Go To Hell, For Heaven's Sake

[Ada Wong]

He landed with a solid ‘thump’ on the end of the barge, the added weight causing that end to dip down under the water so it was submerged under the current, waves of sewage flooding over the planks. Thankfully, the boat soon righted itself with a gurgling splash, but his already much-abused leg buckled as soon as it hit the wooden planks, and without anything nearby to hinder his fall, well…

“Urk,” Crowley grunted, crumpling to the ground in a clumsy heap. It took him a moment to succeed in rolling over into a sitting position, his elbows scraping against the boards that, er, bundled the raft together.

A demon pulling in a fishing line nearby cast a suspicious sideways glance his way. What appeared to be a turtle shell weighed down on their shoulders heavier than any cloak, a beak-like snout clicking in annoyance under a pair of round, orange eyes, the dust-scratched orbs ticking dully off to the side, clearly dismissing him as little more than some scratched-up beanpole. An old, foggy yellow lantern hung from a stick that was lashed across their covered back, illuminating the man-turtle’s warped, scaly musculature and plated abdomen.

“Idjit,” they rasped. Crowley watched as their hands worked at the lines, their fingers coarse and webbed. Soon the man-turtle had succeeded in hauling up a wriggling, twisting mudfish onto the logs, the greyish-brown membrane and whiskers of the fish the very color of a murky riverbed. It’s gasping, pebble-wide mouth turned towards the fallen angel for a brief moment, black eyes the size of marbles seeming immeasurably sad and pathetic.

A squelching sound followed as its head was smashed under the man-turtle’s clawed foot. Crowley quickly looked away, feeling rather unwell.

His imp friend swung into view before long, tugging at his feathers and signing with quick, jabbing rigidity. (Do these things even work?)  She demanded of him, scowling. It took Crowley embarrassingly long to realize she was talking about his wings; if her insistent tugging hadn’t hurt so much, he might’ve flushed red from embarrassment.

“No, no. Not anymore.” The fallen angel hissed, batting her paws away. She was too handsy.

The imp looked at him a moment, her expression unreadable. He imagined that a moue of disgust had made her lips turn downward, but it was probably just that: his imagination.

Crowley noticed that right beside the lightly-furred shells of her ears were a number of greenish insect eyes, three of them speckled like splendidly twinkling dewdrops on both sides of her head. They blinked entirely out of sync, winking at him while their possessor stewed in silence.

Logs and sticks tickled the bottom of the raft, many hollow knocks sounding underneath. Crowley finally lost his patience and broke the silence with an exasperated, “Yes? What is it?”

She looked at him with a sharp turn of her head, eyes bright and alert. (My name is Magda.) The finger-spelling of her name was thorough and surprisingly easy for him to follow, but he was still confused by it nonetheless.

“Magda? As in Mary Magdalene?” Crowley huffed out a rough bark of laughter, hardly believing his ears— erm, eyes. “Peculiar name for an imp.”

Magda scowled. It was an absurd expression for such an adorably furry face to make. (No one asked you, initiate.)

Ah, something else Crowley found he was concerned about. The mysterious ‘initiate’ label she had taken to calling him by in the short time they had known one another. It was definitely something he would have to put the screws to, Crowley thought, his eyes narrowing at her. “You keep calling me that; I have no idea of what it means, here.”

(Perhaps if you gave me your name I would call you something different.)

There was an obvious question in that, Crowley just knew it, and yet….. The fallen angel hesitated, two syllables simmering right on the tip of his tongue. A thousand ‘What if….?’ questions arose in his head, a painful twinge at his temple reminding him of all the very bad things that could happen to him, had already happened to him, and could very well happen to him again. Despite all that, he sighed, shoulders falling into a defeated slump in the face of Magda’s near-palpable interest. Hopefully he wouldn’t live to regret this.

“…Crowley.” He watched as the imp’s eyes immediately lit up, orange shimmers pinging around her pupils like fish swimming in a bowl. There was no glint of recognition, however, and certainly nothing other than the usual malice in her expression.

(Very well, then. Crowley it is!)  she took great care in signing his name, it seemed, her mouth splitting into another one of her signature glass-shard grins. Against his better judgment, Crowley found himself smiling back, albeit a great deal less viciously.

A few scraggly creatures with fishing poles glanced up as their barge winged past on frothy ripples. Without thinking much of it, Crowley looked back, curiosity sparking in his eyes.

One of them hissed at him like a feral cat, sharp teeth flashing.

Crowley quickly glanced away.

“Fantastic,” the fallen angel drawled, looking around for something to lean up against, because Go- Sata- someone forbid he should support his own weight every once in a while. Finding a crate that was suitable enough and settling comfortably beside it, he glanced back at Magda, sunglasses sliding perilously down his nose. “So, what does it mean? Initiate?”

The look she fixed him with was distressing, but what was even more distressing was that he couldn't place just why that was.

(It means that you are coming with me.)

Crowley jerked to attention at that. “What? ….Why?”

There was no answer, but he felt it soon enough. He stiffened as she pressed something slick against his wrist, followed shortly by a fiery red, stinging pain immediately shooting up his arm at her touch. Crowley yelped, jerking his arm out of her grip and to his chest. Scowling fiercely at her, he glanced down to inspect the damage.

A small, wriggling and squirming maggot creature nibbled at the flesh of his wrist, dozens of very small teeth burrowing under the skin and sending tiny pinpricks of discomfort spiking through his fingers. Rather than the immediate and violent terror he was sure he should have been feeling, Crowley merely stared with a calm expression on his face as the flattish, slimy worm dug under the median nerve of his arm, the muscles of his thumb and palm twitching reflexively as it made its home there.

It settled into a stomach-churning purplish bulge under his skin. A puzzling sensation caught between drowsiness and unease clouded his brain, chilly fogs gathering at the forefront of his mind; a tiny voice at the back of his mind was screaming as he realized that he didn’t really care.

“Am I being shanghaied?” he asked, yellow eyes turning up to meet Magda’s own.

Magda flapped her hand in a clear ‘don’t worry about it, honey bun!’ gesture. (It’s just a little something to erase your cares. Visitors of my mistress tend to have…) she paused, mouth tugging wryly as she sought out the right word. (… stage fright. Hearing her name is enough to inspire fear in most; the coercion larva is necessary, I’m afraid.)

“Ah,” replied Crowley. He blinked slowly. The toxin coursed through his veins like a mixture of honey and hyacinth dew, pooling as sweet and syrupy liquid heaven on his tongue, but then— then, the secretions from the larva gradually began to harden. A leaden weight pulsed painfully along the length of his arm, jarring against the bone. It was almost as if a solid barb of iron was being deliberately moved inch by agonizing inch through his bloodstream.

He was aware of his teeth grinding together as his mouth did its level best to grimace at the pain, but his facial muscles continued to remain curiously blank and confused all the while. So, it was a pretty alien sensation. “Ow.”

The imp pursed her lips, face pinching only a little in a show of remorse. (Yes, it does hurt for a small time.)

The barge nudged against the shoreline, one of the demons manning it using a long stick to shove off from the rocks again. Stacked crates towered by the water and muddy shoreline, chests and sacks full of grain piled unceremoniously beside a wooden pulley loading barrels onto the docks. From what Crowley could see, there were several archways leading into passages beneath the busy street above, indistinct traces of graffiti lining the walls like in a train system or maybe a particularly wide sewer entry.

(Come. This way,) Magda waved quickly to the fallen angel, bounding onto the shore with ease. Crowley followed shortly after, feet settling onto the ground heels-first so that his wings wouldn’t carry him too far forward.

A trail of wooden planks was arranged flat in the sludge and gloom, barrels and slimy swamp plants scattered all about as demons shoveled, lugged, pushed, stacked and shoved their way along it. Loose pieces of dirt shifted underfoot as they ran madly about, instable as the roiling sky above. They began to walk along the trail, like a pair of holidaymakers out for an evening stroll.

Magda waved her arms around, gesturing grandly at the chaotic spectacle. (Welcome to the Nether District of the Necropolita of Dis, garden of our most tyrannical and odious Lord Azmodan, may his tremendous girth continue to stink forever, etcetera, etcetera...)

“H-hrk!  Help me,” begged a carcass lying beside where he stood, wheezing breaths causing the emaciated body to shudder and its limbs trailing halfway into a puddle. It was kind of indecent to be so pathetic in public, really. “Please! Help me. ”

“Er, is he quite alright?” asked Crowley.

Magda gave him a long, assessing look. (What does it matter to you?)

Well, that was a good question if he’d ever heard one. Through the fog in his head, Crowley realized that he didn’t rightly know! “Hm,” he settled on, and took great care in stepping over the body, its moaning only seeming to grow louder and more despairing the further they moved away from it. Crowley was in good spirits when they ducked inside an alleyway, glad to be rid of the abominable noise and clatter of the open dockyards. It was shady, too, and the only complaint he might have had was that it was a fairly tight fit for someone of his size. Surprisingly enough, even the tiny Magda had trouble slipping from one end to the other.

The rattan covering overhead creaked ominously in warning, shadows threading across the passage as vendors and street-goers walked over it. Magda continued wiggling her way through despite the strong scent of mildew and the chilly stone cobbles pressing into her smallish frame. Crowley pressed on, as well, battling against gossamer cobwebs and airy chips of dust flaking down to tickle his nose from the ceiling of the dim, constricted passage.

Three weights of stone pressed inward from all sides, thick enough to blot out the sound of their movements— hot breaths and quick-footed shuffling, suddenly accompanied by the dry crackling of the rattan ceiling as it frayed and contorted. Was someone walking over it on the busy street above? It was dark, and dreary, and hopelessly nerve-wracking to make the trip. What if they became stuck? No one would ever know, and he would turn to dust after days of slowly starving. This thought alone was enough to set a fire under Crowley’s feet and get him moving, even if the coercion larva beneath his skin begged willing deference either way.

It took some creative writhing to free himself from where he was wedged in between the walls of the alley. Something that had been tight and hot in his chest loosened, a mild blanket of calm replacing the claustrophobic presence from before as his feet met the reddish-colored cobbles of the outer walls.

They entered onto an open courtyard, nearer to the outskirts of the city. Demons sang, drank, and made love in both dark corners and in the light, paying no heed to propriety. Dirty-faced vagrants crowded beside warmth-emitting chimneys and beds of glowing red coals, rubbish littering the streets and splintered wreckage from destroyed buildings cumulating into a nest-like clutter. The complex interweaving of alleyways turned the city into a labyrinthine maze of interiors and rooftops, torches and sprinkled fires making it seem as if the streets were trapped within an endless sunset.

It was, in a sense, beautiful. If someone were to have good sense or that mysterious adaptation known as "Common Sense", however...

But, no. Unfortunately, it simply wasn't so.

11,666 words