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“This really isn’t necessary,” Crowley said as the cabin boy locked her wrists in irons. His shaking fingers brushed over Crowley’s slender hands to secure her to the wall of the tiny closet. Crowley tugged to test the length of her chain. His eyes went wide as coins. The ship rolled, knocking her into the boy, who let out a blood-curdling scream and leapt back.
Crowley sighed. “This is a misunderstanding. I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Ye’s cursed!” The boy clasped the wooden cross hanging around his neck. “Stay back, vampire!”
He skittered out of the closet, slamming the door shut. Crowley heard the sharp click of a lock, leaving her in darkness. “Fuck,” she whispered and sank to the floor, her bound hands elevated against her shoulder. Cold permeated the room, paired with the damp scent of mold. This blasted voyage to the French colonies was already three months overschedule. Being locked up for the duration of it would be nigh unbearable.
“Angel,” she whispered into the blackness. “Why did I abandon you at Carnavale?”
***
It started out as a temptation. Always does. Satan crooning in her ear, Go to France, darling.
She’d ripped herself away from the fantastic sight of a drunken agent of heaven flat on her back, Crowley’s hands snaking up her cream puff skirts, masks askew, and the angel panting, I missed you in Crowley’s ear. It hadn’t been the first time Crowley had tasted angel lips, but it was the first time they’d ever gone that far—and Crowley had ruined it by running away to wander the back alleys of Paris for the next five years. For a mission. Corrupting royals and religion with the sway of her hips.
Wasn’t her fault that she suggested in a rude, off-color way to a priest of the cloth attempting to spread her legs that it might be better to ship women to safety to escape handsy men. Better yet, release the males in the swamps to live with their own kind—this world was full of snakes and serpents and Crowley knew the difference.
She didn’t expect her boudoir in a house of ill-repute to be raided by government officials. Nor did she expect to be dragged out of the house with her corset barely laced, her skirts halfway up her thighs, for said priest to identify her as a temptation. At least she was consistent.
She wished for more of a décolletage to help get her out of the situation the human way. Her corporation firmly told her she was a barely-there girl, that her blush-colored slope-shaped breasts were there to stay. So, irons clamped around her wrists. Lead to a ship bound for the new world with other prostitutes, like cattle.
“The Ursuline sisters will care for you,” the priest whispered, a hand around her neck. “They’ll find you a good husband. Repent for your ways on the journey to New Orleans, whore.”
“And to think I nearly miracled your syphilis away,” Crowley tutted.
She considered jumping ship with a miracle, but the fresh faces huddled below decks tugged at her truly evil heartstrings. Terrified young girls imprisoned for petty crimes, selected to become proper wives for proper settlers. Too many loose women in France, too many lonely men across the Atlantic, and policy had been rushed through the proper channels. After all, what else could be done to clean the streets of the impoverished?
The Ark flashed through her mind. Then, too: terrified, innocent children sentenced to death. Crowley lifted her arm, shuffling the girls under her wing, letting the chicks cry and clutch at her. When the ship set sail, she wondered, when would this kind of thing end?
Rough seas followed them. Storms gathered in the distance, a mix of tumultuous gray and startling blue that had Crowley thinking of a principality. Yellow fever struck. Crowley kept vigil—she never truly needed sleep. Crowley gifted her rations—she never needed food. Crowley mopped sweaty brows—she never got sick. Still, under her gentle hands, the girls perished. Crowley helped tie their bodies in ragged burlap, tossed them overboard, and finally realized how her old friends kept their distance, how the crew made signs against evil in her presence.
When a tussle over water ended with Crowley’s sunglasses cracked on the deck and the sunlight caught her golden, black-slitted stare, well, it ended up being the last straw. Serpent eyes meant only one thing. Cursed. They weren’t wrong.
***
Bright light skewered through the darkness of the closet. Crowley hissed and curled away from the daylight into the remaining piece of shadow. Oh, she was unhappy. The dark, damp, cold left her serpent-soul coiled and ready to strike.
The captain exchanged an uneasy glance with the nun beside him. “The men say she’s a blood-drinker, Sister Louise.”
“We won’t have those rumors spread, Captain.” Sister Louise said, hands deep in her wool skirt.
The captain eased closer and unchained Crowley. “Come along, witch.”
Crowley considered blasting her way to freedom with a slew of demonic fire, but what of the women who’d survived both fever and voyage? She couldn’t be the reason for their demise, not after all that. She followed the nun out and down the gangplank. Heat and humidity surrounded her, and while she generally relished in such hell-like temperatures, the sudden change left her queasy. Sea legs caused her normally unsteady gait to pitch sideways. Around her lay a flat rise of civilization peppered with weeping willows and sharp-bladed bushes. Muddy roads. Collapsing buildings. A half-built convent. People gave her a wide berth, the ward against devilry flashing behind their hands, the whisper of vampire following them.
Sister Louise sighed. “Each woman of distress has been assigned a Sister to help them find the path of light. Unfortunately, yours has decided to run late. She can be so absent-minded. We’ll find her.”
Crowley rolled her eyes and followed the Sister into town. A sticky heaviness coated the air. Red marks marched down her skin, making her itch. She could smell herself—the dry musty scent of scales and soil. Mosquitoes buzzed around her head. She firmly told them she’d have a conversation with their maker if they continued in such a way. The buildings slowly transformed into shanties with thatched roofs, and Sister Louise led her into a shack. Crowley scrunched her nose in distaste at the putrid stench of illness—the familiar smell of fever. A second nun hovered from bed to bed, wiping at a beaded brow, stooping to take a pulse.
“Sister,” Sister Louise said tersely. The healer turned.
“Angel,” Crowley breathed, tears pressing against her eyes. The journey was suddenly worth it, to see those summer-sky eyes again.
“Well, I’m not sure she’s all that,” Sister Louise sniffed.
***
“She’s supposed to meet her betrothed tomorrow morning,” Sister Louise said. “You would’ve known, if you’d been there to meet your charge.”
“Yes, I’ll take it from here,” Aziraphale said, taking Crowley’s elbow and steering her outside, away from Sister Louise’s disapproving glare. Gabriel-esque, in Crowley’s opinion.
“Your charge,” Crowley snickered, pushing her lank red hair behind her ear. “Your French is still atrocious.”
Aziraphale gave her a look. “What are you doing here, demon?”
“Accident,” Crowley drawled, lacing their arms together. “You?”
The angel looked worn out. Bruises under her eyes. Lines of worry instead of laughter around her mouth. The acid taste of overused miracles tainted the humid air. Crowley didn’t like it. “On mission, unfortunately,” Aziraphale said. “I’m supposed to help the Ursuline sisters found their church, but the whole thing has been a trial.”
“Aren’t we supposed to be going toward the town? To meet my new husband?”
“Oh that.” Aziraphale sounded disgusted. Sweat patterned her flushed face. “Forget about that.”
Aziraphale led them further out until the small hovel-town receded from view and a still lake appeared before them, surrounded by tall grasses and moss. A canoe lingered at the edge of the bayou.
“I’m done with ships, angel.”
“We can talk in peace,” Aziraphale said, searching under the seat and yanking out a bladder that smelled strongly of whiskey. Wiggled it in Crowley’s direction.
“Earning your name, aren’t you?” Crowley said, accepting Aziraphale’s hand to help her in the canoe.
Aziraphale pushed them from shore with a gondola-style stick. Crowley drank deep, the whiskey warming the cold core inside her. She slunk to the other end of the wobbly watercraft as Aziraphale directed them under the shade of cypress trees. An alligator floated past, peered up at her, and Crowley met slitted golden eye to slitted golden eye. The alligator sank beneath the water without a ripple.
“Rumors that the Ursuline Sisters are cursed are circulating,” Aziraphale said carefully. “Doesn’t help that a certain hellish agent was identified on the ship. Your doing, I assume?”
“Not my fault,” Crowley said. She was in a boat with an angel, whiskey warm on her tongue, the near oopsies-sex of their past fresh in her mind. “Humans are so superstitious.”
“I should dunk you in the swamp. A vampire, Crowley, really?”
“I’ll eat garlic to prove I’m not.”
“The things I do to keep you from being discorporated at the stake.”
Even Crowley could hear the fondness in Aziraphale’s voice. For the first time in months, she felt something loosen in her chest. She sank to the bottom of the canoe, extended her arms over her head—a long line of lounging serpent—and delighted in the shine of the sun on her skin. When she cracked her eyes open, the sun made a halo around Aziraphale’s head and Crowley’s heart was suddenly blindsided with how much she wanted to wrap around the angel, lay kisses on that mouth, make stupid canoe love in a swamp.
“My dear, I think you have mites in your scales.”
“You try being locked up for weeks and see how you look,” Crowley said, sun-drunk.
It was hard, being tied up in these gentle ropes of shining feeling, melting under the soft smile Aziraphale tried to hide from her. It was getting harder and harder not to whisper, I think I’m in love with you.
The alligator lifted its head again, but there was only one reptile allowed around this angel, and she was right here, merci beaucoup.
***
“I think I might have mites,” Crowley said moodily, scratching at the welts on her arms as Aziraphale poured a bucket of warm water over her naked shoulders in the bath.
“I did tell you,” Aziraphale said. “Lean forward. You’re shedding, too.”
Crowley rested her forehead on her knees, delighting in the way Aziraphale scrubbed her back raw, her hair, glossy from the shampooing, bundled on top of her head. “I never shed in summer.”
Aziraphale held up a black-tinted scale. “Really, now.”
Crowley huffed, hid her face. Layers of dirt, and yes, fine, scales, sloughed off and floated on the water’s surface. “Preparing for my new beau,” she said. “Tell me about him.”
“A trapper with plans to go north,” Aziraphale said softly. “Don’t be silly. I’ll say you’re, I don’t know, ineligible.”
“But the other women I came with are being married off.” Crowley pursed her lips, thinking of Old Maggie with two bastard children, of Jeanne with an opium addiction, of Vivianne disowned for running away from home. Dread pitted her stomach, same as always when the angel told her something terrible. Where would those kidnapped women end up? What else had been done in the name of the divine holy? Would no one do anything, ever?
“I don’t like it any more than you do,” Aziraphale whispered.
“But you’re not doing anything about it.” Crowley's stomach knotted up as Aziraphale’s scrubbing slowed. “They may be criminals and prostitutes, but they’re kidnapped people. Why am I an exception?”
“You’re a demon,” Aziraphale said primly. “You’re not marrying him.”
“Maybe I will. Go slither off into the forest. Cause some trouble.” She bit her lip, wishing Aziraphale would tell her she was different—but because she was beloved, not sulphur-scarred.
“Do be serious, my dear.”
“I am,” Crowley said, and why did she have to be like this? Picking at the scabs of their friendship, making them bleed. “Can you not see how disgusting the whole ordeal is? Your church destroyed a perfectly beautiful place and plopped a rotted foundation that won’t last a year. This whole endeavor is useless, angel. Just like the Ark. Just like you guarding Eden.”
Aziraphale took a quick indrawn breath and Crowley knew she’d struck true, hurt the angel where she was most vulnerable. Frustrated loneliness clawed at the pastoral moments of before. She felt too big for her corporation. Crowley’s tongue flickered out, tasted sorrow and salt in the air.
“If you insist on meeting him, it’s of no consequence to me,” Aziraphale said. The soft brush of skirts. The firm click of a door closing. Crowley pulled at a scale along her arm, watched her skin lift and peel, wishing she could shed more than just this.
***
Crowley’s fiancé was big and burly. He stuck a badly-rolled cigarette in his mouth, eyed her up and down, reminding Crowley of an alligator who didn’t know the law of the jungle. “Bit chicken thin,” he said to Aziraphale, laying a hand on Crowley’s waist.
“I’ll fatten up,” Crowley said, removing his hand. “With the right attention.”
“Not sure about that. Summers can be harsh out here. Physicians few and far between.”
“Such promises. What else is included in my bride-price?”
Behind her, Aziraphale let out a long-suffering sigh. The coiled-tight feeling was back. The whalebone in Crowley’s corset poked into her ribs. The heat sunk into her like a suffocating layer, making her feel sick and strangely cold.
“Mouth on ya, girl.” He took her chin in his hands. Aziraphale uttered a sound of enraged disbelief from behind. “Cursed too, from what’s being said. Think you nuns can pawn off subpar goods on me?”
“Nothing’s wrong with her,” Aziraphale hissed suddenly. “Get your hands off her.”
Ozone crackled through the air, a blinding strike of blue-white light. When Crowley could see again, the man collapsed on the ground of the unconsecrated convent, his greasy hair frizzed and lit with residue electricity from the tiny smiting.
Crowley turned, saw Aziraphale fighting tears.
“You just had to push me,” Aziraphale said, her voice breaking. “Was this some fun test for you, Crowley? See how far you could push me? Well, congratulations. This will be my third strike. Gabriel’s citation will be enthusiastic, to say the least. I won’t be surprised if I’m recalled for a good reconditioning.”
Aziraphale stomped out of the room, leaving Crowley alone with an electrified trapper. Crowley put her head in her hands. She hated the taste of regret.
***
Sister Louise entered the room slowly. Disapproval pinched her face. “I take it he won’t accept you, then?”
“Nope,” Crowley said, leaning against the wall next to the shuttered window. She gestured at the unconscious trapper. “Too skinny, I guess.”
Sister Louise huffed and inched closer. “Sister Aziraphale is in a state,” she said. “But then again, that woman’s heart has always been in the wrong place for the wrong people.”
Crowley’s lip curled. Sister Louise opened the window, sending hot, muggy sunlight blazing on Crowley’s mite-bitten scale-shedding skin. She hissed, backing into the shadows.
“Holy mother in heaven,” Sister Louise spat, clutching her rosary. “The sunlight burns you. You are cursed.”
But Crowley’s shed had had enough of cold damp ships and humid hot days and smelly dirty corsets. It peeled off of her in one big sheet. Crowley looked at a horrified Sister Louise through a film of lifted skin, and Satan, it itched to the point of insanity. She could feel mites crawling between her scales, and the miracle was almost instantaneous—sending her outside of her stinking dress and the ashen old flesh still inside of it.
Sister Louise shrieked. Her eyes rolled up in the back of her head and she fainted on the spot.
Crowley shuddered and wrapped her arms around her naked torso. Her dress lay in a crumpled heap, the fragile outline of her human shed inside it gray as ash and so thin a breath would send it crumbling. Her mouth had been mid-snarl, fangs and all, and Satan-damn-it the vampire rumor had grounds.
She slipped out of the room, following the tingling after effects of celestial wrath, a scent that lead into another room down the hallway. She let herself in.
Aziraphale sat on a wooden bench, her head in her hands. She looked up as Crowley entered, tear tracks wet on her cheeks. “Oh, good,” she hiccuped. “You finally shed. Come here, if you would.”
Crowley slunk toward her, feeling naked in more ways than one.
“You look very…new,” Aziraphale said, reaching out to lay a hand on her bare hip, and Crowley felt the cool balm of a miracle wash over her. The tightness eased, the sunburn ache and itch fading. She let out a sigh of relief.
“Might’ve scared a nun to death,” she admitted. “I’ve had a few hard months, angel. Have pity.”
“Oh, my poor darling,” Aziraphale whispered, pulling Crowley closer, her hands tracing the shape of Crowley’s breasts. “Maybe we can forget all that, start over? Have fun like we did in Venice years ago? I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’m so sorry I—”
“S’alright, angel. Made up for it by defending my honor with a proper good smite.” Crowley snaked her way into Aziraphale’s lap, held that gorgeous face in her hands and stared deep into her blue eyes. “You’re not useless, either. Shoulda smited me for speaking such lies.”
“Smote,” Aziraphale sniffed. “I’ve put it in my report. 'Wily serpent creating mischief but overzealous miracle sent her running'. Sounds plausible.”
“There’s a good angel,” Crowley grinned, leaned in, did something she should’ve done from the start. Kissed her.