Good Omens

“You didn’t have any lights,” she began.

“Nor did you,” said Crowley guiltily. “Fair’s fair.”

“Doing a spot of astronomy, were we?” said Aziraphale, setting the bike upright. Various things clattered out of its front basket. He pointed to the battered theodolite.

“No,” said Anathema, “I mean, yes. And look what you’ve done to poor old Phaeton.”

“I’m sorry?” said Aziraphale.

“My bicycle. It’s bent all to.. ”

“Amazingly resilient, these old machines,” said the angel brightly, handing it to her. The front wheel gleamed in the moonlight, as perfectly round as one of the Circles of Hell.

She stared at it.

“Well, since that’s all sorted out,” said Crowley, “perhaps it’d be best if we just all got on our, er. Er. You wouldn’t happen to know the way to Lower Tadfield, would you?”

Anathema was still staring at her bicycle. She was almost certain that it hadn’t had a little saddlebag with a puncture repair kit when she set out.

“1t’s just down the hill,” she said. “This is my bike, isn’t it?”

“Oh, certainly,” said Aziraphale, wondering if he’d overdone things.

“Only I’m sure Phaeton never had a pump.”

The angel looked guilty again.

“But there’s a place for one,” he said, helplessly. “Two little hooks.”

“Just down the hill, you said?” said Crowley, nudging the angel.

“I think perhaps I must have knocked my head,” said the girl.

“We’d offer to give you a lift, of course,” said Crowley quickly, “but there’s nowhere for the bike.”

“Except the luggage rack,” said Aziraphale.

“The Bentley hasn’t.. Oh. Huh.”

The angel scrambled the spilled contents of the bike’s basket into the back seat and helped the stunned girl in after them.

“One does not,” he said to Crowley, “pass by on the other side.”

“Your one might not. This one does. We have got other things to do, you know.” Crowley glared at the new luggage rack. It had tartan straps.

The bicycle lifted itself up and tied itself firmly in place. Then Crowley got in.

“Where do you live, my dear?” Aziraphale oozed.

“My bike didn’t have lights, either. Well, it did, but they’re the sort you put those double batteries in and they went moldy and I took them off,” said Anathema. She glared at Crowley. “I have a bread knife, you know,” she said. “Somewhere.”

Aziraphale looked shocked at the implication.

“Madam, I assure you.. ”

Crowley switched on the lights. He didn’t need them to see by, but they made the other humans on the road less nervous. Then he put the car into gear and drove sedately down the hill. The road came out from under the trees and, after a few hundred yards, reached the outskirts of a middlesized village.

It had a familiar feel to it. It had been eleven years, but this place definitely rang a distant bell.

“Is there a hospital around here?” he said. “Run by nuns?”

Anathema shrugged. “Don’t think so,” she said. “The only large place is Tadfield Manor. I don’t know what goes on there.”

“Divine planning,” muttered Crowley under his breath.

“And gears,” said Anathema. “My bike didn’t have gears. I’m sure my bike didn’t have gears.”

Crowley leaned across to the angel.

“Oh lord, heal this bike,” he whispered sarcastically.

“I’m sorry, I just got carried away,” hissed Aziraphale.

“Tartan straps?”

“Tartan is stylish.”

Crowley growled. On those occasions when the angel managed to get his mind into the twentieth century, it always gravitated to 1950.

“You can drop me off here,” said Anathema, from the back seat.

“Our pleasure,” beamed the angel. As soon as the car had stopped he had the back door open and was bowing like an aged retainer welcoming the young massa back to the old plantation.

Anathema gathered her things together and stepped out as haughtily as possible.

She was quite sure neither of the two men had gone around to the back of the car, but the bike was unstrapped and leaning against the gate.

There was definitely something very weird about them, she decided.

Aziraphale bowed again. “So glad to have been of assistance,” he said.

“Thank you,” said Anathema, icily.

“Can we get on?” said Crowley. “Goodnight, miss. Get in, angel.”

Ah. Well, that explained it. She had been perfectly safe after all.

She watched the car disappear toward the center of the village, and wheeled the bike up the path to the cottage. She hadn’t bothered to lock it. She was sure that Agnes would have mentioned it if she was going to be burgled, she was always very good at personal things like that.

She’d rented the cottage furnished, which meant that the actual furniture was the special sort you find in these circumstances and had probably been left out for the dustmen by the local War on Want shop. It didn’t matter. She didn’t expect to be here long.

If Agnes was right, she wouldn’t be anywherelong. Nor would anyone else.

She spread her maps and things out on the ancient table under the kitchen’s solitary light bulb.

What had she learned? Nothing much, she decided. Probably IT was at the north end of the village, but she’d suspected that anyway. If you got too close the signal swamped you; if you were too far away you couldn’t get an accurate fix.

It was infuriating. The answer must be in the Book somewhere. The trouble was that in order to understand the Predictions you had to be able to think like a half.. crazed, highly intelligent seventeenth.. century witch with a mind like a crossword.. puzzle dictionary. Other members of the family had said that Agnes made things obscure to conceal them from the understanding of outsiders; Anathema, who suspected she could occasionally think like Agnes, had privately decided that it was because Agnes was a bloody.. minded old bitch with a mean sense of humor.

She’d not even..

She didn’t have the book.

Anathema stared in horror at the things on the table. The maps. The homemade divinatory theodolite. The thermos that had contained hot Bovril. The torch.

The rectangle of empty air where the Prophecies should have been.

She’d lost it.

But that was ridiculous! One of the things Agnes was always very specific about was what happened to the book.

She snatched up the torch and ran from the house.

* * *

“A feeling like, oh, like the opposite of the feeling you’re having when you say things like ‘this feels spooky,’ ” said Aziraphale. “That’s what I mean.”