes perfect sense,” Aziraphale said dryly.

“Ezra.” It was Tracy’s voice, but harder than he’d heard it in a long time, with a bit more frustration than you’d experience while trapped during rush-hour traffic while your sister is having a baby two states over. “Trust me. Get the book to Tadfield.”

Aziraphale sighed and said, “I will. But this whole thing is crazy.”

Tracy laughed and hung up on him. Aziraphale placed the phone gently down on the desk and decided that Tracy was lucky he’d spent enough time with her to build up a measure of trust.

XXXXX

Crowley, having finally given up his last shred of sanity, had once again gone through the boxes. He hated when he lost things during a move. He’d only had to actually pack up and switch homes twice, and both times things got lost. The first time it was just a toaster. The second, it was something much more important.

When moving into the flat he’d just moved out of, he’d lost The Book.

The Book that had been passed down through his family for years, generations, ever since his dear insane however-many-greats-grandmother Agnes Nutter wrote it. If his father had still cared about him—not that he ever really did; when one had a lot of children, one tended to focus on one’s favorites, and Crowley was sadly not one of them—he would have been livid. The Book was the most important thing anyone could ever own. And Crowley had lost it.

It had taken about a year to stop hating himself for it.

Now, though, the things missing were only slightly less important. In a fit of frustration and still shivering lightly (the weather was vastly different from how it should have been, and people everywhere were digging out winter clothes) he’d given up his dignity and put on the old blue shirt he’d found, the supposedly inflammable one. It fit, luckily, but it wasn’t the most comfortable thing he’d ever worn.

Before he could give in to the urge to check the boxes yet again, there was a knock on the door. This time he went to answer without hesitation, because he was awake and fully clothed and too frustrated with life in general to care if he looked awful.

It was Aziraphale again.

“Hey,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale smiled at him, and Crowley couldn’t help but smile back.

“Can I ask you a favor?” Aziraphale asked, and Crowley could tell he wouldn’t like whatever the favor was. But, because he was ever the headstrong and idiotic man, he shrugged noncommittally, and leaned against the doorframe as if he intended to carry on an entire conversation.

“I suppose, if it isn’t something like hiding a body,” Crowley said.

“Nothing so drastic,” Aziraphale chuckled, and Crowley caught himself smiling again. He quickly stopped.

“Then what is it?”

“You have a car?” Aziraphale asked, and Crowley nodded slowly.

He had a car. But, despite loving it more than he loved most people, he didn’t like to drive his car. His car was incredibly old, and probably wouldn’t have been working anymore if he hadn’t had a couple people in the city who owed him money and knew how to tinker on engines. He hardly ever took it out of storage. When he’d driven it down to his new flat, he’d nearly had a heart attack every time he went over a pothole. The car was currently parked in the small garage behind the abandoned shop below his living quarters.

“I do,” he said redundantly.

Aziraphale looked like he knew Crowley wasn’t going to like what he asked of him, but had no choice but to ask it anyway. “Do you think you could drive me someplace?”

Crowley wanted to help, he really did. But he also wanted to preserve the life of his car.

“Where?” he asked, instead of saying something that would make him sound like a rude fool.

“Lower Tadfield.”

“Um, is that far?”

“Not really.”

“Can I ask why you have to go there, or…?”

“I have to bring a book to a friend.”

Crowley bit the inside of his cheek and wished he’d never opened the door. He was going to regret this.

“Alright. Let me get my coat.”

XXXXX

Shadwell was just beginning to drop off to sleep when there was a terrible banging on his front door. It sounded almost like the entire town was trying to get in. He was so startled that, for a second, he didn’t even get up. And then he realized that something must be horribly wrong, so he went and answered it.

It was Tracy.

“I need your help,” she said, but it wasn’t her voice.

XXXXX

Anathema was in slightly better spirits by the time she could see the air force base in the distance. She’d been walking for several miles, but as an angel—albeit a reluctant one—she had plenty of endurance. She could have kept going all day if she had to.

She heard barking in the distance, and her good mood evaporated.

The antichrist was indeed there, then, as was his hellhound. She frowned and wished she knew where Newt was. She didn’t even know if he was still alive—well, he would always be alive, because they were both immortal, but for all she knew he was down in Hell getting the beating of a lifetime and being thrown into a holding cell until this whole apocalypse business was over. And then it would be her job to stop it from happening, and if she died in the process, she’d be in the same position, and the world would be over, and they’d never see each other again. The scenario was enough to make her shudder.

She kept walking, because there was no other option. It was either walk toward the fight, or run from it, and she’d never been one for running. She’d fought in Rome as a gladiator. She’d helped plot to kill countless kings. She’d been in several wars and taken part in lots of rebellions, her favorite of which was by far that of the American colonies. It had been her idea to dump the tea into the harbor. It was Newt’s idea to dress up as Native Americans to do it. That had been one of their better dates.

In the distance, lightning was forking through the sky, she dark clouds were gathering. Lovely, she thought. On top of it all, they’d be fighting in the rain. She’d be lucky if she could get her sword to stay on fire, instead of being extinguished into a hot metal rod that sparked occasionally.

Anathema patted her pockets, making sure she had remembered to bring the sword with her. She smiled grimly when she felt it, cold tip poking into her hand. It was only by the power of angelic influence that it even fit into her pocket. She’d lost the scabbard years ago.

The first drops of rain struck her head, and she wondered just how bad of an idea it would be to cover herself with her wings. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to get wet; she was perfectly fine with being out in the rain and getting absolutely drenched for no reason, ask Newt, he’ll tell you about that one time in Ireland. She just didn’t want to get her hair soaked to the point that it dripped into her eyes and obscured her vision. It would be kind of difficult to cut someone in half if she couldn’t see them.

Thunder growled and lightning struck, and a tree was set on fire, flickering bright and fiery among the other trees.

It was going to be a dark and stormy night.

XXXXX

Adam was crouched down next to the dog. So were the rest of Them, although the other three seemed a bit more leery about getting very close to it. Adam, on the other hand, had no such reservations, and was scratching its head enthusiastically. The dog was wagging its tail happily.

“Good dog,” Adam said again, because it seemed like the thing to say. In the back of his mind, he knew that it was important to stress the hellhound’s purpose on Earth, to be a good dog. In the front of his mind, he knew that he rather liked this dog.

“He’s a real sweetie,” Pepper said, though in her eyes Adam could see that she was still uncertain. “Very friendly. No collar, though.”

“I think he’s stray,” Brian announced, and was given three identical looks of sarcastic no, really?s.

“I think we should take him back to the house,” Adam said, and the other three either nodded or didn’t say anything. All four of them shared a house, because none of them could afford to live on their own, and they didn’t really want to take a chance on accidentally rooming with a stranger that turned out to be a serial killer. “He could stay with us.”

Overhead, thunder clapped, and the dog hunkered down closer to the ground.

“Adam, we should get home. It’s going to storm,” Wensleydale said as the first few raindrops fell.

“You can’t,” said a childish voice.

XXXXX

“You can’t.” Red placed her hands on her thin hips and looked at the four adults with absolute fury. She could see two of the men shrink back a little, but the other man and the woman only looked confused. “You can’t just go home! Not now! Not today!”

“Um, what?” asked the antichrist.

Sable covered Red’s mouth with one hand, effectively silencing her long enough for him to speak. “You, my friend, have a job to do.”

“Sorry?” Adam said, obviously torn between honest fright and disbelieving laughter.

Sable sighed and clamped his hand more firmly over Red’s mouth, ignoring her attempts to bite him. Honestly, sometimes he felt like the only responsible Horseperson of the Apocalypse. Red was impulsive, White was too young, and the other one was unreliable.

“You really don’t know, do you?” Sable pressed, getting impatient and more than a little fed up. “Were you even raised by demons?”

“What?” Adam repeated, voice having gone up at least an octave.

Sable took his hand away from Red’s mouth and pressed his fingers to his temples. He could feel a migraine coming on. “Demons. You know, Hell’s denizens? The fallen angels? Like your dad, only not quite as evil?”

“I don’t know what game you’re playing, kid, but I think you should leave us alone,” Adam said, tone going hard.

Red snorted in defiance. “We aren’t kids. I could kill you where you stand.”

Adam looked both annoyed and disturbed.

Sable wanted to disappear. Nothing was going to plan.

XXXXX

The car was filled with a deeply awkward silence, outlining exactly how little Crowley knew about the man in the passenger seat. Occasionally one of them would comment on the billowing thunderheads amassing on the horizon, or Crowley would make a slightly strained noise when going over a large pothole, but other than that neither said anything. It was beginning to make Crowley’s skin crawl.

“So, how long have you been in the rare book business?” he asked, making a point to look anywhere but at his companion.

“A few years,” Aziraphale said. Actually, it was quite a few years, but he wasn’t going to correct himself.

Crowley hummed, and the car fell into awkward silence again.

A minute later, Crowley tried again. “So, your name’s kind of weird, huh?”

He wanted to smack himself. A casual insult was not the way to be getting to know someone.

Aziraphale, however, didn’t seem to mind. “Actually, my name is Ezra. I’m not sure why everyone calls me Aziraphale, but they do, so I go with it.”

Crowley hummed again. “My name is actually Anthony. I prefer to use my last name.”

“They both fit you,” Aziraphale said, and when Crowley sent him a confused look, he elaborated. “Both are sort of darker names. You seem like a darker person. Not in a bad way, of course. Just… darker, I suppose.”

“They used to call me their resident demon back at the firm,” Crowley said bitterly. “Because one of them read a book with a demon in it whose name was Crowley.”

“See. Darker,” Aziraphale said, with the air of one who’s just had a point proved when they didn’t originally know they were making one in the first place. “What did you do back at the firm?”

“I was a CEO. One of the higher-ups had me transferred out here to see if there was a possible location worth building. And yeah, I know, CEOs technically don’t have superiors, but in my business we do. It’s a harsh job,” Crowley explained.

“Sounds like it. I probably couldn’t handle it.”

“Probably not.”

They lapsed back into silence.

Aziraphale was the one to speak this time. “So, did you enjoy your job?”

“Not a bit,” Crowley said with a laugh. “I hated the people I worked with and the people I worked for and the people who worked under me. I didn’t have any personal time and I was bored, if I did, because I couldn’t remember how to spend it.”

Aziraphale tapped the paper-covered book in his lap. “That’s awful. I would have welcomed being transferred.”

“I would have, if they weren’t transferring me purely to spite me,” Crowley offered. “I would have loved the time off. But they were acting like they were just throwing me away, so that kind of grated on my nerves. Plus they sent me to a neighborhood a lot like the one I grew up in, and I didn’t have the best childhood.”

He hoped Aziraphale wouldn’t press for details, and he didn’t.

“You like your job?” Crowley asked as a fat raindrop hit the windshield. It was either keep talking or worry about his car, and he was already stressed enough without trying to do the latter as well.

“Oh, very much. I love books, especially rare ones. I specialize in books of prophecy,” Aziraphale said. Crowley smiled, though the mention of prophetic books brought up painful memories, mainly involving trying to read that ancient gibberish to figure out which of his siblings was going to die, or trying to decipher which company to invest in, and later trying to locate The Book.

“What’s the rarest book you’ve ever handled?” Crowley asked, grinning.

Aziraphale appeared to think for a moment, and the car was once again silent except for the patter of rain on the roof. Crowley debated putting in a tape, but decided against it. Aziraphale didn’t strike him as the type of person to enjoy the kind of music Crowley had on hand. Most of Crowley’s music was Queen, and anything else seemed to get lost within a fortnight of him having bought it. It was a mystery.

“Probably the book I’ve got here, actually,” Aziraphale admitted.

Crowley’s curiosity was instantly piqued. “And what is it?”

“The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley almost wrecked the car.

XXXXX

Newt was not having fun.

For one, he was stuck sharing a body with another person.

For two, he was also stuck with a very angry ex-dancer.

For three, he was late for the apocalypse, and Anathema would be furious.

And for four, he was doing all of these things while in a beat-up car that, apparently, was incapable of getting anywhere near the speed limit, much like his own but without the demonic influence.

His day just kept getting better and better.

XXXX

“You have what?” Crowley demanded, swerving violently. He brought the car to a stop and turned to Aziraphale, eyes wild behind his glasses, breathing picking up speed. Aziraphale was struck with the notion that he’d done something wrong.

“It’s nothing, really. Just another book of prophecy,” Aziraphale said, trying to get Crowley to calm down. Even though he did almost look good when he was riled up.

“Just another—bloody hell!” Crowley shouted angrily. “How the hell did you get it?”

“I bought it,” Aziraphale said defensively. “I found it at an auction. No one knew how much it was really worth, so I got it at a discount price. Why does it matter?”

“Do you even know how long I’ve been looking for that?” Crowley demanded. “How many nights of sleep I’ve lost? I nearly went crazy!”

“It’s only a book,” Aziraphale said, confused. Sure, it was a highly important book, one that could make or break a person, but still a book. In his experience, not many people (outside of himself) would lose sleep over a book.

Crowley’s laugh was worrying. He didn’t sound completely sane. “Not to me. Not to my family.”

“What does your family have to do with it?” Aziraphale asked.

“Dammit, my family has everything to do with it! We’re the ones it was written about!”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Agnes Nutter is my relative. Distantly,” Crowley said, appearing to calm down some. He took a deep breath and visibly tried to sound more like a normal person having a normal conversation. “She wrote the book about her descendants, and it’s been passed through my family ever since. I was the one who got to keep it, but I lost it years ago. I’d stopped trying to find it a long time ago, but here you had it all along!”

His tone was rapidly changing from shock and anger to disbelief and relief.

“Let me see it,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale handed it to him without thinking.

Crowley ran a hand over the paper that protected the cover from the elements. He gently slid it out of the wrapping, lightly touching the front cover with shaking fingers. His breath caught in a way that made Aziraphale wonder just how happy he was to have that book back in his life.

(Not very. He’d hated that book. Always dictating everything he did. It was a nightmare.)

“This damn book has been the bane of my existence,” Crowley muttered darkly, and handed the book back. “But I’m glad someone found it. I’ve been with it too long for it to be destroyed.”

Aziraphale nodded and rewrapped the paper around the cover. Crowley sighed heavily, all the fight having gone out of him, and started the car again. The silence was friendlier when he started driving again, and Aziraphale couldn’t help but hope that they could continue to get along.

XXXXX

“What’s going on?”

The four adults and the four children turned to see a tall woman with a frustrated expression, glaring at them, standing with her arms crossed. Her hair was beginning to get soaked through by the raindrops that were falling at an increasing rate, but she didn’t seem particularly bothered by it. No, the whole of her irritated attention was fixed solely on the eight people before her.

“Who are you?” Red asked before Sable could stop her.

“That doesn’t matter,” the woman fired back. “What’s going on here?”

“Nothing,” Adam said helpfully, with the air of someone who really couldn’t figure out why everyone was so irritated all the time. “Why is everyone here?”

The woman settled an incredulous gaze on him, complete with raised eyebrows, and wiped some of the rain from her chin. “And who are you?”

“Adam Young,” he said without thought. “And these are Pepper, Brian, and Wensleydale. And four kids.”

“We aren’t kids!” White protested, and even Red shushed him. From the look on her face, she shared Sable’s feelings of trepidation involving this woman. The woman in question simply rolled her eyes.

“I know that. You’re the horsemen. Well, horsepersons, actually. Don’t know how humanity managed to muck that up. I suspect demons,” she said flippantly. “I’m Anathema.”

“I knew I recognized you!” Sable announced. “I met you last year.”

Anathema scrutinized him carefully, before recognition lit up her dark eyes. She grinned at him. “Oh, I remember now! That was fun.”

Sable was about to remark on how no, it was not, because she literally chased him out of the country with a flaming sword and told him to never return or risk decapitation, but something else happened first. And that something was a big, beat-up old car with two people who were actually three people inside, windshield wipers going at a frightening velocity.

The door opened, and a woman got out, frowning up at the dark sky. “Anathema, I am so glad to see you.”

“Newt?” Anathema asked, looking the woman up and down. “Nice new body.”

The woman glared. “Oi, I’m still in here too. The name’s Tracy.”

“Hello,” the assembled chorused. The small dog at Adam’s feet yipped excitedly, and Adam scratched it behind the ear. It wagged its tail and went silent.

“So, you’re Adam Young?” Tracy asked, but it was a different voice. “The antichrist?”

Adam looked at Tracy like she was out of his mind. (When in actuality, she was just being semi-possessed by a demon with benign intentions. So, not crazy at all.)

“The what?” he asked. Anathema rolled her eyes and was about to say something, but she was interrupted by a short man with a confused expression.

“Who are you people?” he demanded.

Tracy sighed and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Shadwell, dear, maybe you should get back in the car. This is important business. Probably not best for a normal person like yourself.”

Shadwell went, grumbling all the way, and the assembly of various celestial and occult powers watched him with bemused eyes. When he was gone, Adam turned to Anathema.

“Antichrist?” he repeated.

She shrugged embarrassedly, and Newt-in-Tracy’s-body snorted. Anathema sent a quelling glare in the direction of the displaced demon and narrowed her eyes at Adam in a way that made him sympathize with butterflies trapped under glass to be examined. “Yeah, antichrist. But apparently something went wrong, and you aren’t even evil. Huh. All that work, for nothing.”

“Is he supposed to be evil?” Brian asked, but he was mostly ignored.

“Was I supposed to be evil?” Adam tried instead.

“Yeah, very much so,” Newt replied. “You were supposed to end the world and everything. I don’t know what went wrong, but I’m thankful that it did.”

At that moment, another car pulled onto the scene, but this one was much older and well-kept than Shadwell’s. It was shiny and obviously cared for by an owner who could afford to pay for the repairs and parts such a car would need. Two men got out, both looking rather unhappy to be outside in the rain.

One was tall and thin, and wore a weary expression and a tattered blue shirt. The other was shorter and less thin, and carried a book under his arm. Tracy’s face lit up, and she waved. He waved back. “What did we miss?”

“Not much,” Red muttered, obviously disappointed.

“Did you bring the book?” Tracy asked, and her voice was a mixture of her own and the other one that used her mouth to speak, as if both were talking at once. The man nodded and handed it to her. She took it roughly, with disregard for the delicate pages, making both newcomers wince.

“So, who are you two?” Adam asked, once again scratching his dog’s head.

The taller of the two sighed heavily and leaned on the car. “I’m Crowley, that’s Aziraphale. And who are you?”

“The antichrist, apparently,” Adam replied nonchalantly. (Actually, in his mind he was having a minor existential crisis. On the outside he was the picture of placidity, like a lake on a windless day. His mind was rejecting what it was being told and portraying what it believed he should feel instead, deleting all the unwanted information as quickly as he stopped readily acknowledging it. Within an hour, he would think he’d hit his head on something.)

“Lovely,” Crowley said.

“Very,” said Adam.

“And I’m Anathema, and that’s Newt, but he’s actually in Tracy’s body. And these kids are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, though technically it should be Horsepersons. And that’s a hellhound,” Anathema rattled off. Aziraphale nodded appraisingly, accepting it. Crowley too was pretty much fine. Both had had enough experiences with the supernatural to not reject the information like, say, three human adults would be, and were.

Suddenly, Newt-in-Tracy’s-body made a surprised sound. All eyes turned to him.

“Whatever you found, odds are I’ve already found it,” Crowley muttered, but Newt wasn’t listening.

“The apocalypse doesn’t even happen. Agnes literally left a page blank with the word ‘Apocalypse’ on it. She really was nuts,” Newt laughed, and Anathema laughed too. Crowley looked mildly offended and if they would have stopped laughing, he would have muttered something about how his family had been trying to figure out the meaning of that page for years.

“So we can all go home?” Adam asked hopefully.

“Apparently,” Anathema said.

“That was anticlimactic,” Red grumbled.

The groups began to depart.

But then the ground started shaking.

XXXXX

There were four children, four adults, one angel, one demon, one psychic, one book dealer, and one CEO standing outside the air force base when the world officially ended. They were all fully prepared to go home and forget that this day ever happened, but obviously the forces of Hell had other plans. And so they stood there, either terrified or preparing to fight for their lives, and waited to see what was in store when the ground would stop shaking.

There was a great crack opening up in the earth, with all of them on one side and Adam Young on the other. Faintly, Anathema realized that it was probably intentional. The man would be easier to smite or burn if he were alone.

Anathema concentrated, and Newt was back in his own body. He flashed her a grateful grin and took her hand. She tried to smile back, but her eyes were glued on the widening fissure separating them from the antichrist.

“Nice knowing you,” Newt shouted over the rumbling and rending of rock.

“Ditto,” she replied.

“If we don’t make it, just know, there was always a little bit of good inside you,” Newt yelled. The quaking was getting stronger, louder. Anathema pulled her sword out of her pocket and lit it, praying—well, not praying, because that would mean being angelic for a change—that it would stay aflame despite the rain.

“And you were always a little bit evil, dear,” she replied. Newt laughed bitterly, and she sighed.

A few steps away, the four children were huddled together. White looked almost scared, Red was excited, and Sable was getting fed up with all the plot twists. If this were a book, he’d want to smack the author for being predictable and annoying. And the fourth was blank-faced, watching the scene before them unfold without emotion.

The four adults were unable to run, though their minds screamed at them to do so. Adam was the only one slightly unfazed. He was staring with curiosity at the widening fissure, wondering what could be powerful enough to do such a thing. He was shivering, too, but unlike his friends it was not from shock. The cold drizzle was simply getting to him. At his feet, the hellhound crouched and whimpered.

Crowley wished fervently that he’d never even woke up that morning. He wished he’d never got out of bed, or answered the door, or agreed to drive all the way out here. More than anything, he wished he’d never been transferred, or that Agnes Nutter had decided to not have children. Maybe then he wouldn’t be about to die at the hands of something that was literally crawling out of Hell.

Aziraphale was much the same, though he felt more raw terror. He’d never been one for horror movies, or anything of the genre, and seeing it in real life was much worse. He was torn between running, fainting, or standing stock-still. Apparently his mind chose the latter.

Tracy had passed out.

XXXXX

The ground finally stopped quaking after about a full thirty seconds. By that time, each of the witnesses had made peace with the fact that they were going to die, and Anathema had relit her sword twice. She was really not looking forward to having to use it.

“State your name!” she shouted at the glowing column of red light that seeped from the crack. Only she and Newt knew it to be a demon in its purest—purest as in most concentrated, of course—form.

“You need not know my name,” a voice replied. It was like claws on a chalkboard, animals growling as they circled a lost child, knives being sharpened. It called to mind every tragedy Anathema had ever witnessed, and forced her to imagine more. It ran shivers down her spine and made her head ache. It made her want to run and never look back.

It also made her very, very angry.

“What are you here for?” she demanded, brandishing her sword.

“You know that already,” the voice replied, and she had to struggle to keep her hands from shaking. All around, the others were having the same problem, but in more severe ways. The only ones moderately unaffected were she and Newt, she because of will and Newt because he was used to it.

“Go back from where you came!” Anathema ordered, hoping she sounded brave.

Obviously, she didn’t.

Her sword was ripped from her grasp, and thrown at high speeds, still flaming despite the weather’s best effort to quench it. She watched it go with frightened eyes, and watched it strike Crowley across the chest. He went down heavily, not even having time to shout before the flaming sword pressed him into the dirt. He didn’t move.

“Why?” Anathema screamed, for lack of things to do.

“Because I can,” the voice answered simply.

“Stop,” another voice ordered, and Anathema was struck with the notion that things suddenly got much worse. Adam Young was standing defiantly, eyes ablaze with some internal power, glaring in absolute fury at the column of light. “Stop.”

“Why?” the voice asked, but there was now a slight note of uncertainty in it. Anathema and Newt shared a glance of tentative hopefulness. She could tell the exact thing he was thinking. Maybe just because Adam never turned evil, that didn’t mean he didn’t have any power.

“Because I said so,” Adam said, and there was a tangible change in the air. Anathema could taste it on her tongue, and she didn’t like it one bit. It tasted like regret and pain, and from the way Newt stiffened beside her, he tasted it too. They shared a worried glance.

“Why should I listen to you?” the voice demanded.

“Because I told you to,” Adam said simply, and swallowed hard.

XXXXX

Adam felt like he was on fire. His head felt like it was exploding in slow-motion, a million miles an hour compacted into a slower frame speed, drawing out the pain and heat of it all. He felt like he was brimming with energy, and suddenly he understood what Anathema had said about evil. There were voices whispering to him from the recesses of his power-drenched mind, telling him to just end it all already, to take control and make everything stop.

So he did.

With a wave of his hand and a terrible rending pain in his skull, Adam Young forced the demon back into Hell and sealed it there.

He then collapsed.

XXXXX

Everything was over at once, and Newt was left confused and more than a little bit terrified. The fissure in the ground was closed, and all auras of demonic forces was gone from the air. Anathema’s hand was still in his, and she was still alive, and so were the humans.

A closer look told him that he was wrong. Crowley was lying in the dirt, Anathema’s sword on the ground next to him. His glasses were askew and his shirt was singed, and he wasn’t moving.

“Dammit,” Anathema muttered, and hurried over.

Before she could even try and see if Crowley was alive, he groaned. He rolled onto his side, clutching his head, eyes shut tight. When he opened them, he didn’t look at anything in particular, just content to blink blearily at the rapidly dissipating clouds.

Adam too was stirring, but a careful touch from Newt put him back to sleep. The poor guy should be allowed to sleep off some of the traumatic memories.

Newt felt hysterical laughter bubble out of his throat, and Anathema joined in. She took his hands in hers and grinned at him, and the grin said everything their laughter was not saying. We survived. Nothing awful happened. We’re still alive.

The three human friends of Adam’s were conversing among themselves, saying things people normally said when their brains were resetting themselves.

“Wasn’t that odd?”

“That was weird.”

“I can’t believe that just happened.”

Within an hour, they wouldn’t remember a thing, and neither would Adam, and everything would be okay. Newt laughed louder and pulled Anathema in for a hug, and she giggled into his shoulder. Everything would be fine.

XXXXX

Aziraphale was sitting on the ground next to a winded Crowley.

When Crowley finally found himself able to speak again, the first thing he said was “Wow.”

The second thing was a string of very creative curses.

Aziraphale laughed, because the angel and demon were doing it, and they seemed content to continue for a long while. “Crazy day, huh?”

“A bit,” Crowley allowed, and laughed quietly.

“There is one thing, though,” Aziraphale said, brow furrowed. Crowley looked at him, blinked, and repositioned his glasses so that he could properly see. “Why didn’t the flaming sword set you on fire?”

Crowley looked honestly confused for a second, before a grin lit up his face, and he laughed in earnest. (Everyone was laughing. It was a human healing technique.)

“This shirt. I accidentally set my kitchen on fire once, and the next Christmas I got it. It’s supposed to be inflammable,” he said between laughing fits. “I hated it because it was stupid and I had nowhere to wear it. Guess I should send whoever gave it to me a thank-you.”

“And the movers, for stealing all your other clothes,” Aziraphale pointed out.

“And the movers,” Crowley agreed breathlessly.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching Anathema and Newt continue to speak in excited tones and other languages nobody alive would be able to understand. They honestly seemed happy.

Then Crowley spoke up.

“You hungry?” he asked, trying to look nonchalant.

Aziraphale grinned at him. “Starving.”

Crowley returned the grin and held out a hand. “Help me up, and I’ll drive. I know a guy that can get us a table at the Ritz, if I ask nicely.”

And so off they went, and Anathema and Newt continued laughing, and the horsepersons went their separate ways, and Adam Young and his friends went back to Tadfield, and everything was fine. Everything was absolutely, completely, entirely fine.