Good Omens (32 page)

“Ah.” He wondered vaguely if everyone had to shower afterwards, or if it was just women. And he had a suspicion that bidets came into it somewhere.

“Tell you what,” said Newt, as Anathema came out of the bathroom swathed in a fluffy pink towel. “We could do it again.”

“Nope,” she said, “not now.” She finished drying herself, and started picking up clothes from the floor, and, unself-consciously, pulling them on. Newt, a man who was prepared to wait half an hour for a free changing cubicle at the swimming baths, rather than face the possibility of having to disrobe in front of another human being, found himself vaguely shocked, and deeply thrilled.

Bits of her kept appearing and disappearing, like a conjurer's hands; Newt kept trying to count her nipples and failing, although he didn't mind.

“Why not?” said Newt. He was about to point out that it might not take long, but an inner voice counseled him against it. He was growing up quite quickly in a short time.

Anathema shrugged, not an easy move when you're pulling on a sensible black skirt. “She said we only did it this once.”

Newt opened his mouth two or three times, then said, “She didn't. She bloody didn't. She couldn't predict that. I don't believe it.”

Anathema, fully dressed, walked over to her card index, pulled one out, and passed it to him.

Newt read it and blushed and gave it back, tight-lipped.

It wasn't simply the fact that Agnes had known, and had expressed herself in the most transparent of codes. It was that, down the ages, various Devices had scrawled encouraging little comments in the margin.

She passed him the damp towel. “Here,” she said. “Hurry up. I've got to make the sandwiches, and we've got to get ready.”

He looked at the towel. “What's this for?”

“Your shower.”

Ah. So it was something men and women both did. He was pleased he'd got that sorted out.

“But you'll have to make it quick,” she said.

“Why? Have we got to get out of here in the next ten minutes before the building explodes?”

“Oh no. We've got a couple of hours. It's just that I've used up most of the hot water. You've got a lot of plaster in your hair.”

The storm blew a dying gust around Jasmine Cottage, and holding the damp pink towel, no longer fluffy, in front of him, strategically, Newt edged off to take a cold shower.

IN SHADWELL'S DREAM, he is floating high above a village green. In the center of the green is a huge pile of kindling wood and dry branches. In the center of the pile is a wooden stake. Men and women and children stand around on the grass, eyes bright, cheeks pink, expectant, excited.

A sudden commotion: ten men walk across the green, leading a handsome, middle-aged woman; she must have been quite striking in her youth, and the word “vivacious” creeps into Shadwell's dreaming mind. In front of her walks Witchfinder Private Newton Pulsifer. No, it isn't Newt. The man is older, and dressed in black leather. Shadwell recognizes approvingly the ancient uniform of a Witchfinder Major.

The woman climbs onto the pyre, thrusts her hands behind her, and is tied to the stake. The pyre is lit. She speaks to the crowd, says something, but Shadwell is too high to hear what it is. The crowd gathers around her.

A witch, thinks Shadwell. They're burning a witch. It gives him a warm feeling. That was the right and proper way of things. That's how things were meant to be.

Only …

She looks directly up at him now, and says “That goes for yowe as welle, yowe daft old foole.”

Only she is going to die. She is going to burn to death. And, Shadwell realizes in his dream, it is a horrible way to die.

The flames lick higher.

And the woman looks up. She is staring straight at him, invisible though he is. And she is smiling.

And then it all goes boom.

A crash of thunder.

That was thunder, thought Shadwell, as he woke up, with the unshakable feeling that someone was still staring at him.

He opened his eyes, and thirteen glass eyes watched from the various shelves of Madame Tracy's boudoir, staring out from a variety of fuzzy faces.

He looked away, and into the eyes of someone staring intently at him. It was him.

Och, he thought in terror, I'm havin' one o' them out-o'-yer-body experiences, I can see mah ane self, I'm a goner this time right enough …

He made frantic swimming motions in an effort to reach his own body and then, as these things do, the perspectives clicked into place.

Shadwell relaxed, and wondered why anyone would want to put a mirror on his bedroom ceiling. He shook his head, baffled.

He climbed out of the bed, pulled on his boots, and stood up, warily. Something was missing. A cigarette. He thrust his hands deep into his pockets, pulled out a tin, and began to roll a cigarette.

He'd been dreaming, he knew. Shadwell didn't remember the dream, but it made him feel uncomfortable, whatever it was.

He lit the cigarette. And he saw his right hand: the ultimate weapon. The doomsday device. He pointed one finger at the one-eyed teddy bear on the mantelpiece.

“Bang,” he said, and chuckled, dustily. He wasn't used to chuckling, and he began to cough, which meant he was back on familiar territory. He wanted something to drink. A sweet can of condensed milk.

Madame Tracy would have some.

He stomped out of her boudoir, heading toward the kitchen.

Outside the little kitchen he paused. She was talking to someone. A man.

“So what exactly do you want me to do about this?” she was asking.

“Ach, ye beldame,” muttered Shadwell. She had one of her gentlemen callers in there, obviously.

“To be frank, dear lady, my plans at this point are perforce somewhat fluid.”

Shadwell's blood ran cold. He marched through the bead curtain, shouting, “The sins of Sodom an' Gomorrah! Takin' advantage of a defenseless hoor! Over my dead body!”

Madame Tracy looked up, and smiled at him. There wasn't anyone else in the room.

“Whurrizee?” asked Shadwell.

“Whom?” asked Madame Tracy.

“Some Southern pansy,” he said, “I heard him. He was in here, suggestin' things to yer. I heard him.”

Madame Tracy's mouth opened, and a voice said, “Not just A Southern Pansy, Sergeant Shadwell. THE Southern Pansy.”

Shadwell dropped his cigarette. He stretched out his arm, shaking slightly, and pointed his hand at Madame Tracy.

“Demon,” he croaked.

“
No
,” said Madame Tracy, in the
voice
of the demon.
“Now, I know what you're thinking, Sergeant Shadwell. You're thinking that any second now this head is going to go round and round, and I'm going to start vomiting pea soup. Well, I'm not. I'm not a demon. And I'd like you to listen to what I have to say.”

“Daemonspawn, be silent,” ordered Shadwell. “I'll no listen to yer wicked lies. Do yer know what
this
is? It's a hand. Four fingers. One thumb. It's already exorcised one of yer number this morning. Now get ye out of this gud wimmin's head, or I'll blast ye to kingdom come.”

“That's the problem, Mr. Shadwell,” said Madame Tracy in her own voice. “Kingdom come. It's going to. That's the problem. Mr. Aziraphale has been telling me all about it. Now stop being an old silly, Mr. Shadwell, sit down, and have some tea, and he'll explain it to you as well.”

“I'll ne'r listen tae his hellish blandishments, woman,” said Shadwell.

Madame Tracy smiled at him. “You old
silly,”
she said.

He could have handled anything else.

He sat down.

But he didn't lower his hand.

THE SWINGING OVERHEAD SIGNS proclaimed that the southbound carriageway was closed, and a small forest of orange cones had sprung up, redirecting motorists onto a co-opted lane of the northbound carriageway. Other signs directed motorists to slow down to thirty miles per hour. Police cars herded the drivers around like red-striped sheepdogs.

The four bikers ignored all the signs, and cones, and police cars, and continued down the empty southbound carriageway of the M6. The
other
four bikers, just behind them, slowed a little.

“Shouldn't we, uh, stop or something?” asked Really Cool People.

“Yeah. Could be a pileup,” said Treading in Dogshit (formerly All Foreigners Especially The French, formerly Things Not Working Properly Even When You've Given Them a Good Thumping, never actually No Alcohol Lager, briefly Embarrassing Personal Problems, formerly known as Skuzz).

“We're the
other
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” said G.B.H. “We do what they do. We follow them.”

They rode south.

“IT'LL BE A WORLD JUST FOR US,” said Adam. “Everything's always been messed up by other people but we can get rid of it all an' start again. Won't that be
great
?”

“YOU ARE, I TRUST,
familiar with the Book of Revelation?”
said Madame Tracy with Aziraphale's voice.

“Aye,” said Shadwell, who wasn't. His biblical expertise began and ended with Exodus, chapter twenty-two, verse eighteen, which concerned Witches, the suffering to live of, and why you shouldn't. He had once glanced at verse nineteen, which was about putting to death people who lay down with beasts, but he had felt that this was rather outside his jurisdiction.

“Then you have heard of the Antichrist?”

“Aye,” said Shadwell, who had seen a film once which explained it all. Something about sheets of glass falling off lorries and slicing people's heads off, as he recalled. No proper witches to speak of. He'd gone to sleep halfway through.

“The Antichrist is alive on earth at this moment, Sergeant. He is bringing about Armageddon, the Day of Judgment, even if he himself does not know it. Heaven and Hell are both preparing for war, and it's all going to be very messy.”

Shadwell merely grunted.

“I am not actually permitted to act directly in this matter, Sergeant. But I am sure that you can see that the imminent destruction of the world is not something any reasonable man would permit. Am I correct?”

“Aye. S'pose,” said Shadwell, sipping condensed milk from a rusting can Madame Tracy had discovered under the sink.

“Then there is only one thing to be done. And you are the only man I can rely on. The Antichrist must be killed, Sergeant Shadwell. And you must do it.”

Shadwell frowned. “I wouldna know about that,” he said. “The witchfinder army only kills witches. 'Tis one of the rules. And demons and imps, o' course.”

“But, but the Antichrist is more than just a witch. He—he's THE witch. He's just about as witchy as you can get.”

“Wud he be harder to get rid of than, say, a demon?” asked Shadwell, who had begun to brighten.

“Not much more,”
said Aziraphale, who had never done other to get rid of demons than to hint to them very strongly that he, Aziraphale, had some work to be getting on with, and wasn't it getting late? And Crowley had always got the hint.

Shadwell looked down at his right hand, and smiled. Then he hesitated.

“This Antichrist—how many nipples has he?”

The end justifies the means, thought Aziraphale. And the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
⁴⁶
And he lied cheerfully and convincingly:
“Oodles. Pots of them. His chest is covered with them—he makes Diana of the Ephesians look positively nippleless.”

“I wouldna know about this Diana of yours,” said Shadwell, “but if he's a witch, and it sounds tae me like he is, then, speaking as a sergeant in the WA, I'm yer man.”

“Good,”
said Aziraphale through Madame Tracy.

“I'm not sure about this killing business,” said Madame Tracy herself. “But if it's this man, this Antichrist, or everybody else, then I suppose we don't really have any choice.”

“Exactly, dear lady,”
she replied.
“Now, Sergeant Shadwell. Have you a weapon?”

Shadwell rubbed his right hand with his left, clenching and unclenching the fist. “Aye,” he said. “I have that.” And he raised two fingers to his lips and blew on them gently.

There was a pause. “
Your hand?
” asked Aziraphale.

“Aye. 'Tis a turrible weapon. It did for ye, daemonspawn, did it not?”

“Have you anything more, uh, substantial? How about the Golden Dagger of Meggido? Or the Shiv of Kali?”

Shadwell shook his head. “I've got some pins,” he suggested. “And the Thundergun of Witchfinder-Colonel Ye-Shall-Not-Eat-Any-Living-Thing-With-The-Blood-Neither-Shall-Ye-Use-Enchantment-Nor-Observe-Times Dalrymple … I could load it with silver bullets.”

“That's werewolves, I believe
,” said Aziraphale.

“Garlic?”

“Vampires.”

Shadwell shrugged. “Aye, weel, I dinna have any fancy bullets anyway. But the Thundergun will fire anything. I'll go and fetch it.”

He shuffled out, thinking, why do I need another weapon? I'm a man with a hand.

“Now, dear lady,”
said Aziraphale.
“I trust you have a reliable mode of transportation at your disposal
.”

“Oh, yes,” said Madame Tracy. She went over to the corner of the kitchen and picked up a pink motorbike helmet, with a yellow sunflower painted on it, and put it on, strapping it under her chin. Then she rummaged in a cupboard, pulled out three or four hundred plastic shopping bags and a heap of yellowing local newspapers, then a dusty day-glo green helmet with EASY RIDER written across the top, a present from her niece Petula twenty years before.

Shadwell, returning with the Thundergun over his shoulder, stared at her unbelieving.

“I don't know what you're staring at, Mr. Shadwell,” she told him. “It's parked in the road downstairs.” She passed him the helmet. “You've got to put it on. It's the law. I don't think you're really allowed to have three people on a scooter, even if two of them are, er, sharing. But it's an emergency. And I'm sure you'll be quite safe, if you hold on to me nice and tight.” And she smiled. “Won't that be fun?”