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 toward 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 every portable 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 they took it out on other people? In all kinds of vindictive little ways which, and here was the good bit, they thought up themselves. For 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;