CUMBRIA - MIDNIGHT

It was a stormy January night when an eerie light glowed in the windows of the Hatfield Inn, a little pub and hotel at the foot of the fells, just an hour outside Buttermere Village. In the bar on the ground floor, a few corpses sat hunched at tables, their pints left unfinished. Two black-eyed patrons with bloody knuckles were drinking and playing Double Dragon on the old arcade cabinet near the restrooms, the dim light from the screen casting long shadows around the room. At the back of the bar was an almost medieval looking iron gate, bolted to the wall. A man, barely conscious, was chained to it like it was a torture rack.

He was a tall, middle-aged brunet, pale and thickset. Kind of stuffy - he had the look of a university professor. He also had the look of someone who'd spent the last few hours falling down an ascending escalator. His face was bruised and cut, his tweed suit was bloodied and filthy. His wrists, where they were shackled, were badly burned. He tried not to hang his weight on them.

The bell over the entrance rang, despite the fact that the door never opened. One of the two demons pulled the plug on the game, and so the room went black. Someone struck a couple of matches. It was Crowley. His expression was tired and surly. His eyes were bloodshot and his overcoat was soaked through, like he'd been standing in the rain all night. He looked - pardon the expression - like hell.

"Get the lights up, you little truncheons," he said.

One of the henchmen - the Johnny-on-the-spot one who unplugged the game - sped across the room and flipped on the antler chandelier that hung overhead. Crowley took his coat off and threw it to Johnny, then turned to the other demon.

"Two fingers of whisky," Crowley said to him. He turned to the man on the rack. "And for yourself?"

The man lifted his head, glowering. "Better not," he said. "I'm driving." He spoke with Yorkshire accent, choking a bit on his own blood.

"Not out in that," Crowley said. "Storm of the century's on the way, or so they tell me. No,... sit a spell." He went to the table nearest to the man, gently pushed one of the corpses off it's seat and took it's place. "I'm having a bastard of a night," he said. "And I hear you're the man who can make it better. That you're a fairy and a vate-. Is that the word? And what's the difference between a seer and a vate? No one will tell me."

The man shook his head wearily. "It's the very same thing," he said. He had a soft, patronizing tone that made him sound like a kindergarten teacher. "It's just regional. And yes, it does get confusing. Will you please kill me already? I can't listen to that midi music anymore." He threw a glance at the arcade cabinet.

Crowley looked back at it, saw the beer on the dashboard, then rolled his eyes and turned on his thugs. "You right skivers," he said, "no wonder our vate isn't in the mood to talk. Do I have to do everything myself?"

The dummies just looked at him.

"That wasn't rhetorical!" he roared.

"No sir," Johnny said.

The other idiot brought Crowley a drink - half a glass of whisky with ice in it.

"Did I say on the rocks?" Crowley asked. "It's January!" He gave the demon a dirty look and sent the drink back with a wave of his hand. The demon cringed like he thought he was going to get smacked. Crowley turned his attention back to the vate. "You see what I have to work with?" he said. "Cookie-headed cowards, the lot of them. Honestly, some days I don't know if I have henchmen or Frenchmen. Garron-. May I call you Garron?"

Garron the Vate sighed. "What do you want?" he asked.

"I need information," Crowley said. "See, I've recently discovered that - despite being a demon - I apparently have some sort of destiny,.. one that's about to go off in my face like a trick cigar. Half the oracles, seers and psychics I've been to have told me, in one style of rustic jabber or another, that I am fated to die at the hooves of one Sam Winchester, very soon, whilst throwing the planet into a tizzy."

"I'd avoid him," Garron said, smiling wryly.

"Not sure I can," Crowley said, "as I happen to have a fabulous tizzy in the works as we speak."

"Then you'll just have to sit back and accept your fate," Garron said.

"You'd think that," Crowley said. "If you were crap at fractions. The other half of your kind seem to think I'll live. They're all blaming me for the loused-up readings - something about my duplicitous nature. Whatever that means. Now, I've heard all manner of pretty things about you and your visions. All the calamities you've predicted, I'll reckon you have some idea about this. Help me sort it all and avoid my moosey fate."

"I'm here to read you?" Garron asked skeptically. "Are you serious?"

Crowley put his palm out. "How do you want me?" he asked coyly. "Read the palms? Touch my skull a little?"

Garron grimaced. "You're fine over there," he said. "What is your true name?"

Crowley drew a breath to speak, but paused and squinted. "Why?" he asked. "Can't you just bliss out or whatever?"

"I need something to hold onto," Garron said. "So that when I look for your thread of fate in the ether, I'll find the right one."

Crowley thought about it for a second. He snapped his fingers and the two henchmen vanished. "The name's Crowley," he said. "I thought you knew that already."

"Just Crowley?" Garron asked.

Crowley shrugged.

"Have it your way, laddie," Garron said. He closed his eyes, took a breath and hung his head, quietly intoning something vowel-a-licious. This went on for about a minute while Crowley watched, his interest peaked. Garron threw his head back, banging it on the gate. His eyes, whites and all, had gone an odd, murky shade of green. He took a labored breath and spoke in a deep, rumbling voice:

"The Moon and Sun would surely rule,
But for the Hermit and his Fool."

"Brilliant," Crowley muttered to himself. "He's singing 'American Pie.'"

Garron went on:

"While Kings of Cup and Sword still rage,
Quarreling in their silver cage,
The cards are cut, the gates un-shut,
And so shall fall the mage-. Fudge!"

"What?" Crowley asked, slightly panicked.

"I just predicted my own death," he griped.

"Stay in the trance," Crowley said, "you've still got my thread."

"You're just gonna kill me anyway," Garron said glumly.

"I would never," Crowley said. "Go on. I mean, you're in there anyway. Might as well. 'And so shall fall the mage?'"

Begrudgingly, Garron stayed in his trance and continued:

"The Hierophant's unheeded words-. 'Unheeded words?' Wait, you're not even listening, are you?"

Crowley stopped checking messages on his phone. "Hm? Didn't catch that last bit."

"Splendid," Garron said. "I'll just go into me little trance again, shall I? Since we have all night. Do you have any idea how difficult this is?"

Crowley groaned. "Fine," he said. "I'm sorry I wasn't listening to your ridiculous little poem. Please, you'll have my undivided attention. And be a dove - skip the parts with you in them?"

"With pleasure," Garron said, and began again:

"The Sun must set,
The Moon must rise,
Eclipsed by Justice, fair and great.
But swinging by the Hanged Man's rope,
A hope to change their fate."

"Yes!" Crowley hissed, and subtly fist-pumped. "How do I do it? How do I change my fate?"

But Garron's head fell forward and his body had gone slack. The trance was over.

"Damn," Crowley said under his breath. He got up and snapped his fingers by Garrons ear. When that didn't work, he gave him a smack on the cheek and held his head up by his hair. "Fire it back up, Jambi," Crowley said. "You crapped out before the money-shot."

"That's all there is," Garron said, panting. His eyes were normal again. "There isn't any more."

"Well, thank you, Miss Clavel," Crowley said. "'The Moon must rise, eclipsed by Justice' - what in the name of Heidi Lynne Fleiss does any of that mean?"

"I don't know," Garron said. "But if you mean to change your fate, go to the Widow Volva."

"I'm not going to the Widow Volva!" Crowley shouted. "I came halfway around the globe to be read by you, and I'm getting refered? What kind of a business model-."

"She isn't far from here!" Garron snapped, cutting him off. "It isn't as if you've got to walk."

Crowley sneered and let out a little noise of petulant displeasure. "But she's so bloody boring," he whined. "She always has to start from the Beginning of Time, and if she thinks you've interrupted her, she starts all over."

"Well, maybe if you were a bit more patient?" Garron said. "But don't take my advice, no. It's only your untimely demise, do whatever you want."

Crowley rolled his eyes. "Fine," he said. "I'll go to the Widow Volva, if you're gonna be Mr. Bossy Balls about it. You know, even for a prescient fairy, you're a tremendous pain in the ass?"

Garron glared down at him.

"This can't be the first time you've heard that," Crowley said. "So anyway, good talk." He picked up a brass-handled fire iron that was lying against the wall nearby. "Lovely meeting you. TTFE."

"You said you weren't gonna kill me," Garron said, shaking his head. His tone was more exasperated than anything else.

"I might've fibbed," Crowley said. "The guilt is just eating me up inside." He plunged the poker into Garron's gut with a quick, violent motion.

As Garron died his agonizing death, Crowley added brightly, "It was good chatting with you, though. Hope you don't think I was lying about that."