Good Omens

that direction, and spent the last years of his life in Newgate Prison when he eventually put them into practice.] "The public are crying out for such rubbishe! We must straightway printe a booke of prophecie by some hagge!"
    The manuscript arrived at their door the next morning; the author's sense of timing, as always, was exact.
    Although neither Master Bilton nor Master Scaggs realized it, the manuscript they had been sent was the sole prophetic work in all of human history to consist entirely of completely correct predictions concerning the following three hundred and forty.. odd years, being a precise and accurate description of the events that would culminate in Armageddon. It was on the money in every single detail.
    It was published by Bilton and Scaggs in September 1655, in good time for the Christmas trade, [Another master stroke of publishing genius, because Oliver Cromwell's Puritan Parliament had made Christmas illegal in 1654.] and it was the first book printed in England to be remaindered.
    It didn't sell.
    Not even the copy in the tiny Lancashire shop with "Locale Author" on a piece of cardboard next to it.
    The author of the book, one Agnes Nutter, was not surprised by this, but then, it would have taken an awful lot to surprise Agnes Nutter.
    Anyway, she had not written it for the sales, or the royalties, or even for the fame. She had written it for the single gratis copy of the book that an author was entitled to.
    No one knows what happened to the legions of unsold copies of her book. Certainly none remain in any museums or private collections. Even Aziraphale does not possess a copy, but would go weak at the knees at the thought of actually getting his exquisitely manicured hands on one.
    In fact, only one copy of Agnes Nutter's prophecies remained in the entire world.
    It was on a bookshelf about forty miles away from where Crowley and Aziraphale were enjoying a rather good lunch and, metaphorically, it had just begun to tick.
    * * *

        And now it was three o'clock. The Antichrist had been on Earth for fifteen hours, and one angel and one demon had been drinking solidly for three of them.
    They sat opposite one another in the back room of Aziraphale's dingy old bookshop in Soho.
    Most bookshops in Soho have back rooms, and most of the back rooms are filled with rare, or at least very expensive, books. But Aziraphale's books didn't have illustrations. They had old brown covers and crackling pages. Occasionally, if he had no alternative, he'd sell one.
    And, occasionally, serious men in dark suits would come calling and suggest, very politely, that perhaps he'd like to sell the shop itself so that it could be turned into the kind of retail outlet more suited to the area. Sometimes they'd offer cash, in large rolls of grubby fifty.. pound notes. Or, sometimes, while they were talking, other men in dark glasses would wander around the shop shaking their heads and saying how inflammable paper was, and what a fire trap he had here.
    And Aziraphale would nod and smile and say that he'd think about it. And then they'd go away. And they'd never come back
    Just because you're an angel doesn't mean you have to be a fool.
    The table in front of the two of them was covered with bottles.
    "The point is," said Crowley, "the point is. The point is." He tried to focus on Aziraphale.
    "The point is," he said, and tried to think of a point.
    "The point I'm trying to make," he said, brightening, "is the dolphins. That's my point."
    "Kind of fish," said Aziraphale.
    "Nononono," said Crowley, shaking a finger. "'S mammal. Your actual mammal. Difference is.. " Crowley waded through the swamp of his mind and tried to remember the difference. "Difference is, they.. "
    "Mate out of water?" volunteered Aziraphale.
    Crowley's brow furrowed. "Don't think so. Pretty sure that's not it. Something about their young. Whatever." He pulled himself together. "The point is. The point is. Their brains."
    He reached for a bottle.
    "What about their brains?" said the angel.
    "Big brains. That's my point. Size of. Size of. Size of damn big brains. And then there's the whales. Brain city, take it from me. Whole damn sea full of brains."
    "Kraken," said Aziraphale, staring moodily into his glass.
    Crowley gave him the long cool look of someone who has just had a girder dropped in front of his