Chapter Text
It had been a nice day, all thing’s considered.
The odd green fog that had rolled over London for a brief period that evening had dissipated, leaving the molten light of the sun to fill the streets, and paint the buildings and shop windows gold, and to gild the sky, turning it into a burning sapphire over all of Creation. And a great sense of peace settled over the people in the city, a sense that something terrible had almost come upon them but had passed harmlessly by. Like a great storm. And now, they could rest.
The nice day became a warm night. A summer night. The perfect sort of night for birds. But there was not one single nightingale to be heard.
Really, had there ever been?
Although the sense of peace did not extend as far as Hell—how could it possibly?—even there, it was quiet. A confused, aimless kind of quiet, as demons big and small wandered about the sickly, claustrophobic halls and wondered, What now? Lord Beelzebub had gone. There was talk of a new Archduke of Hell being chosen, but no one had any information yet.
There were whispers. Of course, there were. There were always whispers in Hell.
Some said the obvious choice was Dagon, who had been Beelzebub’s right hand for six thousand years. Mostly, this got nods of approval and agreement. Yes, most demons tended to admit, they would probably be taking their orders from Dagon now. Although, from what some people had heard, Dagon did not want the job.
No, no, no, others would argue. Mightn’t it also be true that the position could be eliminated entirely, and their Lord the Devil would give them their orders directly? Not many believed this to be true, but those who did talked excitedly about what that sort of thing might mean. Maybe this was all part of the Great Plan, after all! For if anyone could successfully lead them to victory over Heaven, it would be their Lord!
A clutch of demons gathered in a desolate hallway were whispering just these sentiments, that the whole bureaucracy of Hell needed a good shaking up, when a set of rusty steel doors slid open behind them. There hadn’t been any doors there a moment ago, but that was the way it was in Hell. You always had to be on your toes.
When the doors opened, the group of lower demons stepped back, squinting into the glaring green light…until Shax’s form became clear amid the jaundiced mist, still adorning her leather battle armor and stinking of Earth. There was a collective drawing back from the lower demons, a snapping shut of mouths, and a reverent tremor of worry as Shax stepped out of the elevator.
The demon Shax, everyone knew, had just led a legion of the damned to attack an angel, and a small faction muttered that she might be given the job, in Beelzebub’s absence. Quite a step up from processing, they said, impressed and annoyed in equal measure. Apparently, the Metatron himself had suggested the idea…
Shax puckered her lips at the group of gawking demons and lifted her chin. “Move aside,” she commanded, feeling a curl of wicked satisfaction as her peons obediently slunk into the shadows and pressed against the walls, parting for her like curtains.
Very good, she thought, striding through them with her head held high. Very, very good indeed.
As she made her way swiftly—but not too urgently—to the chamber of the Dark Council, she began to muse over what her moniker ought to be, once she claimed her throne as the new Archduke of Hell. Certainly not “the Lord of the Flies.” Those buzzing little pests had irritated the demons of hell for long enough. No, she would need something better than that. Something flashier, and more terrifying than flies, but perhaps also slightly…cleaner.
Well…there was always “Serpent of Eden.” True, Shax hadn’t actually been in Eden during the time of the first temptation, but who really cared about that kind of minor detail? With Crowley surely off honeymooning with his angel boyfriend, the name was up for grabs. And snakes were so much more stylish than flies.
Crowley drove for a long time, but he never got where he was going.
Partially because he wasn’t going anywhere. There was nowhere on Earth, nowhere in all of Creation, he wanted to be. And how can you drive to nowhere?
Eventually, he stopped. He did not know where he was, nor did he care to check if he was parked safely. He might have rolled to a stop in the middle of a road, for all he knew – or cared. He simply sat in his seat, staring out the windscreen without seeing, his hands on the wheel without driving. To anyone who came up to the car and peered in, he would look like a man locked deeply in his thoughts.
And also like a man who had just suffered a great and terrible tragedy, for he was breathing hard and squeezing the wheel ‘til his knuckles went white, and there were tears rolling down his cheeks that he didn’t even try to wipe away.
When someone did eventually come up to the Bentley and rap their knuckles on the window, Crowley turned his head slowly in their direction. The person, a middle-aged man with a cloud of springy white-blond hair and a beige t-shirt, looked at him in grave concern. “Excuse me, sir,” the man said, muffled through the window. “Are you all right?”
Crowley said nothing. He stared at the face of the man, something inside of him curdling like rotten milk.
The blonde man shifted uneasily. “Erm, that is, if you need help, perhaps someone could… Perhaps I could…” He shook his head. “It’s just that…and I’m sorry to do this, as I can see you’re in distress…but, um, it’s just that you’re parked in quite an illegal spot, and I happen to know they’re sticklers about that sort of thing in this area, and someone could be around any minute now, and I’d hate to see you get into trouble, when you’re so clearly…upset… Um…”
In the time that the man had been speaking, Crowley had turned his face forward again and gone back to staring out the windscreen. The souring in his stomach had gotten worse, making him as sick as if he’d drank three entire bottles of wine by himself, and the hollowness in his chest had begun to ache. Subtly at first, but now throbbing.
He put his head down on the wheel.
A moment later, the man knocked on the window again. “Are you—Can you hear me?” he asked loudly.
“Yeah,” Crowley rasped. “I hear you.”
Taking a breath, he lifted his head again and moved the car off to the side of the road. The man backed off, smiling in relief as he did so. And when the car was stopped, he approached the window and knocked for a third time. “Would you… Would you open up, please?”
Crowley did. He opened the door and got out, staggering a little at how heavy his body felt. The man caught his arm and steadied him. He was a little shorter than Crowley, and his eyes were blue.
“Ah, there you are. That’s better, isn’t it?” the man said, his voice all velvet, and warmth, and kindness. “My name is Ezra,” he introduced himself.
“Really,” Crowley said, much lower and dryer.
Something in his voice unnerved Ezra, who suddenly went still, then slowly and carefully extricated his hand from Crowley’s arm. He stepped back and plastered on a nervous smile. “Yes… Well, it was just that… I wanted to make sure you were all right, and everything. Because it seemed like you were in distress, as I said, and I—”
“How kind,” Crowley remarked, even darker and more deadly than before. “What an angel you are...”
But Ezra, who only heard the compliment, brightened considerably and smiled again. That is, until he suddenly found himself flung through the air, as if tossed by a tornado, straight through the window of the shop behind them. Glass shattered under his back, cutting him, and he went sailing over the display tables until his body collided with the far wall, where it crunched, then landed on the floor in a motionless heap.
In all fairness, Ezra did not die from his injuries. As it happened, he was right about police coming ‘round shortly after and, seeing the broken window, rushed over, found him, and phone for an ambulance.
He was in for months—even years—of invasive surgeries to correct all the broken bones and smashed organs, and intense pain, and psychological testing. But he did not die and, eventually, he was able to return to his life…somewhat normally.
The part about the psychological testing was important, though, because when asked how he came to be thrown through the shop window, Ezra would only repeat the same impossible explanation over and over again. That he was attacked by the devil himself. That he had seen the creature’s acid-yellow snake eyes just before he was thrown, and that they had been filled with nothing but hate and malice. And tears.
What on earth did the devil cry for? Ezra would wonder for decades after, chilled to the bone about it. Surely, something awful.
No one believed poor Ezra, of course. And from then on, he no longer stopped to help people in distress. Let them figure out their problems on their own, he’d tell himself coldly. I’ve suffered enough for my good deeds.
Just moments before Ezra was thrown through the shop window, Shax appeared before the Dark Council. She had thought about changing her clothes into something more professional and worthy of the Archduke of Hell, but had decided against it. Let her battle armor serve as a reminder of what she had accomplished.
When Shax went before the Dark Council, whose central throne on the raised dias now sat empty, she gave them the courtesy of a small bow – even though, in the trepidatious eyes of the demons around her and before her, she saw that she no longer needed to show such deference. The job was already hers. All she had to do was ask for it.
“Lords of the Dark Council,” she began gravely. “I, Shax, demon of the fifth house, earthly representative of plenipotentiary of the vastness of Hell, successfully located the Archangel Gabriel and led a legion of demons to Earth, something that has not been done in thousands of years. Now, I come before you now to claim my rightful place as Archduke of Hell.”
At that, a rumbling of demon voices rose from the onlookers, many of whom had gathered to watch the proceedings, and Shax felt twin flashes of adrenaline and excitement at the sheer audacity of what she had just said.
It was really happening, she realized. Soon, the slow death of human processing would be a thing of the past, and she would sit on the Dark Council—even lead it! She would be Lord Shax, Serpent of Eden and the Archduke of Hell. Oh, yes. That had a very nice ring to it, indeed.
“Quiet! Quiet down everyone,” Dagon said, raising their voice to be heard over the other demons. When the crowd had settled, Dagon went on. “Demon Shax. While what you say is true…you also failed to secure the Archangel, and your entire legion was destroyed by Aziraphale, costing many of those demons their physical bodies and therefore countless hours of paperwork for everyone involved, including myself.”
A terrible silence hung in the rank air of Hell as Dagon let their words carry. Shax opened her mouth to argue that it wasn’t her fault that Gabriel had regained his memory and had, apparently, been having an affair with Beelzebub! Who in the world could have imagined that?! As for the legion, if she had been given the 10,000 demons she had asked for, they would have overwhelmed Aziraphale before he could have destroyed them! And then they’d have Gabriel!
But before she could speak, Dagon said, “However, since I am technically next in line to be Archduke, and I have absolutely zero interest in having such a shit job…very well.”
Dagon rose from their throne and gestured for the other demons present to stand in respect as well.
“Excuse me, shit job?” Shax asked, a bit more discreetly than before. “How do you mean? How, exactly, is it shit?”
“Oh, well, being Archduke is basically just listening to demons whine about their problems all day long, and figuring out their issues for them, and sitting in trials for hours and hours and hours… Not very flashy – or exciting. But hey, you asked for it. So—” Dagon lifted their hands again and loudly proclaimed, “Assembled demons of Hell, your new Archduke, Lord Shax!”
The crowd of demons did not clap, but rather slid backwards in terrified respect. Which, to Shax, was far better than any applause or cheering. Miles better. Loads better. At that moment, she decided she didn’t care if the job did turn out to be shit. At least it was hers. She was more powerful than any of these demons now, second only to their Lord the devil himself, and the evil things she was planning. Ohh… The pathetic humans of Earth and the prissy little angels in Heaven should tremble at what she had in store for them. For all of them. They—
At that moment, a bolt of lighting shot Shax. Her body jumped and convulsed, shaking violently, and steaming, and turning redder, and redder, and redder until—
POP!
Lord Shax, Archduke of Hell, exploded.
Bits and pieces of her flew across the Dark Council chamber, splattering the walls and sticking to the ceiling and smattering the floor.
When the tiny, little steaming-hot, wet pieces of her were done falling, and the shocked demons assembled in the hall realized that she was not just gone but destroyed – permanently, they looked around…until several of them spotted something that caused them to gasp and leap out of the way.
Dagon, covered in slimy little pieces of the former Lord, strained their neck to see who was approaching the dais. It was difficult, though, because he was walking very slowly. Some demons who were close enough to him at the time to see with any detail, later described the way he approached as a casual saunter, as if he had not just killed a fellow demon in cold blood. Or rather, in very, very hot lightning.
When Dagon did catch sight of him, their already gray skin went even chalkier. “Oh, for fuck’s sake…” they muttered.
Crowley looked the same as he always did, black clothes and dark glasses. But there was something different about him as he approached the dias, an energy that stuck to him that was violent, and hot, and dangerous. To demons, it was an appealing energy, of course. Big fans of murderous, vengeful rage, demons are. But it frightened them too.
Crowley did not bow to the Dark Council, but rather lurked before them. “Assembled demons of Hell…” he growled. “Once you’re finished picking the sticky remains of your former Archduke off your faces, you’ll notice that I’ve just murdered Lord Shax in cold-blood for all of you to see. Now, there’s only two reasons I would do such a thing. One being that I have a death wish and want to be captured and destroyed immediately for breaking the highest law in Hell…”
He cast a look around the faces of the demons around him, who wore mixed expressions of terror, revulsion, and fascination. Most of them were still slowly moving away from him, crowding against the walls. “Or,” he went on, louder. “If you’re familiar with Clause 2,054, subsection 89, you’ll know that it states that any demon who successfully kills the Archduke of Hell can thereafter usurp the throne…”
A boom of noise came from the demons then – of shock, and outrage, and pure confusion. Was that true? Did anyone know? Surely not—
“Silence!” Dagon shouted. When the demons had quieted down somewhat, they descended from the dias and came to stand directly in front of Crowley, to peer angrily up into his face. But they could not make out his expression behind his glasses and tense jaw. Could not tell if he was lying. “You must have death wish. Even if that law were real…” To be honest, they didn’t know if it was, and Hell’s filing system was…well, hell, to get through. And one of the best record keepers they had just exploded in front of them!
“What makes you think we would accept you as Archduke? You’re a traitor!” Dagon hissed. “You sided with an angel over your own kind! You stopped the apocalypse, which was what we had all been working for for millennia! You kept the Archangel Gabriel out of our reach, when presenting him to our Lord would have given us so much power over Heaven! You are a traitor!” they repeated in a rage. “In fact, seize him!”
Crowley listened and did not move to evade capture.
But none came for him.
The demons who should have surged forward to grab him and haul him off to prison stayed cowering against the walls, too frightened to get near him. They still remembered how he had bathed in holy water, and now he had destroyed Shax, and who knew what he might do next?
“I said, seize him!” Dagon shouted. But again, no one moved.
Crowley took a step toward the Duke of Hell, who flinched back. “A new Supreme Archangel of Heaven has been chosen,” Crowley said quietly, almost sadly.
Dagon blinked, taken aback. “Already?”
“Yes. It’s…” He wouldn’t say. Couldn’t… “Someone who will be far more dangerous to us than Gabriel ever was. This new Supreme Archangel knows how things are done on Earth, and I suspect when he gets new orders rolling out, we’re going to need every demon available to undo all the good he does. Or else we’ll lose what little footing we have up there.”
“We,” Dagon said suspiciously.
“Yes, we. I’m a demon, too,” Crowley reminded them. It seemed that a lot of people needed reminding that he was a demon lately.
“So, that’s why you think we’ll accept you,” Dagon surmised. “Because you know how Earth works too.”
Crowley nodded. “With me in charge, we’ll be able to thwart what Heaven does before they even do it. We’ll be one step ahead, always.”
Dagon snorted. “How can you possibly promise that?!”
Slowly, Crowley reached up and took his glasses. He lowered them very slightly, just enough that Dagon could see the sulfuric-yellow glow. “Because I know how the Supreme Archangel thinks,” he said lowly, angrily, the look in his eyes daring them to argue. “I know his methods…better than anyone. Without me, you’re lost. You need me.”
He replaced his glasses on his nose and turned to the demons behind him, who jolted in fear at having his attention. “And as for any concerns about my loyalty,” he declared loudly. “You needn’t have any. Not anymore. From now on, Hell is my top priority. My only priority.”
“What about your angel friend?” Dagon dared to ask.
When Crowley went still and silent, saying nothing for several seconds, Dagon’s chest filled with terror. The energy that was still rolling off the traitor was fouler and heavier and more suffocating than anything they’d ever felt. It made their eyes sting and their throat itch.
When Crowley turned to them, they half-expected another bolt of lightning, this time hitting and destroying them. And they almost started to beg for mercy.
But instead, very quietly, Crowley said, “Nothing lasts forever.”
And another moment later, Dagon, trembling, nodded hurriedly and ran back up the dais and proclaimed, “A-assembled demons of Hell, y-your new Archduke, Lord Crowley!”
This time, there were applause. Everyone present was too terrified not to applaud. They feared what Crowley might do to them if they did not.
They clapped and clapped and clapped… Until it seemed that the clapping had gone on for far too long. There were uneasy glances exchanged and everyone wondered, When can we stop?
“L-Lord Crowley,” Dagon said nervously. “You’re meant to…take your throne.”
Crowley, who had been lost in thought until then, came back to himself, nodded wearily, and sat on the throne. It was hard, and cold, and awful. But then again, everything in Hell was awful. That was the whole point. “Right,” he murmured. “To work, then.”
The very first thing that would need to be done was, of course, writing in the law that allowed him to usurp the throne, in the first place.