The Known/Unknown Quantity

Chapter 61: Neither One is Good at Ninjaing

Chapter 61: Neither One is Good at Ninjaing

What in heaven was the angel talking about?

                Changed? Him? He hadn't changed.

                It was the angel that had changed.

                Their next stop was in Brussels now. Once again, the angel spoke the language as badly as ever (seriously, he had no problem with Japanese. What was it about French?) Somehow people here didn't mind. Maybe it was the really good beer.

                But Crowley wasn't in a beer garden tonight. He was at a bar, not exactly a hole in the wall, but nondescript, and near closing time.  He'd come here after wandering the streets for a bit, without the Bentley.  He swore even it was giving him strange looks nowadays.

                Crowley walked the streets every night here, everywhere. What he did now, where he ended up, what he pulled out of his jacket and placed on a table every night, it was all because of a change in Aziraphale, and one the angel wouldn't admit to.

                Ward or not, the demon had to do, dunno, something.

                So, it was whiskey again. And the company of this small makeup mirror in a stand.  Taking it out he placed it across from himself and starred at it as if it were a person. He even talked to it, mocked it, had long drunk one sided conversations. Not that the being inside could hear him, or see him. Okay, that was fun at first, watching her going crazy in there trying to find he and Aziraphale, felt good to see her suffer after all she put them thru. But now all that had waned. Now he stared at her, studying her, trying to find out exactly her nature and function.

                The witch was no closer to discovering that. The lock of Jinny's hair, well, they'd given it to her, thinking there might be a lead there. She gave it to someone they trusted, to study it when it beyond her to divine more than its oddness, and they were still waiting to hear back.

                In the mean time here he was, letting the wonderful ward make him Superman as he watched their enemy helpless in her cage but yet woefully alive. Still, one good thing, as soon as she drifted off, he could use the ward to its full advantage.

                There, right there. She's gone out of sight. Crowley let his arm fall as he poised to strike. Just look for the chest. Just reach in and grabbed something while her back is turned.

                There, in the corner. 

                Striking like a cobra, Crowley's hand whipped out and rammed into the mirror, and thru its surface like a soap bubble. His fingers found the wooden lid, and flung it open, and he rummaged around to pull out anything else she might have to use against them. A seventh crack formed on the edge of the mirror but he ignored it.

                And then something grabbed him, and jerked him back. With a hiss he yanked his hand out, then glared murder into the mirror. "Jinny" grinned back, waving.

                "Caught you," she cooed.

"What do you think triggered all this, dearie?" Tracy tapped the edge of the phone receiver with a lacquered fingernail as silence reigned on the other side. "Olright. But if you can't answer, it means you think you know." And very timidly, guiltily, she heard the angel's voice as he came around.

                "I think it's about me."

                "Innit that interesting? Like, he always acts this way when he'd worried about his loved ones. And he's still lurking about?"

                "It's what demon's do. But not lurking. Crowley would call it something with more style, but yes."

                "And what happened?"

                "I'm having nightmares this time. Despite the wards, and all the lengths we've gone thru. Despite not being touched by that thing out there, or hunted by it."

                "And?"

                "I don't talk about them, and I don't let Crowley in to see them, even when he asks. And he asks a lot."

                "And why not?"

                No answer.

                "So bad you won't even tell me?"

                "I'm not sure where to start, or if I'm ready."

                "And what caused them?"

                The angel sighed heavily. She heard him struggle, working up to it.  Finally, he admitted," It was after Amsterdam. We were on top of the world then. Learning so much, feeling unstoppable. Perhaps we grew reckless. But one day, my mind is wandering, and I'm—I'm holding that lock of Jinny's ready to send it off, and I pass a mirror. And I jump, something cackles by my shoulder, and I look up, and there is the terrible thing staring back, gleefully leering in my direction."

                "Oh, my word! It found you!"

                "So, I thought. But not exactly. It just knew I could see it. Suppose it had something to do with lock of hair, we need to find out more about it by the way. I'm certain it's a key to destroying this thing once and for all."

                "Don't drift off the subject, dear."

                "Oh, alright. Anyway....This thing, blind and trapped as she is, had a look of triumph about her. Like she had already won. And she pointed at me, spoke, and shook me to my very core."

                "What did she say?"

                "'I know your secret angel. I know, because you've been in his soul. I know the thing you dare not ask him to do!'"

                "And then she was gone."

                "Aziraphale," the adapt told him slowly and carefully, "if there is something you need to tell me, I will not judge you. But you need to tell someone. It appears you're playing with fire once more."

                "I can't tell you."

                "Please? You aren't invincible, and this thing likes to sow doubt and hit at weak points. Please, tell me. Let me help you sort this out before it hurts the both of you."

                So, he told her.

                And really, she wasn't so much shocked, as wanting to be there to hold him when he had to utter it out loud....