Good Omens

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 anywhere long. 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.
    â€œA 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.”
    â€œI never say things like ‘this feels spooky,’” said Crowley. “I’m all for spooky.”
    â€œA cherished feel,” said Aziraphale desperately.
    â€œNope. Can’t sense a thing,” said Crowley with forced jolliness. “You’re just oversensitive.”
    â€œIt’s my job ,” said Aziraphale. “Angels can’t be over sensitive.”
    â€œI expect people round here like living here and you’re just picking it up.”
    â€œNever picked up anything like this in London,” said Aziraphale.
    â€œThere you are, then. Proves my point,” said Crowley. “And this is the place. I remember the stone lions on the gateposts.”
    The Bentley’s headlights lit up the groves of overgrown rhododendrons that lined the drive. The tires crunched over gravel.
    â€œIt’s a bit early in the morning to be calling on nuns,” said Aziraphale doubtfully.
    â€œNonsense. Nuns are up and about at all hours,” said Crowley. “It’s probably Compline, unless that’s a slimming aid.”
    â€œOh, cheap, very cheap,” said the angel. “There’s really no need for that sort of thing.”
    â€œDon’t get defensive. I told you, these were some of ours. Black nuns. We needed a hospital close to the air base, you see.”
    â€œYou’ve lost me there.”
    â€œYou don’t think American diplomats’ wives usually give birth in little religious hospitals in the middle of nowhere, do you? It all had to seem to happen naturally. There’s an air base at Lower Tadfield, she went there for the opening, things started to happen, base hospital not ready, our man there said, ‘There’s a place just down the road,’ and there we were. Rather good organization.”
    â€œExcept for one or two minor details,” said Aziraphale smugly.
    â€œBut it nearly worked,” snapped Crowley, feeling he should stick up for the old firm.
    â€œYou see, evil always contains the seeds of its own destruction,” said the angel. “It is ultimately negative, and therefore encompasses its downfall even at its moments of apparent triumph. No matter how grandiose, how well-planned, how apparently foolproof an evil plan, the inherent sinfulness will by definition rebound upon its instigators. No matter how