Good Omens

amazingly good at his job. No one quite worked out why this should be the case, since he never seemed to pick up a shovel and made no effort to rid the garden of the sudden flocks of birds that filled it and settled all over him at every opportunity. He just sat in the shade while around him the residence gardens bloomed and bloomed.
    Warlock used to come down to see him, when he was old enough to toddle and Nanny was doing whatever it was she did on her afternoons off.
    "This here's Brother Slug," the gardener would tell him, "and this tiny little critter is Sister Potato Weevil. Remember, Warlock, as you walk your way through the highways and byways of life's rich and fulsome path, to have love and reverence for all living things."
    "Nanny says that wivving fings is fit onwy to be gwound under my heels, Mr. Fwancis," said little Warlock, stroking Brother Slug, and then wiping his hand conscientiously on his Kermit the Frog overall.
    "You don't listen to that woman," Francis would say. "You listen to me."
    At night, Nanny Ashtoreth sang nursery rhymes to Warlock.
Oh, the grand old Duke of York
He had Ten Thousand Men
He Marched them Up To The Top of The Hill
And Crushed all the nations of the world and brought them
under the rule of Satan our master.

This little piggy went to Hades
This little piggy stayed home
This little piggy ate raw and steaming human flesh
This little piggy violated virgins
And this little piggy clambered over a heap of dead bodies to
get to the top.

        "Bwuvver Fwancis the gardener says that I mus' selfwesswy pwactice virtue an' wuv to all wivving fings," said Warlock.
    "You don't listen to that man, darling," the nanny would whisper, as she tucked him into his little bed. "You listen to me."
    And so it went.
    The Arrangement worked perfectly. A no.. score win. Nanny Ashtoreth bought the child a little tricycle, but could never persuade him to ride it inside the house. And he was scared of Rover.
    In the background Crowley and Aziraphale met on the tops of buses, and in art galleries, and at concerts, compared notes, and smiled.
    When Warlock was six, his nanny left, taking Rover with her; the gardener handed in his resignation on the same day. Neither of them left with quite the same spring in their step with which they'd arrived.
    Warlock now found himself being educated by two tutors.
    Mr. Harrison taught him about Attila the Hun, Vlad Drakul, and the Darkness Intrinsicate in the Human Spirit. [He avoided mentioning that Attila was nice to his mother, or that Vlad Drakul was punctilious about saying his prayers every day.] He tried to teach Warlock how to make rabble.. rousing political speeches to sway the hearts and minds of multitudes.
    Mr. Cortese taught him about Florence Nightingale, [Except for the bits about syphilis.]Abraham Lincoln, and the appreciation of art. He tried to teach him about free will, self.. denial, and Doing unto Others as You Would Wish Them to Do to You.
    They both read to the child extensively from the Book of Revelation.
    Despite their best efforts Warlock showed a regrettable tendency to be good at maths. Neither of his tutors was entirely satisfied with his progress.
    When Warlock was ten he liked baseball; he liked plastic toys that transformed into other plastic toys indistinguishable from the first set of plastic toys except to the trained eye; he liked his stamp collection; he liked banana.. flavor bubble gum; he liked comics and cartoons and his B.M.X. bike.
    Crowley was troubled.
    They were in the cafeteria of the British Museum, another refuge for all weary foot soldiers of the Cold War. At the table to their left two ramrod.. straight Americans in suits were surreptitiously handing over a briefcase full of deniable dollars to a small dark woman in sunglasses; at the table on their right the deputy head of M17 and the local KGB section officer argued over who got to keep the receipt for the tea and buns.
    Crowley finally said what he had not even dared to think for the last decade.
    "If you ask me," Crowley said to his counterpart, "he's too bloody normal."
    Aziraphale popped another deviled egg into his mouth, and washed it down with coffee. He dabbed his lips with a paper napkin.
    "It's my good influence," he beamed. "Or rather, credit where credit's due, that of my little team."
    Crowley shook his head. "I'm taking that