Good Omens

Chapter Seventeen

Hello! I can't apologise enough for the delay in getting this chapter out to you. It's been playing around in my head for so long, and I just haven't found the time I need to sit and write. But...today is a public holiday where I am, so I have the day off and guess what happened! I finished the chapter haha

I would love it if you could go and check out this song here -  https://youtu.be/lD5jhtkVuOY - to help with the mood of one of the scenes.

Please read and review.

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Hermione waved her hand in front of her face erratically, exasperated by the sheer number of flies determined to get into every orifice of her face. They were in her eyes, crawling into her nostrils, dancing in her ears. It was almost suffocating. But, in central Australia, this was normal. Flies were as every day to the locals as the heat was, or the crocodiles, or the drought. To an English rose, they were a nightmare.

It was making it very difficult for Hermione to focus on the magazine she was pretending to read, as she sat on a hard-backed metal chair, by a small, circular outdoor table out the front of a streetside café. They were in a rustic outback town in the middle of the Northern Territory, so small that the entire town comprised of three roads, littered with closed-down stores. They had portkeyed there that morning and nothing could have prepared her for the annoying buggers. Or the blistering heat.

She plucked at the front of her blouse to try and bring herself some relief, but she was sticky with sweat and her shirt clung to her like a joey clung to its Koala mother.

Two and a half weeks of the most intensive training she had ever endured had passed since she had her meeting with Dave. She had to keep up her physical training after hours, of course, but this was specific on-the-job training. They had told her that most recruits would go through a gruelling eight-month rigorous course of preparation before they became field ready, but there was something going on in the wizarding world that required more agents out in the field and fast. While they didn't elaborate what exactly that meant, Hermione felt the serious undertone of the words. It reminded her strongly of the Order of the Phoenix, and how she was kept outside of the meetings, left to wonder what information was missing.

On location with her were two senior agents, as well as Fen and Charlie. They were told this was a routine training exercise, but there was something odd about the fact they portkeyed to such a remote location to perform it. Hermione tried wriggling her nose to remove three more flies and ended up with one of them darting up her nose, causing her to lean forward as she coughed and spluttered.

As she pulled a tissue out of her pocket to help, she heard Charlie's amused voice in her ear.

"All right, there, Vixen?"

Hermione blew her nose forcefully and managed to extradite the offensive intruder. She cleared her throat in answer and straightened herself in the chair once more, glancing around.

Their target was a middle-aged man known only by an alias – The Plumber. She thought the name was a bit odd, but she didn't question the senior agent when they gave her this information. The man would be dressed in tradesman gear. A thickly woven high-visibility shirt of the brightest yellow, navy-coloured pants, and tan coloured work boots. A through and through Australian tradie. He was to be passing by this café, and Hermione's job was to plant a magical listening device to him – what the muggles would call a bug. They had enchanted a coin to act as a microphone and relay the feedback to a recording device in HQ, where Jess would be waiting for it to analyse. Fen was waiting on a bench around the corner, just in case Hermione failed, to act as a second chance. Hermione knew that Fen disliked being second on point, but wanted to show she could follow orders compliantly, with no objections.

"Jackaroo to Vixen, I have eyes on the target. ETA walking past you in three minutes. Over."

Hermione pretended to scratch her ear and muttered, "Roger that. Coming from east or west? Over."

"Confirming target is coming from west. Over."

West, that was from over her shoulder. She silently counted and flicked over a magazine page, before shooing some more flies. The waitress of the café exited through the front door, carrying a tray of drinks precariously balancing on her arm as she tried to walk down the tree steps to the street.

"Thirty second warning. Over."

The seconds ticked on by as she counted them down.

Twenty.

The waitress took two more steps.

Ten.

Hermione could hear the heavy foot falls of the work boots approaching and timed it perfectly.