good omens

wednesday

It 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 intrinsic powers 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 are rubbish. 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 you might 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 few of 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-so- lucky,-lucky-lucky-lucky-lucky,-I-should-be-so-lucky-in-HELLO CROWLEY. "
"Hello. Um, who is this?"
"DAGON, LORD OF THE FILES, MASTER OF 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?"