#this chapter Hastur became one of my faves

[shipaholic]

Omens Universe, Chapter 9 Part 2

Posting a little early today!

Mention of guns.

Link to next part at the end.

(From the beginning)

(last part)

(chrono)

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Chapter 9, cont. 2019

Sunday, six days until Armageddon

The shadows were long in the garden. It was summer, and the sun had begun to think about slipping placidly beneath the skyline. The leaves of the apple tree dappled the orange light upon the lawn. They swayed in a humid breeze.

A glum-looking ten-year-old sat swinging his legs on the sturdiest branch. Next to him, coiled up and listening intently, was a large black snake.

“She said it made me look grown-up.” The boy gave a careworn laugh.

“Ugh,” said the snake, sympathetically.

“She’s a grown-up, and she gets to keep her hair long. I told her, I’m growing it for a reason. Don’t want everyone staring at this stupid thing all day, do I?”

Adam gloomily scratched his close-cropped hair. His nails raked the base of a red, curled horn on the left side of his head.

“Tarquin’s going to be here, and he’s gonna call me rhinoceros-head all day.”

“Headbutt him,” suggested Crowley.

“I did once, and his dad threatened to sue.”

That sounded about right, from what Crowley gathered about the Dowlings’ social set.

“I don’t get why she wants me to be normal and not head-butt people, but then she takes me down to a weird old barber who smells like dad when she’s throwing a fancy dinner, and shaves all my hair off. I’m practically bald now. It’s all everyone’s going to talk about.”

“Weeell.” Crowley wiggled his head from side to side. “You know, being the birthday kid has its perks.”

Adam gave him a withering look. “Like what, getting the secret service to karate chop them? I’ve tried that, too. Nobody listens to me.” He sighed, theatrically.

Crowley said nothing. Adam clearly hadn’t grasped that what he had just said was categorically untrue.

“Sometimes they really don’t listen,” Adam mused. He tilted back to stare into the leaves. “Like, they can’t hear me. Like someone’s scooped their brains out.”

Crowley’s long body gave a nervous twitch.

“Once I asked Dad if he used to hear voices at night, too, and he screamed.” Adam looked disturbed in remembrance. “Like he’d stayed up all night watching fifteen-rated movies. That’s how scared he looked. And then he looked at me and it was like he forgot what had just happened, and he looked confused and scared. And then he smiled and asked me what I wanted for my birthday.” Adam shook his head in disgust.

Crowley was unsurprised. The mental disintegration of the remaining humans left in this place was a long time in the mix. There was only so much memory erasure, perception alteration, and of course walking in on eldritch horrors using the bathroom,[1] that the human mind could take. The demons had got bolder the more their numbers grew. The last human staff member had broken down, weeping, five months ago, and been promptly replaced by a motivated imp. The only people, besides the Dowlings, who had stayed on were secret service members, though turnover was still high, and the men and women Crowley saw patrolling the grounds stroked their guns for reassurance a lot, even by American standards.

If Crowley had been in charge of this operation - just saying - the whole thing would have been handled discreetly, with subtlety and finesse. But Hastur simply loved being cartoonishly appalling, so there they were.

“Thing is,” Adam said, “I don’t even know what I want for my birthday.”

Crowley was aware what one present in particular would be. They’d all been briefed on it at the beginning of the week. He spied on Adam from the corner of his eye.

“Don’t suppose you’ve ever thought about getting a pet?” he said, so nonchalantly the words strolled out in a smoking jacket, lighting up.

“Oh yeah. I could get a real snake.” Adam brightened.

Crowley was offended. “Rude. Just saying.”

“It is a bit weird, though. Having an imaginary talking snake. Nobody else does. It’s probably because they’ve all got pets and brothers and sisters and stuff. I could get a snake with a machine gun in its mouth.”

“Uh-huh?”

“Or, a snake that shoots poison out of a machine gun.”

Crowley didn’t bother to point out that some snakes could spit poison without the aid of a machine gun attachment.

“You’ll never get a real snake that talks to you,” he said.

Adam shrugged. “That doesn’t matter. You’re not really talking. I’m making up your half of the conversation, aren’t I? I’m really just talking to myself.”

Crowley could say nothing to that.

“Be nice not to have to talk to myself for once,” Adam muttered.

Crowley couldn’t fault him for that. He’d missed a lot of things, the past seventy-eight years. High on the list was someone to talk to. The closest thing he had to a conversation partner was a boy who didn’t even believe he was real. And who was going to bring all life on the planet to an end later that week.

~*~

Wednesday, three days until Armageddon

Crowley skulked around the edge of the lawn, glaring at anyone who looked like they wanted a canape.

The Dowling’s back garden had been taken over by a marquee the size of a small chapel. The sweet, piping voices of children rent the air, while their parents milled, schmoozed and mingled. Many of them gave confused looks to the rows of decapitated stems in the flower beds. Ligur had been busy.

Crowley’s white waiter’s coat was stiff as a straightjacket, which suited him fine. What a bloody awful decade this had been. He was keen to see the back of it. Less keen to see the back of literally everything else.

Shit. He didn’t want the apocalypse. But there was nothing he could do. Even if he’d come up with some feeble plan to nudge the whole thing off-course, he was alone down here. The last time he’d had an ally he could have turned to for aid, Britain was at war with Germany. It would have been a stupid plan, anyway. Never would have worked, whatever it would have been. The only thing that would have made it worthwhile would have been Aziraphale’s company while they worried away the last eleven years. Well, so much for that. It had been a toe-curling span of gradually hunching in on himself to contain his unvoiced scream. Frankly, he might as well try to feel relief that it was finally over. So long, Earth. It’s been real.

He looked up and saw the cherry on the sundae. Hastur and Ligur, each in a grubby version of Crowley’s server outfit, hulked up the lawn towards him.

“Hi guys,” he said as they reached him.

“Get in the marquee. We need eyes on the boy,” Hastur growled. Not so much as a howdy. Whatever.

Crowley nodded. The children were all being entertained in the marquee at present. The pre-adolescent shrieks had all concentrated in there for the past twenty minutes. Crowley was surprised none of his people were in there. For the last three days, the only glimpses he’d got of Adam were through a phalanx of demons flanking him. He secretly missed their bedtime chats.

“No-one else available?” he asked.

Hastur looked nauseated. “The bastards all fled. Nobody could stand to be in there.”

Crowley frowned. “I know children’s parties can be grim, guys, but we all knew what we were signing up for.”

“Nobody signed up to watch a godawful magician,” Ligur spat.

Crowley kept his face carefully blank. His stomach turned cartwheels.

“Really? That awful?”

“Worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

Hastur looked haunted. This was a demon who volunteered for extra guard duty in Dis whenever they needed cheering up.

Crowley’s heartbeat picked up. There were, surely, lots of terrible magicians specialising in children’s birthday parties. Most of them, in fact. He shouldn’t let his imagination run away with him.

Hastur pulled themself[2] together. They leered at Crowley.

“Get in there, then.”

“Enjoy,” Ligur smirked.

They slunk away. Crowley ran a hand through his hair. He squared his shoulders and strutted towards the marquee at a controlled saunter. His steps only wobbled when he got close enough to brush the tent flap with his outstretched hand.

A posh, desperate voice prattled away inside. Crowley’s insides somersaulted.

He slipped into the tent.

A smattering of bored children sat on the floor at the front of the stage. The long-suffering secret service stood at intervals around the edges of the space.

At the front of the room, mugging in a dusty frock-coat and a pencilled-on moustache, was a face that Crowley knew better and more dearly than any on Earth.

He swallowed. Behind his shades, he blinked, hard.

It was Aziraphale.

---

[1] Demons were terrible about locking the door, and all other basic courtesies. It was a matter of unprinciple.

[2] Hastur viewed all human progressive values with bewildered contempt. However, their time in a female corporation had sparked a glimmer of self-knowledge, and they now embraced gender-fluidity. This did not affect their grooming habits in any way.

(Link to next part)