Happy Holidays, macdicilla!
Dec. 12th, 2018 09:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
goe_mod posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
go_exchangeTitle: Your Assistance is Required
Recipient: macdicilla
Rating: T
Pairings and Characters: Crowley/Aziraphale, Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Death, OFC/OFC, OMC
Word Count: 10,308
Summary: Anathema attempts to make her way in a non-Agnes-dictated world by ghost hunting, but quickly finds herself out of her depth. Death recommends seeking out a pair of consenting cycle repairmen.
Disclaimer: All copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. This work is not created for profit and constitutes fair use.
Author’s Note: Dear recipient, my original idea was to use your first prompt and incorporate elements of your third, and then this story took on a life of its own. I hope you enjoy it. Happy holidays!
Note: The mods have split this fic into 2 posts.
The career option of professional descendant was no longer open to Anathema Device, but a quick glance through the want ads on the Monday that was the second day of the rest of her life would straightaway allay any worries about what might happen when her Agnes-assisted fortune petered out. Over the next three months, this brave new world would prove to have plenty of opportunities available for the practical occultist who knew where to look. Ghost-hunting might not have been exactly what she’d had in mind, but it would certainly pay the rent.
‘Evil spirits,’ Lady Cadogan had said. ‘They’re decimating my tourist business and they’ve got to be stopped.’
Anathema couldn’t be sure whether Lady Cadogan was the sort of person to know the nice and accurate meaning of ‘decimate’, but she gave the strong impression of never having needed to learn the meaning of ‘no’, at least as applied to herself. Anathema had almost enlightened her, but then she’d got a good look at Her Ladyship’s cheque, decided that could wait, and packed up her theodolite.
The leylines in the surrounding area firmly supported Lady Cadogan’s story, if such it could be called. That was the frustrating bit, Anathema thought, as she wandered through room after room, all opulent to the point of obscene. It would really help to know the Cadogan family history, to give her some clue as to just which ancestors might have reason to stick around after death, but Lady Cadogan had insisted that it was her husband’s family, not hers. She had no idea; this was what she was paying Anathema for, unless Anathema would prefer her to take her business elsewhere?
So Anathema had smiled and said of course not, she’d take care of it. So far the only occult thing about the place was its temperature, chillier than it ought to have been. But then a decidedly ominous wind blew about her shoulders from no obvious source, and Anathema zipped her coat up higher and approached the portrait on the wall. A young woman in Regency dress stared back at her, with dark hair falling to her waist and a mischievous look in her eyes. The plaque identified her as Miss Charlotte Steele, with an unfortunate lack of birth or death dates.
Anathema shivered as she opened the wardrobe, and then the desk drawer, but no spirit leapt out at her. She peered under the bed, then felt foolish as she remembered she was looking for something incorporeal, which needed no silly hiding place but would show itself when it wished. Deciding some reverse psychology was in order, she turned and walked, very slowly, out the door.
To Anathema’s disappointment, nothing followed her out of the room—but instead, as she passed the next bedroom, something met her. Something ice-cold and blinding, and Anathema barely registered that she was no longer in control of her suddenly running feet before they tripped over something that wasn’t there, and she tumbled down the ornamental staircase, screaming a scream that was not her own.
Whatever had possessed her left her just as quickly, and Anathema looked up to see a seven-foot skeleton who should have been an unfamiliar presence, but wasn’t.
‘Am I dead?’ she asked, and to her relief, he shook his head. Well, more like rotated his skull left to right in a distinctly negative fashion, but the effect was much the same.
IT IS NOT YOUR SOUL I CAME TO COLLECT, said Death, BUT AS YOU ARE HERE, PERHAPS YOU MIGHT DELIVER A MESSAGE.
‘A message?’ she asked, gazing into black holes of his eyes.
YES, said Death. YOUR ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED.
‘I understand,’ said Anathema. ‘Of course I’ll help. What’s the message?’
AH, said Death. I SHOULD HAVE MADE MYSELF CLEARER. THAT WAS IT. YOUR ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED.
‘Right,’ said Anathema, ‘and whose assistance would this be?’
YOU WILL FIND THEM, said Death, AT THE WORST BOOKSHOP IN SOHO. YOU WILL KNOW THEM WHEN YOU SEE THEM.
With that, wings sprouted from his cloak, if it was a cloak, and he vanished from sight. Anathema drew herself up to her knees. The worst bookshop in Soho, she thought. That isn’t much help. I can think of several and I’m not even from there. Also, I just met the Grim Reaper.
*
Crowley carefully parked the Bentley as illegally as he could manage, then wandered into Aziraphale’s bookshop, wine bottle in hand, when a Christmas wreath hung upon the door hit him in the face. He brushed it away, and then a particularly insufferable modern carol assaulted his ears. Crowley knew it well; he’d had a hand in the recording.
‘Aziraphale?’ he called, and the angel popped his head out from the back room.
‘Hello, my dear,’ said Aziraphale. He was wearing a red tartan jumper, complementing the shop’s decor in a most alarming fashion.
‘What’s going on?’ Crowley asked, without preamble.
‘Nothing’s “going on”, as you say, Crowley,’ said Aziraphale, just a hair too innocently. ‘I am merely getting into the spirit of the joyous holiday season.’
‘But this song, Aziraphale, really? I know you. This is exactly the sort of commercialised Christmas garbage you can’t stand.’
‘I will admit it isn’t precisely to my taste,’ said Aziraphale, ‘but one must create a welcoming experience for the customers—’
‘You sly devil,’ Crowley interrupted. ‘I see. Nothing repels would-be customers faster than this side of Christmas canon. I’m honestly impressed.’
‘Yes, well,’ said Aziraphale guiltily, ‘when you put it like that, perhaps it’s a bit much—’
‘Not at all,’ said Crowley. ‘I’ll just arrange matters so that we can’t hear it. Corkscrew?’
‘Oh, just miracle it open, I’ve forgot where we left it,’ said Aziraphale, and Crowley grinned and ran a hand over the bottle.
Three hours later they had emptied it three times over, and they were in the midst of a spirited debate about penguin biology when the shop’s bell rang.
‘We’re closed!’ Aziraphale hiccoughed, as though the intruder could hear him through the back room door—which she could, of course, because he believed it to be so.
‘Not anymore,’ she declared, pushing her way through the overdone decorations and plugging her ears against Sir Paul’s crime against humanity. ‘This is the place. I recognise the car out front. I gather you aren’t really cycle repairmen—’
Crowley sat up. He recognised the voice. ‘We’d better sssssober up,’ he hissed to Aziraphale, who nodded.
‘Way ahead of you, dear boy.’ Then he cleared his throat. ‘We’re in here, Miss Device.’
‘Thank you,’ said Anathema. She made it to the door just in time to see Crowley wincing as he focussed his sunglass-covered eyes on her. ‘It seems I’ve been asked to give you a message.’
‘A message?’ asked Aziraphale.
‘Yes,’ said Anathema, ‘from none other than the Fourth Horseman himself. He says, “Your assistance is required.” Now, do you think you could tell me who you are, or why I was asked to deliver that message?’
Aziraphale stared at her. ‘Azrael asked you to give us that message?’ he asked, with an arch tone that was positively professorial. ‘Well, dear lady, in order to answer why that should be, we are going to need a bit more context.’
‘Fine,’ said Anathema, ‘but I’m going to need a glass of wine.’
*
‘Well,’ said Aziraphale, after Anathema had recounted her ordeal, ‘it does follow that, as Agnes Nutter’s descendant, you would have been able to see Death when he came for the spirit that had taken temporary possession of your body, at the moment things would have ended for that spirit. But why he should think that we—’
‘Hang on,’ said Anathema, ‘you know that I’m Agnes’ descendant, but I still don’t know who you are. First things first, if you please.’
‘Dear lady, we are a couple of supernatural entities whom you once encountered in the midst of our desperate attempt to locate the son of Satan,’ said Crowley, with the air of someone who has said this, or something very like it, before. ‘I am a demon, my friend here is an angel; does that explain enough for you?’
‘It helps,’ said Anathema, ‘but have you got names, or am I just supposed to call you Demon and Angel?’
‘My name is Aziraphale,’ Aziraphale explained patiently, ‘and my friend goes by Crowley. Crowley, meet Anathema Device, the last living descendant of the prophetess Agnes Nutter, who appears to have inherited some fragment of her five-times-great-grandmother’s psychic gift.’
‘Charmed,’ said Crowley. ‘So you went to investigate a haunted estate, found yourself possessed by a soul who’s resisted Death’s attempts to collect, and he directed you to us.’
‘That’s right,’ said Anathema. ‘I was hoping you would know why.’
‘What I fail to understand,’ said Aziraphale, ‘is why the events that proved fatal to the poor soul possessing you were not equally fatal to yourself. Not, of course, that we aren’t most gratified to see you alive and well, but are you absolutely certain that the spirit did not leave you before Death appeared?’
Anathema shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. I fell down the stairs, and then I looked up and there he was. It hurt, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t imagine it killing someone.’
‘Unless, perhaps, that person was already weakened in some way,’ Aziraphale mused. He turned to Crowley. ‘Well, my dear, if we’ve been summoned, I suppose we had better investigate.’
‘It doesn’t look like we have any choice,’ said Crowley. If he had to choose between Azrael and Hell’s brass, he’d take the former, but he’d rather enjoyed three glorious months of no infernal communication whatsoever, and he wasn’t exactly chuffed for the end of respite. Not entirely to his surprise, Aziraphale looked equally apprehensive. It was oddly soothing.
*
‘Here,’ said Anathema, from the back of Crowley’s Bentley. ‘This is the place, come on.’ And not a moment too soon, given the demon’s driving habits. She’d nearly thrown up twice.
'Cadogan Manor,’ said Aziraphale, nodding towards the sign. ‘All right, are we all clear on the plan? Anathema will retrace the steps that led to her possession, I will employ a quick miracle to stop her falling, and then, Crowley—’
‘We interrogate the spirit through her,’ said Crowley. ‘We’ve got it, angel, now let’s get it over with.’
‘Yes, let’s,’ Anathema agreed. Any plan that required her to be the bait was, as a rule, not one of which she was inclined to approve. She crossed the threshold with grim resolution and shivered as she entered the house. ‘We have to go upstairs,’ she said, beckoning them. ‘I was in one of the bedrooms when I first felt a draft, but the possession didn’t start until I turned and left. Come on.’
Aziraphale followed at Anathema’s heels, Crowley lagging farther behind. ‘In here,’ he heard her say, as she opened a door, ‘there’s a portrait of a woman named Charlotte Steele in Regency clothes. I thought she might be our ghost.’
‘Could be, could be,’ said Aziraphale. Further ahead, Anathema entered the room and, as near as Crowley could tell, walked around it and right back to the door. ‘Ah, yes,’ said Aziraphale, ‘I felt the draft you mentioned. There is most certainly a presence here.’
‘OK,’ said Anathema, ‘ready?’
‘As we’ll ever be,’ said Crowley. ‘The question is, are you ready?’
‘I’d be a bit more so if you sounded more confident,’ said Anathema, and Crowley wished he had it in him to be offended.
‘I assure you, dear lady, you are safe with us,’ said Aziraphale, and Anathema nodded and stepped out of the room. As she passed the door to the next room, she took off running, her eyes suddenly wide with terror, and Crowley didn’t need to ask whether the plan had worked. Anathema tripped over nothing, and Aziraphale snapped his fingers, suspending her in midair. Crowley cleared his throat, strode as close to her as he dared, and desperately tried to summon a fraction of his usual swagger.
‘Er, hello…spirit,’ said Crowley, wincing at how he sounded.
‘Hello,’ said Anathema in a voice higher than her own, which sounded confused, but not unpleasant. ‘Who’re you? Has she gone?’
‘Crowley,’ said Crowley. ‘Has who gone?’
‘My stepmother,’ said Anathema. ‘She was chasing me. Didn’t you see her?’
Crowley turned to Aziraphale. ‘A wicked stepmother? How perfectly cliché.’ Aziraphale elbowed him in the side, then stepped forward.
‘So it was your stepmother who killed you,’ he mused. ‘Tell me, spirit, are you Charlotte Steele?’
‘What?’ Anathema shook her head, and then she giggled. Aziraphale and Crowley glanced at each other, both thinking the same thing. Maniacal laughter, they could have handled, but childish giggling was another matter entirely, an eventuality for which they found themselves woefully unprepared.
‘Of course not, silly,’ Anathema continued. ‘I’m James. Charlotte’s my stepsister, but she’s not here right now. She and Miss Anne went to see Reverend Barton.’
‘Er, James,’ said Aziraphale, ‘how old are you?’
‘I’m eight and a half,’ said Anathema proudly, and Crowley groaned.
‘Oh, dear,’ said Aziraphale. ‘How absolutely dreadful, to have passed so young. Well, Master James, I assure you that Crowley and I will do everything in our power to seek redress on your behalf. Did you have a last request? Something we could do for you, to give you the peace you need to go on?’
Anathema stared back at him, her eyes wide with incomprehension. ‘I wanted a toy theatre for Christmas,’ she said after a moment, and Crowley shook his head at Aziraphale.
‘All right, all right, it was worth a try,’ he said quickly. ‘Time to give Anathema her body back.’ He snapped his fingers, and she hit the ground with a thud, rolling down several steps before she came to a stop. Groaning in pain, Anathema looked up, and Death stared back at them.
LET ME GIVE YOU A HINT, he said. CHECK THE REST OF THE HOUSE, AND STAY TOGETHER.
‘Beg pardon, Azrael,’ said Aziraphale, ‘but why us? This isn’t exactly our…our domain, you might say.’
THAT WOULD BE TELLING, said Death, before fading from view.
Anathema glared at Crowley. ‘Did you have to drop me quite so—ooh,’ she broke off, as her bruises healed themselves. Aziraphale smiled indulgently. ‘Right. Thanks. Well, you heard the man, let’s try looking around downstairs.’
‘Just a moment,’ said Aziraphale. ‘How much of that were you aware of? Did you possibly get a sense of what young James was thinking, that perhaps he hadn’t the vocabulary to articulate?’
Anathema shook her head. ‘He was scared,’ she said, ‘and then he was confused. It’s as if he died so quickly he hardly even knew it happened. I don’t think there was much more you could have got out of him, at least without knowing the right questions to ask.’
‘Well,’ said Crowley, ‘we know who killed him, and that’s a start. I suppose we’d better try and find out who his stepmother was, and whether she’s lurking anywhere around here.’
‘An excellent idea, my dear,’ said Aziraphale. ‘An estate of this size must have a library. Perhaps it would contain a family Bible?’
Anathema nodded. ‘This way, I think,’ she said, pointing to the left of the sprawling staircase. Crowley attempted to catch Aziraphale’s eye, but the angel was already following her.
*
The cobweb-strewn library must have featured in Lady Cadogan’s tourists’ itinerary, but it could hardly have been among her star attractions. Dusty and dark, all it lacked was Miss Havisham’s wedding feast. It would have repelled all but the world’s keenest bibliophile—that is to say, any but Aziraphale, who wandered inside with his heart racing in anticipation. ‘Let there be light,’ he said, waving a hand before him. The room obeyed, now lit by an ethereal bluish glow, but stubbornly retained its sense of foreboding. Aziraphale scanned the shelves, Crowley and Anathema at his heels.
‘Aha,’ he said, after a few moments’ searching. ‘Here we are.’ He blinked, and the dust evaporated, revealing an ancient, tattered volume of Cadogans. He removed it from the shelves with the utmost care and laid it reverently on a writing table. ‘Steady,’ he murmured to himself as he sat down and gingerly turned the first page, vaguely aware of Crowley at his shoulder, tapping his foot with impatience.
‘For badness’ sake, Aziraphale, it isn’t a Lost Quarto,’ he said, but without much feeling. Then he turned to Anathema. ‘You said Charlotte Steele’s portrait had her in Regency clothes?’ he asked, and she nodded.
‘That’s what I thought,’ she said. ‘But you two would know better than I would, wouldn’t you?’
Aziraphale nodded absently, preoccupied with the first page of Elizabethan Cadogans. Crowley snapped his fingers, and the pages turned themselves at breakneck speed, leaving Aziraphale barely enough time to whisk his exquisitely manicured fingertips out of the way as they skipped ahead to the appropriate century.
Aziraphale glared at him. ‘Really, my dear,’ he said, but Crowley shrugged, unapologetic.
‘You can study up later,’ he said, ‘after we’ve got rid of James and got back to London.’
Aziraphale huffed, but did not argue further. Instead, he traced a line down the page of births and deaths with his finger. To his frustration, the Cadogan family evidently had at least one James for every generation.
‘Hang on,’ said Anathema. ‘James said his stepmother killed him, and Charlotte was his stepsister. Shouldn’t we be looking under marriages for a Cadogan and a Steele?’
‘How very astute,’ said Aziraphale. He blinked, and the book slowly, conscientiously adjusted itself to the correct page. There it was: James Edward Cadogan, married first in 1826 to Jane Beatrice Stanhope, ending with her death in 1832 bringing forth their son, James Stanhope Cadogan, and then married again in 1840 to Caroline Lydia Steele, with a margin note indicating the latter’s previous marriage to Robert Henry Steele, likewise deceased, and their daughter Charlotte Helen Steele, born 1823.
‘Crowley,’ he whispered, ‘look.’
Crowley squinted at the handwriting. Then, to get a better look, he sat down on the table, facing Aziraphale—
—and something met each of them, brutally chilly at first but then warm, too warm, and very much in control—
‘Good,’ said Crowley, in a voice unlike his own, with a distinctly female lilt. ‘You’re still here. We need to talk.’
‘Ah,’ said Aziraphale, in a voice equally foreign and female, with an undertone of distress. ‘I suppose best wishes are in order?’
‘Beg pardon?’ said Crowley. ‘Oh, right, the rumours. I could have used your well wishes hours ago, but I’ve waylaid Mr Howard into the bracken and Mr Livingston to the vestibule, so I seem to have come out unscathed.’
Aziraphale’s eyes seemed to stare straight through the sunglasses that, as far as the soul possessing him was concerned, weren’t there at all. ‘So you’re not engaged?’ he asked, flushing madly.
Crowley shook his head, or rather, felt his head shaken, and he, too, flushed scarlet. ‘I proudly remain the despair of polite society,’ he said, ‘but that’s not the point. Anne, my mother is trying to kill James.’
Aziraphale’s mouth opened, his face rapidly losing its bright red colour. ‘What?’ he asked. ‘Charlotte, that is a very serious accusation—’
‘I heard her talking to Mr Beresford, the apothecary,’ Crowley whispered, ‘when I took a break from dancing. He asked her about James’ medicine.’
‘What medicine?’ asked Aziraphale. ‘He’s always been rather delicate, the poor boy, but no one has never mentioned—’
‘Precisely,’ said Crowley. ‘Three years now he’s been my stepbrother, and in all that time we have simply taken it for granted that he is of a sickly constitution. Embrace him too tightly and you might break him. No one has ever said a word about any kind of medication for his condition.’
Aziraphale’s eyes widened. ‘You believe she has acted to withhold it?’
‘Yes,’ said Crowley, ‘and furthermore, it explains why she’s suddenly so frantic to see me wed. It would absolve her of the need to have a son herself. In the absence of a living heir, she would only need to convince my stepfather to will the estate to my husband, in the event that on my own, I should prove less than ideally compliant.’
‘But why should she fear that?’ asked Aziraphale. ‘You love this estate. You’ve said repeatedly that you wouldn’t go back to living over a shop for a minute. Ignorant of her plans, why should you not wish to inherit it?’
‘Ignorant of her plans, of course I would,’ said Crowley, ‘but surely you cannot think so ill of me that I would long remain so? That I would forever blithely take her word, when I have never in my life enjoyed the luxury of ignorance of her overall character?’
‘Of course not,’ said Aziraphale in a rush, shoving his chair backwards and inclining his head in deference. ‘You know that I hold you in the highest esteem, Miss Steele.’
‘Oh, there’s no need for such offices,’ said Crowley. ‘We both know you find me positively insufferable, as well you should do. I simply couldn’t bear it if you also thought me stupid.’
‘I assure you I never could do, however much I might wish it,’ said Aziraphale. He gave a cough that was not his own, then shifted in his seat to gaze up at Crowley. ‘But what if you were to turn her wishes for you on her head? What if you were to—what if you were to take a husband quite outside her recommendation? Would that not help to foil her?’
Crowley shifted, and swallowed. His left hand drummed its fingers against the table, while his right shifted, ever so slightly, towards Aziraphale.
‘What would you say to me, I wonder,’ he said, with no small amount of apprehension in the voice that was decidedly not his own, ‘if I told you that of late I have felt a kinship, you might say, to one Gentleman Jack?’
Aziraphale blanched, but somewhere the fog of his possessed mind he realised that he could not have turned away from Crowley even if he were in control of his body. At long last, his lips parted of their own accord.
‘As have I,’ he whispered in a rush. ‘It has…the unholiness of it has tormented me, to no small degree, for so long—’
But he, or the spirit speaking through him, broke off, because Crowley’s fingers had laced themselves through his, and now he leant close, so close—
Anathema had heard enough. She snapped her fingers, feeling that in this if nothing else, it might be a game at which she could play too. ‘Ahem,’ she said, and Aziraphale and Crowley turned, very slowly, in her direction.
‘Right,’ said Anathema, ‘can you hear me?’ They both nodded, looking deeply resentful.
‘Good,’ Anathema continued. ‘So you’re Charlotte Steele, and you’re Anne…’
‘Barton,’ said Aziraphale. ‘governess to young Master James.’
‘I see,’ said Anathema. ‘So you resolved between yourselves to protect James?’
‘Could we possibly do this later?’ asked Crowley, gazing longingly at Aziraphale.
‘Sorry,’ said Anathema. ‘but it is later. Over a century later. Could you tell me how you died?’
Crowley and Aziraphale exchanged sorrowful glances, before Aziraphale swallowed. ‘We were run off the road,’ he whispered, and Crowley squeezed his hand. ‘Trampled by horses at Lady Cadogan’s behest, and my own father’s indifference.’
‘You tried to run away?’ asked Anathema, and they nodded.
‘My mother discovered our interference,’ said Crowley, ‘and then—’
‘—we appealed to my father, said Aziraphale, ‘the vicar of the parsonage not half a mile from here. But he had heard from Lady Cadogan of our intimate connection, and he would not hear a word that we had to say.’
‘By the time we returned,’ said Crowley, ‘my mother had evidently decided that desperate times called for desperate measures.’
‘The stairs,’ said Anathema, suddenly feeling violently ill.
They nodded. ‘We realised there was only one thing for it,’ said Crowley. ‘We would have to flee.’
‘We called a carriage that very night,’ said Aziraphale, ‘but we did not get far. We died not a mile off from here.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Anathema. ‘Truly, I am. And we’re here to help you, I promise, but you’re going to have to give my friends their bodies back, at least for the time being. Can you do that, please?’
‘We could,’ said Crowley, ‘but why should we trust you?’
‘Charlotte,’ said Aziraphale reprovingly, ‘I’m sure that Miss…’
‘Device,’ said Anathema. ‘Anathema Device.’
‘Miss Device has the best of intentions,’ he finished, shaking his head at Crowley.
Anathema cleared her throat, willing her voice to project a confidence she hardly felt. ‘Death himself called us to help you,’ she began, ‘and I’m the last living descendant of the only accurate prophetess in history. I know a bit about feeling trapped, as though everything’s already been decided for you.’
They gazed at each other. After a moment Aziraphale squeezed Crowley’s hand. ‘Think of it like this,’ he whispered. ‘If they fail, what have we really lost?’
‘Oh, all right,’ said Crowley wretchedly, ‘but kiss me, first.’
‘As though you need to ask,’ said Aziraphale, and he closed the gap between them.
A moment later Anathema felt something shift. Crowley and Aziraphale broke apart in mutual shock, and she smiled in spite of herself. In a perfectly synchronised movement, they ran from the room, and she followed.
‘How many fingers am I holding up?’ Anathema asked, once the door to the library had shut and deadbolted itself behind them, and they both glared at her, glares unmistakably their own.
‘Very funny,’ said Crowley. His expression would have sent any other human running for the hills.
‘I never knew that could happen,’ said Aziraphale, his face pale even in the dim light. ‘Did you, my—Crowley?’
‘What, that we could be possessed as easily as humans?’ asked Crowley. ‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Well,’ said Anathema, ‘now we know everything we need to know. All you have to do is recreate their deaths. You’ll survive because you’re you, and get to exchange whatever last words they didn’t. It seems straightforward enough.’
‘Hardly,’ said Crowley. ‘We are immortal, but our bodies aren’t. Trampled by horses? We’d be discorporated for sure.’
Anathema looked from one to the other, slowly registering the terror on their faces. ‘Discorporated?’ she asked at last, when neither volunteered an explanation.
‘We would be dispatched to the spirit world,’ said Aziraphale, ‘and thus at the mercy of our respective head offices to be issued new bodies and with them permission to return to Earth. And we, er—we have reason to believe that neither my people nor Crowley’s are particularly happy with us at present.’
‘Oh,’ said Anathema. ‘You mean…because you tried to stop it.’ They nodded as one, united in abject misery. ‘So…they might not let you come back. And you’d never see each other again.’ They nodded again, avoiding each other’s eyes. For a moment, Anathema wasn’t sure what to say.
‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘that must be the reason Death thought you could help. The ultimate forbidden love? They must relate to you. Naturally your people would object to your relationship—’
‘Our what?’ said Crowley, glaring at Anathema in a way that strongly suggested if that she had anything vitally important to say to anyone on Earth, she might want to say it now.
Aziraphale, for his part, blushed bright red. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you’re suggesting—’
Anathema grinned. ‘Oh, well done,’ she said, ‘but seeing as I’m not an emissary of Heaven or Hell, you can stop anytime. It was obvious to me even half-concussed.’
Crowley stared at her. ‘Are you suggesting that we—and what do you mean, it was obvious to you?’
‘You called him “angel”,’ she began, realising only as she said it where the misunderstanding had lain, but pressing on anyway, ‘which, OK, he is, but I didn’t know that. But how do you account for Death seeming fairly confident I’d find you together, which I did?’
‘We’re friends,’ said Aziraphale with exasperation, ‘which when you consider that we have known each other for six millennia, is not nearly as unusual as it might seem when our occupations alone are taken into consideration. Dear lady, we—’
‘Six millennia?’ Anathema interrupted. ‘At that point, does it even matter? Of course you´d choose each other.’
‘We chose Earth,’ said Crowley, ‘and you horrible, interesting humans. And I think dolphins fitted into it somewhere. But we certainly weren’t—’
‘OK,’ said Anathema, feeling that her larger point had got lost in the semantics of the thing. ‘All right, then, my mistake, whatever you need to hear. But you must see why Charlotte and Anne would identify with you. We just need to figure out why they’re still lingering here, and what you can do to set it right. Did you see anything helpful inside their heads?’
‘Not really,’ said Crowley. ‘She was angry, of course. Being murdered would do that.’ He paused, racking his brain for anything else. ‘She was a halfway interesting person trapped in a bloody boring time,’ he said at last. ‘I guess if I’d had no way out of the fourteenth century, I’d be pretty angry too.’
Anathema nodded. ‘That makes sense. Aziraphale? Did you get anything useful out of Anne?’
Aziraphale shook his head in a decidedly awkward manner. ‘Er, no,’ he said, ‘not as such. She is of course upset, as she has every right to be, but I can’t say that I learned anything beyond that. So far, the only viable option seems to be the one you suggested, which is, as we have established, impossible, given that it would discorporate us.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Anathema. ‘Are you sure you couldn’t just, I don’t know, take back control or something?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Aziraphale. ‘It was rather easier when I was the possessor, as opposed to the possessee.’ Anathema stared at him blankly, and he sighed. ‘The last time I was discorporated, I was forced to resort to desperate measures,’ he said, and she nodded.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘if you could, maybe we could use that to make sure you two come out all right. Manipulate events just enough. Maybe you could get them to drive off in your car instead of a carriage. You’d be protected from the hooves then, wouldn’t you?’
If looks could kill, Anathema would have been on a slab. Of course, in Crowley’s case, looks could kill, and the only reason Anathema wasn’t on a slab and was merely experiencing an unpleasant sensation of her blood running ice-cold, he insisted to himself, was that it probably wasn’t advisable to lay waste to their only ally at this juncture, even if she absolutely deserved it. It certainly wasn’t that he’d never actually had the heart for that sort of thing even before the Beginning. No, it wasn’t that at all.
Aziraphale gave him a reproving look. ‘I’m afraid he’s rather protective of the car,’ he said to Anathema, as her body temperature slowly returned to normal.
She glared at both of them. ‘Couldn’t you just heal it, like you healed my bike?’
‘No,’ said Crowley flatly.
‘Well,’ said Anathema, more than a little irritably, ‘luckily for you, I was already thinking we could use some backup. If you’re going to be Anne and Charlotte, there’ll be no one to hit pause on James’ demise, and he must still have a part to play, even if I can’t tell what. We need Newt and we need Dick Turpin.’
‘A salamander and a highwayman?’ asked Aziraphale.
Anathema snorted. ‘My boyfriend and his car. Which, since a certain Saturday, has been remarkably resistant to damage of any kind.’
Crowley and Aziraphale looked at each other. It didn’t strike either of them as a particularly good plan, but neither could think of a better one.
‘I don’t suppose he could bring Adam as well,’ said Crowley, and Anathema laughed.
‘You’re not alone in wanting a word with him,’ she said, ‘but I believe this is something called a school night, and we’re four hours away from Tadfield even without traffic.’ A triumphant grin spread across her face. ‘Plenty of time for you to get back in the library and practise wresting control.’
Next: Part 2!
Recipient: macdicilla
Rating: T
Pairings and Characters: Crowley/Aziraphale, Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Death, OFC/OFC, OMC
Word Count: 10,308
Summary: Anathema attempts to make her way in a non-Agnes-dictated world by ghost hunting, but quickly finds herself out of her depth. Death recommends seeking out a pair of consenting cycle repairmen.
Disclaimer: All copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. This work is not created for profit and constitutes fair use.
Author’s Note: Dear recipient, my original idea was to use your first prompt and incorporate elements of your third, and then this story took on a life of its own. I hope you enjoy it. Happy holidays!
Note: The mods have split this fic into 2 posts.
The career option of professional descendant was no longer open to Anathema Device, but a quick glance through the want ads on the Monday that was the second day of the rest of her life would straightaway allay any worries about what might happen when her Agnes-assisted fortune petered out. Over the next three months, this brave new world would prove to have plenty of opportunities available for the practical occultist who knew where to look. Ghost-hunting might not have been exactly what she’d had in mind, but it would certainly pay the rent.
‘Evil spirits,’ Lady Cadogan had said. ‘They’re decimating my tourist business and they’ve got to be stopped.’
Anathema couldn’t be sure whether Lady Cadogan was the sort of person to know the nice and accurate meaning of ‘decimate’, but she gave the strong impression of never having needed to learn the meaning of ‘no’, at least as applied to herself. Anathema had almost enlightened her, but then she’d got a good look at Her Ladyship’s cheque, decided that could wait, and packed up her theodolite.
The leylines in the surrounding area firmly supported Lady Cadogan’s story, if such it could be called. That was the frustrating bit, Anathema thought, as she wandered through room after room, all opulent to the point of obscene. It would really help to know the Cadogan family history, to give her some clue as to just which ancestors might have reason to stick around after death, but Lady Cadogan had insisted that it was her husband’s family, not hers. She had no idea; this was what she was paying Anathema for, unless Anathema would prefer her to take her business elsewhere?
So Anathema had smiled and said of course not, she’d take care of it. So far the only occult thing about the place was its temperature, chillier than it ought to have been. But then a decidedly ominous wind blew about her shoulders from no obvious source, and Anathema zipped her coat up higher and approached the portrait on the wall. A young woman in Regency dress stared back at her, with dark hair falling to her waist and a mischievous look in her eyes. The plaque identified her as Miss Charlotte Steele, with an unfortunate lack of birth or death dates.
Anathema shivered as she opened the wardrobe, and then the desk drawer, but no spirit leapt out at her. She peered under the bed, then felt foolish as she remembered she was looking for something incorporeal, which needed no silly hiding place but would show itself when it wished. Deciding some reverse psychology was in order, she turned and walked, very slowly, out the door.
To Anathema’s disappointment, nothing followed her out of the room—but instead, as she passed the next bedroom, something met her. Something ice-cold and blinding, and Anathema barely registered that she was no longer in control of her suddenly running feet before they tripped over something that wasn’t there, and she tumbled down the ornamental staircase, screaming a scream that was not her own.
Whatever had possessed her left her just as quickly, and Anathema looked up to see a seven-foot skeleton who should have been an unfamiliar presence, but wasn’t.
‘Am I dead?’ she asked, and to her relief, he shook his head. Well, more like rotated his skull left to right in a distinctly negative fashion, but the effect was much the same.
IT IS NOT YOUR SOUL I CAME TO COLLECT, said Death, BUT AS YOU ARE HERE, PERHAPS YOU MIGHT DELIVER A MESSAGE.
‘A message?’ she asked, gazing into black holes of his eyes.
YES, said Death. YOUR ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED.
‘I understand,’ said Anathema. ‘Of course I’ll help. What’s the message?’
AH, said Death. I SHOULD HAVE MADE MYSELF CLEARER. THAT WAS IT. YOUR ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED.
‘Right,’ said Anathema, ‘and whose assistance would this be?’
YOU WILL FIND THEM, said Death, AT THE WORST BOOKSHOP IN SOHO. YOU WILL KNOW THEM WHEN YOU SEE THEM.
With that, wings sprouted from his cloak, if it was a cloak, and he vanished from sight. Anathema drew herself up to her knees. The worst bookshop in Soho, she thought. That isn’t much help. I can think of several and I’m not even from there. Also, I just met the Grim Reaper.
Crowley carefully parked the Bentley as illegally as he could manage, then wandered into Aziraphale’s bookshop, wine bottle in hand, when a Christmas wreath hung upon the door hit him in the face. He brushed it away, and then a particularly insufferable modern carol assaulted his ears. Crowley knew it well; he’d had a hand in the recording.
‘Aziraphale?’ he called, and the angel popped his head out from the back room.
‘Hello, my dear,’ said Aziraphale. He was wearing a red tartan jumper, complementing the shop’s decor in a most alarming fashion.
‘What’s going on?’ Crowley asked, without preamble.
‘Nothing’s “going on”, as you say, Crowley,’ said Aziraphale, just a hair too innocently. ‘I am merely getting into the spirit of the joyous holiday season.’
‘But this song, Aziraphale, really? I know you. This is exactly the sort of commercialised Christmas garbage you can’t stand.’
‘I will admit it isn’t precisely to my taste,’ said Aziraphale, ‘but one must create a welcoming experience for the customers—’
‘You sly devil,’ Crowley interrupted. ‘I see. Nothing repels would-be customers faster than this side of Christmas canon. I’m honestly impressed.’
‘Yes, well,’ said Aziraphale guiltily, ‘when you put it like that, perhaps it’s a bit much—’
‘Not at all,’ said Crowley. ‘I’ll just arrange matters so that we can’t hear it. Corkscrew?’
‘Oh, just miracle it open, I’ve forgot where we left it,’ said Aziraphale, and Crowley grinned and ran a hand over the bottle.
Three hours later they had emptied it three times over, and they were in the midst of a spirited debate about penguin biology when the shop’s bell rang.
‘We’re closed!’ Aziraphale hiccoughed, as though the intruder could hear him through the back room door—which she could, of course, because he believed it to be so.
‘Not anymore,’ she declared, pushing her way through the overdone decorations and plugging her ears against Sir Paul’s crime against humanity. ‘This is the place. I recognise the car out front. I gather you aren’t really cycle repairmen—’
Crowley sat up. He recognised the voice. ‘We’d better sssssober up,’ he hissed to Aziraphale, who nodded.
‘Way ahead of you, dear boy.’ Then he cleared his throat. ‘We’re in here, Miss Device.’
‘Thank you,’ said Anathema. She made it to the door just in time to see Crowley wincing as he focussed his sunglass-covered eyes on her. ‘It seems I’ve been asked to give you a message.’
‘A message?’ asked Aziraphale.
‘Yes,’ said Anathema, ‘from none other than the Fourth Horseman himself. He says, “Your assistance is required.” Now, do you think you could tell me who you are, or why I was asked to deliver that message?’
Aziraphale stared at her. ‘Azrael asked you to give us that message?’ he asked, with an arch tone that was positively professorial. ‘Well, dear lady, in order to answer why that should be, we are going to need a bit more context.’
‘Fine,’ said Anathema, ‘but I’m going to need a glass of wine.’
‘Well,’ said Aziraphale, after Anathema had recounted her ordeal, ‘it does follow that, as Agnes Nutter’s descendant, you would have been able to see Death when he came for the spirit that had taken temporary possession of your body, at the moment things would have ended for that spirit. But why he should think that we—’
‘Hang on,’ said Anathema, ‘you know that I’m Agnes’ descendant, but I still don’t know who you are. First things first, if you please.’
‘Dear lady, we are a couple of supernatural entities whom you once encountered in the midst of our desperate attempt to locate the son of Satan,’ said Crowley, with the air of someone who has said this, or something very like it, before. ‘I am a demon, my friend here is an angel; does that explain enough for you?’
‘It helps,’ said Anathema, ‘but have you got names, or am I just supposed to call you Demon and Angel?’
‘My name is Aziraphale,’ Aziraphale explained patiently, ‘and my friend goes by Crowley. Crowley, meet Anathema Device, the last living descendant of the prophetess Agnes Nutter, who appears to have inherited some fragment of her five-times-great-grandmother’s psychic gift.’
‘Charmed,’ said Crowley. ‘So you went to investigate a haunted estate, found yourself possessed by a soul who’s resisted Death’s attempts to collect, and he directed you to us.’
‘That’s right,’ said Anathema. ‘I was hoping you would know why.’
‘What I fail to understand,’ said Aziraphale, ‘is why the events that proved fatal to the poor soul possessing you were not equally fatal to yourself. Not, of course, that we aren’t most gratified to see you alive and well, but are you absolutely certain that the spirit did not leave you before Death appeared?’
Anathema shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. I fell down the stairs, and then I looked up and there he was. It hurt, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t imagine it killing someone.’
‘Unless, perhaps, that person was already weakened in some way,’ Aziraphale mused. He turned to Crowley. ‘Well, my dear, if we’ve been summoned, I suppose we had better investigate.’
‘It doesn’t look like we have any choice,’ said Crowley. If he had to choose between Azrael and Hell’s brass, he’d take the former, but he’d rather enjoyed three glorious months of no infernal communication whatsoever, and he wasn’t exactly chuffed for the end of respite. Not entirely to his surprise, Aziraphale looked equally apprehensive. It was oddly soothing.
‘Here,’ said Anathema, from the back of Crowley’s Bentley. ‘This is the place, come on.’ And not a moment too soon, given the demon’s driving habits. She’d nearly thrown up twice.
'Cadogan Manor,’ said Aziraphale, nodding towards the sign. ‘All right, are we all clear on the plan? Anathema will retrace the steps that led to her possession, I will employ a quick miracle to stop her falling, and then, Crowley—’
‘We interrogate the spirit through her,’ said Crowley. ‘We’ve got it, angel, now let’s get it over with.’
‘Yes, let’s,’ Anathema agreed. Any plan that required her to be the bait was, as a rule, not one of which she was inclined to approve. She crossed the threshold with grim resolution and shivered as she entered the house. ‘We have to go upstairs,’ she said, beckoning them. ‘I was in one of the bedrooms when I first felt a draft, but the possession didn’t start until I turned and left. Come on.’
Aziraphale followed at Anathema’s heels, Crowley lagging farther behind. ‘In here,’ he heard her say, as she opened a door, ‘there’s a portrait of a woman named Charlotte Steele in Regency clothes. I thought she might be our ghost.’
‘Could be, could be,’ said Aziraphale. Further ahead, Anathema entered the room and, as near as Crowley could tell, walked around it and right back to the door. ‘Ah, yes,’ said Aziraphale, ‘I felt the draft you mentioned. There is most certainly a presence here.’
‘OK,’ said Anathema, ‘ready?’
‘As we’ll ever be,’ said Crowley. ‘The question is, are you ready?’
‘I’d be a bit more so if you sounded more confident,’ said Anathema, and Crowley wished he had it in him to be offended.
‘I assure you, dear lady, you are safe with us,’ said Aziraphale, and Anathema nodded and stepped out of the room. As she passed the door to the next room, she took off running, her eyes suddenly wide with terror, and Crowley didn’t need to ask whether the plan had worked. Anathema tripped over nothing, and Aziraphale snapped his fingers, suspending her in midair. Crowley cleared his throat, strode as close to her as he dared, and desperately tried to summon a fraction of his usual swagger.
‘Er, hello…spirit,’ said Crowley, wincing at how he sounded.
‘Hello,’ said Anathema in a voice higher than her own, which sounded confused, but not unpleasant. ‘Who’re you? Has she gone?’
‘Crowley,’ said Crowley. ‘Has who gone?’
‘My stepmother,’ said Anathema. ‘She was chasing me. Didn’t you see her?’
Crowley turned to Aziraphale. ‘A wicked stepmother? How perfectly cliché.’ Aziraphale elbowed him in the side, then stepped forward.
‘So it was your stepmother who killed you,’ he mused. ‘Tell me, spirit, are you Charlotte Steele?’
‘What?’ Anathema shook her head, and then she giggled. Aziraphale and Crowley glanced at each other, both thinking the same thing. Maniacal laughter, they could have handled, but childish giggling was another matter entirely, an eventuality for which they found themselves woefully unprepared.
‘Of course not, silly,’ Anathema continued. ‘I’m James. Charlotte’s my stepsister, but she’s not here right now. She and Miss Anne went to see Reverend Barton.’
‘Er, James,’ said Aziraphale, ‘how old are you?’
‘I’m eight and a half,’ said Anathema proudly, and Crowley groaned.
‘Oh, dear,’ said Aziraphale. ‘How absolutely dreadful, to have passed so young. Well, Master James, I assure you that Crowley and I will do everything in our power to seek redress on your behalf. Did you have a last request? Something we could do for you, to give you the peace you need to go on?’
Anathema stared back at him, her eyes wide with incomprehension. ‘I wanted a toy theatre for Christmas,’ she said after a moment, and Crowley shook his head at Aziraphale.
‘All right, all right, it was worth a try,’ he said quickly. ‘Time to give Anathema her body back.’ He snapped his fingers, and she hit the ground with a thud, rolling down several steps before she came to a stop. Groaning in pain, Anathema looked up, and Death stared back at them.
LET ME GIVE YOU A HINT, he said. CHECK THE REST OF THE HOUSE, AND STAY TOGETHER.
‘Beg pardon, Azrael,’ said Aziraphale, ‘but why us? This isn’t exactly our…our domain, you might say.’
THAT WOULD BE TELLING, said Death, before fading from view.
Anathema glared at Crowley. ‘Did you have to drop me quite so—ooh,’ she broke off, as her bruises healed themselves. Aziraphale smiled indulgently. ‘Right. Thanks. Well, you heard the man, let’s try looking around downstairs.’
‘Just a moment,’ said Aziraphale. ‘How much of that were you aware of? Did you possibly get a sense of what young James was thinking, that perhaps he hadn’t the vocabulary to articulate?’
Anathema shook her head. ‘He was scared,’ she said, ‘and then he was confused. It’s as if he died so quickly he hardly even knew it happened. I don’t think there was much more you could have got out of him, at least without knowing the right questions to ask.’
‘Well,’ said Crowley, ‘we know who killed him, and that’s a start. I suppose we’d better try and find out who his stepmother was, and whether she’s lurking anywhere around here.’
‘An excellent idea, my dear,’ said Aziraphale. ‘An estate of this size must have a library. Perhaps it would contain a family Bible?’
Anathema nodded. ‘This way, I think,’ she said, pointing to the left of the sprawling staircase. Crowley attempted to catch Aziraphale’s eye, but the angel was already following her.
The cobweb-strewn library must have featured in Lady Cadogan’s tourists’ itinerary, but it could hardly have been among her star attractions. Dusty and dark, all it lacked was Miss Havisham’s wedding feast. It would have repelled all but the world’s keenest bibliophile—that is to say, any but Aziraphale, who wandered inside with his heart racing in anticipation. ‘Let there be light,’ he said, waving a hand before him. The room obeyed, now lit by an ethereal bluish glow, but stubbornly retained its sense of foreboding. Aziraphale scanned the shelves, Crowley and Anathema at his heels.
‘Aha,’ he said, after a few moments’ searching. ‘Here we are.’ He blinked, and the dust evaporated, revealing an ancient, tattered volume of Cadogans. He removed it from the shelves with the utmost care and laid it reverently on a writing table. ‘Steady,’ he murmured to himself as he sat down and gingerly turned the first page, vaguely aware of Crowley at his shoulder, tapping his foot with impatience.
‘For badness’ sake, Aziraphale, it isn’t a Lost Quarto,’ he said, but without much feeling. Then he turned to Anathema. ‘You said Charlotte Steele’s portrait had her in Regency clothes?’ he asked, and she nodded.
‘That’s what I thought,’ she said. ‘But you two would know better than I would, wouldn’t you?’
Aziraphale nodded absently, preoccupied with the first page of Elizabethan Cadogans. Crowley snapped his fingers, and the pages turned themselves at breakneck speed, leaving Aziraphale barely enough time to whisk his exquisitely manicured fingertips out of the way as they skipped ahead to the appropriate century.
Aziraphale glared at him. ‘Really, my dear,’ he said, but Crowley shrugged, unapologetic.
‘You can study up later,’ he said, ‘after we’ve got rid of James and got back to London.’
Aziraphale huffed, but did not argue further. Instead, he traced a line down the page of births and deaths with his finger. To his frustration, the Cadogan family evidently had at least one James for every generation.
‘Hang on,’ said Anathema. ‘James said his stepmother killed him, and Charlotte was his stepsister. Shouldn’t we be looking under marriages for a Cadogan and a Steele?’
‘How very astute,’ said Aziraphale. He blinked, and the book slowly, conscientiously adjusted itself to the correct page. There it was: James Edward Cadogan, married first in 1826 to Jane Beatrice Stanhope, ending with her death in 1832 bringing forth their son, James Stanhope Cadogan, and then married again in 1840 to Caroline Lydia Steele, with a margin note indicating the latter’s previous marriage to Robert Henry Steele, likewise deceased, and their daughter Charlotte Helen Steele, born 1823.
‘Crowley,’ he whispered, ‘look.’
Crowley squinted at the handwriting. Then, to get a better look, he sat down on the table, facing Aziraphale—
—and something met each of them, brutally chilly at first but then warm, too warm, and very much in control—
‘Good,’ said Crowley, in a voice unlike his own, with a distinctly female lilt. ‘You’re still here. We need to talk.’
‘Ah,’ said Aziraphale, in a voice equally foreign and female, with an undertone of distress. ‘I suppose best wishes are in order?’
‘Beg pardon?’ said Crowley. ‘Oh, right, the rumours. I could have used your well wishes hours ago, but I’ve waylaid Mr Howard into the bracken and Mr Livingston to the vestibule, so I seem to have come out unscathed.’
Aziraphale’s eyes seemed to stare straight through the sunglasses that, as far as the soul possessing him was concerned, weren’t there at all. ‘So you’re not engaged?’ he asked, flushing madly.
Crowley shook his head, or rather, felt his head shaken, and he, too, flushed scarlet. ‘I proudly remain the despair of polite society,’ he said, ‘but that’s not the point. Anne, my mother is trying to kill James.’
Aziraphale’s mouth opened, his face rapidly losing its bright red colour. ‘What?’ he asked. ‘Charlotte, that is a very serious accusation—’
‘I heard her talking to Mr Beresford, the apothecary,’ Crowley whispered, ‘when I took a break from dancing. He asked her about James’ medicine.’
‘What medicine?’ asked Aziraphale. ‘He’s always been rather delicate, the poor boy, but no one has never mentioned—’
‘Precisely,’ said Crowley. ‘Three years now he’s been my stepbrother, and in all that time we have simply taken it for granted that he is of a sickly constitution. Embrace him too tightly and you might break him. No one has ever said a word about any kind of medication for his condition.’
Aziraphale’s eyes widened. ‘You believe she has acted to withhold it?’
‘Yes,’ said Crowley, ‘and furthermore, it explains why she’s suddenly so frantic to see me wed. It would absolve her of the need to have a son herself. In the absence of a living heir, she would only need to convince my stepfather to will the estate to my husband, in the event that on my own, I should prove less than ideally compliant.’
‘But why should she fear that?’ asked Aziraphale. ‘You love this estate. You’ve said repeatedly that you wouldn’t go back to living over a shop for a minute. Ignorant of her plans, why should you not wish to inherit it?’
‘Ignorant of her plans, of course I would,’ said Crowley, ‘but surely you cannot think so ill of me that I would long remain so? That I would forever blithely take her word, when I have never in my life enjoyed the luxury of ignorance of her overall character?’
‘Of course not,’ said Aziraphale in a rush, shoving his chair backwards and inclining his head in deference. ‘You know that I hold you in the highest esteem, Miss Steele.’
‘Oh, there’s no need for such offices,’ said Crowley. ‘We both know you find me positively insufferable, as well you should do. I simply couldn’t bear it if you also thought me stupid.’
‘I assure you I never could do, however much I might wish it,’ said Aziraphale. He gave a cough that was not his own, then shifted in his seat to gaze up at Crowley. ‘But what if you were to turn her wishes for you on her head? What if you were to—what if you were to take a husband quite outside her recommendation? Would that not help to foil her?’
Crowley shifted, and swallowed. His left hand drummed its fingers against the table, while his right shifted, ever so slightly, towards Aziraphale.
‘What would you say to me, I wonder,’ he said, with no small amount of apprehension in the voice that was decidedly not his own, ‘if I told you that of late I have felt a kinship, you might say, to one Gentleman Jack?’
Aziraphale blanched, but somewhere the fog of his possessed mind he realised that he could not have turned away from Crowley even if he were in control of his body. At long last, his lips parted of their own accord.
‘As have I,’ he whispered in a rush. ‘It has…the unholiness of it has tormented me, to no small degree, for so long—’
But he, or the spirit speaking through him, broke off, because Crowley’s fingers had laced themselves through his, and now he leant close, so close—
Anathema had heard enough. She snapped her fingers, feeling that in this if nothing else, it might be a game at which she could play too. ‘Ahem,’ she said, and Aziraphale and Crowley turned, very slowly, in her direction.
‘Right,’ said Anathema, ‘can you hear me?’ They both nodded, looking deeply resentful.
‘Good,’ Anathema continued. ‘So you’re Charlotte Steele, and you’re Anne…’
‘Barton,’ said Aziraphale. ‘governess to young Master James.’
‘I see,’ said Anathema. ‘So you resolved between yourselves to protect James?’
‘Could we possibly do this later?’ asked Crowley, gazing longingly at Aziraphale.
‘Sorry,’ said Anathema. ‘but it is later. Over a century later. Could you tell me how you died?’
Crowley and Aziraphale exchanged sorrowful glances, before Aziraphale swallowed. ‘We were run off the road,’ he whispered, and Crowley squeezed his hand. ‘Trampled by horses at Lady Cadogan’s behest, and my own father’s indifference.’
‘You tried to run away?’ asked Anathema, and they nodded.
‘My mother discovered our interference,’ said Crowley, ‘and then—’
‘—we appealed to my father, said Aziraphale, ‘the vicar of the parsonage not half a mile from here. But he had heard from Lady Cadogan of our intimate connection, and he would not hear a word that we had to say.’
‘By the time we returned,’ said Crowley, ‘my mother had evidently decided that desperate times called for desperate measures.’
‘The stairs,’ said Anathema, suddenly feeling violently ill.
They nodded. ‘We realised there was only one thing for it,’ said Crowley. ‘We would have to flee.’
‘We called a carriage that very night,’ said Aziraphale, ‘but we did not get far. We died not a mile off from here.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Anathema. ‘Truly, I am. And we’re here to help you, I promise, but you’re going to have to give my friends their bodies back, at least for the time being. Can you do that, please?’
‘We could,’ said Crowley, ‘but why should we trust you?’
‘Charlotte,’ said Aziraphale reprovingly, ‘I’m sure that Miss…’
‘Device,’ said Anathema. ‘Anathema Device.’
‘Miss Device has the best of intentions,’ he finished, shaking his head at Crowley.
Anathema cleared her throat, willing her voice to project a confidence she hardly felt. ‘Death himself called us to help you,’ she began, ‘and I’m the last living descendant of the only accurate prophetess in history. I know a bit about feeling trapped, as though everything’s already been decided for you.’
They gazed at each other. After a moment Aziraphale squeezed Crowley’s hand. ‘Think of it like this,’ he whispered. ‘If they fail, what have we really lost?’
‘Oh, all right,’ said Crowley wretchedly, ‘but kiss me, first.’
‘As though you need to ask,’ said Aziraphale, and he closed the gap between them.
A moment later Anathema felt something shift. Crowley and Aziraphale broke apart in mutual shock, and she smiled in spite of herself. In a perfectly synchronised movement, they ran from the room, and she followed.
‘How many fingers am I holding up?’ Anathema asked, once the door to the library had shut and deadbolted itself behind them, and they both glared at her, glares unmistakably their own.
‘Very funny,’ said Crowley. His expression would have sent any other human running for the hills.
‘I never knew that could happen,’ said Aziraphale, his face pale even in the dim light. ‘Did you, my—Crowley?’
‘What, that we could be possessed as easily as humans?’ asked Crowley. ‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Well,’ said Anathema, ‘now we know everything we need to know. All you have to do is recreate their deaths. You’ll survive because you’re you, and get to exchange whatever last words they didn’t. It seems straightforward enough.’
‘Hardly,’ said Crowley. ‘We are immortal, but our bodies aren’t. Trampled by horses? We’d be discorporated for sure.’
Anathema looked from one to the other, slowly registering the terror on their faces. ‘Discorporated?’ she asked at last, when neither volunteered an explanation.
‘We would be dispatched to the spirit world,’ said Aziraphale, ‘and thus at the mercy of our respective head offices to be issued new bodies and with them permission to return to Earth. And we, er—we have reason to believe that neither my people nor Crowley’s are particularly happy with us at present.’
‘Oh,’ said Anathema. ‘You mean…because you tried to stop it.’ They nodded as one, united in abject misery. ‘So…they might not let you come back. And you’d never see each other again.’ They nodded again, avoiding each other’s eyes. For a moment, Anathema wasn’t sure what to say.
‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘that must be the reason Death thought you could help. The ultimate forbidden love? They must relate to you. Naturally your people would object to your relationship—’
‘Our what?’ said Crowley, glaring at Anathema in a way that strongly suggested if that she had anything vitally important to say to anyone on Earth, she might want to say it now.
Aziraphale, for his part, blushed bright red. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you’re suggesting—’
Anathema grinned. ‘Oh, well done,’ she said, ‘but seeing as I’m not an emissary of Heaven or Hell, you can stop anytime. It was obvious to me even half-concussed.’
Crowley stared at her. ‘Are you suggesting that we—and what do you mean, it was obvious to you?’
‘You called him “angel”,’ she began, realising only as she said it where the misunderstanding had lain, but pressing on anyway, ‘which, OK, he is, but I didn’t know that. But how do you account for Death seeming fairly confident I’d find you together, which I did?’
‘We’re friends,’ said Aziraphale with exasperation, ‘which when you consider that we have known each other for six millennia, is not nearly as unusual as it might seem when our occupations alone are taken into consideration. Dear lady, we—’
‘Six millennia?’ Anathema interrupted. ‘At that point, does it even matter? Of course you´d choose each other.’
‘We chose Earth,’ said Crowley, ‘and you horrible, interesting humans. And I think dolphins fitted into it somewhere. But we certainly weren’t—’
‘OK,’ said Anathema, feeling that her larger point had got lost in the semantics of the thing. ‘All right, then, my mistake, whatever you need to hear. But you must see why Charlotte and Anne would identify with you. We just need to figure out why they’re still lingering here, and what you can do to set it right. Did you see anything helpful inside their heads?’
‘Not really,’ said Crowley. ‘She was angry, of course. Being murdered would do that.’ He paused, racking his brain for anything else. ‘She was a halfway interesting person trapped in a bloody boring time,’ he said at last. ‘I guess if I’d had no way out of the fourteenth century, I’d be pretty angry too.’
Anathema nodded. ‘That makes sense. Aziraphale? Did you get anything useful out of Anne?’
Aziraphale shook his head in a decidedly awkward manner. ‘Er, no,’ he said, ‘not as such. She is of course upset, as she has every right to be, but I can’t say that I learned anything beyond that. So far, the only viable option seems to be the one you suggested, which is, as we have established, impossible, given that it would discorporate us.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Anathema. ‘Are you sure you couldn’t just, I don’t know, take back control or something?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Aziraphale. ‘It was rather easier when I was the possessor, as opposed to the possessee.’ Anathema stared at him blankly, and he sighed. ‘The last time I was discorporated, I was forced to resort to desperate measures,’ he said, and she nodded.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘if you could, maybe we could use that to make sure you two come out all right. Manipulate events just enough. Maybe you could get them to drive off in your car instead of a carriage. You’d be protected from the hooves then, wouldn’t you?’
If looks could kill, Anathema would have been on a slab. Of course, in Crowley’s case, looks could kill, and the only reason Anathema wasn’t on a slab and was merely experiencing an unpleasant sensation of her blood running ice-cold, he insisted to himself, was that it probably wasn’t advisable to lay waste to their only ally at this juncture, even if she absolutely deserved it. It certainly wasn’t that he’d never actually had the heart for that sort of thing even before the Beginning. No, it wasn’t that at all.
Aziraphale gave him a reproving look. ‘I’m afraid he’s rather protective of the car,’ he said to Anathema, as her body temperature slowly returned to normal.
She glared at both of them. ‘Couldn’t you just heal it, like you healed my bike?’
‘No,’ said Crowley flatly.
‘Well,’ said Anathema, more than a little irritably, ‘luckily for you, I was already thinking we could use some backup. If you’re going to be Anne and Charlotte, there’ll be no one to hit pause on James’ demise, and he must still have a part to play, even if I can’t tell what. We need Newt and we need Dick Turpin.’
‘A salamander and a highwayman?’ asked Aziraphale.
Anathema snorted. ‘My boyfriend and his car. Which, since a certain Saturday, has been remarkably resistant to damage of any kind.’
Crowley and Aziraphale looked at each other. It didn’t strike either of them as a particularly good plan, but neither could think of a better one.
‘I don’t suppose he could bring Adam as well,’ said Crowley, and Anathema laughed.
‘You’re not alone in wanting a word with him,’ she said, ‘but I believe this is something called a school night, and we’re four hours away from Tadfield even without traffic.’ A triumphant grin spread across her face. ‘Plenty of time for you to get back in the library and practise wresting control.’
Next: Part 2!
(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-12 04:49 pm (UTC)WOw, this is better than I could have dreamed! You’re doing a brilliant job with this story. Love the little Anne Lister reference and the image of Crowley parking the Bentley as illegally as possible. The character voices are awesome, and little dialogue bits like Aziraphale cutting himself off from saying “my dear,” and Crowley flatly refusing to endanger his car feel very realistic! I like the details you’ve created! Aziraphale having magical print book ctrl+f abilities (ideal superpower tbh!) is perfect.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-20 06:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-14 04:17 pm (UTC)I read this fic on my train ride today, and I wish I could have left a comment immediately whenever this fic did something to me, because that would have been far more real and telling. But, sadly. I have to write this comment now, while looking back at this fic. I'll still try to make it a good comment, though.
This fic has to be my favourite GOHE fic yet.
Not only is it exquisitly written, it also features SO MUCH good stuff.
The voices of the many different characters are so spot on. Especially Crowley. I find he often walks on this very thin edge of appearing too cool or too much of a loser in fanfics, but you nailed him, he's so on point.
I love that Anathema became a ghost huntress now! I love ghost hunter stories, and Anathema is PERFECT for the job!
And omg, Death shows up!! <333 I love how he's like "No, that would be telling" and "They're in the worst bookshop in Soho" XD He's such a cute little jerk.
And omg, Aziraphale purposefully putting on horrible Christmas songs just to scare of customers, it's so him! XDD
I also really love the crime investigation setting of this fic! It's so thrilling!
Let me find some of my favourite lines!
"Crowley carefully parked the Bentley as illegally as he could manage" >> Of course he would XD
"they were in the midst of a spirited debate about penguin biology" >> I WOULD PAY TO READ THIS, OMG
""Sir Paul’s crime against humanity" XD
"‘A salamander and a highwayman?’ asked Aziraphale" >> AHAHA! XD Aziraphale, you wonderfully innocent creature!
And of course the entire possession scene in the library, with Crowley and Aziraphale KISSING, ashfsdgklfdhjlkgtjh!!! <333
Really, this first part is so great already, I love it so much.
Let me get to part two now and heap even more love on you for this wonderful fic! <3
(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-20 06:10 am (UTC)This fic has to be my favourite GOHE fic yet.
Given the caliber of some of the fics I've read thus far, HOLY SHIT that is a high compliment. Wow. Thank you.
Especially Crowley. I find he often walks on this very thin edge of appearing too cool or too much of a loser in fanfics, but you nailed him, he's so on point.
Thank you! I have exactly this issue with many fanfiction portrayals of him as well, so I'm so glad you think I got him right. <3
And omg, Aziraphale purposefully putting on horrible Christmas songs just to scare of customers, it's so him! XDD
When it comes to scaring off customers, Aziraphale's instincts are flawless. :)
Thank you so much!
(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-14 05:22 pm (UTC)"THE WORST BOOKSHOP IN SOHO" RUDE but also probably helpful XD
Ugh, my apologies, there are too many funny lines and descriptions for me to quote all of them, so all I can say is--you have so much humor in here and I love it. Especially Crowley being assaulted by a horrible Christmas recording HE helped make :P
I was trying to remember why 'Cadogan' sounded familiar to me...then I realized, it's the name of the bragging portrait in Harry Potter XD Apparently it's also one of the knights of the round table. Were either of those your inspiration?
"Maniacal laughter, they could have handled, but childish giggling was another matter entirely" HA
Ok I have to stop to eat lunch but I'll read more later
(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-20 06:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-20 09:12 pm (UTC)Ok, now I'll blame Crowley ever time a horrible Christmas cover comes on the radio...
(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-14 08:33 pm (UTC)"I know a bit about feeling trapped, as though everything’s already been decided for you.’" This is such a nice and interesting parallel btwn her life and being a ghost!
A salamander and a highwayman!
This is so good
(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-20 06:20 am (UTC)::grins evilly::
(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-14 09:49 pm (UTC)"a particularly insufferable modern carol assaulted his ears. Crowley knew it well; he’d had a hand in the recording." Lol
(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-20 06:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-17 01:48 pm (UTC)I can't wait to see how this resolves.
I was particularly delighted when Aziraphale and Crowley got possessed. I think they never expected to have to be on that side of it!!
(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-20 06:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-22 10:36 pm (UTC)I'm on the edge of my seat with this - it's so clever, and the voices so crisp and vivid, and the plot twists so touching; I really feel for Charlotte and Anne - and Anathema too, feeling adrift until she finds purpose again. And it's funny!
(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-31 07:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-29 08:06 pm (UTC)Also I'm so intrigued by the ghost story. Charlotte and Anne and James are wonderful and I care about them a lot. I'm so excited to see how the story turns out!
I'm so pleased with you and the fandom for maki g such beautiful sentences possible as: "Crowley carefully parked the Bentley as illegally as he could manage."
Okay and I cracked up at "Sir Paul’s crime against humanity." Because poking fun at that song has been a notable part of this holiday season XD
‘We chose Earth,’ said Crowley, ‘and you horrible, interesting humans. And I think dolphins fitted into it somewhere. But we certainly weren’t—’ hehe thanks Crowley :)
As I'm writing this I just keep thinking of things, like the book flipping and the argument about penguins (I very much want to know what positions they took) and this is just chock full of delight.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-31 07:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-31 01:27 pm (UTC)And, dear secret author, i hope someone has bestowed upon you Crowley's seal of approval already, because describing the repeating Christmas song in the way you did, and referencing it just enough times are very effective... I was the one who received a fic where the supernatural gang go Christmas carolling, whic has been my greatest delight this December i think, so you must know i love Christmas songs - and even i am supremely annoyed by that song repeatedly playing in my head due to your fic! well done! but also, aaargh!
and, Anathema is so right, it's obvious to everyone, even ghosts, that something very special is going on between Azi and Crowley, and that whole scene is hilarious :)
i wonder if their plan will end up working... on to part 2!
(no subject)
Date: 2019-01-07 02:19 am (UTC)