Ineffable

The Pearly Gates

Crowley stayed in Aziraphale's rooms above the bookshop for three days but the angel did not return. There was food in the fridge; homemade soup, oranges, cheese. Crowley, still burned and exhausted, ate and went back to bed. At last he felt well enough to shower and dress. He had to wear Aziraphale's fussy professorish clothes. He had none of his own. His powers were gone.

He went cautiously out the back door of the bookshop. He had no money for a cab, so he walked to his apartment in Mayfair. The building was gone, an empty shell, a blackened hole in the ground. It looked as if a bomb had gone off.

Crowley was rich in human terms. During the middle ages he had stockpiled a fair amount of gold and he had invested well over the centuries. This was in contrast to Aziraphale, who, in spite of his taste for good wine, well cut clothing and fine restaurants, always had to budget, carefully keeping an eye on his bank balance. Aziraphale simply was not good with money.

But when the former demon went to his bank, they had no record of an Alexander Crowley. Someone had seen to it that his human wealth had been wiped out.

Thus followed a bad time. Crowley went back to the bookshop but the days passed and Aziraphale did not return. Crowley assumed the tribunal had not gone well. He ate through the food in the fridge, drank through the booze in the liquor cabinet, then the wine in the cellar. It was December and one morning Crowley woke to find the apartment cold and dark.The gas had been turned off for lack of payment. The electricity was off as well. Crowley went to the front entrance where a stack of unpaid bills, stamped in red with the words Final Notice or Last Warning, had been collecting under the slot. He picked up the handset of the old fashioned telephone. The line was dead.

Crowley couldn't stand to stay there anymore. The shop where he and Aziraphale had spent so many happy hours was dusty and dark. Someone had put a rock through the front window. Crowley went down to the basement, found an old board and put it against the broken window to keep out the rain. He left one final time, shutting the door behind him. He had found a five pound note in the till and he spent it on a bottle of cheap vodka. It was Christmas Eve and the whole world was celebrating the birth of a baby. Crowley sat in a park and drank the vodka. He was cold and after a while he was very drunk. People walked by, laughing and talking cheerfully. A group of carolers stopped and sang him a song, but he had nothing to give them. He was reminded of another time, another London, when this neighborhood was a tenement that stank of open sewers, with laundry hanging high above and blue lipped children playing in the dirty snow.

A chill wind came up. The little park was deserted. The lights went out with a snap. He wandered over to the river, and stood on the bridge. He looked down at the swirling icy water. Would he die if he jumped? What had become of Aziraphale? If he jumped now, would he see him, again, waiting on the other side?

He couldn't face the cold water. Instead, he slumped against a stone parapet, drank the last of his vodka and hoped that sleep would overtake him.

That was where Death found him.

"Come with me, old friend," said Death and Crowley followed.

Death took him to an all night cafe and bought him a bowl of soup and a cup of coffee. Death sat silently and watched the demon while he ate at the brightly lit counter.

"You didn't take me," said Crowley at last.

"No," said Death. "I could not. It is not your time."

"When is my time? I... I feel ready to go."

"No," said Death. "There is a task you must do."

"What?"

"An angel is in a cage far away. Your own demon nature has been sapped from your body. The balance is off."