The Known/Unknown Quantity

Chapter 144: Wards Strain

Chapter 144: Wards Strain

"Aughhh! My fucking head!"

Crowley woke spread eagle on a cold stone floor. His back and limbs stiffened and throbbed. What hit him? Had he been on a bender and fallen into an alley?

Old Death reeked in the place. No alley smelled this bad.

Memory flooded back. Cursing and achy, he sat up and grabbed his forehead.

"Augh, Angel. Angel, where are you?" Warily he sniffed the air. Aziraphale's scent lingered underneath the detestable stink, but it was a fading thing. He had been here, but he wasn't now.

"Shit. Shit! Shitshitshit!!"

Crowley stumbled to his feet, a wave of nausea striking him in the temples. He spat out the bile, then bent at the waist, placing his hand on his hip. The walkie was going off.

It was Gary.

A quick conversation: We're all separated. Nothing's happening.

Yes, well, just a matter of time. Be careful. Sealed in?

Don't know yet. Look about.

Be careful. If you see anything of the tyrant's, don't touch it with a bare hand.

Copy, over and out.

The demon straightened, took up the fading trail of the angel, and dismally headed forward.

"That's everyone," Gary said, slipping the walkie back to his belt. Olivia's eyes scanned the ceiling. "You think she heard us?"

Olivia nodded. "Nothing for it, really. We can't get away from surveillance in here."

"No," he grunted, "but we can mystify her." Olivia smiled.

"Very clever of you, teaching us all morse code before we went on this little adventure."

"Miss Olivia," he purred when he looked her way. "This bunch needs as much help as they can get."

The thing that had been Samantha and "Jinny" squatted in its mirror room, stumped. She had them trapped, but her powers didn't stop their communicating. And it was pure gibberish. "Dot-dash-dot-dot."

What the hell did that mean? It was a code. And not one she understood.

No matter. They were separated. She calmed herself, watched and waited.

The tidbits she left behind would do all the rest.

Crowley's useless eyes grew huge with the exertion of extending the wards.

Now his attention was too divided, and he couldn't sense the others anymore, and the link with the angel grew strained the longer they were apart.

He felt it finally snap, and he hissed.

Woll, that was it. No more wards for the humans. They were on their own.

"Aziraphale, you blasted idiot! Where are you!"

Spinning around and around, floundering, slithering with his back against the walls, Crowley prowled clumsily to catch a whiff, or a note, anything of his angel. All the while the acid stench of collective agony burned his nose.