The Known/Unknown Quantity

Chapter 62: Spill the Beans, Angel!

Chapter 62: Spill the Beans, Angel!

Madame Tracy sipped her tea and put down the receiver. Shadwell tapped her on the shoulder, and she looked up and patted his hand resting there.

"You have 'is ear every day now, Jezzie."

The adept nodded and placed down her tea. "It's complicated."

"Oh?" He pulled up a chair and looked at her with rummy eyes. "As in demon-complicated? What be Crowley up to now?"

"Hunting."

"Good for him!" Shadwell approved. "Did ye expect anything else, now that they're armed."

"We're supposed to be working together to destroy this thing."

"Is the young witch any closer?" Tracy shook her head. "I thought they left that lock o' hair behind for her to a good lookin'." She nodded.

"Even found an unofficial contact through those marines of yours, dear. Labs and such. But there's nothing special about it." She picked up the tea, but paused it to her mouth. "It's just a lock of hair."

"What about the little bits? Ya know, DNA and suck-like?"

"That's the funny thing, "she sipped her tea. "It could be a lead, but it's all rather perplexing. There is no DNA. Not even a trace. It's real...but it's like it was constructed."

"And they know this?"

Tracy nodded vancantly, staring out at the wall. "Oh yes, and that's when all this started."

"The hunting?' She nodded again. And then thought to herself: And the dreams. Oh, poor angel, overthinking everything into nightmares...

After France, the angel switched gears.

Now, instead of extending their leave in one place, they were only spending a day, and Crowley had a curfew. He didn't appreciate the implication or the dynamic.

Woll, not really a curfew. Not like he'd couldn't get back by daybreak and the shop wouldn't be there. But there'd be the angel in his smoking jacket, glaring at him like a parent catching a teen coming in after midnight. And all he'd say was," Out and about again?"

"How was your sleep?" Crowley would prod. Then the angel's eyes would flare and he'd stomp up the stairs.

He's got to tell me sometime! Crowley found himself thinking before he'd fall into listless slumber on the couch. Angel, let me help you, ya bloody fool. We spent two hundred years in a tiny cubby hole universe! Haven't I earned the right to be your fucking shoulder?!?

"I'm surprised," the homunculus mused, "that you didn't try to slash my throat."

Crowley leaned back, gathering all the cool aloofness he could muster. "MMMMwellll," he offered, "As much as it would please me to kill you a million times over, bit of a waste of effort, wouldn't ya say?"

"So instead, you steal my arsenal."

"The less you have the less you can use."

"And what's that you have in your hand now?" she grinned watching his concentration flicker to the item before flashing to her. He betrayed very little, but she was fast, and caught it. "Oh, I see, you were expecting another shard of glass. That's what they turn into, my things, when you pull them out, nothing, but glass? Except," she chuckled at his confusion, "When I touch it?"

Crowley hissed, but regarded the box in his hand. Shifting gears, he returned her oily smile and asked," I'm really amazed at this ward. You literally can't touch us."

"Except for the angel's dreams."

"What dreams?"

"Don't pretend you don't know. It's why you come after me."

Crowley studied her with an unreadable look.

"Oh, I see. You wonder how I did it, right? Got to him."

"Or he got to you."

"And he never revealed it? Why, is your love starting to sour?"

"What would you know of love?"

"Oh, you have a point there!" she laughed lyrically. "But it seems to me to be more of a burden. And it wanes....SO QUICKLY."

"Six thousand years isn't quickly."

"Once realized then?" He smirked mockingly at her.

"What you're really wondering is how I did it? How he did it? Why, I was in bits and pieces by the time the dreams came. But I still got to him. Just...how? And, why hasn't he said anything?"

"What he has to say to me is between us," Crowley hissed. "As for the dreams, they must be his own making. You were too weak to cause them, and the ward stops them from happening."

"Put a pin in that," she chuckled idlily. "That's another secret you must pry from him. But I can tell you I have seen the thing that causes the nightmares. What he desires in his deepest core?"

"Again, none of your business. I figured out how you did it though."

"Really?"

"You didn't. At all."

"Well, I must hear this theory."

"It was nothing but a memory. Another dream, a thing you did before you lost your powers, and he's under the impression it happened recently."

"So, the angel is losing his grip, is he?"

Crowley snarled.

"You know, all those shards you have? Why if you let me touch them, they turn into things, like that little cold box in your hand. Care to let me try?"

"Not a chance!"

"Fine," she shrugged, her piranha teeth gleaming at him as she faded away. "You know my number. Clearly, this conversation isn't over. And, just a warning: handle that box very carefully."

She faded away. Crowley shouted a curse and slammed the mirror down, nearly breaking it. But, on seeing the cracks already forming, he become careful with putting it away.

And it was then he noticed, as he inspected the remaining shards with horror, about half of them had transformed into objects.

And she had done it without even touching them.

Aziraphale sat alone, so alone, in his study. Once and a while his hand pushed the sash aside and scanned the dwindling crowds, but never saw his demon come home. What if tonight was the last night he ever came come?

There were risks to hunting a predator, after all. Despite the best of wards. Oh....it was happening all over again! So, what the point of everything they had gone to obtain the blasted things!

Aziraphale released the sash for the 50th time and gripped the ruby medallion beneath the fabric of his collar. It was cold to the touch. And his snakes didn't tingle. And there was no strange feeling or phantom whisper inside a siren.

No, I'm overthinking again. He's protected even from his own silliness. Aziraphale shivered. And from mine.

The angel put his head in his hands. So, the dreams are coming from me, not that treacherous monster in the mirror. Was that even real? Being in that small universe for so long had...altered his sense of linear time a bit. He feared telling that to Crowley, just like he feared telling him about the dreams or what caused them.

"But if I don't," Aziraphale told the cold room as helplessness yanked back the hopeless worry," He might hunt himself into extinction!"