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Crowley leaned back in his executive chair. He forced himself to relax and failed appallingly.
“In here, people,” he called.
“We want a word with you,” said Ligur (in a tone of voice intended to imply that “word” was synonymous with “horrifically painful eternity”), and the squat demon pushed open the office door.
The bucket teetered, then fell neatly on Ligur’s head.
Drop a lump of sodium in water. Watch it flame and burn and spin around crazily, flaring and sputtering. This was like that; just nastier.
The demon peeled and flared and flickered. Oily brown smoke oozed from it, and it screamed and it screame
d and it screamed. Then it crumpled, folded in on itself, and what was left lay glistening on the burnt and blackened circle of carpet, looking like a handful of mashed slugs.
“Hi,” said Crowley to Hastur, who had been walking behind Ligur, and had unfortunately not been so much as splashed.
There are some things that are unthinkable: there are some depths that not even demons would believe other demons would stoop to.
“. . . Holy water. You bastard,” said Hastur. “You complete bastard. He hadn’t never done nothing to you.”
“Yet,” corrected Crowley, who felt a little more comfortable, now the odds were closer to even. Closer, but not yet even, not by a long shot. Hastur was a Duke of Hell. Crowley wasn’t even a local councilor.
“Your fate will be whispered by mothers in dark places to frighten their young,” said Hastur, and then felt that the language of Hell wasn’t up to the job. “You’re going to get taken to the bloody cleaners, pal,” he added.
Crowley raised the green plastic plant mister, and sloshed it around threateningly. “Go away,” he said. He heard the phone downstairs ringing. Four times, and then the ansaphone caught it. He wondered vaguely who it was.
“You don’t frighten me,” said Hastur. He watched a drip of water leak from the nozzle and slide slowly down the side of the plastic container, toward Crowley’s hand.
“Do you know what this is?” asked Crowley. “This is a Sainsbury’s plant mister, cheapest and most efficient plant mister in the world. It can squirt a fine spray of water into the air. Do I need to tell you what’s in it? It can turn you into that,” he pointed to the mess on the carpet. “Now, go away.”
Then the drip on the side of the plant mister reached Crowley’s curled fingers, and stopped. “You’re bluffing,” said Hastur.
“Maybe I am,” said Crowley, in a tone of voice which he hoped made it quite clear that bluffing was the last thing on his mind. “And maybe I’m not. Do you feel lucky?”
Hastur gestured, and the plastic bulb dissolved like rice paper, spilling water all over Crowley’s desk, and all over Crowley’s suit.
“Yes,” said Hastur. And then he smiled. His teeth were too sharp, and his tongue flickered between them. “Do you?”
Crowley said nothing. Plan A had worked. Plan B had failed. Everything depended on Plan C, and there was one drawback to this: he had only ever planned as far as B.
“So,” hissed Hastur, “time to go, Crowley.”
“I think there’s something you ought to know,” said Crowley, stalling for time.
“And that is?” smiled Hastur.
Then the phone on Crowley’s desk rang.
He picked it up, and warned Hastur, “Don’t move. There’s something very important you should know, and I really mean it. Hallo?
“Ngh,” said Crowley. Then he said, “Nuh. Got an old friend here.”
Aziraphale hung up on him. Crowley wondered what he had wanted.
And suddenly Plan C was there, in his head. He didn’t replace the handset on the receiver. Instead he said, “Okay, Hastur. You’ve passed the test. You’re ready to start playing with the big boys.”
“Have you gone mad?”
“Nope. Don’t you understand? This was a test. The Lords of Hell had to know that you were trustworthy before we gave you command of the Legions of the Damned, in the War ahead.”
