Good Omens

warm feeling of a bad job well done.
    It had earned him a commendation.
    Crowley was currently doing 110 mph somewhere east of Slough. Nothing about him looked particularly demonic, at least by classical standards. No horns, no wings. Admittedly he was listening to a Best of Queen tape, but no conclusions should be drawn from this because all tapes left in a car for more than about a fortnight metamorphose into Best of Queen albums. No particularly demonic thoughts were going through his head. In fact, he was currently wondering vaguely who Moey and Chandon were.
    Crowley had dark hair and good cheekbones and he was wearing snakeskin shoes, or at least presumably he was wearing shoes, and he could do really weird things with his tongue. And, whenever he forgot himself, he had a tendency to hiss.
    He also didn’t blink much.
    The car he was driving was a 1926 black Bentley, one owner from new, and that owner had been Crowley. He’d looked after it.
    The reason he was late was that he was enjoying the twentieth century immensely. It was much better than the seventeenth, and a lot better than the fourteenth. One of the nice things about Time, Crowley always said, was that it was steadily taking him further away from the fourteenth century, the most bloody boring hundred years on God’s, excuse his French, Earth. The twentieth century was anything but boring. In fact, a flashing blue light in his rearview mirror had been telling Crowley, for the last fifty seconds, that he was being followed by two men who would like to make it even more interesting for him.
    He glanced at his watch, which was designed for the kind of rich deep-sea diver who likes to know what the time is in twenty-one world capitals while he’s down there. 2
    The Bentley thundered up the exit ramp, took the corner on two wheels, and plunged down a leafy road. The blue light followed.
    Crowley sighed, took one hand from the wheel, and, half turning, made a complicated gesture over his shoulder.
    The flashing light dimmed into the distance as the police car rolled to a halt, much to the amazement of its occupants. But it would be nothing to the amazement they’d experience when they opened the hood and found out what the engine had turned into.
    IN THE GRAVEYARD, Hastur, the tall demon, passed a dogend back to Ligur, the shorter one and the more accomplished lurker.
    â€œI can see a light,” he said. “Here he comes now, the flash bastard.”
    â€œWhat’s that he’s drivin’?” said Ligur.
    â€œIt’s a car. A horseless carriage,” explained Hastur. “I expect they didn’t have them last time you was here. Not for what you might call general use.”
    â€œThey had a man at the front with a red flag,” said Ligur.
    â€œThey’ve come on a bit since then, I reckon.”
    â€œWhat’s this Crowley like?” said Ligur.
    Hastur spat. “He’s been up here too long,” he said. “Right from the Start. Gone native, if you ask me. Drives a car with a telephone in it.”
    Ligur pondered this. Like most demons, he had a very limited grasp of technology, and so he was just about to say something like, I bet it needs a lot of wire, when the Bentley rolled to a halt at the cemetery gate.
    â€œAnd he wears sunglasses,” sneered Hastur, “even when he dunt need to.” He raised his voice. “All hail Satan,” he said.
    â€œAll hail Satan,” Ligur echoed.
    â€œHi,” said Crowley, giving them a little wave. “Sorry I’m late, but you know how it is on the A40 at Denham, and then I tried to cut up toward Chorley Wood and then—”
    â€œNow we art all here,” said Hastur meaningfully, “we must recount the Deeds of the Day.”
    â€œYeah. Deeds,” said Crowley, with the slightly guilty look of one who is attending church for the first time in years and has forgotten which bits you stand up for.
    Hastur cleared his throat.
    â€œI have tempted a priest,” he said. “As he walked down the street and saw the pretty girls in the sun, I put Doubt into his mind. He would have been a saint, but within a decade we shall have him.”
    â€œNice one,” said Crowley, helpfully.
    â€œI have corrupted a politician,” said Ligur. “I let him think a tiny bribe would not hurt. Within a year we shall have him.”
    They both looked expectantly at Crowley, who gave them a big