The Known/Unknown Quantity

Chapter 190: Cruelty, Grief and Loss Can Make People do Unimaginable Things

Chapter 190: Cruelty, Grief and Loss Can Make People do Unimaginable Things

While Crowley was revving off to Goodness-Knows-What, Aziraphale was trying to figure out his own door.

The night seemed so quiet. The angel expected the interior to be just as slumber-inducing as the exterior: just the tick-tock of a few clocks, the bare movements of mice in a myriad of hiding places, and his own shuffling and murmurs adding into the whispers of the dark. So, his head remained down as he entered.

He took out the coin the dragon Law had giving him, and turned it over and over on his knuckles. It wasn't a coin at all. It was a scale. How very odd.

And how would it work? This conundrum couldn't be answered soon enough. He must not let his worry for the demon feed on him, or he would remain flummoxed to both their detriment.

So engrossed was Aziraphale in the scale-coin that it was only when he picked up on a deep vibration moving through his body that he raised his eyes.

And another pair stared back at him in alarm.

A deep bass played from a device in the corner. The corner of small unfamiliar flat. A throat cleared and someone turned down the Latin jazz.

The throat that had cleared itself produced a voice in alto, void of a soft lyrical quality that the angel grown to identify," My dear Angel, did you intend on visiting me on tonight of all nights?"

A small reading lamp came on, and there lounging in an antique love seat was Olivia.

Only, it barely looked like Olivia.

Gone was the dark clothing, replaced by grey sweats, her hair pulled back in a messy bun. Her eyes, though startled, were shining. That right there...was enough to pull Aziraphale from the strangeness of his surroundings, but he shook himself, and stepped back outside.

His nose rose to the street lamps and the dampness of the street. "Ol'right. Normal here." He stepped back in, and looked about. He straightened, irked at the universe's practical joke. "Fine. We get to the bottom of this."

The woman continued to stare at him. She smiled at the angel in an alien way, a way he'd never seen on her face. This is what drew him closer.

"We've been snookered, I'm afraid," he tried to explain.

"Obviously," the dom said wearily, reaching out to tug his sleeve and passing through him. "Just as I thought, you're not really here."

"But how did I...sort of.... arrive to begin with? And what is this?" His glided away from Olivia, taken aback at her looking like a normal person, and a little more lost.

"Angel," Olivia stated, the old gentle command entering her tone for a moment if just to balance him. He stopped in front of her, his head tiling to the door. "Go ahead and check it again, I can wait." And he found his hand on the open door of mystery. His eyes cast outward to the night of SoHo, and remained locked there. He waited.

"I think you made this happen by mistake," she said. She watched as the back of his head nodded. Signs popped up all around him, iconography that made her stomach turn, though even now she refused to let it show.

"I don't think you can leave yet, can you?" she asked levelly.

His head shook without a word.