can trust old Agnes, take it from me. Now let’s get out of here.”
“HE DIDN’T WANT TO DO IT!” said Aziraphale. “Haven’t I always told you, Crowley? If you take the trouble to look, deep down inside anyone, you’ll find that at bottom they’re really quite—”
“It’s not over,” said Crowley flatly.
Adam turned and appeared to notice them for the first time. Crowley was not used to people identifying him so readily, but Adam stared at him as though Crowley’s entire life history was pasted inside the back of his skull and he, Adam, was reading it. For an instant he knew real terror. He’d always thought the sort he’d felt before was the genuine article, but that was mere abject fear beside this new sensation. Those Below could make you cease to exist by, well, hurting you in unbearable amounts, but this boy could not only make you cease to exist merely by thinking about it, but probably could arrange matters so that you never had existed at all.
Adam’s gaze swept to Aziraphale.
“’Scuse me, why’re you two people?” said Adam.
“Well,” said Aziraphale, “it’s a long—”
“It’s not right, being two people,” said Adam. “I reckon you’d better go back to being two sep’rate people.”
There were no showy special effects. There was just Aziraphale, sitting next to Madame Tracy.
“Ooh, that felt tingly,” she said. She looked Aziraphale up and down. “Oh,” she said, in a slightly disappointed voice. “Somehow, I thought you’d be younger.”
Shadwell glowered jealously at the angel and thumbed the Thundergun’s hammer in a pointed sort of way.
Aziraphale looked down at his new body which was, unfortunately, very much like his old body, although the overcoat was cleaner.
“Well, that’s over,” he said.
“No,” said Crowley. “No. It isn’t, you see. Not at all.”
Now there were clouds overhead, curling like a pot of tagliatelli on full boil.
“You see,” said Crowley, his voice leaden with fatalistic gloom, “it doesn’t really work that simply. You think wars get started because some old duke gets shot, or someone cuts off someone’s ear, or someone’s sited their missiles in the wrong place. It’s not like that. That’s just, well, just reasons, which haven’t got anything to do with it. What really causes wars is two sides that can’t stand the sight of one another and the pressure builds up and up and then anything will cause it. Anything at all. What’s your name … er … boy?”
“That’s Adam Young,” said Anathema, as she strode up with Newt trailing after her.
“That’s right. Adam Young,” said Adam.
“Good effort. You’ve saved the world. Have a half-holiday,” said Crowley. “But it won’t really make any difference.”
“I think you’re right,” said Aziraphale. “I’m sure my people want Armageddon. It’s very sad.”
“Would anyone mind telling us what’s going on?” said Anathema sternly, folding her arms.
Aziraphale shrugged. “It’s a very long story,” he began.
Anathema stuck out her chin. “Go on, then,” she said.
“Well. In the Beginning—”
The lightning flashed, struck the ground a few meters from Adam, and stayed there, a sizzling column that broadened at the base, as though the wild electricity was filling an invisible mold. The humans pressed back against the jeep.
The lightning vanished, and a young man made out of golden fire stood there.
“Oh dear,” said Aziraphale. “It’s him.”
“Him who?” said Crowley.
“The Voice of God,” said the angel. “The Metatron.”
The Them stared.
Then Pepper said, “No, it isn’t. The Metatron’s made of plastic and it’s got laser cannon and it can turn into a helicopter.”
“That’s the Cosmic Megatron,” said Wensleydale weakly. “I had one, but the head fell off. I think this one is different.”
The beautiful blank gaze fell on Adam Young, and then turned sharply to look at the concrete beside it, which was boiling.
A figure rose from the churning ground in the manner of the demon king in a pantomime, but if this one was ever in a pantomime, it was one where no one walked out alive and they had to get a priest to burn the place down afterwards. It was not greatly different to the other figure, except that its flames were blood-red.
“Er,” said Crowley, trying to shrink into his seat. “Hi … er.”
The red thing gave him the briefest of glances, as though marking him for future consumption, and then stared at Adam. When it spoke, its voice was like a million flies taking off in a hurry.
It buzzed a word that felt, to those humans who heard it, like a file dragged down the spine.