The Angel's Curse

Revelations, Part One

AUTHOR'S NOTE

This story has been going incredibly well! thank you all so much for reading and voting! You don't have to if you don't want to, but feedback and suggestions would be very highly appreciated so that I can make sure I'm writing content people will actually enjoy and not just shouting into the void. Thank you so much! -Paulie

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Essie gave a furtive glance about her, then pulled her hood over her head. She stuffed her hands into her pockets and stalked out of the dark alleyway in London.

As she did so, another woman nearly crashed into her. She dropped a box of strange metallic objects that clattered onto the ground, and Essie immediately stooped to pick them up for her.

The woman looked to be in a hurry.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" she fretted with an American accent. "That was my fault. Thank you," she added as Essie handed her the box with the strange objects neatly set back inside.

Essie recognized a few of the devices. They were things you would find in a witch's array of equipment. Her mother used some of them. She quickly hid her surprise with a smile and assured the woman, "Don't worry about it."

The other woman nodded politely and hurried off, in the same direction Essie was headed.

The half-demoness gave her a few minutes to be on her way, so as not to make things awkward, and looked up at the sky.

It was cloudy and grey, and told of an impending thunderstorm.

Essie glanced back in the direction that the woman had gone. She was nowhere in sight.

She blinked her luminous green cat's eyes, adjusted her black sweatshirt's hood, and continued on her way as the first drops of the promised storm began to fall.

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As soon as Anathema entered the shop, she knew exactly what had happened.

Well, not all of it, but she definitely knew what had changed about Aziraphale.

"Thank you so much for coming, my dear," said the angel as he bowed her into his shop.

Anathema gave him a once-over. He looked as tired as he had sounded on the telephone. There were two ragged holes in the back of his prim tan coat that looked like cigarette burns, only much larger.

There were also deep red bloodstains on one of his coatsleeves, and Anathema could see a bandage sticking out the end.

Aziraphale led her to a battered sofa adorned with a tartan blanket, and gestured to a tea tray set on a table nearby.

Anathema set her box down, then took a teacup and watched as the dapper angel settled himself down beside her. He picked up a teacup and saucer, and delicately took a sip at it, but when he gingerly placed the cup back into its saucer, it clinked and clattered quietly.

His druxy gaze flitted to and fro, nervously. Anathema narrowed her eyes to see his aura.

She had seen it previously, at the airfield, and even though she couldn't recall exactly what had happened there, she did remember that he and that Crowley bloke had had different auras than any other she had seen. They were larger, for starters, and had two areas that extended in large arcs around empty air behind them, in vague triangle shapes.

They also glowed differently. Aziraphale's had shone pure gold, like the sun's rays, but was atinged with red at the edges. Crowley's had been that same shade of deep bloodred, gleaming dully, but tinged with Aziraphale's gold color at the outside.

Aziraphale's aura was no longer gold, or red. Nor were there the outlines of his wings.

It was a dull, glassy lovat color, blue and green and grey swirling together. Occasionally there would be a streak of white. Anathema recalled what her mother had taught her about the color of people's auras:

Green: guilt, remorse, can mean envy but i doubt it in his case; Blue: fear; Grey: sadness, stormy; White: isolation, despair...

He's lost everything, Anathema realized. First he's betrayed by the man he'd loved for eons, then he loses his angelity.

And i have no idea how to help him.

"Aziraphale, I think you're right," she said. "About how you suspect you're no longer an angel."

His eyes flicked over to her, fixing her with a guarded look. He looked as if he were about to say something, but did not.

"Your aura, it's... changed," she continued. "You say a demoness was here, but I don't think a demoness would be able to do that to you."

Aziraphale nodded. "She wouldn't," he said, "no more than an angel would be able to strip a demon of his powers. I do think, however, that a black-magic sorceress could do it if she combined her magic with a demon's."

Anathema looked taken aback. "A goetic witch could do that?"

Aziraphale nodded again solemnly. "Provided she had sufficient supplies and access to the correct texts. With a demon's assistance, very, very powerful Satanic feats can be accomplished. I also have more reason to believe a goetic witch is involved..."

He told her about the dream that he had had, after the business with the clay shard. He told her about the voices that he had heard, including the one he knew to belong to a demon by the name of Hastur, with whom he had had a few dealings with over the centuries.

Just after he had finished, as Anathema was about to give her analysis of the dream, there was a knock at the door to the shop.