Good Omens

Annotation

According to the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter - the world's only totally reliable guide to the future - the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just after tea...

GOOD OMENS

Eleven years ago

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I t was a nice day.

All the days had been nice. There had been rather more than seven of them so far, and rain hadn't been invented yet. But clouds massing east of Eden suggested that the first thunderstorm was on its way, and it was going to be a big one.

The angel of the Eastern Gate put his wings over his head to shield himself from the first drops.

"I'm sorry," he said politely. "What was it you were saying?"

"I said, that one went down like a lead balloon," said the serpent.

"Oh. Yes," said the angel, whose name was Aziraphale.

"I think it was a bit of an overreaction, to be honest," said the serpent. "I mean, first offense and everything. I can't see what's so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil, anyway."

"It must bebad," reasoned Aziraphale, in the slightly concerned tones of one who can't see it either, and is worrying about it, "otherwise you wouldn't have been involved."

"They just said, Get up there and make some trouble," said the serpent, whose name was Crawly, although he was thinking of changing it now. Crawly, he'd decided, was not hint

"Yes, but you're a demon. I'm not sure if it's actually possible for you to do good," said Aziraphale. "It's down to your basic, you know, nature. Nothing personal, you understand."

"You've got to admit it's a bit of a pantomime, though," said Crawly. "I mean, pointing out the Tree and saying 'Don't Touch' in big letters. Not very subtle, is it? I mean, why not put it on top of a high mountain or a long way off? Makes you wonder what He's really plan­ning."

"Best not to speculate, really," said Aziraphale. "You can't second-­guess ineffability, I always say. There's Right, and there's Wrong. If you do Wrong when you're told to do Right, you deserve to be punished. Er."

They sat in embarrassed silence, watching the raindrops bruise the first flowers.

Eventually Crawly said, "Didn't you have a flaming sword?"

"Er," said the angel. A guilty expression passed across his face, and then came back and camped there.

"You did, didn't you?" said Crawly. "It flamed like anything."

"Er, well‑"

"It looked very impressive, I thought."

"Yes, but, well‑"

"Lost it, have you?"

"Oh no! No, not exactly lost, more‑"

"Well?"

Aziraphale looked wretched. "If you must know," he said, a trifle testily, "I gave it away."

Crawly stared up at him.

"Well, I had to," said the angel, rubbing his hands distractedly. "They looked so cold, poor things, and she's expecting already,and what with the vicious animals out there and the storm coming up I thought, well, where's the harm, so I just said, look, if you come back there's going to be an almighty row, but you might be needing this sword, so here it is, don't bother to thank me, just do everyone a big favor and don't let the sun go down on you here."

He gave Crawly a worried grin.

"That was the best course, wasn't it?"

"I'm not sure it's actually possible for you to do evil," said Crawly sarcastically. Aziraphale didn't notice the tone.

"Oh, I do hope so," he said. "I really do hope so. It's been worrying me all afternoon."

They watched the rain for a while.

"Funny thing is," said Crawly, "I keep wondering whether the apple thing wasn't the right thing to do, as well. A demon can get into real trouble, doing the right thing." He nudged the angel. "Funny if we both got it wrong, eh? Funny if I did the good thing and you did the bad one, eh?"

"Not really," said Aziraphale.

Crawly looked at the rain.

"No," he said, sobering up. "I suppose not."

Slate‑black curtains tumbled over Eden. Thunder growled among the hills. The animals, freshly named, cowered from the storm.

Far away, in the dripping woods, something bright and fiery flick­ered among the trees.

It was going to be a dark and stormy night.

GOOD OMENS

A Narrative of Certain Events occurring in the last eleven years of human history, in strict accordance as shall be shewn with:

The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter

Compiled and edited, with Footnotes of an Educational Nature and Precepts for the Wise, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

SUPERNATURAL BEINGS

God (God)

Metatron (The Voice of God)

Aziraphale (An Angel, and part‑time rare book dealer)

Satan (A Fallen Angel; the Adversary)

Beelzebub (A Likewise Fallen Angel and Prince of Hell)

Hastur (A Fallen Angel and Duke of Hell)

Ligur (Likewise a Fallen Angel and Duke of Hell)

Crowley (An Angel who did not so much Fall as Saunter Vaguely Down­wards)

APOCALYPTIC HORSEPERSONS

DEATH (Death)

War (War)

Famine (Famine)

Pollution (Pollution)

HUMANS

Thou‑Shalt‑Not‑Commit‑Adultery Pulsifer (A Witchfinder)

Agnes Nutter (A Prophetess)

Newton Pulsifer (Wages Clerk and Witchfinder Private)

Anathema Device (Practical Occultist and Professional Descendant)

Shadwell (Witchfinder Sergeant)

Madame Tracy (Painted Jezebel [mornings only, Thursdays by arrangement] and Medium)

Sister Mary Loquacious (A Satanic Nun of the Chattering Order of St. Beryl)

Mr. Young (A Father)

Mr. Tyler (A Chairman of a Residents' Association)

A Delivery Man

THEM

ADAM (An Antichrist)

Pepper (A Girl)

Wensleydale (A Boy)

Brian (A Boy)

Full Chorus of Tibetans, Aliens, Americans, Atlanteans and other rare and strange Creatures of the Last Days.

AND:

Dog (Satanical hellhound and cat‑worrier)

Eleven years ago

C urrent theories on the creation of the Universe state that, if it was created at all and didn't just start, as it were, unofficially, it came into being between ten and twenty thousand million years ago. By the same token the earth itself is generally supposed to be about four and a half thousand million years old.

These dates are incorrect.

Medieval Jewish scholars put the date of the Creation at 3760 B.C. Greek Orthodox theologians put Creation as far back as 5508 B.C.

These suggestions are also incorrect.

Archbishop James Usher (1580‑1656) published Annales Veteris et Novi Testamentsin 1654, which suggested that the Heaven and the Earth were created in 4004 B.C. One of his aides took the calculation further, and was able to announce triumphantly that the Earth was created on Sunday the 21st of October, 4004 B.C., at exactly 9:00 A.M., because God liked to get work done early in the morning while he was feeling fresh.

This too was incorrect. By almost a quarter of an hour.

The whole business with the fossilized dinosaur skeletons was a joke the paleontologists haven't seen yet.

This proves two things:

Firstly, that God moves in extremely mysterious, not to say, circu­itous ways. God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, ^[1]to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch‑dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.

Secondly, the Earth's a Libra.

The astrological prediction for Libra in the "Your Stars Today" column of the Tadfield Advertiser,on the day this history begins, read as follows:

LIBRA. 24 September‑23 October.

You may be feeling run down and always in the same old daily round Home and family matters are highlighted and are hanging fire. Avoid unnecessary risks. A friend is important to you. Shelve major decisions until the way ahead seems clear. You may be vulnerable to a stomach upset today, so avoid salads. Help could come from an unexpected quarter.

This was perfectly correct on every count except for the bit about the salads.

– – -

It wasn't a dark and stormy night.

It should have been, but that's the weather for you. For every mad scientist who's had a convenient thunderstorm just on the night his Great Work is finished and lying on the slab, there have been dozens who've sat around aimlessly under the peaceful stars while Igor clocks up the over­time.

But don't let the fog (with rain later, temperatures dropping to around forty‑five degrees) give anyone a false sense of security. Just be­cause it's a mild night doesn't mean that dark forces aren't abroad. They're abroad all the time. They're everywhere.

They always are. That's the whole point.

Two of them lurked in the ruined graveyard. Two shadowy figures, one hunched and squat, the other lean and menacing, both of them Olympic‑grade lurkers. If Bruce Springsteen had ever recorded "Born to Lurk," these two would have been on the album cover. They had been lurking in the fog for an hour now, but they had been pacing themselves and could lurk for the rest of the night if necessary, with still enough sullen menace left for a final burst of lurking around dawn.

Finally, after another twenty minutes, one of them said: "Bugger this for a lark. He should of been here hoursago."

The speaker's name was Hastur. He was a Duke of Hell.

– – -

Many phenomena‑wars, plagues, sudden audits‑have been ad­vanced as evidence for the hidden hand of Satan in the affairs of Man, but whenever students of demonology get together the M25 London orbital motorway is generally agreed to be among the top contenders for Exhibit A.

Where they go wrong, of course, is in assuming that the wretched road is evil simply because of the incredible carnage and frustration it engenders every day.

In fact, very few people on the face of the planet know that the very shape of the M25 forms the sigh odegrain the language of the Black Priesthood of Ancient Mu, and means "Hail the Great Beast, Devourer of Worlds." The thousands of motorists who daily fume their way around its serpentine lengths have the same effect as water on a prayer wheel, grind­ing out an endless fog of low‑grade evil to pollute the metaphysical atmo­sphere for scores of miles around.

It was one of Crowley's better achievements. It had taken yearsto achieve, and had involved three computer hacks, two break‑ins, one minor bribery and, on one wet night when all else had failed, two hours in a squelchy field shifting the marker pegs a few but occultly incredibly signifi­cant meters. When Crowley had watched the first thirty‑mile‑long tailback he'd experienced the lovely warm feeling of a bad job well done.

It had earned him a commendation.

Crowley was currently doing 110 mph somewhere east of Slough. Nothing about him looked particularly demonic, at least by classical stan­dards. No horns, no wings. Admittedly he was listening to a Best of Queentape, but no conclusions should be drawn from this because all tapes left in a car for more than about a fortnight metamorphose into Best of Queenalbums. No particularly demonic thoughts were going through his head. In fact, he was currently wondering vaguely who Moey and Chandon were.

Crowley had dark hair and good cheekbones and he was wearing snakeskin shoes, or at least presumably he was wearing shoes, and he could do really weird things with his tongue. And, whenever he forgot himself, he had a tendency to hiss.

He also didn't blink much.

The car he was driving was a 1926 black Bentley, one owner from new, and that owner had been Crowley. He'd looked after it.

The reason he was late was that he was enjoying the twentieth century immensely. It was much better than the seventeenth, and a lotbetter than the fourteenth. One of the nice things about Time, Crowley always said, was that it was steadily taking him further away from the fourteenth century, the most bloody boring hundred years on God's, ex­cuse his French, Earth. The twentieth century was anything but boring. In fact, a flashing blue light in his rearview mirror had been telling Crowley, for the last fifty seconds, that he was being followed by two men who would like to make it even more interesting for him.

He glanced at his watch, which was designed for the kind of rich deep‑sea diver who likes to know what the time is in twenty‑one world capitals while he's down there. ^[2]

The Bentley thundered up the exit ramp, took the corner on two wheels, and plunged down a leafy road. The blue light followed.

Crowley sighed, took one hand from the wheel, and, half turning, made a complicated gesture over his shoulder.

The flashing light dimmed into the distance as the police car rolled to a halt, much to the amazement of its occupants. But it would be nothing to the amazement they'd experience when they opened the hood and found out what the engine had turned into.

– – -

In the graveyard, Hastur, the tall demon, passed a dogend back to Ligur, the shorter one and the more accomplished lurker.

"I can see a light," he said. "Here he comes now, the flash bastard."

"What's that he's drivin'?" said Ligur.

"It's a car. A horseless carriage," explained Hastur. "I expect they didn't have them last time you was here. Not for what you might call general use."

"They had a man at the front with a red flag," said Ligur.

"They've come on a bit since then, I reckon."

"What's this Crowley like?" said Ligur.

Hastur spat. "He's been up here too long," he said. "Right from the Start. Gone native, if you ask me. Drives a car with a telephone in it."

Ligur pondered this. Like most demons, he had a very limited grasp of technology, and so he was just about to say something like, I bet it needs a lot of wire, when the Bentley rolled to a halt at the cemetery gate.

"And he wears sunglasses," sneered Hastur, "even when he dunt need to." He raised his voice. "All hail Satan," he said.

"All hail Satan," Ligur echoed.

"Hi," said Crowley, giving them a little wave. "Sorry I'm late, but you know how it is on the A40 at Denham, and then I tried to cut up towards Chorley Wood and then‑"

"Now we art all here," said Hastur meaningfully, "we must recount the Deeds of the Day."

"Yeah. Deeds," said Crowley, with the slightly guilty look of one who is attending church for the first time in years and has forgotten which bits you stand up for.

Hastur cleared his throat.

"I have tempted a priest," he said. "As he walked down the street and saw the pretty girls in the sun, I put Doubt into his mind. He would have been a saint, but within a decade we shall have him."

"Nice one," said Crowley, helpfully.

"I have corrupted a politician," said Ligur. "I let him think a tiny bribe would not hurt. Within a year we shall have him."

They both looked expectantly at Crowley, who gave them a big smile.

"You'll like this," he said.

His smile became even wider and more conspiratorial.

"I tied up everyportable telephone system in Central London for forty‑five minutes at lunchtime," he said.

There was silence, except for the distant swishing of cars.

"Yes?" said Hastur. "And then what?"

"Look, it wasn't easy," said Crowley.

"That's all?" said Ligur.

"Look, people‑"

"And exactly what has that done to secure souls for our master?" said Hastur.

Crowley pulled himself together.

What could he tell them? That twenty thousand people got bloody furious? That you could hear the arteries clanging shut all across the city? And that then they went back and took it out on their secretaries or traffic wardens or whatever, and theytook it out on other people? In all kinds of vindictive little ways which, and here was the good bit, they thought up themselvesFor the rest of the day. The pass‑along effects were incalcula­ble. Thousands and thousands of souls all got a faint patina of tarnish, and you hardly had to lift a finger.

But you couldn't tell that to demons like Hastur and Ligur. Four­teenth‑century minds, the lot of them. Spending years picking away at one soul. Admittedly it was craftsmanship,but you had to think differently these days. Not big, but wide. With five billion people in the world you couldn't pick the buggers off one by one any more; you had to spread your effort. But demons like Ligur and Hastur wouldn't understand. They'd never have thought up Welsh‑language television, for example. Or value­added tax. Or Manchester.

He'd been particularly pleased with Manchester.

"The Powers that Be seem to be satisfied," he said. "Times are changing. So what's up?"

Hastur reached down behind a tombstone.

"This is," he said.

Crowley stared at the basket.

"Oh," he said. "No."

"Yes," said Hastur, grinning.

"Already?"

"Yes."

"And, er, it's up to me to‑?"

"Yes." Hastur was enjoying this.

"Why me?" said Crowley desperately. "You know me, Hastur, this isn't, you know, my scene . . ."

"Oh, it is, it is," said Hastur. "Your scene. Your starring role. Take it. Times are changing."

"Yeah," said Ligur, grinning. "They're coming to an end, for a start."

"Why me?"

"You are obviously highly favored," said Hastur maliciously. "I imagine Ligur here would give his right arm for a chance like this."

"That's right," said Ligur. Someone's right arm, anyway, he thought. There were plenty of right arms around; no sense in wasting a good one.

Hastur produced a clipboard from the grubby recesses of his mack.

"Sign. Here," he said, leaving a terrible pause between the words.

Crowley fumbled vaguely in an inside pocket and produced a pen. It was sleek and matte black. It looked as though it could exceed the speed limit.

"S'nice pen," said Ligur.

"It can write under water," Crowley muttered.

"Whatever will they think of next?" mused Ligur.

"Whatever it is, they'd better think of it quickly," said Hastur. "No. Not A. J. Crowley. Your realname."

Crowley nodded mournfully, and drew a complex, wiggly sigh on the paper. It glowed redly in the gloom, just for a moment, and then faded.

"What am I supposed to do with it?" he said.

"You will receive instructions." Hastur scowled. "Why so worried, Crowley? The moment we have been working for all these centuries is at hands"

"Yeah. Right," said Crowley. He did not look, now, like the lithe figure that had sprung so lithely from the Bentley a few minutes ago. He had a hunted expression.

"Our moment of eternal triumph awaits!"

"Eternal. Yeah," said Crowley.

"And you will be a tool of that glorious destiny!"

"Tool. Yeah," muttered Crowley. He picked up the basket as if it might explode. Which, in a manner of speaking, it would shortly do.

"Er. Okay," he said. "I'll, er, be off then. Shall I? Get it over with. Not that I wantto get it over with," he added hurriedly, aware of the things that could happen if Hastur turned in an unfavorable report. "But you know me. Keen."

The senior demons did not speak.

"So I'll be popping along," Crowley babbled. "See you guys ar‑see you. Er. Great. Fine. Ciao."

As the Bentley skidded off into the darkness Ligur said, "Wossat mean?"

"It's Italian," said Hastur. "I think it means 'food'."

"Funny thing to say, then." Ligur stared at the retreating taillights. "You trust him?" he said.

"No," said Hastur.

"Right," said Ligur. It'd be a funny old world, he reflected, if demons went round trusting one another.

– – -

Crowley, somewhere west of Amersham, hurtled through the night, snatched a tape at random and tried to wrestle it out of its brittle plastic box while staying on the road. The glare of a headlight proclaimed it to be Vivaldi's Four Seasons.Soothing music, that's what he needed.

He rammed it into the Blaupunkt.

"Ohshitohshitohshit. Why now? Why me?" he muttered, as the familiar strains of Queen washed over him.

And suddenly, Freddie Mercury was speaking to him:

BECAUSE YOU'VE EARNED IT, CROWLEY

Crowley blessed under his breath. Using electronics as a means of communication had been his idea and Below had, for once, taken it up and, as usual, got it dead wrong. He'd hoped they could be persuaded to subscribe to Cellnet, but instead they just cut in to whatever it happened to be that he was listening to at the time and twisted it.

Crowley gulped.

"Thank you very much, lord," he said.

WE HAVE GREAT FAITH IN YOU, CROWLEY

"Thank you, lord."

THIS IS IMPORTANT, CROWLEY

"I know, I know."

THIS IS THE BIG ONE, CROWLEY

"Leave it to me, lord."

THAT IS WHAT WE ARE DOING, CROWLEY AND IF IT GOES WRONG, THEN THOSE INVOLVED WILL SUFFER GREATLY. EVEN YOU, CROWLEY ESPECIALLY YOU.

"Understood, lord."

HERE ARE YOUR INSTRUCTIONS, CROWLEY

And suddenly he knew. He hated that. They could just as easily have told him, they didn't suddenly have to drop chilly knowledge straight into his brain. He had to drive to a certain hospital.

"I'll be there in five minutes, lord, no problem."

GOOD. I see a little silhouetto of a man scaramouche scaramouche will you do the fandango . . .

Crowley thumped the wheel. Everything had been going so well, he'd had it really under his thumb these few centuries. That's how it goes, you think you're on top of the world, and suddenly they spring Armaged­don on you. The Great War, the Last Battle. Heaven versus Hell, three rounds, one Fall, no submission. And that'd be that. No more world. That's what the end of the world meant.No more world. Just endless Heaven or, depending who won, endless Hell. Crowley didn't know which was worse.

Well, Hellwas worse, of course, by definition. But Crowley remem­bered what Heaven was like, and it had quite a few things in common with Hell. You couldn't get a decent drink in either of them, for a start. And the boredom you got in Heaven was almost as bad as the excitement you got in Hell.

But there was no getting out of it. You couldn't be a demon and have free will.

I will not let you go (let him go) . . .

Well, at least it wouldn't be this year. He'd have time to do things. Unload long‑term stocks, for a start.

He wondered what would happen if he just stopped the car here, on this dark and damp and empty road, and took the basket and swung it round and round and let go and . . .

Something dreadful, that's what.

He'd been an angel once. He hadn't meant to Fall. He'd just hung around with the wrong people.

The Bentley plunged on through the darkness, its fuel gauge point­ing to zero. It had pointed to zero for more than sixty years now. It wasn't all bad, being a demon. You didn't have to buy petrol, for one thing. The only time Crowley had bought petrol was once in 1967, to get the free James Bond bullet‑hole‑in‑the‑windscreen transfers, which he rather fan­cied at the time.

On the back seat the thing in the basket began to cry; the air‑raid siren wail of the newly born. High. Wordless. And old.

– – -

It was quite a nice hospital, thought Mr. Young. It would have been quiet, too, if it wasn't for the nuns.

He quite liked nuns. Not that he was a, you know, left‑footer or anything like that. No, when it came to avoiding going to church, the church he stolidly avoided going to was St. Cecil and All Angels, no­nonsense C. of E., and he wouldn't have dreamed of avoiding going to any other. All the others had the wrong smell‑floor polish for the Low, some­what suspicious incense for the High. Deep in the leather armchair of his soul, Mr. Young knew that God got embarrassed at that sort of thing.

But he liked seeing nuns around, in the same way that he liked seeing the Salvation Army. It made you feel that it was all all right,that people somewhere were keeping the world on its axis.

This was his first experience of the Chattering Order of Saint Beryl, however. ^[3]

Deirdre had run across them while being involved in one of her causes, possibly the one involving lots of unpleasant South Americans fighting other unpleasant South Americans and the priests egging them on instead of getting on with proper priestly concerns, like organizing the church cleaning rota.

The point was, nuns should be quiet. They were the right shape for it, like those pointy things you got in those chambers Mr. Young was vaguely aware your hi‑fi got tested in. They shouldn't be, well, chattering all the time.

He filled his pipe with tobacco‑well, they called it tobacco, it wasn't what he thought of as tobacco, it wasn't the tobacco you used to get ‑and wondered reflectively what would happen if you asked a nun where the Gents was. Probably the Pope sent you a sharp note or something. He shifted his position awkwardly, and glanced at his watch.

One thing, though: At least the nuns had put their foot down about him being present at the birth. Deirdre had been all for it. She'd been readingthings again. One kid already and suddenly she's declaring that this confinement was going to be the most joyous and sharing experience two human beings could have. That's what came of letting her order her own newspapers. Mr. Young distrusted papers whose inner pages had names like "Lifestyle" or "Options."

Well, he hadn't got anything against joyous sharing experiences. Joyous sharing experiences were fine by him. The world probably needed more joyous sharing experiences. But he had made it abundantly clear that this was one joyous sharing experience Deirdre could have by herself.

And the nuns had agreed. They saw no reason for the father to be involved in the proceedings. When you thought about it, Mr. Young mused, they probably saw no reason why the father should be involved anywhere.

He finished thumbing the so‑called tobacco into the pipe and glared at the little sign on the wall of the waiting room that said that, for his own comfort, he would not smoke. For his own comfort, he decided, he'd go and stand in the porch. If there was a discreet shrubbery for his own comfort out there, so much the better.

He wandered down the empty corridors and found a doorway that led out onto a rain‑swept courtyard full of righteous dustbins.

He shivered, and cupped his hands to light his pipe.

It happened to them at a certain age, wives. Twenty‑five blameless years, then suddenly they were going off and doing these robotic exercises in pink socks with the feet cut out and they started blaming you for never having had to work for a living. It was hormones, or something.

A large black car skidded to a halt by the dustbins. A young man in dark glasses leaped out into the drizzle holding what looked like a carrycot and snaked toward the entrance.

Mr. Young took his pipe out of his mouth. "You've left your lights on," he said helpfully.

The man gave him the blank look of someone to whom lights are the least of his worries, and waved a hand vaguely toward the Bentley. The lights went out.

"That's handy," said Mr. Young. "Infra‑red, is it?"

He was mildly surprised to see that the man did not appear to be wet. And that the carrycot appeared to be occupied.

"Has it started yet?" said the man.

Mr. Young felt vaguely proud to be so instantly recognizable as a parent.

"Yes," he said. "They made me go out," he added thankfully.

"Already? Any idea how long we've got?"

We, Mr. Young noted. Obviously a doctor with views about co‑parenting.

"I think we were, er, getting on with it," said Mr. Young.

"What room is she in?" said the man hurriedly.

"We're in Room Three," said Mr. Young. He patted his pockets, and found the battered packet which, in accord with tradition, he had brought with him.

"Would we care to share a joyous cigar experience?" he said.

But the man had gone.

Mr. Young carefully replaced the packet and looked reflectively at his pipe. Always in a rush, these doctors. Working all the hours God sent.

– – -

There's a trick they do with one pea and three cups which is very hard to follow, and something like it, for greater stakes than a handful of loose change, is about to take place.

The text will be slowed down to allow the sleight of hand to be followed.

Mrs. Deirdre Young is giving birth in Delivery Room Three. She is having a golden‑haired male baby we will call Baby A.

The wife of the American Cultural Attaché, Mrs. Harriet bowling, is giving birth in Delivery Room Four. She is having a golden‑haired male baby we will call Baby B.

Sister Mary Loquacious has been a devout Satanist since birth. She went to Sabbat School as a child and won black stars for handwriting and liver. When she was told to join the Chattering Order she went obediently, having a natural talent in that direction and, in any case, knowing that she would be among friends. She would be quite bright, if she was ever put in a position to find out, but long ago found that being a scatterbrain, as she'd put it, gave you an easier journey through life. Currently she is being handed a golden‑haired male baby we will call the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness.

Watch carefully. Round and round they go . . . .

"Is that him?" said Sister Mary, staring at the baby. "Only I'd expected funny eyes. Red, or green. Or teensy‑weensy little hoofikins. Or a widdle tail." She turned him around as she spoke. No horns either. The Devil's child looked ominously normal.

"Yes, that's him," said Crowley.

"Fancy me holding the Antichrist," said Sister Mary. "And bath­ing the Antichrist. And counting his little toesy‑wosies . . ."

She was now addressing the child directly, lost in some world of her own. Crowley waved a hand in front of her wimple. "Hallo? Hallo? Sister Mary?"

"Sorry, sir. He is a little sweetheart, though. Does he look like his daddy? I bet he does. Does he look like his daddywaddykins . . ."

"No," said Crowley firmly. "And now I should get up to the deliv­ery rooms, if I were you."

"Will he remember me when he grows up, do you think?" said Sister Mary wistfully, sidling slowly down the corridor.

"Pray that he doesn't," said Crowley, and fled.

Sister Mary headed through the nighttime hospital with the Adver­sary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness safely in her arms. She found a bassinet and laid him down in it.

He gurgled. She gave him a tickle.

A matronly head appeared around a door. It said, "Sister Mary, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be on duty in Room Four?"

"Master Crowley said‑"

"Just glide along, there's a good nun. Have you seen the husband anywhere? He's not in the waiting room."

"I've only seen Master Crowley, and he told me‑"

"I'm sure he did," said Sister Grace Voluble firmly. "I suppose I'd better go and look for the wretched man. Come in and keep an eye on her, will you? She's a bit woozy but the baby's fine." Sister Grace paused. "Why are you winking? Is there something wrong with your eye?"

"You know!" Sister Mary hissed archly. "The babies. The ex­change‑"

"Of course, of course. In good time. But we can't have the father wandering around, can we?" said Sister Grace. "No telling what he might see. So just wait here and mind the baby, there's a dear."

She sailed off down the polished corridor. Sister Mary, wheeling her bassinet, entered the delivery room.

Mrs. Young was more than woozy. She was fast asleep, with the look of determined self‑satisfaction of someone who knows that other peo­ple are going to have to do the running around for once. Baby A was asleep beside her, weighed and nametagged. Sister Mary, who had been brought up to be helpful, removed the nametag, copied it out, and Attachéd the duplicate to the baby in her care.

The babies looked similar, both being small, blotchy, and looking sort of, though not really, like Winston Churchill.

Now, thought Sister Mary, I could do with a nice cup of tea.

Most of the members of the convent were old‑fashioned Satanists, like their parents and grandparents before them. They'd been brought up to it and weren't, when you got right down to it, particularly evil. Human beings mostly aren't. They just get carried away by new ideas, like dressing up in jackboots and shooting people, or dressing up in white sheets and lynching people, or dressing up in tie‑dye jeans and playing guitars at people. Offer peoplea new creed with a costume and their hearts and minds will follow. Anyway, being brought up as a Satanist tended to take the edge off it. It was something you did on Saturday nights. And the rest of the time you simply got on with life as best you could, just like everyone else. Besides, Sister Mary was a nurse and nurses, whatever their creed, are primarily nurses, which had a lot to do with wearing your watch upside down, keeping calm in emergencies, and dying for a cup of tea. She hoped someone would come soon; she'd done the important bit, now she wanted her tea.

It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamen­tally people.

There was a knock at the door. She opened it.

"Has it happened yet?" asked Mr. Young. "I'm the father. The husband. Whatever. Both."

Sister Mary had expected the American Cultural Attaché to look like Blake Carrington or J. R. Ewing. Mr. Young didn't look like any American she'd ever seen on television, except possibly for the avuncular sheriff in the better class of murder mystery. ^[4]He was something of a disappointment. She didn't think much of his cardigan, either.

She swallowed her disappointment. "Oooh, yes," she said. "Con­gratulations. Your lady wife's asleep, poor pet."

Mr. Young looked over her shoulder. "Twins?" he said. He reached for his pipe. He stopped reaching for his pipe. He reached for it again. "Twins? No one said anything about twins."

"Oh, not" said Sister Mary hurriedly. "This one's yours. The other one's . . . er . . . someone else's. Just looking after him till Sister Grace gets back. No," she reiterated, pointing to the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Dark­ness, "this one's definitely yours. From the top of his head to the tips of his hoofywoofies‑which he hasn't got," she added hastily.

Mr. Young peered down.

"Ah, yes," he said doubtfully. "He looks like my side of the family. All, er, present and correct, is he?"

"Oh, yes," said Sister Mary. "He's a very normal child," she added. "Very, very normal."

There was a pause. They stared at the sleeping baby.

"You don't have much of an accent," said Sister Mary. "Have you been over here long?"

"About ten years," said Mr. Young, mildly puzzled. "The job moved, you see, and I had to move with it."

"It must be a very exciting job, I've always thought," said Sister Mary. Mr. Young looked gratified. Not everyone appreciated the more stimulating aspects of cost accountancy.

"I expect it was very different where you were before," Sister Mary went on.

"I suppose so," said Mr. Young, who'd never really thought about it. Luton, as far as he could remember, was pretty much like Tadfield. The same sort of hedges between your house and the railway station. The same sort of people.

"Taller buildings, for one thing," said Sister Mary, desperately.

Mr. Young stared at her. The only one he could think of was the Alliance and Leicester offices.

"And I expect you go to a lot of garden parties," said the nun.

Ah. He was on firmer ground here. Deirdre was very keen on that sort of thing.

"Lots," he said, with feeling. "Deirdre makes jam for them, you know. And I normally have to help with the White Elephant."

This was an aspect of Buckingham Palace society that had never occurred to Sister Mary, although the pachyderm fitted right in.

"I expect they're the tribute," she said. "I read where these foreign potentates give her all sorts of things."

"I'm sorry?"

"I'm a big fan of the Royal Family, you know."

"Oh, so am I," said Mr. Young, leaping gratefully onto this new ice floe in the bewildering stream of consciousness. Yes, you knew where you were with the Royals. The proper ones, of course, who pulled their weight in the hand‑waving and bridge‑opening department. Not the ones who went to discos all night long and were sick all over the paparazzi. ^[5]

"That's nice," said Sister Mary. "I thought you people weren't too keen on them, what with revoluting and throwing all those tea‑sets into the river."

She chattered on, encouraged by the Order's instruction that mem­bers should always say what was on their minds. Mr. Young was out of his depth, and too tired now to worry about it very much. The religious life probably made people a little odd. He wished Mrs. Young would wake up. Then one of the words in Sister Mary's wittering struck a hopeful chord in his mind.

"Would there be any possibility of me possibly being able to have a cup of tea, perhaps?" he ventured.

"Oh my," said Sister Mary, her hand flying to her mouth, "what­ever am I thinking of?"

Mr. Young made no comment.

"I'll see to it right away," she said. "Are you sure you don't want coffee, though? There's one of those vendible machines on the next floor."

"Tea, please," said Mr. Young.

"My word, you really havegone native, haven't you," said Sister Mary gaily, as she bustled out.

Mr. Young, left alone with one sleeping wife and two sleeping ba­bies, sagged onto a chair. Yes, it must be all that getting up early and kneeling and so on. Good people, of course, but not entirely compost mentis. He'd seen a Ken Russell film once. There had been nuns in it. There didn't seem to be any of that sort of thing going on, but no smoke without fire and so on . . .

He sighed.

It was then that Baby A awoke, and settled down to a really good wail.

Mr. Young hadn't had to quiet a screaming baby for years. He'd never been much good at it to start with. He'd always respected Sir Win­ston Churchill, and patting small versions of him on the bottom had al­ways seemed ungracious.

"Welcome to the world," he said wearily. "You get used to it after a while."

The baby shut its mouth and glared at him as if he were a recalci­trant general.

Sister Mary chose that moment to come in with the tea. Satanist or not, she'd also found a plate and arranged some iced biscuits on it. They were the sort you only ever get at the bottom of certain teatime assort­ments. Mr. Young's was the same pink as a surgical appliance, and had a snowman picked out on it in white icing.

"I don't expect you normally have these," she said. "They're what you call cookies. We call them biscults."

Mr. Young had just opened his mouth to explain that, yes, so did he, and so did people even in Luton, when another nun rushed in, breath­less.

She looked at Sister Mary, realized that Mr. Young had never seen the inside of a pentagram, and confined herself to pointing at Baby A and winking.

Sister Mary nodded and winked back.

The nun wheeled the baby out.

As methods of human communication go, a wink is quite versatile. You can say a lot with a wink. For example, the new nun's wink said:

Where the Hell have you been? Baby B has been born, we're ready to make the switch, and here's you in the wrong room with the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit. Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness, drinking tea. Do you realize I've nearly been shot?

And, as far as she was concerned, Sister Mary's answering wink meant:

Here's the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness, and I can't talk now because there's this outsider here.

Whereas Sister Mary, on the other hand, had thought that the orderly's wink was more on the lines of:

Well done, Sister Mary‑switched over the babies all by herself. Now indicate to me the superfluous child and I shall remove it and let you get on with your tea with his Royal Excellency the American Culture.

And therefore her own wink had meant:

There you go, dearie; that's Baby B, now take him away and leave me to chat to his Excellency. I've always wanted to ask him why they have those tall buildings with all the mirrors on them,

The subtleties of all this were quite lost on Mr. Young, who was extremely embarrassed at all this clandestine affection and was thinking: That Mr. Russell, he knew what he was talking about, and no mistake.

Sister Mary's error might have been noticed by the other nun had not she herself been severely rattled by the Secret Service men in Mrs. Dowling's room, who kept looking at her with growing unease. This was because they had been trained to react in a certain way to people in long flowing robes and long flowing headdresses, and were currently suffering from a conflict of signals. Humans suffering from a conflict of signals aren't the best people to be holding guns, especially when they've just witnessed a natural childbirth, which definitely looked an un‑American way of bringing new citizens into the world. Also, they'd heard that there were missals in the building.

Mrs. Young stirred.

"Have you picked a name for him yet?" said Sister Mary archly.

"Hmm?" said Mr. Young. "Oh. No, not really. If it was a girl it would have been Lucinda after my mother. Or Germaine. That was Deir­dre's choice."

"Wormwood's a nice name," said the nun, remembering her clas­sics. "Or Damien. Damien's very popular."

* * * * *

A nathema Device ‑ her mother, who was not a great stu­dent of religious matters, happened to read the word one day and thought it was a lovely name for a girl‑was eight and a half years old, and she was reading The Book, under the bedclothes, with a torch.

Other children learned to read on basic primers with colored pic­tures of apples, balls, cockroaches, and so forth. Not the Device family. Anathema had learned to read from The Book.

It didn't have any apples and balls in it. It did have a rather good eighteenth‑century woodcut of Agnes Nutter being burned at the stake and looking rather cheerful about it.

The first word she could recognize was nice. Very few people at the age of eight and a half know that nicealso means "scrupulously exact," but Anathema was one of them.

The second word was accurate.

The first sentence she had ever read out loud was:

"I tell ye thif, and I charge ye with my wordes. Four shalle ryde, and Four shalle alfo ryde, and Three sharl ryde the Skye as twixt, and Wonne shal ryde in flames; and theyr shall be no stopping themme: not fish, nor rayne, nor rode, neither Deville nor Angel. And ye shalle be theyr alfo, Anathema."

Anathema liked to read about herself.

(There were books which caring parents who read the right Sunday papers could purchase with their children's names printed in as the hero­ine or hero. This was meant to interest the child in the book. In Anathe­ma's case, it wasn't only herin The Book‑and it had been spot on so far ‑but her parents, and her grandparents, and everyone, back to the seven­teenth century. She was too young and too self‑centered at this point to attach any importance to the fact that there was no mention made of her children, or indeed, any events in her future further away than eleven years' time. When you're eight and a half, eleven years is a lifetime, and of course, if you believed The Book, it would be.)

She was a bright child, with a pale face, and black eyes and hair. As a rule she tended to make people feel uncomfortable, a family trait she had inherited, along with being more psychic than was good for her, from her great‑great‑great‑great‑great grandmother.

She was precocious, and self‑possessed. The only thing about Anathema her teachers ever had the nerve to upbraid her for was her spelling, which was not so much appalling as 300 years too late.

– – -

The nuns took Baby A and swapped it with Baby B under the noses of the Attachés wife and the Secret Service men, by the cunning expedient of wheeling one baby away ("to be weighed, love, got to do that, it's the law") and wheeling another baby back, a little later.

The Cultural Attaché himself, Thaddeus J. Dowling, had been called back to Washington in a hurry a few days earlier, but he had been on the phone to Mrs. Dowling throughout the birth experience, helping her with her breathing.

It didn't help that he had been talking on the other line to his investment counselor. At one point he'd been forced to put her on hold for twenty minutes.

But that was okay.

Having a baby is the single most joyous co‑experience that two human beings can share, and he wasn't going to miss a second of it.

He'd got one of the Secret Service men to videotape it for him.

– – -

Evil in general does not sleep, and therefore doesn't see why anyone else should. But Crowley liked sleep, it was one of the pleasures of the world. Especially after a heavy meal. He'd slept right through most of the nineteenth century, for example. Not because he needed to, simply because he enjoyed it. ^[6]

One of the pleasures of the world. Well, he'd better start really enjoying them now, while there was still time.

The Bentley roared through the night, heading east.

Of course, he was all in favor of Armageddon in generalterms. If anyone had asked him why he'd been spending centuries tinkering in the affairs of mankind he'd have said, "Oh, in order to bring about Armaged­don and the triumph of Hell." But it was one thing to work to bring it about, and quite another for it to actually happen.

Crowley had always known that he would be around when the world ended, because he was immortal and wouldn't have any alternative. But he'd hoped it would be a long way off.

Because he rather liked people. It was a major failing in a demon.

Oh, he did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves. They seemed to have a talent for it. It was built into the design, somehow. They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse. Over the years Crowley had found it increasingly difficult to find anything demonic to do which showed up against the natural back­ground of generalized nastiness. There had been times, over the past mil­lennium, when he'd felt like sending a message back Below saying, Look, we may as well give up right now, we might as well shut down Dis and Pandemonium and everywhere and move up here, there's nothing we can do to them that they don't do themselves and they do things we've never even thought of, often involving electrodes. They've got what we lack. They've got imagination.And electricity, of course.

One of them had written it, hadn't he . . . "Hell is empty, and all the devils are here."

Crowley had got a commendation for the Spanish Inquisition. He hadbeen in Spain then, mainly hanging around cantinas in the nicer parts, and hadn't even known about it until the commendation arrived. He'd gone to have a look, and had come back and got drunk for a week.

That Hieronymous Bosch. What a weirdo.

And just when you'd think they were more malignant than ever Hell could be, they could occasionally show more grace than Heaven ever dreamed of. Often the same individual was involved. It was this free‑will thing, of course. It was a bugger.

Aziraphale had tried to explain it to him once. The whole point, he'd said‑this was somewhere around 1020, when they'd first reached their little Arrangement‑the whole point was that when a human was good or bad it was because they wanted to be. Whereas people like Crow­ley and, of course, himself, were set in their ways right from the start. People couldn't become truly holy, he said, unless they also had the oppor­tunity to be definitively wicked.

Crowley had thought about this for some time and, around about 1023, had said, Hang on, that only works, right, if you start everyone off equal, okay? You can't start someone off in a muddy shack in the middle of a war zone and expect them to do as well as someone born in a ‑castle.

Ah, Aziraphale had said, that's the good bit. The lower you start, the more opportunities you have.

Crowley had said, That's lunatic.

No, said Aziraphale, it's ineffable.

Aziraphale. The Enemy, of course. But an enemy for six thousand years now, which made him a sort of friend.

Crowley reached down and picked up the car phone.

Being a demon, of course, was supposed to mean you had no free will. But you couldn't hang around humans for very long without learning a thing or two.

– – -

Mr. Young had not been too keen on Damien, or Wormwood. Or any of Sister Mary Loquacious' other suggestions, which had covered half of Hell, and most of the Golden Years of Hollywood.

"Well," she said finally, a little hurt, "I don't think there's anything wrong with Errol. Or Cary. Very nice American names, both of them."

"I had fancied something more, well, traditional," explained Mr. Young. "We've always gone in for good simple names in our family."

Sister Mary beamed. "That's right. The old names are always the best, if you ask me."

"A decent English name, like people had in the Bible," said Mr. Young. "Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John," he said, speculatively. Sister Mary winced. "Only they've never struck me as very good Bible names, really," Mr. Young added. "They sound more like cowboys and footbal­lers."

"Saul's nice," said Sister Mary, making the best of it.

"I don't want something too old‑fashioned," said Mr. Young.

"Or Cain. Very modern sound, Cain, really," Sister Mary tried.

"Hmm." Mr. Young looked doubtful.

"Or there's always . . . well, there's always Adam," said Sister Mary. That should be safe enough, she thought.

"Adam?" said Mr. Young.

– – -

It would be nice to think that the Satanist Nuns had the surplus baby‑Baby B‑discreetly adopted. That he grew to be a normal, happy, laughing child, active and exuberant; and after that, grew further to be­come a normal, fairly contented adult.

And perhaps that's what happened.

Let your mind dwell on his junior school prize for spelling; his unremarkable although quite pleasant time at university; his job in the payroll department of the Tadfield and Norton Building Society; his lovely wife. Possibly you would like to imagine some children, and a hobby­–restoring vintage motorcycles, perhaps, or breeding tropical fish.

You don't want to know what could have happened to Baby B.

We like your version better, anyway.

He probably wins prizes for his tropical fish.

– – -

In a small house in Dorking, Surrey, a light was on in a bedroom window.

Newton Pulsifer was twelve, and thin, and bespectacled, and he should have been in bed hours ago.

His mother, though, was convinced of her child's genius, and let him stay up past his bedtime to do his "experiments."

His current experiment was changing a plug on an ancient Bakelite radio his mother had given him to play with. He sat at what he proudly called his "work‑top," a battered old table covered in curls of wire, batter­ies, little light bulbs, and a homemade crystal set that had never worked.

He hadn't managed to get the Bakelite radio working yet either, but then again, he never seemed able to get that far.

Three slightly crooked model airplanes hung on cotton cords from his bedroom ceiling. Even a casual observer could have seen that they were made by someone who was both painstaking and very careful, and also no good at making model airplanes. He was hopelessly proud of all of them, even the Spitfire, where he'd made rather a mess of the wings.

He pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, squinted down at the plug, and put down the screwdriver.

He had high hopes for it this time; he had followed all the instruc­tions on plug‑changing on page five of the Boy's Own Book of Practical Electronics, Including A Hundred and One Safe and Educational Things to Do With Electricity.He had Attachéd the correct color‑coded wires to the correct pins; he'd checked that it was the right amperage fuse; he'd screwed it all back together. So far, no problems.

He plugged it in to the socket. Then he switched the socket on.

Every light in the house went out.

Newton beamed with pride. He was getting better. Last time he'd done it he'd blacked out the whole of Dorking, and a man from the Elec­tric had come over and had a word with his mum.

He had a burning and totally unrequited passion for things electri­cal. They had a computer at school, and half a dozen studious children stayed on after school doing things with punched cards. When the teacher in charge of the computer had finally acceded to Newton's pleas to be allowed to join them, Newton had only ever got to feed one little card into the machine. It had chewed it up and choked fatally on it.

Newton was certain that the future was in computers, and when the future arrived he'd be ready, in the forefront of the new technology.

The future had its own ideas on this. It was all in The Book.

– – -

Adam, thought Mr. Young. He tried saying it, to see how it sounded. "Adam." Hmm . . .

He stared down at the golden curls of the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Dark­ness.

"You know," he concluded, after a while, "I think he actually looks like an Adam."

– – -

It had not been a dark and stormy night.

The dark and stormy night occurred two days later, about four hours after both Mrs. Dowling and Mrs. Young and their respective babies had left the building. It was a particularly dark and stormy night, and just after midnight, as the storm reached its height, a bolt of lightning struck the Convent of the Chattering Order, setting fire to the roof of the vestry.

No one was badly hurt by the fire, but it went on for some hours, doing a fair amount of damage in the process.

The instigator of the fire lurked on a nearby hilltop and watched the blaze. He was tall, thin, and a Duke of Hell. It was the last thing that needed to be done before his return to the nether regions, and he had done it.

He could safely leave the rest to Crowley.

Hastur went home.

– – -

Technically Aziraphale was a Principality, but people made jokes about that these days.

On the whole, neither he nor Crowley would have chosen each other's company, but they were both men, or at least men‑shaped crea­tures, of the world, and the Arrangement had worked to their advantage all this time. Besides, you grew accustomed to the only other face that had been around more or less consistently for six millennia.

The Arrangement was very simple, so simple in fact that it didn't really deserve the capital letter, which it had got for simply being in exis­tence for so long. It was the sort of sensible arrangement that many iso­lated agents, working in awkward conditions a long way from their superi­ors, reach with their opposite number when they realize that they have more in common with their immediate opponents than their remote allies. It meant a tacit non‑interference in certain of each other's activities. It made certain that while neither really won, also neither really lost, and both were able to demonstrate to their masters the great strides they were making against a cunning and well‑informed adversary.

It meant that Crowley had been allowed to develop Manchester, while Aziraphale had a free hand in the whole of Shropshire. Crowley took Glasgow, Aziraphale had Edinburgh (neither claimed any responsibility for Milton Keynes, ^[7]but both reported it as a success).

And then, of course, it had seemed even natural that they should, as it were, hold the fort for one another whenever common sense dictated. Both were of angel stock, after all. If one was going to Hull for a quick temptation, it made sense to nip across the city and carry out a standard brief moment of divine ecstasy. It'd get done anyway,and being sensible about it gave everyone more free time and cut down on expenses.

Aziraphale felt the occasional pang of guilt about this, but centuries of association with humanity was having the same effect on him as it was on Crowley, except in the other direction.

Besides, the Authorities didn't seem to care much who did any­thing, so long as it got done.

Currently, what Aziraphale was doing was standing with Crowley by the duck pond in St. James' Park. They were feeding the ducks.

The ducks in St. James' Park are so used to being fed bread by secret agents meeting clandestinely that they have developed their own Pavlovian reaction. Put a St. James' Park duck in a laboratory cage and show it a picture of two men‑one usually wearing a coat with a fur collar, the other something somber with a scarf‑and it'll look up expectantly. The Russian cultural Attachés black bread is particularly sought after by the more discerning duck, while the head of M19's soggy Hovis with Marmite is relished by the connoisseurs.

Aziraphale tossed a crust to a scruffy‑looking drake, which caught it and sank immediately.

The angel turned to Crowley.

"Really, my dear," he murmured.

"Sorry," said Crowley. "I was forgetting myself." The duck bobbed angrily to the surface.

"Of course, we knew something was going on," Aziraphale said. "But one somehow imagines this sort of thing happening in America. They go in for that sort of thing over there."

"It might yet do, at that," said Crowley gloomily. He gazed thoughtfully across the park to the Bentley, the back wheel of which was being industriously clamped.

"Oh, yes. The American diplomat," said the angel. "Rather showy, one feels. As if Armageddon was some sort of cinematographic show that you wish to sell in as many countries as possible."

"Every country," said Crowley. "The Earth and all the kingdoms thereof."

Aziraphale tossed the last scrap of bread at the ducks, who went off to pester the Bulgarian naval Attaché and a furtive‑looking man in a Cam­bridge tie, and carefully disposed of the paper bag in a wastepaper bin.

He turned and faced Crowley.

"We'll win, of course," he said.

"You don't want that," said the demon.

"Why not, pray?"

"Listen," said Crowley desperately, "how many musicians do you think your side have got, eh? First grade, I mean."

Aziraphale looked taken aback.

"Well, I should think‑" he began.

"Two," said Crowley. "Elgar and Liszt. That's all.We've got the rest. Beethoven, Brahms, all the Bachs, Mozart, the lot. Can you imagine eternity with Elgar?"

Aziraphale shut his eyes. "All too easily," he groaned.

"That's it, then," said Crowley, with a gleam of triumph. He knew Aziraphale's weak spot all right. "No more compact discs. No more Al­bert Hall. No more Proms. No more Glyndbourne. Just celestial harmo­nies all day long."

"Ineffable," Aziraphale murmured.

"Like eggs without salt, you said. Which reminds me. No salt, no eggs. No gravlax with dill sauce. No fascinating little restaurants where they know you. No Daily Telegraphcrossword. No small antique shops. No bookshops, either. No interesting old editions. No"‑Crowley scraped the bottom of Aziraphale's barrel of interests‑"Regency silver snuff­boxes . . ."

"But after we win life will be better!" croaked the angel.

"But it won't be as interesting. Look, you knowI'm right. You'd be as happy with a harp as I'd be with a pitchfork."

"You know we don't play harps."

"And we don't use pitchforks. I was being rhetorical."

They stared at one another.

Aziraphale spread his elegantly manicured hands.

"My people are more than happy for it to happen, you know. It's what it's all about, you see. The great final test. Flaming swords, the Four Horsemen, seas of blood, the whole tedious business." He shrugged.

"And then Game Over, Insert Coin?" said Crowley.

"Sometimes I find your methods of expression a little difficult to follow."

"I like the seas as they are. It doesn't have to happen. You don't have to test everything to destruction just to see if you made it right."

Aziraphale shrugged again.

"That's ineffable wisdom for you, I'm afraid." The angel shud­dered, and pulled his coat around him. Gray clouds were piling up over the city.

"Let's go somewhere warm," he said.

"You're asking me?" said Crowley glumly.

They walked in somber silence for a while.

"It's not that I disagree with you," said the angel, as they plodded across the grass. "It's just that I'm not allowed to disobey. You know that."

"Me too," said Crowley.

Aziraphale gave him a sidelong glance. "Oh, come now," he said, "you're a demon, after all."

"Yeah. But my people are only in favor of disobedience in general terms. It's specificdisobedience they come down on heavily."

"Such as disobedience to themselves?"

"You've got it. You'd be amazed. Or perhaps you wouldn't be. How long do you think we've got?" Crowley waved a hand at the Bentley, which unlocked its doors.

"The prophecies differ," said Aziraphale, sliding into the passenger seat. "Certainly until the end of the century, although we may expect certain phenomena before then. Most of the prophets of the past millen­nium were more concerned with scansion than accuracy."

Crowley pointed to the ignition key. It turned.

"What?" he said.

"You know," said the angel helpfully, " 'And thee Worlde Unto An Ende Shall Come, in tumpty‑tumpty‑tumpty One.' Or Two, or Three, or whatever. There aren't many good rhymes for Six, so it's probably a good year to be in."

"And what sort of phenomena?"

"Two‑headed calves, signs in the sky, geese flying backwards, showers of fish. That sort of thing. The presence of the Antichrist affects the natural operation of causality."

"Hmm."

Crowley put the Bentley in gear. Then he remembered something. He snapped his fingers.

The wheel clamps disappeared.

"Let's have lunch," he said. "I owe you one from, when was it . . . "

"Paris, 1793," said Aziraphale.

"Oh, yes. The Reign of Terror. Was that one of yours, or one of ours?"

"Wasn't it yours?"

"Can't recall. It was quite a good restaurant, though."

As they drove past an astonished traffic warden his notebook spon­taneously combusted, to Crowley's amazement.

"I'm pretty certain I didn't mean to do that," he said.

Aziraphale blushed.

"That was me," he said. "I had always thought that yourpeople invented them."

"Did you? We thought they were yours."

Crowley stared at the smoke in the rearview mirror.

"Come on," he said. "Let's do the Ritz."

Crowley had not bothered to book. In his world, table reservations were things that happened to other people.

- – -

Aziraphale collected books. If he were totally honest with himself he would have to have admitted that his bookshop was simply somewhere to store them. He was not unusual in this. In order to maintain his cover as a typical second‑hand book seller, he used every means short of actual physical violence to prevent customers from making a purchase. Unpleas­ant damp smells, glowering looks, erratic opening hours‑he was incredi­bly good at it.

He had been collecting for a long time, and, like all collectors, he specialized.

He had more than sixty books of predictions concerning develop­ments in the last handful of centuries of the second millennium. He had a penchant for Wilde first editions. And he had a complete set of the Infa­mous Bibles, individually named from error's in typesetting.

These Bibles included the Unrzghteous Bible, so called from a printer's error which caused it to proclaim, in I Corinthians, "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit the Kingdom of God?"; and the Wicked Bible, printed by Barker and Lucas in 1632, in which the word notwas omitted from the seventh commandment:, making it "Thou shaft com­mit Adultery." There were the Discharge bible, the Treacle Bible, the Standing Fishes Bible, the Charing Cross Bible and the rest. Aziraphale had them all. Even the very rarest, a Bible published in 1651 by the Lon­don publishing firm of Bilton and Scaggs.

It had been the first of their three great publishing disasters.

The book was commonly known as the Buggre Alle This Bible. The lengthy compositor's error, if such it may be called, occurs in the book of Ezekiel, chapter 48, verse five.

2. And bye the border of Dan, from rne the east side to the west side, a portion for Afher.

3. And bye the border of Afher, fromme the east side even untoe the west side, a portion for Naphtali.

4. And bye the border of Naphtali from the east side un­toe the west side, a portion for Manaff 'eh.

5. Buggre Alle this for a Larke 1 amme sick to mye Hart of typefettinge. Master Biltonn if no Gentelmann, and Master Scagges noe more than a tighte fisted Southwarke Knobbefticke. I telle you, onne a daye laike thif Ennywone withe half an oz of Sense shoulde bee oute in the Sun­neshain, ane nott Stucke here alle the liuelong dale inn thif mowldey olde By‑Our‑Lady Workefhoppe -

FUCK IT !!!

6. And bye the border of Ephraim, from the east fide even untoe the west fide, a portion for Reuben ^[8].

Bilton and Scaggs' second great publishing disaster occurred in 1653.By a stroke of rare good fortune they had obtained one of the famed

"Lost Quartos"‑the three Shakespeare plays never reissued in folio edi­tion, and now totally lost to scholars and playgoers. Only their names have come down to us. This one was Shakespeare's earliest play, The Comedie of Robin Hoode, or, The Forest of Sherwoode. ^[9]

Master Bilton had paid almost six guineas for the quarto, and be­lieved he could make nearly twice that much back on the hardcover folio alone.

Then he lost it.

Bilton and Scaggs' third great publishing disaster was never en­tirely comprehensible to either of them. Everywhere you looked, books of prophecy were selling like crazy. The English edition of Nostradamus' Centurieshad just gone into its third printing, and five Nostradamuses, all claiming to be the only genuine one, were on triumphant signing tours. And Mother Shipton's Collection of Prophecieswas sprinting out of the shops.

Each of the great London publishers‑there were eight of them­had at least one Book of Prophecy on its list. Every single one of the books was wildly inaccurate, but their air of vague and generalized omnipotence made them immensely popular. They sold in the thousands, and in the tens of thousands.

"It is a licence to printe monney!" said Master Bilton to Master Scaggs. ^[10]"The public are crying out for such rubbishe! We must straight­way printe a booke of prophecie by some hagge!"

The manuscript arrived at their door the next morning; the au­thor's sense of timing, as always, was exact.

Although neither Master Bilton nor Master Scaggs realized it, the manuscript they had been sent was the sole prophetic work in all of human history to consist entirely of completely correct predictions concerning the following three hundred and forty‑odd years, being a precise and accurate description of the events that would culminate in Armageddon. It was on the money in every single detail.

It was published by Bilton and Scaggs in September 1655,in good time for the Christmas trade, ^[11]and it was the first book printed in En­gland to be remaindered.

It didn't sell.

Not even the copy in the tiny Lancashire shop with "Locale Au­thor" on a piece of cardboard next to it.

The author of the book, one Agnes Nutter, was not surprised by this, but then, it would have taken an awful lot to surprise Agnes Nutter.

Anyway, she had not written it for the sales, or the royalties, or even for the fame. She had written it for the single gratis copy of the book that an author was entitled to.

No one knows what happened to the legions of unsold copies of her book. Certainly none remain in any museums or private collections. Even Aziraphale does not possess a copy, but would go weak at the knees at the thought of actually getting his exquisitely manicured hands on one.

In fact, only one copy of Agnes Nutter's prophecies remained in the entire world.

It was on a bookshelf about forty miles away from where Crowley and Aziraphale were enjoying a rather good lunch and, metaphorically, it had just begun to tick.

– – -

And now it was three o'clock. The Antichrist had been on Earth for fifteen hours, and one angel and one demon had been drinking solidly for three of them.

They sat opposite one another in the back room of Aziraphale's dingy old bookshop in Soho.

Most bookshops in Soho have back rooms, and most of the back rooms are filled with rare, or at least very expensive, books. But Aziraphale's books didn't have illustrations. They had old brown covers and crackling pages. Occasionally, if he had no alternative, he'd sell one.

And, occasionally, serious men in dark suits would come calling and suggest, very politely, that perhaps he'd like to sell the shop itself so that it could be turned into the kind of retail outlet more suited to the area. Sometimes they'd offer cash, in large rolls of grubby fifty‑pound notes. Or, sometimes, while they were talking, other men in dark glasses would wander around the shop shaking their heads and saying how inflammable paper was, and what a fire trap he had here.

And Aziraphale would nod and smile and say that he'd think about it. And then they'd go away. And they'd never come back

Just because you're an angel doesn't mean you have to be a fool.

The table in front of the two of them was covered with bottles.

"The point is," said Crowley, "the point is. The point is." He tried to focus on Aziraphale.

"The point is," he said, and tried to think of a point.

"The point I'm trying to make," he said, brightening, "is the dol­phins. That's my point."

"Kind of fish," said Aziraphale.

"Nononono," said Crowley, shaking a finger. "'S mammal. Your actual mammal. Difference is‑" Crowley waded through the swamp of his mind and tried to remember the difference. "Difference is, they‑"

"Mate out of water?" volunteered Aziraphale.

Crowley's brow furrowed. "Don't think so. Pretty sure that's not it. Something about their young. Whatever." He pulled himself together. "The point is. The point is.Their brains."

He reached for a bottle.

"What about their brains?" said the angel.

"Big brains. That's my point. Size of. Size of. Size of damn big brains. And then there's the whales. Brain city, take it from me. Whole damn sea full of brains."

"Kraken," said Aziraphale, staring moodily into his glass.

Crowley gave him the long cool look of someone who has just had a girder dropped in front of his train of thought.

"Uh?"

"Great big bugger," said Aziraphale. "Sleepeth beneath the thunders of the upper deep. Under loads of huge and unnumbered polypol‑polipo‑bloody great seaweeds, you know. Supposed to rise to the sur­face right at the end, when the sea boils."

"Yeah?"

"Fact."

"There you are, then," said Crowley, sitting back. "Whole sea bub­bling, poor old dolphins so much seafood gumbo, no one giving a damn. Same with gorillas. Whoops, they say, sky gone all red, stars crashing to ground, what they putting in the bananas these days? And then‑"

"They make nests, you know, gorillas," said the angel, pouring another drink and managing to hit the glass on the third go.

"Nah."

"God's truth. Saw a film. Nests."

"That's birds," said Crowley.

"Nests," insisted Aziraphale.

Crowley decided not to argue the point.

"There you are then," he said. "All creatures great and smoke. I mean small. Great and small. Lot of them with brains. And then, bazamm."

"But you're part of it," said Aziraphale. "You tempt people. You're good at it."

Crowley thumped his glass on the table. "That's different. They don't have to say yes. That the ineffable bit, right? Your side made it up. You've got to keep testing people. But not to destruction."

"All right. All right. I don't like it any more than you, but I told you. I can't disod‑disoy‑not do what I'm told. 'M a'nangel."

"There's no theaters in Heaven," said Crowley. "And very few films."

"Don't you try to tempt me, " saidAziraphale wretchedly. "I know you, you old serpent."

"Just you think about it," said Crowley relentlessly. "You know what eternity is? You know what eternity is? I mean, d'you know what eternity is? There's this big mountain, see, a mile high, at the end of the universe, and once every thousand years there's this little bird‑"

"What little bird?" said Aziraphale suspiciously.

"This little bird I'm talking about. And every thousand years‑"

"The same bird every thousand years?"

Crowley hesitated. "Yeah," he said.

"Bloody ancient bird, then."

"Okay. And every thousand years this bird flies‑"

"‑limps‑"

"flies all the way to this mountain and sharpens its beak‑"

"Hold on. You can't do that. Between here and the end of the universe there's loads of‑" The angel waved a hand expansively, if a little unsteadily. "Loads of buggerall, dear boy."

"But it gets there anyway," Crowley persevered.

"How?"

"It doesn't matter!"

"It could use a space ship," said the angel.

Crowley subsided a bit. "Yeah," he said. "If you like. Anyway, this bird‑"

"Only it is the endof the universe we're talking about," said Aziraphale. "So it'd have to be one of those space ships where your de­scendants are the ones who get out at the other end. You have to tell your descendants, you say, When you get to the Mountain, you've got to‑" He hesitated. "What have they got to do?"

"Sharpen its beak on the mountain," said Crowley. "And then it flies back‑"

"‑in the space ship‑"

"And after a thousand years it goes and does it all again," said Crowley quickly.

There was a moment of drunken silence,

"Seems a lot of effort just to sharpen a beak," mused Aziraphale.

"Listen," said Crowley urgently, "the point is that when the bird has worn the mountain down to nothing, right, then‑"

Aziraphale opened his mouth. Crowley just knewhe was going to make some point about the relative hardness of birds' beaks and granite mountains, and plunged on quickly.

"‑then you still won't have finished watchingThe Sound of Music."

Aziraphale froze.

"And you'll enjoyit," Crowley said relentlessly. "You really will."

"My dear boy‑"

"You won't have a choice."

"Listen"

"Heaven has no taste."

"Now‑"

"And not one single sushi restaurant."

A look of pain crossed the angel's suddenly very serious face.

"I can't cope with this while 'm drunk," he said. "I'm going to sober up."

"Me too."

They both winced as the alcohol left their bloodstreams, and sat up a bit more neatly. Aziraphale straightened his tie.

"I can't interfere with divine plans," he croaked.

Crowley looked speculatively into his glass, and then filled it again. "What about diabolical ones?" he said.

"Pardon?"

"Well, it's got to be a diabolical plan, hasn't it? We're doing it. My side."

"Ah, but it's all part of the overall divineplan," said Aziraphale. "Your side can't do anything without it being part of the ineffable divine plan," he added, with a trace of smugness.

"You wish!"

"No, that's the‑" Aziraphale snapped his finger irritably. "The thing. What d'you call it in your colorful idiom? The line at the bottom."

"The bottom line."

"Yes. It's that."

"Well . . . if you're sure . . ." said Crowley.

"No doubt about it."

Crowley looked up slyly.

"Then you can't be certain, correct me if I'm wrong, you can't be certain that thwarting it isn't part of the divine plan too. I mean, you're supposed to thwart the wiles of the Evil One at every turn, aren't you?"

Aziraphale hesitated.

"There is that, yes."

"You see a wile, you thwart. Am I right?"

"Broadly, broadly. Actually I encourage humans to do the actual thwarting. Because of ineffability, you understand."

"Right. Right. So all you've got to do is thwart. Because if I know anything," said Crowley urgently, "it's that the birth is just the start. It's the upbringing that's important. It's the Influences. Otherwise the child will never learn to use its powers." He hesitated. "At least, not necessarily as intended."

"Certainly our side won't mind me thwarting you," said Aziraphale thoughtfully. "They won't mind that at all."

"Right. It'd be a real feather in your wing." Crowley gave the angel an encouraging smile.

"What will happen to the child if it doesn't get a Satanic upbring­ing, though?" said Aziraphale.

"Probably nothing. It'll never know."

"But genetics‑"

"Don't tell me from genetics. What've they got to do with it?" said Crowley. "Look at Satan. Created as an angel, grows up to be the Great Adversary. Hey, if you're going to go on about genetics, you might as well say the kid will grow up to be an angel. After all, his father was really big in Heaven in the old days. Saying he'll grow up to be a demon just because his dad becameone is like saying a mouse with its tail cut off will give birth to tailless mice. No. Upbringing is everything. Take it from me."

"And without unopposed Satanic influences‑"

"Well, at worst Hell will have to start all over again. And the Earth gets at least another eleven years. That's got to be worth something, hasn't it?"

Now Aziraphale was looking thoughtful again.

"You're saying the child isn't evil of itself?" he said slowly.

"Potentially evil. Potentially good, too, I suppose. Just this huge powerful potentiality,waiting to be shaped," said Crowley. He shrugged. "Anyway, why're we talking about this good and evil?They're just names for sides. Weknow that."

"I suppose it's got to be worth a try," said the angel. Crowley nodded encouragingly.

"Agreed?" said the demon, holding out his hand.

The angel shook it, cautiously.

"It'll certainly be more interesting than saints," he said.

"And it'll be for the child's own good, in the long run," said Crow­ley. "We'll be godfathers, sort of. Overseeing his religious upbringing, you might say."

Aziraphale beamed.

"You know, I'd never have thought of that," he said. "Godfathers.Well, I'll be damned."

"It's not too bad," said Crowley, "when you get used to it."

– – -

She was known as Scarlett. At that time she was selling arms, although it was beginning to lose its savor. She never stuck at one job for very long. Three, four hundred years at the outside. You didn't want to get in a rut.

Her hair was true auburn, neither ginger nor brown, but deep and burnished copper‑color, and it fell to her waist in tresses that men would kill for, and indeed often had. Her eyes were a startling orange. She looked twenty‑five, and always had.

She had a dusty, brick‑red truck full of assorted weaponry, and an almost unbelievable skill at getting it across any border in the world. She had been on her way to a small West African country, where a minor civil war was in progress, to make a delivery which would, with any luck, turn it into a major civil war. Unfortunately the truck had broken down, far beyond even her ability to repair it.

And she was very good with machinery these days.

She was in the middle of a city ^[12]at the time. The city in question was the capital of Kumbolaland, an African nation which had been at peace for the last three thousand years. For about thirty years it was Sir­Humphrey‑Clarksonland, but since the country had absolutely no mineral wealth and the strategic importance of a banana, it was accelerated toward self‑government with almost unseemly haste. Kumbolaland was poor, per­haps, and undoubtedly boring, but peaceful. Its various tribes, who got along with one another quite happily, had long since beaten their swords into ploughshares; a fight had broken out in the city square in 1952 be­tween a drunken ox‑drover and an equally drunken ox‑thief. People were still talking about it.

Scarlett yawned in the heat. She fanned her head with her broad­brimmed hat, left the useless truck in the dusty street, and wandered into a bar.

She bought a can of beer, drained it, then grinned at the barman. "I got a truck needs repairing," she said. "Anyone around I can talk to?"

The barman grinned white and huge and expansively. He'd been impressed by the way she drank her beer. "Only Nathan, miss. But Na­than has gone back to Kaounda to see his father‑in‑law's farm."

Scarlett bought another beer. "So, this Nathan. Any idea when he'll be back?"

"Perhaps next week. Perhaps two weeks' time, dear lady. Ho, that Nathan, he is a scamp, no?"

He leaned forward.

"You travelling alone, miss?" he said.

"Yes."

"Could be dangerous. Some funny people on the roads these days. Bad men. Not localboys," he added quickly.

Scarlett raised a perfect eyebrow.

Despite the heat, he shivered.

"Thanks for the warning," Scarlett purred. Her voice sounded like something that lurks in the long grass, visible only by the twitching of its ears, until something young and tender wobbles by.

She tipped her hat to him, and strolled outside.

The hot African sun beat down on her; her truck sat in the street with a cargo of guns and ammunition and land mines. It wasn't going anywhere.

Scarlett stared at the truck.

A vulture was sitting on its roof. It had traveled three hundred miles with Scarlett so far. It was belching quietly.

She looked around the street: a couple of women chatted on a street corner; a bored market vendor sat in front of a heap of colored gourds, fanning the flies; a few children played lazily in the dust.

"What the hell," she said quietly. "I could do with a holiday anyway."

That was Wednesday.

By Friday the city was a no‑go area.

By the following Tuesday the economy of Kumbolaland was shat­tered, twenty thousand people were dead (including the barman, shot by the rebels while storming the market barricades), almost a hundred thou­sand people were injured, all of Scarlett's assorted weapons had fulfilled the function for which they had been created, and the vulture had died of Greasy Degeneration.

Scarlett was already on the last train out of the country. It was time to move on, she felt. She'd been doing arms for too damn long. She wanted a change. Something with openings. She quite fancied herself as a newspa­per journalist. A possibility. She fanned herself with her hat, and crossed her long legs in front of her.

Farther down the train a fight broke out. Scarlett grinned. People were always fighting, over her, and around her; it was rather sweet, really.

– – -

Sable had black hair, a trim black beard, and he had just decided to go corporate.

He did drinks with his accountant.

"How we doing, Frannie?" he asked her.

"Twelve million copies sold so far. Can you believe that?"

They were doing drinks in a restaurant called Top of the Sixes, on the top of 666 Fifth Avenue, New York. This was something that amused Sable ever so slightly. From the restaurant windows you could see the whole of New York; at night, the rest of New York could see the huge red 666s that adorned all four sides of the building. Of course, it was just another street number. If you started counting, you'd be bound to get to it eventually. But you had to smile.

Sable and his accountant had just come from a small, expensive, and particularly exclusive restaurant in Greenwich Village, where the cui­sine was entirely nouvelle:a string bean, a pea, and a sliver of chicken breast, aesthetically arranged on a square china plate.

Sable had invented it the last time he'd been in Paris.

His accountant had polished her meat and two veg off in under fifty seconds, and had spent the rest of the meal staring at the plate, the cutlery, and from time to time at her fellow diners, in a manner that suggested that she was wondering what they'd taste like, which was in fact the case. It had amused Sable enormously.

He toyed with his Perrier.

"Twelve million, huh? That's pretty good."

"That's great. "

"So we're going corporate. It's time to blow the big one, am I right? California, I think. I want factories, restaurants, the whole schmear. We'll keep the publishing arm, but it's time to diversify. Yeah?"

Frannie nodded. "Sounds good, Sable. We'll need‑"

She was interrupted by a skeleton. A skeleton in a Dior dress, with tanned skin stretched almost to snapping point over the delicate bones of the skull. The skeleton had long blond hair and perfectly made‑up lips: she looked like the person mothers around the world would point to, mutter­ing, "That'swhat'll happen to you if you don't eat your greens"; she looked like a famine‑relief poster with style.

She was New York's top fashion model, and she was holding a book. She said, "Uh, excuse me, Mr. Sable, I hope you don't mind me intruding, but, your book, it changed my life, I was wondering, would you mind signing it for me?" She stared imploringly at him with eyes deep­sunk in gloriously eyeshadowed sockets.

Sable nodded graciously, and took the book from her.

It was not surprising that she had recognized him, for his dark gray eyes stared out from his photo on the foil‑embossed cover. Foodless Diet­ing: Slim Yourself Beautiful,the book was called; The Diet Book of the Century!

"How do you spell your name?" he asked.

"Sherryl. Two Rs, one Y, one L."

"You remind me of an old, old friend," he told her, as he wrote swiftly and carefully on the title page. "There you go. Glad you liked it. Always good to meet a fan."

What he'd written was this:

Sherryl, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny, and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine Rev. 6:6.

Dr. Raven Sable.

"It's from the Bible," he told her.

She closed the book reverently and backed away from the table, thanking Sable, he didn't know how much this meant to her, he had changed her life, truly he had . . . .

He had never actually earned the medical degree he claimed, since there hadn't been any universities in those days, but Sable could see she was starving to death. He gave her a couple of months at the outside. Handle your weight problem, terminally.

Frannie was stabbing at her laptop computer hungrily, planning the next phase in Sable's transformation of the eating habits of the Western World. Sable had bought her the machine as a personal present. It was very, very expensive, very powerful, and ultra‑slim. He liked slim things.

"There's a European outfit we can buy into for the initial toehold­–Holdings (Holdings) Incorporated. That'll give us the Liechtenstein tax base. Now, if we channel funds out through the Caymans, into Luxem­bourg, and from there to Switzerland, we could pay for the factories in . . ."

But Sable was no longer listening. He was remembering the exclu­sive little restaurant. It had occurred to him that he had never seen so many rich people so hungry.

Sable grinned, the honest, open grin that goes with job satisfaction, perfect and pure. He was just killing time until the main event, but he was killing it in such exquisite ways. Time, and sometimes people.

– – -

Sometimes he was called White, or Blanc, or Albus, or Chalky, or Weiss, or Snowy, or any one of a hundred other names. His skin was pale, his hair a faded blond, his eyes light gray. He was somewhere in his twenties at a casual glance, and a casual glance was all anyone ever gave him.

He was almost entirely unmemorable.

Unlike his two colleagues, he could never settle down in any one job for very long.

He had had all manner of interesting jobs in lots of interesting places.

(He had worked at the Chernobyl Power Station, and at Windscale, and at Three Mile Island, always in minor jobs that weren't very impor­tant.)

He had been a minor but valued member of a number of scientific research establishments.

(He had helped to design the petrol engine, and plastics, and the ring‑pull can.)

He could turn his hand to anything.

Nobody really noticed him. He was unobtrusive; his presence was cumulative. If you thought about it carefully, you could figure out he had to have been doing something, had to have been somewhere. Maybe he even spoke to you. But he was easy to forget, was Mr. White.

At this time he was working as deckhand on an oil tanker, heading toward Tokyo.

The captain was drunk in his cabin. The first mate was in the head. The second mate was in the galley. That was pretty much it for the crew: the ship was almost completely automated. There wasn't much a person could do.

However, if a person just happened to press the EMERGENCY CARGO RELEASE switch on the bridge, the automatic systems would take care of releasing huge quantities of black sludge into the sea, millions of tons of crude oil, with devastating effect on the birds, fish, vegetation, animals, and humans of the region. Of course, there were dozens of fail­safe interlocks and foolproof safety backups but, what the hell, there al­ways were.

Afterwards, there was a huge amount of argument as to exactly whose fault it was. In the end it was left unresolved: the blame was appor­tioned equally. Neither the captain, the first mate, nor the second mate ever worked again.

For some reason nobody gave much of a thought to Seaman White, who was already halfway to Indonesia on a tramp steamer piled high with rusting metal barrels of a particularly toxic weedkiller.

– – -

And there was Another. He was in the square in Kumbolaland. And he was in the restaurants. And he was in the fish, and in the air, and in the barrels of weedkiller. He was on the roads, and in houses, and in palaces, and in hovels.

There was nowhere that he was a stranger, and there was no getting away from him. He was doing what he did best, and what he was doing was what he was.

He was not waiting. He was working.

– – -

Harriet Dowling returned home with her baby, which, on the ad­vice of Sister Faith Prolix, who was more persuasive than Sister Mary, and with the telephonic agreement of her husband, she had named Warlock.

The Cultural Attaché returned home a week later, and pronounced the baby the spit of his side of the family. He also had his secretary advertise in The Ladyfor a nanny.

Crowley had seen Mary Poppinson television one Christmas (in­deed, behind the scenes, Crowley had had a hand in most television; al­though it was on the invention of the game show that he truly prided himself). He toyed with the idea of a hurricane as an effective and incredi­bly stylish way of disposing of the queue of nannies that would certainly form, or possible stack up in a holding pattern, outside the Cultural At­tach6's Regent's Park residence.

He contented himself with a wildcat tube strike, and when the day came, only one nanny turned up.

She wore a knit tweed suit and discreet pearl earrings. Something about her might have said nanny,but it said it in an undertone of the sort employed by British butlers in a certain type of American film. It also coughed discreetly and muttered that she could well be the sort of nanny who advertises unspecified but strangely explicit services in certain maga­zines.

Her flat shoes crunched up the gravel drive, and a gray dog padded silently by her side, white flecks of saliva dripping from its jaw. Its eyes glinted scarlet, and it glanced from side to side hungrily.

She reached the heavy wooden door, smiled to herself, a brief satis­fied flicker, and rang the bell. It dongedgloomily.

The door was opened by a butler, as they say, of the old school. ^[13]

"I am Nanny Ashtoreth," she told him. "And this," she continued, while the gray dog at her side eyed the butler carefully, working out, perhaps, where it would bury the bones, "is Rover."

She left the dog in the garden, and passed her interview with flying colors, and Mrs. Dowling led the nanny to see her new charge.

She smiled unpleasantly. "What a delightful child," she said. "He'll be wanting a little tricycle soon."

By one of those coincidences, another new member of staff arrived the same afternoon. He was the gardener, and as it turned out he was amazingly good at his job. No one quite worked out why this should be the case, since he never seemed to pick up a shovel and made no effort to rid the garden of the sudden flocks of birds that filled it and settled all over him at every opportunity. He just sat in the shade while around him the residence gardens bloomed and bloomed.

Warlock used to come down to see him, when he was old enough to toddle and Nanny was doing whatever it was she did on her afternoons off.

"This here's Brother Slug," the gardener would tell him, "and this tiny little critter is Sister Potato Weevil. Remember, Warlock, as you walk your way through the highways and byways of life's rich and fulsome path, to have love and reverence for all living things."

"Nanny says that wivving fings is fit onwy to be gwound under my heels, Mr. Fwancis," said little Warlock, stroking Brother Slug, and then wiping his hand conscientiously on his Kermit the Frog overall.

"You don't listen to that woman," Francis would say. "You listen to me."

At night, Nanny Ashtoreth sang nursery rhymes to Warlock.

Oh, the grand old Duke of York

He had Ten Thousand Men

He Marched them Up To The Top of The Hill

And Crushed all the nations of the world and brought them

Under the rule of Satan our master.

This little piggy went to Hades

This little piggy stayed home

This little piggy ate raw and steaming human flesh

This little piggy violated virgins

And this little piggy clambered over a heap of dead bodies to get to the top.

"Bwuvver Fwancis the gardener says that I mus' selfwesswy pwac­tice virtue an' wuv to all wivving fings," said Warlock.

"You don't listen to that man,darling," the nanny would whisper, as she tucked him into his little bed. "You listen to me."

And so it went.

The Arrangement worked perfectly. A no‑score win. Nanny Ashto­reth bought the child a little tricycle, but could never persuade him to ride it inside the house. And he was scared of Rover.

In the background Crowley and Aziraphale met on the tops of buses, and in art galleries, and at concerts, compared notes, and smiled.

When Warlock was six, his nanny left, taking Rover with her; the gardener handed in his resignation on the same day. Neither of them left with quite the same spring in their step with which they'd arrived.

Warlock now found himself being educated by two tutors.

Mr. Harrison taught him about Attila the Hun, Vlad Drakula, and the Darkness Intrinsicate in the Human Spirit. ^[14]He tried to teach Warlock how to make rabble‑rousing political speeches to sway the hearts and minds of multitudes.

Mr. Cortese taught him about Florence Nightingale, ^[15]Abraham Lincoln, and the appreciation of art. He tried to teach him about free will, self‑denial, and Doing unto Others as You Would Wish Them to Do to You.

They both read to the child extensively from the Book of Revelation.

Despite their best efforts Warlock showed a regrettable tendency to be good at maths. Neither of his tutors was entirely satisfied with his progress.

When Warlock was ten he liked baseball; he liked plastic toys that transformed into other plastic toys indistinguishable from the first set of plastic toys except to the trained eye; he liked his stamp collection; he liked banana‑flavor bubble gum; he liked comics and cartoons and his B.M.X. bike.

Crowley was troubled.

They were in the cafeteria of the British Museum, another refuge for all weary foot soldiers of the Cold War. At the table to their left two ramrod‑straight Americans in suits were surreptitiously handing over a briefcase full of deniable dollars to a small dark woman in sunglasses; at the table on their right the deputy head of M17 and the local KGB section officer argued over who got to keep the receipt for the tea and buns.

Crowley finally said what he had not even dared to think for the last decade.

"If you ask me," Crowley said to his counterpart, "he's too bloody normal."

Aziraphale popped another deviled egg into his mouth, and washed it down with coffee. He dabbed his lips with a paper napkin.

"It's my good influence," he beamed. "Or rather, credit where credit's due, that of my little team."

Crowley shook his head. "I'm taking that into account. Look‑by now he should be trying to warp the world around him to his own desires, shaping it in his own image, that kind of stuff. Well, not actually trying.He'll do it without even knowing it. Have you seen anyevidence of that happening?"

"Well, no, but . . ."

"By now he should be a powerhouse of raw force. Is he?"

"Well, not as far as I've noticed, but . . ."

"He's too normal." Crowley drummed his fingers on the table. "I don't like it. There's something wrong. I just can't put my finger on it."

Aziraphale helped himself to Crowley's slice of angel cake. "Well, he's a growing boy. And, of course, there's been the heavenly influence in his life."

Crowley sighed. "I just hope he'll know how to cope with the hell­hound, that's all."

Aziraphale raised one eyebrow. "Hell‑hound?"

"On his eleventh birthday. I received a message from Hell last night." The message had come during "The Golden Girls," one of Crow­ley's favorite television programs. Rose had taken ten minutes to deliver what could have been quite a brief communication, and by the time non­infernal service was restored Crowley had quite lost the thread of the plot. "They're sending him a hell‑hound, to pad by his side and guard him from all harm. Biggest one they've got."

"Won't people remark on the sudden appearance of a huge black dog? His parents, for a start."

Crowley stood up suddenly, treading on the foot of a Bulgarian cultural Attaché, who was talking animatedly to the Keeper of Her Majes­ty's Antiques. "Nobody's going to notice anythingout of the ordinary. It's reality, angel. And young Warlock can do what he wants to that,whether he knows it or not."

"When does it turn up, then? This dog? Does it have a name?"

"I told you. On his eleventh birthday. At three o'clock in the after­noon. It'll sort of home in on him. He's supposed to name it himself. It's very important that he names it himself. It gives it its purpose. It'll be Killer, or Terror, or Stalks‑by‑Night, I expect."

"Are you going to be there?" asked the angel, nonchalantly.

"Wouldn't miss it for the worlds," said Crowley. "I do hope there's nothing too wrong with the child. We'll see how he reacts to the dog, anyway. That should tell us something. I hopehe'll send it back, or be frightened of it. If he does name it, we've lost. He'll have all his powers and Armageddon is just around the corner."

"I think," said Aziraphale, sipping his wine (which had just ceased to be a slightly vinegary Beaujolais, and had become a quite acceptable, but rather surprised, Chateau Lafitte 1875), "I think I'll see you there."

Wednesday

I t was a hot, fume‑filled August day in Central London.

Warlock's eleventh birthday was very well attended.

There were twenty small boys and seventeen small girls. There were a lot of men with identical blond crew cuts, dark blue suits, and shoulder holsters. There was a crew of caterers, who had arrived bearing jellies, cakes, and bowls of crisps. Their procession of vans was led by a vintage Bentley.

The Amazing Harvey and Wanda, Children's Parties a Specialty, had both been struck down by an unexpected tummy bug, but by a provi­dential turn of fortune a replacement had turned up, practically out of the blue. A stage magician.

Everyone has his little hobby. Despite Crowley's urgent advice, Aziraphale was intending to turn his to good use.

Aziraphale was particularly proud of his magical skills. He had attended a class in the 1870s run by John Maskelyne, and had spent almost a year practicing sleight of hand, palming coins, and taking rabbits out of hats. He had got, he had felt at the time, quite good at it. The point was that although Aziraphale was capable of doing things that could make the entire Magic Circle hand in their wands, he never applied what might be called his intrinsicpowers to the practice of sleight‑of‑hand conjuring. Which was a major drawback. He was beginning to wish that he'd contin­ued practicing.

Still, he mused, it was like riding a velocipede. You never forgot how. His magician's coat had been a little dusty, but it felt good once it was on. Even his old patter began to come back to him.

The children watched him in blank, disdainful incomprehension. Behind the buffet Crowley, in his white waiter's coat, cringed with contact embarrassment.

"Now then, young masters and mistresses, do you see my battered old top hat? What a shocking bad hat, as you young'uns do say! And see, there's nothing in it. But bless my britches, who's this rum customer? Why, it's our furry friend, Harry the rabbit!"

"It was in your pocket," pointed out Warlock. The other children nodded agreement. What did he think they were? Kids?

Aziraphale remembered what Maskelyne had told him about deal­ing with hecklers. "Make a joke of it, you pudding‑heads‑and I do mean you, Mr. Fell" (the name Aziraphale had adopted at that time), "Make 'em laugh, and they'll forgive you anything!"

"Ho, so you've rumbled my hat trick," he chuckled. The children stared at him impassively.

"You're rubbish," said Warlock. "I wanted cartoons anyway."

"He's right, you know," agreed a small girl with a pony tail. "You arerubbish. And probably a faggot."

Aziraphale stared desperately at Crowley. As far as he was con­cerned young Warlock was obviously infernally tainted, and the sooner the Black Dog turned up and they could get away from this place, the better.

"Now, do any of you young'uns have such a thing as a thruppenny bit about your persons? No, young master? Then what's this I see behind your ear . . . ?"

"I got cartoons at my birthday," announced the little girl. "An I gotter transformer anna mylittleponyer anna decepticonattacker anna thundertank anna . . ."

Crowley groaned. Children's parties were obviously places where any angel with an ounce of common sense should fear to tread. Piping infant voices were raised in cynical merriment as Aziraphale dropped three linked metal rings.

Crowley looked away, and his gaze fell on a table heaped high with presents. From a tall plastic structure two beady little eyes stared back at him.

Crowley scrutinized them for a glint of red fire. You could never be certain when you were dealing with the bureaucrats of Hell. It was always possible that they had sent a gerbil instead of a dog.

No, it was a perfectly normal gerbil. It appeared to be living in an exciting construction of cylinders, spheres, and treadmills, such as the Spanish Inquisition would have devised if they'd had access to a plastics molding press.

He checked his watch. It had never occurred to Crowley to change its battery, which had rotted away three years previously, but it still kept perfect time. It was two minutes to three.

Aziraphale was getting more and more flustered.

"Do any of the company here assembled possess such a thing about their persons as a pocket handkerchief? No?" In Victorian days it had been unheard of for people not to carry handkerchiefs, and the trick, which involved magically producing a dove who was even now pecking irritably at Aziraphale's wrist, could not proceed without one. The angel tried to attract Crowley's attention, failed, and, in desperation, pointed to one of the security guards, who shifted uneasily.

"You, my fine jack‑sauce. Come here. Now, if you inspect your breast pocket, I think youmight find a fine silk handkerchief."

"Nossir. 'Mafraidnotsir," said the guard, staring straight ahead.

Aziraphale winked desperately. "No, go on, dear boy, take a look, please. "

The guard reached a hand inside his inside pocket, looked sur­prised, and pulled out a handkerchief, duck‑egg‑blue silk, with lace edging. Aziraphale realized almost immediately that the lace had been a mistake, as it caught on the guard's holstered gun, and sent it spinning across the room to land heavily in a bowl of jelly.

The children applauded spasmodically. "Hey, not bad!" said the pony‑tailed girl.

Warlock had already run across the room, and grabbed the gun.

"Hands up, dogbreaths!" he shouted gleefully.

The security guards were in a quandary.

Some of them fumbled for their own weapons; others started edging their way toward, or away from, the boy. The other children started com­plaining that they wanted guns as well, and a fewof the more forward ones started trying to tug them from the guards who had been thoughtless enough to take their weapons out.

Then someone threw some jelly at Warlock.

The boy squeaked, and pulled the trigger of the gun. It was a Magnum .32, CIA issue, gray, mean, heavy, capable of blowing a man away at thirty paces, and leaving nothing more than a red mist, a ghastly mess, and a certain amount of paperwork.

Aziraphale blinked.

A thin stream of water squirted from the nozzle and soaked Crow­ley, who had been looking out the window, trying to see if there was a huge black dog in the garden.

Aziraphale looked embarrassed.

Then a cream cake hit him in the face.

It was almost five past three.

With a gesture, Aziraphale turned the rest of the guns into water pistols as well, and walked out.

Crowley found him on the pavement outside, trying to extricate a rather squishy dove from the arm of his frock coat.

"It's late," said Aziraphale.

"I can see that," said Crowley. "Comes of sticking it up your sleeve." He reached out and pulled the limp bird from Aziraphale's coat, and breathed life back into it. The dove cooed appreciatively and flew off, a trifle warily.

"Not the bird," said the angel. "The dog. It's late."

Crowley shook his head, thoughtfully. "We'll see."

He opened the car door, flipped on the radio. "I‑should‑be‑so­lucky,‑lucky‑lucky‑lucky‑lucky,‑I‑should‑be‑so‑lucky‑in‑HELLO CROW­LEY. "

"Hello. Um, who is this?"

"DAGON, LORD OF THE FILES, MASTEROF MADNESS, UN­DER‑DUKE OF THE SEVENTH TORMENT. WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU?"

"The hell‑hound. I'm just, uh, just checking that it got off okay."

"RELEASED TEN MINUTES AGO. WHY? HASN'T IT AR­RIVED? IS SOMETHING WRONG?"

"Oh no. Nothing's wrong. Everything's fine. Oops, I can see it now. Good dog. Nicedog. Everything's terrific. You're doing a great job down there, people. Well, lovely talking to you, Dagon. Catch you soon, huh?"

He flipped off the radio.

They stared at each other. There was a loud bang from inside the house, and a window shattered. "Oh dear," muttered Aziraphale, not swearing with the practiced ease of one who has spent six thousand years not swearing, and who wasn't going to start now. "I must have missed one."

"No dog," said Crowley.

"No dog," said Aziraphale.

The demon sighed. "Get in the car," he said. "We've got to talk about this. Oh, and Aziraphale . . .?"

"Yes."

"Clean off that blasted cream cake before you get in."

– – -

It was a hot, silent August day far from Central London. By the side of the Tadfield road the dust weighed down the hogweed. Bees buzzed in the hedges. The air had a leftover and reheated feel.

There was a sound like a thousand metal voices shouting "Hail!" cut off abruptly.

And there was a black dog in the road.

It had to be a dog. It was dog‑shaped.

There are some dogs which, when you meet them, remind you that, despite thousands of years of man‑made evolution, every dog is still only two meals away from being a wolf. These dogs advance deliberately, pur­posefully, the wilderness made flesh, their teeth yellow, their breath a‑stink, while in the distance their owners witter, "He's an old soppy really, just poke him if he's a nuisance," and in the green of their eyes the red campfires of the Pleistocene gleam and flicker . . .

This dog would make even a dog like that slink nonchalantly be­hind the sofa and pretend to be extremely preoccupied with its rubber bone.

It was already growling, and the growl was a low, rumbling snarl of spring‑coiled menace, the sort of growl that starts in the back of one throat and ends up in someone else's.

Saliva dripped from its jaws and sizzled on the tar.

It took a few steps forward, and sniffed the sullen air.

Its ears flicked up.

There were voices, a long way off. Avoice. A boyish voice, but one it had been created to obey, could not helpbut obey. When that voice said "Follow," it would follow; when it said "Kill," it would kill. His master's voice.

It leapt the hedge and padded across the field beyond. A grazing bull eyed it for a moment, weighed its chances, then strolled hurriedly toward the opposite hedge.

The voices were coming from a copse of straggly trees. The black hound slunk closer, jaws streaming.

One of the other voices said: "He never will. You're always saying he will, and he never does. Catch your dad giving you a pet. An int'restin' pet, anyway. It'll prob'ly be stick insects. That's your dad's idea of in­t'restin'."

The hound gave the canine equivalent of a shrug, but immediately lost interest because now the Master, the Center of its Universe, spoke.

"It'll be a dog," it said.

"Huh. You don't knowit's going to be a dog. No one's said it's going to be a dog. How d'you know it's goin' to be a dog if no one's said? Your dad'd be complaining about the food it eats the whole time."

"Privet." This third voice was rather more prim than the first two. The owner of a voice like that would be the sort of person who, before making a plastic model kit, would not only separate and count all the parts before commencing, as per the instructions, but also paint the bits that needed painting first and leave them to dry properly prior to construction. All that separated this voice from chartered accountancy was a matter of time.

"They don't eat privet, Wensley. You never saw a dog eatin' privet."

"Stick insects do, I mean. They're jolly interesting, actually. They eat each other when they're mating."

There was a thoughtful pause. The hound slunk closer, and realized that the voices were coming from a hole in the ground.

The trees in fact concealed an ancient chalk quarry, now half over­grown with thorn trees and vines. Ancient, but clearly not disused. Tracks crisscrossed it; smooth areas of slope indicated regular use by skateboards and Wall‑of‑Death, or at least Wall‑of‑Seriously‑Grazed‑Knee, cyclists. Old bits of dangerously frayed rope hung from some of the more accessible greenery. Here and there sheets of corrugated iron and old wooden boards were wedged in branches. A burnt‑out, rusting Triumph Herald Estate was visible, half‑submerged in a drift of nettles.

In one corner a tangle of wheels and corroded wire marked the site of the famous Lost Graveyard where the supermarket trolleys came to die.

If you were a child, it was paradise. The local adults called it The Pit.

The hound peered through a clump of nettles, and spotted four figures sitting in the center of the quarry on that indispensable prop to good secret dens everywhere, the common milk crate.

"They don't!"

"They do."

"Bet you they don't," said the first speaker. It had a certain timbre to it that identified it as young and female, and it was tinted with horrified fascination.

"They do, actually. I had six before we went on holiday and I forgot to change the privet and when I came back I had one big fat one."

"Nah. That's not stick insects, that's praying mantises. I saw on the television where this big female one ate this other one and it dint hardly take any notice."

There was another crowded pause.

"What're they prayin' about?" said his Master's voice.

"Dunno. Prayin' they don't have to get married, I s'pect."

The hound managed to get one huge eye against an empty knothole in the quarry's broken‑down fence, and squinted downward.

"Anyway, it's like with bikes," said the first speaker authorita­tively. "I thought I was going to get this bike with seven gears and one of them razorblade saddles and purple paint and everything, and they gave me this light blue one. With a basket. A girl'sbike."

"Well. You're a girl," said one of the others.

"That's sexism, that is. Going around giving people girly presents just because they're a girl."

"I'm going to get a dog," said his Master's voice, firmly. His Mas­ter had his back to him; the hound couldn't quite make out his features.

"Oh, yeah, one of those great big Rottenweilers, yeah?" said the girl, with withering sarcasm.

"No, it's going to be the kind of dog you can have fun with," said his Master's voice. "Not a big dog‑"

‑the eye in the nettles vanished abruptly downwards‑

"‑but one of those dogs that's brilliantly intelligent and can go down rabbit holes and has one funny ear that always looks inside out. And a proper mongrel, too. A pedigreemongrel."

Unheard by those within, there was a tiny clap of thunder on the lip of the quarry. It might have been caused by the sudden rushing of air into the vacuum caused by a very large dog becoming, for example, a small dog.

The tiny popping noise that followed might have been caused by one ear turning itself inside out.

"And I'll call him . . ." said his Master's voice. "I'll call him . . ."

"Yes?" said the girl. "What're you goin' to call it?"

The hound waited. This was the moment. The Naming. This would give it its propose, its function, its identity. Its eyes glowed a dull red, even though they were a lot closer to the ground, and it dribbled into the nettles.

"I'll call him Dog," said his Master, positively. "It saves a lot of trouble, a name like that."

The hell‑hound paused. Deep in its diabolical canine brain it knew that something was wrong, but it was nothing if not obedient and its great sudden love of its Master overcame all misgivings. Who was it to say what size it should be, anyway?

It trotted down the slope to meet its destiny.

Strange, though. It had always wanted to jump up at people but, now, it realized that against all expectation it wanted to wag its tail at the same time.

– – -

"You said it was him!" moaned Aziraphale, abstractedly picking the final lump of cream‑cake from his lapel. He licked his fingers clean.

"It was him," said Crowley. "I mean, I should know, shouldn't I?"

"Then someone else must be interfering."

"There isn't anyone else! There's just us, right? Good and Evil. One side or the other."

He thumped the steering wheel.

"You'll be amazed at the kind of things they can do to you, down there," he said.

"I imagine they're very similar to the sort of things they can do to one up there," said Aziraphale.

"Come off it. Your lot get ineffable mercy," said Crowley sourly.

"Yes? Did you ever visit Gomorrah?"

"Sure," said the demon. "There was this great little tavern where you could get these terrific fermented date‑palm cocktails with nutmeg and crushed lemongrass‑"

"I meant afterwards."

"Oh."

Aziraphale said: "Something must have happened in the hospital."

"It couldn't have! It was full of our people!"

"Whose people?" said Aziraphale coldly.

"My people," corrected Crowley. "Well, not my people. Mmm, you know. Satanists."

He tried to say it dismissively. Apart from, of course, the fact that the world was an amazing interesting place which they both wanted to enjoy for as long as possible, there were few things that the two of them agreed on, but they did see eye to eye about some of those people who, for one reason or another, were inclined to worship the Prince of Darkness. Crowley always found them embarrassing. You couldn't actually be rude to them, but you couldn't help feeling about them the same way that, say, a Vietnam veteran would feel about someone who wears combat gear to Neighborhood Watch meetings.

Besides, they were always so depressingly enthusiastic. Take all that stuff with the inverted crosses and pentagrams and cockerels. It mysti­fied most demons. It wasn't the least bit necessary. All you needed to become a Satanist was an effort of will. You could be one all your life without ever knowing what a pentagram was, without ever seeing a dead cockerel other than as Chicken Marengo.

Besides, some of the old‑style Satanists tended, in fact, to be quite nice people. They mouthed the words and went through the motions, just like the people they thought of as their opposite numbers, and then went home and lived lives of mild unassuming mediocrity for the rest of the week with never an unusually evil thought in their heads.

And as for the rest of it . . .

There were people who called themselves Satanists who made Crowley squirm. It wasn't just the things they did, it was the way they blamed it all on Hell. They'd come up with some stomach‑churning idea that no demon could have thought of in a thousand years, some dark and mindless unpleasantness that only a fully‑functioning human brain could conceive, then shout "The Devil Made Me Do It" and get the sympathy of the court when the whole point was that the Devil hardly ever made anyone do anything. He didn't have to. That was what some humans found hard to understand. Hell wasn't a major reservoir of evil, any more than Heaven, in Crowley's opinion, was a fountain of goodness; they were just sides in the great cosmic chess game. Where you found the real Mc­Coy, the real grace and the real heart‑stopping evil, was right inside the human mind.

"Huh," said Aziraphale. "Satanists."

"I don't see how they could have messed it up," said Crowley. "I mean, two babies. It's not exactly taxing, is it . . .?" He stopped. Through the mists of memory he pictured a small nun, who had struck him at the time as being remarkably loose‑headed even for a Satanist. And there had been someone else. Crowley vaguely recalled a pipe, and a cardi­gan with the kind of zigzag pattern that went out of style in 1938. A man with "expectant father" written all over him.

There must have been a third baby.

He told Aziraphale.

"Not a lot to go on," said the angel.

"We know the child must be alive," said Crowley, "so‑"

"How do we know?"

"If it had turned up Down There again, do you think I'd still be sitting here?"

"Good point."

"So all we've got to do is find it," said Crowley. "Go through the hospital records." The Bentley's engine coughed into life and the car leapt forward, forcing Aziraphale back into the seat.

"And then what?" he said.

"And then we find the child."

"And thenwhat?" The angel shut his eyes as the car crabbed around a corner.

"Don't know."

"Good grief."

"I suppose‑get offthe road you clown‑your people wouldn't con­sider‑‑and the scooter you rode in onl‑giving me asylum?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing‑Watch out for that pedes­trian!"

"It's on the street, it knows the risks it's taking!" said Crowley, easing the accelerating car between a parked car and a taxi and leaving a space which would have barely accepted even the best credit card.

"Watch the roadl Watch the road! Where is this hospital, anyway?"

"Somewhere south of Oxford!"

Aziraphale grabbed the dashboard. "You can't do ninety miles an hour in Central London!"

Crowley peered at the dial. "Why not?" he said.

"You'll get us killed!" Aziraphale hesitated. "Inconveniently dis­corporated," he corrected, lamely, relaxing a little. "Anyway, you might kill other people."

Crowley shrugged. The angel had never really come to grips with the twentieth century, and didn't realize that it is perfectly possible to do ninety miles an hour down Oxford Street. You just arranged matters so that no one was in the way. And since everyone knew that it was impossi­ble to do ninety miles an hour down Oxford Street, no one noticed.

At least cars were better than horses. The internal combustion en­gine had been a godse‑a blessi‑a windfall for Crowley. The only horses he could be seen riding on business, in the old days, were big black jobs with eyes like flame and hooves that struck sparks. That was de rigueur for a demon. Usually, Crowley fell off. He wasn't much good with animals.

Somewhere around Chiswick, Aziraphale scrabbled vaguely in the scree of tapes in the glove compartment.

"What's a Velvet Underground?" he said.

"You wouldn't like it," said Crowley.

"Oh," said the angel dismissively. "Be‑bop."

"Do you know, Aziraphale, that probably if a million human be­ings were asked to describe modern music, they wouldn't use the term 'be­bop'?' said Crowley.

"Ah, this is more like it. Tchaikovsky," said Aziraphale, opening a case and slotting its cassette into the Blaupunkt.

"You won't enjoy it," sighed Crowley. "It's been in the car for more than a fortnight."

A heavy bass beat began to thump through the Bentley as they sped past Heathrow.

Aziraphale's brow furrowed.

"I don't recognize this," he said. "What is it?"

"It's Tchaikovsky's 'Another One Bites the Dust'," said Crowley, closing his eyes as they went through Slough.

To while away the time as they crossed the sleeping Chilterns, they also listened to William Byrd's "We Are the Champions" and Beethoven's "I Want To Break Free." Neither were as good as Vaughan Williams's "Fat‑Bottomed Girls."

– – -

It is said that the Devil has all the best tunes.

This is broadly true. But Heaven has the best choreographers.

– – -

The Oxfordshire plain stretched out to the west, with a scattering of lights to mark the slumbering villages where honest yeomen were set­tling down to sleep after a long day's editorial direction, financial consult­ing, or software engineering.

Up here on the hill a few glow‑worms were lighting up.

The surveyor's theodolite is one of the more direful symbols of the twentieth century. Set up anywhere in open countryside, it says: there will come Road Widening, yea, and two‑thousand‑home estates in keeping with the Essential Character of the Village. Executive Developments will be manifest.

But not even the most conscientious surveyor surveys at midnight, and yet here the thing was, tripod legs deep in the turf. Not many theodolites have a hazel twig strapped to the top, either, or crystal pendulums hanging from them and Celtic runes carved into the legs.

The soft breeze flapped the cloak of the slim figure who was adjust­ing the knobs of the thing. It was quite a heavy cloak, sensibly waterproof, with a warm lining.

Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft are written by men.

The young woman's name was Anathema Device. She was not astonishingly beautiful. All her features, considered individually, were ex­tremely pretty, but the entirety of her face gave the impression that it had been put together hurriedly from stock without reference to any plan. Probably the most suitable word is "attractive," although people who knew what it meant and could spell it might add "vivacious," although there is something very Fifties about "vivacious," so perhaps they wouldn't.

Young women should not go alone on dark nights, even in Oxford­shire. But any prowling maniac would have had more than his work cut out if he had accosted Anathema Device. She was a witch, after all. And precisely because she was a witch, and therefore sensible, she put little faith in protective amulets and spells; she saved it all for a foot‑long bread knife which she kept in her belt.

She sighted through the glass and made another adjustment.

She muttered under her breath.

Surveyors often mutter under their breath. They mutter things like "Soon have a relief road through here faster than you can say Jack Robin­son," or "That's three point five meters, give or take a gnat's whisker."

This was an entirely different kind of muttering.

"Darksome night/And shining Moon," muttered Anathema, "East by South/By West by southwest . . . west‑southwest . . . got you . . ."

She picked up a folded Ordinance Survey map and held it in the torchlight. Then she produced a transparent ruler and a pencil and care­fully drew a line across the map. It intersected another pencil line.

She smiled, not because anything was particularly amusing, but because a tricky job had been done well.

Then she collapsed the strange theodolite, strapped it onto the back of a sit‑up‑and‑beg black bicycle leaning against the hedge, made sure the Book was in the basket, and wheeled everything out to the misty lane.

It was a very ancient bike, with a frame apparently made of drain­pipes. It had been built long before the invention of the three‑speed gear, and possibly only just after the invention of the wheel.

But it was nearly all downhill to the village. Hair streaming in the wind, cloak ballooning behind her like a sheet anchor, she let the two­-wheeled juggernaut accelerate ponderously through the warm air. At least there wasn't any traffic at this time of night.

– – -

The Bentley's engine went pink, pinkas it cooled. Crowley's tem­per, on the other hand, was heating up.

"You said you saw it signposted," he said.

"Well, we flashed by so quickly. Anyway, I thought you'd been here before."

"Eleven years ago!"

Crowley hurled the map onto the back seat and started the engine again.

"Perhaps we should ask someone," said Aziraphale.

"Oh, yes," said Crowley. "We'll stop and ask the first person we see walking along a‑a trackin the middle of the night, shall we?"

He jerked the car into gear and roared out into the beech‑hung lane.

"There's something odd about this area," said Aziraphale. "Can't you feel it?"

"What?"

"Slow down a moment."

The Bentley slowed again.

"Odd," muttered the angel, "I keep getting these flashes of, of . . ."

He raised his hands to his temples.

"What? What?" said Crowley.

Aziraphale stared at him.

"Love," he said. "Someone really loves this place."

"Pardon?"

"There seems to be this great sense of love. I can't put it any better than that. Especially not to you. "

"Do you mean like‑" Crowley began.

There was a whirr, a scream, and a chink. The car stopped.

Aziraphale blinked, lowered his hands, and gingerly opened the door.

"You've hit someone," he said.

"No I haven't," said Crowley. "Someone's hit me."

They got out. Behind the Bentley a bicycle lay in the road, its front wheel bent into a creditable Mobius shape, its back wheel clicking omi­nously to a standstill.

"Let there be light," said Aziraphale. A pale blue glow filled the lane.

From the ditch beside them someone said, "How the hell did you do that?"

The light vanished.

"Do what?" said Aziraphale guiltily.

"Uh." Now the voice sounded muzzy. "I think I hit my head on something . . ."

Crowley glared at a long metallic streak on the Bentley's glossy paintwork and a dimple in the bumper. The dimple popped back into shape. The paint healed.

"Up you get, young lady," said the angel, hauling Anathema out of the bracken. "No bones broken." It was a statement, not a hope; there had been a minor fracture, but Aziraphale couldn't resist an opportunity to do good.

"You didn't have any lights," she began.

"Nor did you," said Crowley guiltily. "Fair's fair."

"Doing a spot of astronomy, were we?" said Aziraphale, setting the bike upright. Various things clattered out of its front basket. He pointed to the battered theodolite.

"No," said Anathema, "I mean, yes. And look what you've done to poor old Phaeton."

"I'm sorry?" said Aziraphale.

"My bicycle. It's bent all to‑"

"Amazingly resilient, these old machines," said the angel brightly, handing it to her. The front wheel gleamed in the moonlight, as perfectly round as one of the Circles of Hell.

She stared at it.

"Well, since that's all sorted out," said Crowley, "perhaps it'd be best if we just all got on our, er. Er. You wouldn't happen to know the way to Lower Tadfield, would you?"

Anathema was still staring at her bicycle. She was almost certain that it hadn't had a little saddlebag with a puncture repair kit when she set out.

"1t's just down the hill," she said. "This is my bike, isn't it?"

"Oh, certainly," said Aziraphale, wondering if he'd overdone things.

"Only I'm sure Phaeton never had a pump."

The angel looked guilty again.

"But there's a place for one," he said, helplessly. "Two little hooks."

"Just down the hill, you said?" said Crowley, nudging the angel.

"I think perhaps I must have knocked my head," said the girl.

"We'd offer to give you a lift, of course," said Crowley quickly, "but there's nowhere for the bike."

"Except the luggage rack," said Aziraphale.

"The Bentley hasn't‑Oh. Huh."

The angel scrambled the spilled contents of the bike's basket into the back seat and helped the stunned girl in after them.

"One does not," he said to Crowley, "pass by on the other side."

"Your one might not. This one does. We have got other thingsto do, you know." Crowley glared at the new luggage rack. It had tartan straps.

The bicycle lifted itself up and tied itself firmly in place. Then Crowley got in.

"Where do you live, my dear?" Aziraphale oozed.

"My bike didn't have lights, either. Well, it did, but they're the sort you put those double batteries in and they went moldy and I took them off," said Anathema. She glared at Crowley. "I have a bread knife, you know," she said. "Somewhere."

Aziraphale looked shocked at the implication.

"Madam, I assure you‑"

Crowley switched on the lights. He didn't need them to see by, but they made the other humans on the road less nervous. Then he put the car into gear and drove sedately down the hill. The road came out from under the trees and, after a few hundred yards, reached the outskirts of a middle­sized village.

It had a familiar feel to it. It had been eleven years, but this place definitely rang a distant bell.

"Is there a hospital around here?" he said. "Run by nuns?"

Anathema shrugged. "Don't think so," she said. "The only large place is Tadfield Manor. I don't know what goes on there."

"Divine planning," muttered Crowley under his breath.

"And gears," said Anathema. "My bike didn't have gears. I'm sure my bike didn't have gears."

Crowley leaned across to the angel.

"Oh lord, heal this bike," he whispered sarcastically.

"I'm sorry, I just got carried away," hissed Aziraphale.

"Tartan straps?"

"Tartan is stylish."

Crowley growled. On those occasions when the angel managed to get his mind into the twentieth century, it always gravitated to 1950.

"You can drop me off here," said Anathema, from the back seat.

"Our pleasure," beamed the angel. As soon as the car had stopped he had the back door open and was bowing like an aged retainer welcom­ing the young massa back to the old plantation.

Anathema gathered her things together and stepped out as haugh­tily as possible.

She was quite sure neither of the two men had gone around to the back of the car, but the bike was unstrapped and leaning against the gate.

There was definitely something very weird about them, she decided.

Aziraphale bowed again. "So glad to have been of assistance," he said.

"Thank you," said Anathema, icily.

"Can we get on?" said Crowley. "Goodnight, miss. Get in, angel."

Ah. Well, that explained it. She had been perfectly safe after all.

She watched the car disappear toward the center of the village, and wheeled the bike up the path to the cottage. She hadn't bothered to lock it. She was sure that Agnes would have mentioned it if she was going to be burgled, she was always very good at personal things like that.

She'd rented the cottage furnished, which meant that the actual furniture was the special sort you find in these circumstances and had probably been left out for the dustmen by the local War on Want shop. It didn't matter. She didn't expect to be here long.

If Agnes was right, she wouldn't be anywherelong. Nor would anyone else.

She spread her maps and things out on the ancient table under the kitchen's solitary light bulb.

What had she learned? Nothing much, she decided. Probably IT was at the north end of the village, but she'd suspected that anyway. If you got too close the signal swamped you; if you were too far away you couldn't get an accurate fix.

It was infuriating. The answer must be in the Book somewhere. The trouble was that in order to understand the Predictions you had to be able to think like a half‑crazed, highly intelligent seventeenth‑century witch with a mind like a crossword‑puzzle dictionary. Other members of the family had said that Agnes made things obscure to conceal them from the understanding of outsiders; Anathema, who suspected she could occasion­ally think like Agnes, had privately decided that it was because Agnes was a bloody‑minded old bitch with a mean sense of humor.

She'd not even‑

She didn't have the book.

Anathema stared in horror at the things on the table. The maps. The homemade divinatory theodolite. The thermos that had contained hot Bovril. The torch.

The rectangle of empty air where the Prophecies should have been.

She'd lost it.

But that was ridiculous! One of the things Agnes was always very specific about was what happened to the book.

She snatched up the torch and ran from the house.

– – -

"A feeling like, oh, like the opposite of the feeling you're having when you say things like 'this feels spooky,' " said Aziraphale. "That's what I mean."

"I never say things like 'this feels spooky,"' said Crowley. "I'm all for spooky."

"A cherishedfeel,"said Aziraphale desperately.

"Nope. Can't sense a thing," said Crowley with forced jolliness. "You're just over‑sensitive."

"It's my job," said Aziraphale. "Angels can't be over‑sensitive."

"I expect people round here like living here and you're just picking it up."

"Never picked up anything like this in London," said Aziraphale.

"There you are, then. Proves my point," said Crowley. "And this is the place. I remember the stone lions on the gateposts."

The Bentley's headlights lit up the groves of overgrown rhododen­drons that lined the drive. The tires crunched over gravel.

"It's a bit early in the morning to be calling on nuns," said Aziraphale doubtfully.

"Nonsense. Nuns are up and about at all hours," said Crowley. "It's probably Compline, unless that's a slimming aid."

"Oh, cheap, very cheap," said the angel. "There's really no need for that sort of thing."

"Don't get defensive. I told you, these were some of ours. Black nuns. We needed a hospital close to the air base, you see."

"You've lost me there."

"You don't think American diplomats' wives usually give birth in little religious hospitals in the middle of nowhere, do you? It all had to seem to happen naturally. There's an air base at Lower Tadfield, she went there for the opening, things started to happen, base hospital not ready, our man there said, 'There's a place just down the road,' and there we were. Rather good organization."

"Except for one or two minor details," said Aziraphale smugly.

"But it nearly worked," snapped Crowley, feeling he should stick up for the old firm.

"You see, evil always contains the seeds of its own destruction," said the angel. "It is ultimately negative, and therefore encompasses its downfall even at its moments of apparent triumph. No matter how grandi­ose, how well‑planned, how apparently foolproof an evil plan, the inherent sinfulness will by definition rebound upon its instigators. No matter how apparently successful it may seem upon the way, at the end it will wreck itself. It will founder upon the rocks of iniquity and sink headfirst to vanish without trace into the seas of oblivion."

Crowley considered this. "Nah," he said, at last. "For my money, it was just average incompetence. Hey‑"

He whistled under his breath.

The graveled forecourt in front of the manor was crowded with cars, and they weren't nun cars. The Bentley was if anything outclassed. A lot of the cars had GT or Turbo in their names and phone aerials on their roofs. They were nearly all less than a year old.

Crowley's hands itched. Aziraphale healed bicycles and broken bones; he longedto steal a few radios, let down some tires, that sort of thing. He resisted it.

"Well, well," he said. "In my day nuns were packed four to a Morris Traveller."

"This can't be right," said Aziraphale.

"Perhaps they've gone private?" said Crowley.

"Or you've got the wrong place."

"It's the right place, I tell you. Come on."

They got out of the car. Thirty seconds later someone shot both of them. With incredible accuracy.

– – -

If there was one thing that Mary Hodges, formerly Loquacious, was good at, it was attempting to obey orders. She liked orders. They made the world a simpler place.

What she wasn't good at was change. She'd really liked the Chat­tering Order. She'd made friends for the first time. She'd had a room of her own for the first time. Of course, she knew that it was engaged in things which might, from certain viewpoints, be considered bad, but Mary Hodges had seen quite a lot of life in thirty years and had no illusions about what most of the human race had to do in order to make it from one week to the next. Besides, the food was good and you got to meet interest­ing people.

The Order, such as was left of it, had moved after the fire. After all, their sole purpose in existing had been fulfilled. They went their separate ways.

She hadn't gone. She'd rather liked the Manor and, she said, some­one ought to stay and see it was properly repaired, because you couldn't trust workmen these days unless you were on top of them the whole time, in a manner of speaking. This meant breaking her vows, but Mother Supe­rior said this was all right, nothing to worry about, breaking vows was perfectly okay in a black sisterhood, and it would all be the same in a hundred years' time or, rather, eleven years' time, so if it gave her any pleasure here were the deeds and an address to forward any mail unless it came in long brown envelopes with windows in the front.

Then something very strange had happened to her. Left alone in the rambling building, working from one of the few undamaged rooms, arguing with men with cigarette stubs behind their ears and plaster dust on their trousers and the kind of pocket calculator that comes up with a different answer if the sums involved are in used notes, she discovered something she never knew existed.

She'd discovered, under layers of silliness and eagerness to please, Mary Hodges.

She found it quite easy to interpret builders' estimates and do VAT calculations. She'd got some books from the library, and found finance to be both interesting and uncomplicated. She'd stopped reading the kind of women's magazine that talks about romance and knitting and started read­ing the kind of women's magazine that talks about orgasms, but apart from making a mental note to have one if ever the occasion presented itself she dismissed them as only romance and knitting in a new form. So she'd started reading the kind of magazine that talked about mergers.

After much thought, she'd bought a small home computer from an amused and condescending young dealer in Norton. After a crowded weekend, she took it back. Not, as he thought when she walked back into the shop, to have a plug put on it, but because it didn't have a 387 co­processor. That bit he understood‑he was a dealer, after all, and could understand quite long words‑but after that the conversation rapidly went downhill from his point of view. Mary Hodges produced yet more maga­zines. Most of them had the term "PC" somewhere in their title, and many of them had articles and reviews that she had circled carefully in red ink.

She read about New Women. She hadn't ever realized that she'd been an Old Woman, but after some thought she decided that titles like that were all one with the romance and the knitting and the orgasms, and the really important thing to be was yourself, just as hard as you could. She'd always been inclined to dress in black and white. All she needed to do was raise the hemlines, raise the heels, and leave off the wimple.

It was while leafing through a magazine one day that she learned that, around the country, there was an apparently insatiable demand for commodious buildings in spacious grounds run by people who understood the needs of the business community. The following day she went out and ordered some stationery in the name of the Tadfield Manor Conference and Management Training Center, reasoning that by the time it had been printed she'd know all that was necessary to know about running such places.

The ads went out the following week.

It had turned out to be an overwhelming success, because Mary Hodges realized early in her new career as Herself that management train­ing didn't have to mean sitting people down in front of unreliable slide projectors. Firms expected far more than that these days.

She provided it.

– – -

Crowley sank down with his back against a statue. Aziraphale had already toppled backward into a rhododendron bush, a dark stain spread­ing across his coat.

Crowley felt dampness suffusing his own shirt.

This was ridiculous. The last thing he needed now was to be killed. It would require all sorts of explanations. They didn't hand out new bodies just like that; they always wanted to know what you'd done with the old one. It was like trying to get a new pen from a particularly bloody‑minded stationery department.

He looked at his hand in disbelief.

Demons have to be able to see in the dark. And he could see that his hand was yellow. He was bleeding yellow.

Gingerly, he tasted a finger.

Then he crawled over to Aziraphale and checked the angel's shirt. If the stain on it was blood, something had gone very wrong with biology.

"Oo, that stung," moaned the fallen angel. "Got me right under the ribs."

"Yes, but do you normally bleed blue?" said Crowley.

Aziraphale's eyes opened. His right hand patted his chest. He sat up. He went through the same crude forensic self‑examination as Crowley.

"Paint?" he said.

Crowley nodded.

"What're they playing at?" said Aziraphale.

"I don't know," said Crowley, "but I think it's called silly bug­gers." His tone suggested that he could play, too. And do it better.

It was a game. It was tremendous fun. Nigel Tompkins, Assistant Head (Purchasing), squirmed through the undergrowth, his mind aflame with some of the more memorable scenes of some of the better Clint East­wood movies. And to think he'd believed that management training was going to be boring, too . . .

There hadbeen a lecture, but it had been about the paint guns and all the things you should never do with them, and Tompkins had looked at the fresh young faces of his rival trainees as, to a man, they resolved to do them all if there was half a chance of getting away with it. If people told you business was a jungle and then put a gun in your hand, then it was pretty obvious to Tompkins that they weren't expecting you to simply aim for the shirt; what it was all about was the corporate head hanging over your fireplace.

Anyway, it was rumored that someone over in United Consolidated had done his promotion prospects a considerable amount of good by the anonymous application of a high‑speed earful of paint to an immediate superior, causing the latter to complain of little ringing noises in important meetings and eventually to be replaced on medical grounds.

And there were his fellow trainees‑fellow sperms, to switch meta­phors, all struggling forward in the knowledge that there could only ever be one Chairman of Industrial Holdings (Holdings) PLC, and that the job would probably go to the biggest prick.

Of course, some girl with a clipboard from Personnel had told them that the courses they were going on were just to establish leadership poten­tial, group cooperation, initiative, and so on. The trainees had tried to avoid one another's faces.

It had worked quite well so far. The white‑water canoeing had taken care of Johnstone (punctured eardrum) and the mountain climbing in Wales had done for Whittaker (groin strain).

Tompkins thumbed another paint pellet into the gun and muttered business mantras to himself. Do Unto Others Before They Do Unto You. Kill or Be Killed. Either Shit or Get Out of the Kitchen. Survival of the Fittest. Make My Day.

He crawled a little nearer to the figures by the statue. They didn't seem to have noticed him.

When the available cover ran out, he took a deep breath and leapt to his feet.

"Okay, douchebags, grab some sk‑ohnoooeeeeee . . ."

Where one of the figures had been there was something dreadful.He blacked out.

Crowley restored himself to his favorite shape.

"I hate having to do that," he murmured. "I'm always afraid I'll forget how to change back. And it can ruin a good suit."

"I think the maggots were a bit over the top, myself," said Aziraphale, but without much rancor. Angels had certain moral standards to maintain and so, unlike Crowley, he preferred to buy his clothes rather than wish them into being from raw firmament. And the shirt had been quite expensive.

"I mean, just look at it," he said. "I'll never get the stain out."

"Miracle it away," said Crowley, scanning the undergrowth for any more management trainees.

"Yes, but I'll always know the stain was there. You know. Deep down, I mean," said the angel. He picked up the gun and turned it over in his hands. "I've never seen one of these before," he said.

There was a pinging noise, and the statue beside them lost an ear.

"Let's not hang around," said Crowley. "He wasn't alone."

"This is a very odd gun, you know. Very strange."

"I thought your side disapproved of guns," said Crowley. He took the gun from the angel's plump hand and sighted along the stubby barrel.

"Current thinking favors them," said Aziraphale. "They lend weight to moral argument. In the right hands, of course."

"Yeah?" Crowley snaked a hand over the metal. "That's all right, then. Come on."

He dropped the gun onto the recumbent form of Tompkins and marched away across the damp lawn.

The front door of the Manor was unlocked. The pair of them walked through unheeded. Some plump young men in army fatigues spat­tered with paint were drinking cocoa out of mugs in what had once been the sisters' refectory, and one or two of them gave them a cheery wave.

Something like a hotel reception desk now occupied one end of the hall. It had a quietly competent look. Aziraphale gazed at the board on an aluminum easel beside it.

In little plastic letters let into the black fabric of the board were the words: August 20‑21: United Holdings PLC Initiative CombatCourse.

Meanwhile Crowley had picked up a pamphlet from the desk. It showed glossy pictures of the Manor, with special references to its Jacuzzis and indoor heated swimming pool, and on the back was the sort of map that conference centers always have, which makes use of a careful mis­scaling to suggest that it is handy for every motorway exit in the nation while carefully leaving out the labyrinth of country lanes that in fact sur­rounds it for miles on every side.

"Wrong place?" said Aziraphale.

"No."

"Wrong time, then."

"Yes." Crowley leafed through the booklet, in the hope of any clue. Perhaps it was too much to hope that the Chattering Order would still be here. After all, they'd done their bit. He hissed softly. Probably they'd gone to darkest America or somewhere, to convert the Christians, but he read on anyway. Sometimes this sort of leaflet had a little historical bit, because the kind of companies that hired places like this for a weekend of Interactive Personnel Analysis or A Conference on the Strategic Market­ing Dynamic liked to feel that they were strategically interacting in the very building‑give or take a couple of complete rebuildings, a civil war, and two major fires‑that some Elizabethan financier had endowed as a plague hospital.

Not that he was actually expecting a sentence like "until eleven years ago the Manor was used as a convent by an order of Satanic nuns who weren't in fact all that good at it, really," but you never knew.

A plump man wearing desert camouflage and holding a polystyrene cup of coffee wandered up to them.

"Who's winning?" he said chummily. "Young Evanson of Forward Planning caught me a right zinger on the elbow, you know."

"We're all going to lose," said Crowley absently.

There was a burst of firing from the grounds. Not the snap and zing of pellets, but the full‑throated crackle of aerodynamically shaped bits of lead traveling extremely fast.

There was an answering stutter.

The redundant warriors stared one on another. A further burst took out a rather ugly Victorian stained glass window beside the door and stitched a row of holes in the plaster by Crowley's head.

Aziraphale grabbed his arm.

"What the hell is it?" he said.

Crowley smiled like a snake.

– – -

Nigel Tompkins had come to with a mild headache and a vaguely empty space in his recent memory. He was not to know that the human brain, when faced with a sight too terrible to contemplate, is remarkably good at scabbing it over with forced forgetfulness, so he put it down to a pellet strike on the head.

He was vaguely aware that his gun was somewhat heavier, but in his mildly bemused state he did not realize why until some time after he'd pointed it at trainee manager Norman Wethered from Internal Audit and pulled the trigger.

– – -

"I don't see why you're so shocked," said Crowley. "He wanteda real gun. Every desire in his head was for a real gun."

"But you've turned him loose on all those unprotected people!" said Aziraphale.

"Oh, no," said Crowley. "Not exactly. Fair's fair."

– – -

The contingent from Financial Planning were lying flat on their faces in what had once been the haha, although they weren't very amused.

"I always said you couldn't trust those people from Purchasing," said the Deputy Financial Manager. "The bastards."

A shot pinged off the wall above him.

He crawled hurriedly over to the little group clustered around the fallen Wethered.

"How does it look?" he said.

The assistant Head of Wages turned a haggard face toward him.

"Pretty bad," he said. "The bullet went through nearly all of them. Ac­cess, Barclaycard, Diners‑the lot."

"It was only the American Express Gold that stopped it," said Wethered.

They looked in mute horror at the spectacle of a credit card wallet with a bullet hole nearly all the way through it.

"Why'd they do it?" said a wages officer.

The head of Internal Audit opened his mouth to say something reasonable, and didn't. Everyone had a point where they crack, and his had just been hit with a spoon. Twenty years in the job. He'd wanted to be a graphic designer but the careers master hadn't heard of that. Twenty years of double‑checking Form BF 18. Twenty years of cranking the bloody hand calculator, when even the people in Forward Planning had com­puters. And now for reasons unknown, but possibly to do with reorganiza­tion and a desire to do away with all the expense of early retirement, they were shooting at him with bullets.

The armies of paranoia marched behind his eyes.

He looked down at his own gun. Through the mists of rage and bewilderment he saw that it was bigger and blacker than it had been when it was issued to him. It felt heavier, too.

He aimed it at a bush nearby and watched a stream of bullets blow the bush into oblivion.

Oh. So that was their game. Well, someonehad to win.

He looked at his men.

"Okay, guys," he said, "let's get the bastards!"

– – -

"The way I see it," said Crowley, "no one hasto pull the trigger." He gave Aziraphale a bright and brittle grin.

"Come on," he said. "Let's have a look around while everyone's busy."

– – -

Bullets streaked across the night.

Jonathan Parker, Purchasing Section, was wriggling through the bushes when one of them put an arm around his neck.

Nigel Tompkins spat a cluster of rhododendron leaves out of his mouth.

"Down there it's company law," he hissed, through mud‑encrusted features, "but up here it's me . . ."

"That was a pretty low trick," said Aziraphale, as they strolled along the empty corridors.

"What'd I do? What'd I do?" said Crowley, pushing open doors at random.

"There are people out there shooting one another!"

"Well, that's just it, isn't it? They're doing it themselves. It's what they really want to do. I just assisted them. Think of it as a microcosm of the universe. Free will for everyone. Ineffable, right?"

Aziraphale glared.

"Oh, all right," said Crowley wretchedly. "No one's actually going to get killed. They're all going to have miraculous escapes. It wouldn't be any fun otherwise."

Aziraphale relaxed. "You know, Crowley," he said, beaming, "I've always said that, deep down inside, you're really quite a‑"

"All right, all right,"Crowley snapped. "Tell the whole blessed world, why don't you?"

– – -

After a while, loose alliances began to emerge. Most of the financial departments found they had interests in common, settled their differences, and ganged up on Forward Planning.

When the first police car arrived, sixteen bullets from a variety of directions had hit it in the radiator before it had got halfway up the drive. Two more took out its radio antenna, but they were too late, too late.

– – -

Mary Hodges was just putting down the phone when Crowley opened her office door.

"It must be terrorists," she snapped. "Or poachers." She peered at the pair of them. "You are the police, aren't you?" she said.

Crowley saw her eyes begin to widen.

Like all demons, he had a good memory for faces, even after ten years, the loss of a wimple, and the addition of some rather severe makeup. He snapped his fingers. She settled back in her chair, her face becoming a blank and amiable mask.

"There was no need for that," said Aziraphale.

"Good"‑Crowley glanced at his watch‑"morning, ma'am," he said, in a sing‑song voice. "We're just a couple of supernatural entities and we were just wondering if you might help us with the whereabouts of the notorious Son of Satan." He smiled coldly at the angel. "I'll wake her up again, shall I? And you can say it."

"Well. Since you put it like that . . ." said the angel slowly.

"Sometimes the old ways are best," said Crowley. He turned to the impassive woman.

"Were you a nun here eleven years ago?" he said.

"Yes," said Mary.

"There!" said Crowley to Aziraphale. "See? I knew I wasn't wrong."

"Luck of the devil," muttered the angel.

"Your name then was Sister Talkative. Or something."

"Loquacious," said Mary Hodges in a hollow voice.

"And do you recall an incident involving the switching of newborn babies?" said Crowley.

Mary Hodges hesitated. When she did speak, it was as though memories that had been scabbed over were being disturbed for the first time in years.

"Yes," she said.

"Is there any possibility that the switch could have gone wrong in some way?"

"I do not know."

Crowley thought for a bit. "You must have had records," he said. "There are always records. Everyone has records these days." He glanced proudly at Aziraphale. "It was one of my better ideas."

"Oh, yes," said Mary Hodges.

"And where are they?" said Aziraphale sweetly.

"There was a fire just after the birth."

Crowley groaned and threw his hands in the air. "That was Hastur, probably," he said. "It's his style. Can you believe those guys? I bet he thought he was being really clever."

"Do you recall any details about the other child?" said Aziraphale.

"Yes."

"Please tell me."

"He had lovely little toesie‑wosies."

"Oh."

"And he was very sweet," said Mary Hodges wistfully.

There was the sound of a siren outside, abruptly broken off as a bullet hit it. Aziraphale nudged Crowley.

"Get a move on," he said. "We're going to be knee‑deep in police at any moment and I will of course be morally obliged to assist them in their enquiries." He thought for a moment. "Perhaps she can remember if there were any other women giving birth that night, and‑"

There was the sound of running feet downstairs.

"Stop them," said Crowley. "We need more time!"

"Any more miracles and we'll really start getting noticed by Up There," said Aziraphale. "If you really want Gabriel or someone wonder­ing why forty policemen have gone to sleep‑"

"Okay," said Crowley. "That's it. That's it. It was worth a try. Let's get out of here."

"In thirty seconds you will wake up," said Aziraphale, to the en­tranced ex‑nun. "And you will have had a lovely dream about whatever you like best, and‑"

"Yes, yes, fine," sighed Crowley. "Now can we go?"

– – -

No one noticed them leaving. The police were too busy herding in forty adrenaline‑drunk, fighting‑mad management trainees. Three police vans had gouged tracks in the lawn, and Aziraphale made Crowley back up for the first of the ambulances, but then the Bentley swished into the night. Behind them the summerhouse and gazebo were already ablaze.

"We've really left that poor woman in a dreadful situation," said the angel.

"You think?" said Crowley, trying to hit a hedgehog and missing. "Bookings will double, you mark my words. If she plays her cards right, sorts out the waivers, ties up all the legal bits. Initiative training with real guns? They'll form queues."

"Why are you always so cynical?"

"I said. Because it's my job."

They drove in silence for a while. Then Aziraphale said, "You'd think he'd show up, wouldn't you? You'd think we could detect him in some way."

"He won't show up. Not to us. Protective camouflage. He won't even know it, but his powers will keep him hidden from prying occult forces."

"Occult forces?"

"You and me," explained Crowley.

"I'm not occult," said Aziraphale. "Angels aren't occult. We're ethereal."

"Whatever," snapped Crowley, too worried to argue.

"Is there some other way of locating him?"

Crowley shrugged. "Search me," he said. "How much experience do you think I've got in these matters? Armageddon only happens once, you know. They don't let you go around again until you get it right."

The angel stared out at the rushing hedgerows.

"It all seems so peaceful," he said. "How do you think it will happen?"

"Well, thermonuclear extinction has always been very popular. Al­though I must say the big boys are being quite polite to each other at the moment."

"Asteroid strike?" said Aziraphale. "Quite the fashion these days, I understand. Strike into the Indian Ocean, great big cloud of dust and vapor, goodbye all higher life forms."

"Wow," said Crowley, taking care to exceed the speed limit. Every little bit helped.

"Doesn't bear thinking about it, does it," said Aziraphale gloomily.

"All the higher life forms scythed away, just like that."

"Terrible."

"Nothing but dust and fundamentalists."

"That was nasty."

"Sorry. Couldn't resist it."

They stared at the road.

"Maybe some terrorist‑?" Aziraphale began.

"Not one of ours," said Crowley.

"Or ours," said Aziraphale. "Although ours are freedom fighters, of course."

"I'll tell you what," said Crowley, scorching rubber on the Tadfield bypass. "Cards on the table time. I'll tell you ours if you tell me yours."

"All right. You first."

"Oh, no. You first."

"But you're a demon."

"Yes, but a demon of my word, I should hope."

Aziraphale named five political leaders. Crowley named six. Three names appeared on both lists.

"See?" said Crowley. "It's just like I've always said. They're cun­ning buggers, humans. You can't trust them an inch."

"But I don't think any of ours have any big plans afoot," said Aziraphale. "Just minor acts of ter‑political protest," he corrected.

"Ah," said Crowley bitterly. "You mean none of this cheap, mass­produced murder? Just personal service, every bullet individually fired by skilled craftsmen?"

Aziraphale didn't rise to it. "What are we going to do now?"

"Try and get some sleep."

"You don't need sleep. I don't need sleep. Evil never sleeps, and Virtue is ever‑vigilant."

"Evil in general, maybe. This specific part of it has got into the habit of getting its head down occasionally." He stared into the headlights. The time would come soon enough when sleep would be right out of the question. When those Below found out that he, personally, had lost the Antichrist, they'd probably dig out all those reports he'd done on the Spanish Inquisition and try them out on him, one at a time and then all together.

He rummaged in the glove compartment, fumbled a tape at ran­dom, and slotted it into the player. A little music would . . .

. . . Bee‑elzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me . . .

"For me," murmured Crowley. His expression went blank for a moment. Then he gave a strangled scream and wrenched at the on‑off knob.

"Of course, we might be able to get a human to find him," said Aziraphale thoughtfully.

"What?" said Crowley, distractedly.

"Humans are good at finding other humans. They've been doing it for thousands of years. And the child is human. As well as . . . you know. He would be hidden from us, but other humans might be able to . . . oh, sense him, perhaps. Or spot things we wouldn't think of."

"It wouldn't work. He's the Antichrist! He's got this . . . sort of automatic defense, hasn't he? Even if he doesn'tknow it. It won't even let people suspect him. Not yet. Not till it's ready. Suspicion will slide off him like, like . . . whatever it is water slides off of," he finished lamely.

"Got any better ideas? Got one singlebetter idea?" said Aziraphale.

"No."

"Right, then. It could work. Don't tell me you haven't got any front organizations you could use. I know I have. We could see if they can pick up the trail."

"What could they do that we couldn't do?"

"Well, for a start, they wouldn't get people to shoot one another, they wouldn't hypnotize respectable women, they‑"

"Okay. Okay. But it hasn't got a snowball's chance in Hell. Believe me, I know. But I can't think of anything better." Crowley turned onto the motorway and headed for London.

"I have a‑a certain network of agents," said Aziraphale, after a while. "Spread across the country. A disciplined force. I could set them searching."

"I, er, have something similar," Crowley admitted. "You know how it is, you never know when they might come in handy . . ."

"We'd better alert them. Do you think they ought to work together?"

Crowley shook his head.

"I don't think that would be a good idea," he said. "They're not very sophisticated, politically speaking."

"Then we'll each contact our own people and see what they can manage."

"Got to be worth a try, I suppose," said Crowley. "It's not as if I haven't got lots of other work to do, God knows."

His forehead creased for a moment, and then he slapped the steer­ing wheel triumphantly.

"Ducks!" he shouted.

"What?"

"That's what water slides off!"

Aziraphale took a deep breath.

"Just drive the car, please," he said wearily.

They drove back through the dawn, while the cassette player played J. S. Bach's Mass in B Minor, vocals by F. Mercury.

Crowley liked the city in the early morning. Its population con­sisted almost entirely of people who had proper jobs to do and real reasons for being there, as opposed to the unnecessary millions who trailed in after 8 A.M., and the streets were more or less quiet. There were double yellow no‑parking lines in the narrow road outside Aziraphale's bookshop, but they obediently rolled back on themselves when the Bentley pulled in to the curb.

"Well, okay," he said, as Aziraphale got his coat from the back seat. "We'll keep in touch. Okay?"

"What's this?" said Aziraphale, holding up a brown oblong.

Crowley squinted at it. "A book?" he said. "Not mine."

Aziraphale turned a few of the yellowed pages. Tiny bibliophilic bells rang in the back of his mind.

"It must have belonged to that young lady," he said slowly. "We ought to have got her address."

"Look, I'm in enough trouble as it is, I don't want it to get about that I go around returning people's property to them," said Crowley.

Aziraphale reached the title page. It was probably a good job. Crowley couldn't see his expression.

"I suppose you could always send it to the post office there," said Crowley, "if you really feel you must. Address it to the mad woman with the bicycle. Never trust a woman who gives funny names to means of transport‑"

"Yes, yes, certainly," said the angel. He fumbled for his keys, dropped them on the pavement, picked them up, dropped them again, and hurried to the shop door.

"We'll be in touch then, shall we?" Crowley called after him.

Aziraphale paused in the act of turning the key.

"What?" he said. "Oh. Oh. Yes. Fine. Jolly good." And he slammed the door.

"Right," mumbled Crowley, suddenly feeling very alone.

– – -

Torchlight flicked in the lanes.

The trouble with trying to find a brown‑covered book among brown leaves and brown water at the bottom of a ditch of brown earth in the brown, well, grayish light of dawn, was that you couldn't.

It wasn't there.

Anathema tried every method of search she could think of. There was the methodical quartering of the ground. There was the slapdash poking at the bracken by the roadside. There was the nonchalant sidling up to it and looking out of the side of her eye. She even tried the one which every romantic nerve in her body insisted should work, which consisted of theatrically giving up, sitting down, and letting her glance fall naturally on a patch of earth which, if she had been in any decent narrative, should have contained the book.

It didn't.

Which meant, as she had feared all along, that it was probably in the back of a car belonging to two consenting cycle repairmen.

She could feel generations of Agnes Nutter's descendants laughing at her.

Even if those two were honest enough to want to return it, they'd hardly go to all the trouble of finding a cottage they'd barely seen in the dark.

The only hope was that they wouldn't know what it was they'd got.

* * * * *

A ziraphale, like many Soho merchants who special­ized in hard‑to‑find books for the discerning connoisseur, had a back room, but what was in there was far more esoteric than anything normally found inside a shrink‑wrapped bag for the Customer Who Knows What He Wants.

He was particularly proud of his books of prophecy.

First editions, usually.

And every one was signed.

He'd got Robert Nixon, ^[16]and Martha the Gypsy, and Ignatius Sybilla, and Old Ottwell Binns. Nostradamus had signed, "To myne olde friend Azerafel, with Beste wishes"; Mother Shipton had spilled drink on his copy; and in a climate‑controlled cabinet in one corner was the original scroll in the shaky handwriting of St. John the Divine of Patmos, whose "Revelation" had been the all‑time best seller. Aziraphale had found him a nice chap, if a bit too fond of odd mushrooms.

What the collection did nothave was a copy of The Nice and Accu­rate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter,and Aziraphale walked into the room holding it as a keen philatelist might hold a Mauritius Blue that had just turned up on a postcard from his aunt.

He'd never even seen a copy before, but he'd heard about it. Every­one in the trade, which considering it was a highly specialized trade meant about a dozen people, had heard of it. Its existence was a sort of vacuum around which all sorts of strange stories had been orbiting for hundreds of years. Aziraphale realized he wasn't sure if you could orbit a vacuum, and didn't care; The Nice and Accurate Propheciesmade the Hitler Diaries look like, well, a bunch of forgeries.

His hands hardly shook at all as he laid it down on a bench, pulled on a pair of surgical rubber gloves, and opened it reverentially. Aziraphale was an angel, but he also worshiped books.

The title page said:

The Nife and Accurate Prophefies of Agnes Nutter

In slightly smaller type:

Being a Certaine and Prefice Hiftory from

the Prefent Day Unto the Endinge of this World.

In slightly larger type:

Containing therein Many Diuerse Wonders and

precepts for the Wife

In a different type:

More complete than ever yet before publifhed

In smaller type but in capitals:

CONCERNING THE STRANGE TIMES AHEADE

In slightly desperate italics:

And events of a Wonderful Nature

In larger type once more:

'Reminifent of Noftradamus at hif beft'

‑Ursula Shipton

The prophecies were numbered, and there were more than four thousand of them.

"Steady, steady," Aziraphale muttered to himself. He went into the little kitchenette and made himself some cocoa and took some deep breaths.

Then he came back and read a prophecy at random.

Forty minutes later, the cocoa was still untouched.

– – -

The red‑haired woman in the corner of the hotel bar was the most successful war correspondent in the world. She now had a passport in the name of Carmine Zuigiber; and she went where the wars were.

Well. More or less.

Actually she went where the wars weren't. She'd already been where the wars were.

She was not well known, except where it counted. Get half a dozen war correspondents together in an airport bar, and the conversation will, like a compass orienting to North, swing around to Murchison of The New York Times,to Van Home of Newsweek,to Anforth of I.T.N. News. The war correspondents' War Correspondents.

But when Murchison, and Van Home, and Anforth ran into each other in a burnt‑out tin shack in Beirut, or Afghanistan, or the Sudan, after they'd admired each other's scars and had downed a few, they would exchange awed anecdotes of "Red" Zuigiber, from the National World Weekly.

"That dumb rag," Murchison would say, "it doesn't goddamn know what it's goddamn got."

Actually the National World Weeklydid know just what it had got: it had a War Correspondent. It just didn't know why, or what to do with one now it had her.

A typical National World Weeklywould tell the world how Jesus' face was seen on a Big Mac bun bought by someone from Des Moines, with an artist's impression of the bun; how Elvis Presley was recently sighted working in a Burger Lord in Des Moines; how listening to Elvis records cured a Des Moines housewife's cancer; how the spate of were­wolves infesting the Midwest are the offspring of noble pioneer women raped by Bigfoot; and that Elvis was taken by Space Aliens in 1976 be­cause he was too good for this world. ^[17]

That was the National World Weekly.They sold four million copies a week, and they needed a War Correspondent like they needed an exclu­sive interview with the General Secretary of the United Nations ^[18].

So they paid Red Zuigiber a great deal of money to go and find wars, and ignored the bulging, badly typed envelopes she sent them occa­sionally from around the globe to justify her‑generally fairly reasonable‑expense claims.

They felt justified in this because, as they saw it, she really wasn't a very good war correspondent although she was undoubtedly the most at­tractive, which counted for a lot on the National World Weekly.Her war reports were always about a bunch of guys shooting at each other, with no real understanding of the wider political ramifications, and, more impor­tantly, no Human Interest.

Occasionally they would hand one of her stories over to a rewrite man to fix up. ("Jesus appeared to nine‑year‑old Manuel Gonzalez during a pitched battle on the Rio Concorsa, and told him to go home because his mother worried about him. 'I knew it was Jesus,' said the brave little child, 'because he looked like he did when his picture miraculously appeared on my sandwich box."')

Mostly the National World Weeklyleft her alone, and carefully filed her stories in the rubbish bin.

Murchison, and Van Home, and Anforth didn't care about this. All they knew was that whenever a war broke out, Ms. Zuigiber was there first. Practically before.

"How does she do it?" they would ask each other incredulously. "How the hell does she do it?" And their eyes would meet, and silently say: if she was a car she'd be made by Ferrari, she's the kind of woman you'd expect to see as the beautiful consort to the corrupt generalissimo of a collapsing Third World country, and she hangs around with guys like us. We're the lucky guys, right?

Ms. Zuigiber just smiled and bought another round of drinks for everybody, on the National World Weekly.And watched the fights break out around her. And smiled.

She had been right. Journalism suited her.

Even so, everyone needs a holiday, and Red Zuigiber was on her first in eleven years.

She was on a small Mediterranean island which made its money from the tourist trade, and that in itself was odd. Red looked to be the kind of woman who, if she took a holiday on any island smaller than Australia, would be doing so because she was friends with the man who owned it. And had you told any islander a month before that war was coming, he would have laughed at you and tried to sell you a raffiawork wine holder or a picture of the bay done in seashells; that was then.