Good Omens

occasionally.” He stared into the headlights. The time would come soon enough when sleep would be right out of the question. When those Below found out that he, personally, had lost the Antichrist, they’d probably dig out all those reports he’d done on the Spanish Inquisition and try them out on him, one at a time and then all together.
    He rummaged in the glove compartment, fumbled a tape at random, and slotted it into the player. A little music would …
    . . . Bee-elzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me …
    â€œFor me,” murmured Crowley. His expression went blank for a moment. Then he gave a strangled scream and wrenched at the on-off knob.
    â€œOf course, we might be able to get a human to find him,” said Aziraphale thoughtfully.
    â€œWhat?” said Crowley, distractedly.
    â€œHumans are good at finding other humans. They’ve been doing it for thousands of years. And the child is human. As well as … you know. He would be hidden from us, but other humans might be able to … oh, sense him, perhaps. Or spot things we wouldn’t think of.”
    â€œIt wouldn’t work. He’s the Antichrist! He’s got this … sort of automatic defense, hasn’t he? Even if he doesn’t know it. It won’t even let people suspect him. Not yet. Not till it’s ready. Suspicion will slide off him like, like … whatever it is water slides off of,” he finished lamely.
    â€œGot any better ideas? Got one single better idea?” said Aziraphale.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œRight, then. It could work. Don’t tell me you haven’t got any front organizations you could use. I know I have. We could see if they can pick up the trail.”
    â€œWhat could they do that we couldn’t do?”
    â€œWell, for a start, they wouldn’t get people to shoot one another, they wouldn’t hypnotize respectable women, they—”
    â€œOkay. Okay. But it hasn’t got a snowball’s chance in Hell. Believe me, I know. But I can’t think of anything better.” Crowley turned onto the motorway and headed for London.
    â€œI have a—a certain network of agents,” said Aziraphale, after a while. “Spread across the country. A disciplined force. I could set them searching.”
    â€œI, er, have something similar,” Crowley admitted. “You know how it is, you never know when they might come in handy … ”
    â€œWe’d better alert them. Do you think they ought to work together?”
    Crowley shook his head.
    â€œI don’t think that would be a good idea,” he said. “They’re not very sophisticated, politically speaking.”
    â€œThen we’ll each contact our own people and see what they can manage.”
    â€œGot to be worth a try, I suppose,” said Crowley. “It’s not as if I haven’t got lots of other work to do, God knows.”
    His forehead creased for a moment, and then he slapped the steering wheel triumphantly.
    â€œDucks!” he shouted.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThat’s what water slides off!”
    Aziraphale took a deep breath.
    â€œJust drive the car, please,” he said wearily.
    They drove back through the dawn, while the cassette player played J. S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor, vocals by F. Mercury.
    Crowley liked the city in the early morning. Its population consisted almost entirely of people who had proper jobs to do and real reasons for being there, as opposed to the unnecessary millions who trailed in after 8 a.m., and the streets were more or less quiet. There were double yellow no-parking lines in the narrow road outside Aziraphale’s bookshop, but they obediently rolled back on themselves when the Bentley pulled in to the curb.
    â€œWell, okay,” he said, as Aziraphale got his coat from the back seat. “We’ll keep in touch. Okay?”
    â€œWhat’s this?” said Aziraphale, holding up a brown oblong.
    Crowley squinted at it. “A book?” he said. “Not mine.”
    Aziraphale turned a few of the yellowed pages. Tiny bibliophilic bells rang in the back of his mind.
    â€œIt must have belonged to that young lady,” he said slowly. “We ought to have got her address.”
    â€œLook, I’m in enough trouble as it is, I don’t want it to get about that I go around returning people’s property to them,” said Crowley.
    Aziraphale