Good Omens

prophecied this . 49
    Then the flames engulfed the car.
    He had to keep driving.
    On the other side of the flyover was a further police roadblock, to prevent the passage of cars trying to come into London. They were laughing about a story that had just come over the radio, that a motorbike cop on the M6 had flagged down a stolen police car, only to discover the driver to be a large octopus.
    Some police forces would believe anything. Not the Metropolitan police, though. The Met was the hardest, most cynically pragmatic, most stubbornly down-to-earth police force in Britain.
    It would take a lot to faze a copper from the Met.
    It would take, for example, a huge, battered car that was nothing more nor less than a fireball, a blazing, roaring, twisted metal lemon from Hell, driven by a grinning lunatic in sunglasses, sitting amid the flames, trailing thick black smoke, coming straight at them through the lashing rain and the wind at eighty miles per hour.
    That would do it every time.
    THE QUARRY WAS THE CALM center of a stormy world.
    Thunder didn’t just rumble overhead, it tore the air in half.
    â€œI’ve got some more friends coming,” Adam repeated. “They’ll be here soon, and then we can really get started.”
    Dog started to howl. It was no longer the siren howl of a lone wolf, but the weird oscillations of a small dog in deep trouble.
    Pepper had been sitting staring at her knees.
    There seemed to be something on her mind.
    Finally she looked up and stared Adam in the blank gray eyes.
    â€œWhat bit ’re you going to have, Adam?” she said.
    The storm was replaced by a sudden, ringing silence.
    â€œWhat?” said Adam.
    â€œWell, you divided up the world, right, and we’ve all of us got to have a bit—what bit’re you going to have?”
    The silence sang like a harp, high and thin.
    â€œYeah,” said Brian. “You never told us what bit you’re having.”
    â€œPepper’s right,” said Wensleydale. “Don’t seem to me there’s much left, if we’ve got to have all these countries.”
    Adam’s mouth opened and shut.
    â€œWhat?” he said.
    â€œWhat bit’s yours, Adam?” said Pepper.
    Adam stared at her. Dog had stopped howling and had fixed his master with an intent, thoughtful mongrel stare.
    â€œM-me?” he said.
    The silence went on and on, one note that could drown out the noises of the world.
    â€œBut I’ll have Tadfield,” said Adam.
    They stared at him.
    â€œAn’, an’ Lower Tadfield, and Norton, and Norton Woods—”
    They still stared.
    Adam’s gaze dragged itself across their faces.
    â€œThey’re all I’ve ever wanted,” he said.
    They shook their heads.
    â€œI can have ’em if I want,” said Adam, his voice tinged with sullen defiance and his defiance edged with sudden doubt. “I can make them better, too. Better trees to climb, better ponds, better … ”
    His voice trailed off.
    â€œYou can’t,” said Wensleydale flatly. “They’re not like America and those places. They’re really real . Anyway, they belong to all of us. They’re ours.”
    â€œAnd you couldn’t make ’em better,” said Brian.
    â€œAnyway, even if you did we’d all know,” said Pepper.
    â€œOh, if that ’s all that’s worryin’ you, don’t you worry,” said Adam airily, “ ’cos I could make you all just do whatever I wanted—”
    He stopped, his ears listening in horror to the words his mouth was speaking. The Them were backing away.
    Dog put his paws over his head.
    Adam’s face looked like an impersonation of the collapse of empire.
    â€œNo,” he said hoarsely. “No. Come back! I command you! ”
    They froze in mid-dash.
    Adam stared.
    â€œNo, I dint mean it—” he began. “You’re my friends—”
    His body jerked. His head was thrown back. He raised his arms and pounded the sky with his fists.
    His face twisted. The chalk floor cracked under his sneakers.
    Adam opened his mouth and screamed. It was a sound that a merely mortal throat should not have been able to utter; it wound out of the quarry, mingled with the storm, caused the clouds to curdle into new and unpleasant shapes.
    It went on and on.
    It resounded around the universe, which is a good deal smaller than physicists would believe. It rattled the