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“Well,” Aziraphale said in the sort of tone he usually reserved for people who wanted to borrow his books, “I think we can safely conclude that the reports were correct. This area is haunted.”
“Really? Really?” Crowley shot him an incredulous look and gestured to the three ghosts hovering in the hallway. “You think?”
Frowning, Aziraphale tilted his head as he gazed at the ghosts. “I suppose we could be hallucinating. Do you think that’s more likely?”
Crowley studied his adversary. “I can’t tell if you’re joking. Are you joking?”
“What we really ought to do,” Aziraphale continued, ignoring him, “is vacate the premises and find our way back to the local village. Dealing with the souls of those who have passed on is rather outside our mandate.”
“We’re a demon and angel.”
“Yes, and our assignments involve influencing the living, not herding literal lost souls.”
“I don’t know if they’re lost. They look pretty at home to me.” Crowley shivered as one of them brushed past him. It lowered the ambient temperature too much for his serpentine nature to tolerate, and he found himself abruptly sleepy. He pushed up his dark glasses and rubbed his eyes. “And anyway, they haven’t passed on, have they?”
“Well, no—”
“They’re still hovering around on Earth, aren’t they?
“Well, yes—”
“Are we just supposed to leave the buggers here to torment anyone who stops off at this great big, welcoming empty country house for a bit of shelter?” Crowley asked, and indicated himself and Aziraphale. Eerie moans echoed through the hall. “People like us?”
Aziraphale sighed. “I don’t happen to have a copy of Heaven’s legal code on me to consult the laws on ghosts. And besides, I’m not certain of the exact number congregated here. It may not be enough to violate the rules against large ghostly gatherings.”
Shivering, Crowley strode to the window and pushed it open. He looked across the overgrown garden, then up at the sky. “Okay. Okay. I count eight in plain sight, including the one upstairs that’s been banging shutters since we hit the first floor.”
“That’s not ‘in sight’, Crowley.”
“Whatever.”
“Well, I’m still not sure on the exact number that would provoke Heavenly or Hellish action. And either way, we don’t know if they’re supposed to be going Up or going Down.” Aziraphale looked very smug. “So, it seems to me that leaving and filing our reports is still for the best. It’s quite clear the ghosts don’t want us here. It’s not a very welcoming country house, contrary to what you say.”
“Nnnnh.” Crowley couldn’t argue with the lack of welcome originally, but he did have a totally different argument now. “Given the supernaturally locked door, the collapsed hallway, and the staircase that moaned at us before steps started breaking on their own, I’d argue the ghosts do want us here now.”
Aziraphale was the one with a lack of argument this time. They stood there in awkward silence.
The ghosts really had been unwelcoming at first. Crowley and Aziraphale had been in a stagecoach that broke down on the way back to London. Since they were in the area of a supposedly haunted house that they’d been ordered to investigate, they’d decided to actually investigate instead of just lying to their bosses about having done so.
Now that they were trapped in the definitely haunted house, Crowley really thought they should have stuck with the lying plan.
Not that he was scared. The place was spooky, but he’d always been all for spooky. Aziraphale wasn’t all for spooky, but he was a Principality, and not any more intimidated by ghosts than he was by customers.
Still, the ghosts and their haunted house really were making a valiant effort to scare them. The flickering candles and gusts of cold air were a nice touch. The creepy moans varied just enough to stay creepy instead of turning into redundant background noise. And the sudden, unexpected banging of doors of shutters had been good enough to get a good jump out of both Crowley and Aziraphale once or twice.
And for all their lack of genuine scariness, the ghosts really had done a terrific job of trapping them inside the great big country house. Every way out was blocked, one way or another, and now they were stuck a few floors up.
“Okay. Okay,” Crowley finally said. “What if we do a miracle to negate all ghostly magic in the area? That would unlock the front door, at least.”
Aziraphale considered it, then shook his head. “No, that won’t do. A big miracle like that might hurt the ghosts.”
“They’re ghosts. They’re already dead, angel. It doesn’t get much more hurt than that, at least not on this plane of existence.”
“Well, that’s still no reason to be rude.”
“They’re the rude ones, aren’t they? Trapped us in a haunted house, didn’t they?” It was true, but Crowley sighed. He knew the look on Aziraphale’s face, and how implacable it was. “Right. Right. Okay, how’s this for a plan? I’ll turn into a snake, and you can use me like a rope.”
Aziraphale stared at him. “That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.”
“Now who’s rude? Besides, it’s a good idea, and you know it.”
“It’s a horrible idea! It’s not like I can tie you into knots so that I have something to hold onto while I climb. I’d just slide down.”
Crowley grinned.
Aziraphale’s eyes widened. “I have no interest whatsoever in using you as a snake slide, either.”
“Come on. Come on. It’ll be great.” Crowley peered out the window again, then pointed to an area covered in fallen leaves. “Look. Perfect landing spot for you. You just slide down me, land in the leaves.”
“And then what?” Aziraphale looked down too. “I know that snakes are good at slithering down things, but what if you fall?”
“Then you’ll catch me.”
“I’ll catch a snake that’s at least twenty feet long?”
“Probably need to be at least thirty,” Crowley said, speculatively. “Look. Look. I’ll change size on the way down. That’s easy enough. And then I can just shift back to my preferred shape. Unless you’ve got a better idea.”
Aziraphale did not have a better idea.
Crowley shifted into a snake that took up most of the hallway, debated about which way to do this, then lowered his tail out the window. It would probably be smarter to hold onto the nearby bannister with his tail and go down head first, but he didn’t particularly feel like staring at the ground yet. It’d be better to do that with Aziraphale down there, ready to catch him.
“Right, let me know when my tail is low enough,” Crowley said as Aziraphale rested a hand on his coils and peered down. Behind them, the ghosts rattled a locked door, then broke into a fresh chorus of moans and groans. “How’s that?”
“Fine, if you’d like me to break my ankle.”
Crowley lowered himself a little more. “That?”
“Much better, although I still think this is a terrible idea.” Taking a deep breath, Aziraphale climbed onto the windowsill, then wrapped his arms and legs around Crowley while Crowley wound around the bannister, with his coils braced against the wall too. “Oh dear. You’re sure there isn’t a better way to do this?”
“Yeah. Come on, angel.”
Aziraphale started to inch his way down, sliding until he hit a curve in Crowley’s body. It sort of tickled, and Crowley constricted the bannister more tightly. The cold was making him sleepy, and now the ghostly moans sort of sounded like a lullaby. Not helpful.
“Almost down!” Aziraphale finally shouted. “Just a moment more.”
After a moment, Aziraphale’s weight dropped off, and Crowley shook himself awake. He started to pull his tail up, meaning to get ready for the shift.
At that instant, the shutters banged upstairs, one ghost brushed right past him, and another gave an unearthly shriek. Under normal circumstances, he would have commended them for almost managing to be scary.
Under these circumstances, the barrage distracted him. He lost hold of the bannister and tumbled out the window like a rogue spaghetti noodle escaping a colander.
He changed size mid-fall as the ground rushed towards him, icy wind whistling past. Below, Aziraphale yelped and thrust out his arms.
Crowley smacked into Aziraphale as a pile of six-foot-long snake, just heavy enough to knock him down. Aziraphale fell back to the soft bed of leaves with a “oof”, his arms wrapped around Crowley.
“Wow. Wow,” Crowley said, breathless. He rested his chin on Aziraphale’s shoulder and flicked his tongue out, basking in the familiar scent. “Terrific catch. Also, wow. You’re warm.”
“Glad to be of service,” Aziraphale said, sounding equally breathless. “Good Lord. I thought you’d warn me before you jumped.”
“Didn’t jump, did I? I fell. But you caught me after all.” Crowley nuzzled into Aziraphale’s white hair, then shifted back into his human shape. He ended up sitting in Aziraphale’s lap, arm around his neck.
“Um. Well. I’m glad you’re all right.” Aziraphale blushed, and gave him a quick hug. “You are all right, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.” Crowley hugged him back, grinning and glad to have limbs again. “That was brilliant, eh? We did a terrific job escaping that haunted house, eh?”
“It really was a stupid idea,” Aziraphale said fondly as they disentangled and stood. “Quite effective, though.”
They just stood for a moment, gazing at the haunted house together. More of the ghosts were out now, soaring through the windows and hurtling up to form a cloud of transparent white over the house. The ghosts all moaned together in an almost spooky rhythm, flying back and forth. Maybe trying to chase them off, ineffectively.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale said.
Crowley glanced at him. “Yeah?”
“We have wings.”
“Yeah?”
Aziraphale sighed. “Couldn’t we just have flown out the window, and glided down? With our wings?”
“Oh. Huh. Didn’t think about that.” Crowley considered it, then shrugged and fixed his dark glasses. They’d gotten knocked askew during the hug. “Whatever. The snake slide was cooler.”