Good Omens

carpet. “Now, go away.”
    Then the drip on the side of the plant mister reached Crowley’s curled fingers, and stopped. “You’re bluffing,” said Hastur.
    â€œMaybe I am,” said Crowley, in a tone of voice which he hoped made it quite clear that bluffing was the last thing on his mind. “And maybe I’m not. Do you feel lucky?”
    Hastur gestured, and the plastic bulb dissolved like rice paper, spilling water all over Crowley’s desk, and all over Crowley’s suit.
    â€œYes,” said Hastur. And then he smiled. His teeth were too sharp, and his tongue flickered between them. “Do you?”
    Crowley said nothing. Plan A had worked. Plan B had failed. Everything depended on Plan C, and there was one drawback to this: he had only ever planned as far as B.
    â€œSo,” hissed Hastur, “time to go, Crowley.”
    â€œI think there’s something you ought to know,” said Crowley, stalling for time.
    â€œAnd that is?” smiled Hastur.
    Then the phone on Crowley’s desk rang.
    He picked it up, and warned Hastur, “Don’t move. There’s something very important you should know, and I really mean it. Hallo?
    â€œNgh,” said Crowley. Then he said, “Nuh. Got an old friend here.”
    Aziraphale hung up on him. Crowley wondered what he had wanted.
    And suddenly Plan C was there, in his head. He didn’t replace the handset on the receiver. Instead he said, “Okay, Hastur. You’ve passed the test. You’re ready to start playing with the big boys.”
    â€œHave you gone mad?”
    â€œNope. Don’t you understand? This was a test. The Lords of Hell had to know that you were trustworthy before we gave you command of the Legions of the Damned, in the War ahead.”
    â€œCrowley, you are lying, or you are insane, or possibly you are both,” said Hastur, but his certainty was shaken.
    Just for a moment he had entertained the possibility; that was where Crowley had got him. It was just possible that Hell was testing him. That Crowley was more than he seemed. Hastur was paranoid, which was simply a sensible and well-adjusted reaction to living in Hell, where they really were all out to get you.
    Crowley began to dial a number. “’S’ okay, Duke Hastur. I wouldn’t expect you to believe it from me ,” he admitted. “But why don’t we talk to the Dark Council—I am sure that they can convince you.”
    The number he had dialed clicked and started to ring.
    â€œSo long, sucker,” he said.
    And vanished.
    In a tiny fraction of a second, Hastur was gone as well.
    OVER THE YEARS a huge number of theological man-hours have been spent debating the famous question:
    How Many Angels Can Dance on the Head of a Pin?
    In order to arrive at an answer, the following facts must be taken into consideration:
    Firstly, angels simply don’t dance. It’s one of the distinguishing characteristics that mark an angel. They may listen appreciatively to the Music of the Spheres, but they don’t feel the urge to get down and boogie to it. So, none .
    At least, nearly none. Aziraphale had learned to gavotte in a discreet gentlemen’s club in Portland Place, in the late 1880s, and while he had initially taken to it like a duck to merchant banking, after a while he had become quite good at it, and was quite put out when, some decades later, the gavotte went out of style for good.
    So providing the dance was a gavotte, and providing that he had a suitable partner (also able, for the sake of argument, both to gavotte, and to dance it on the head of a pin), the answer is a straightforward one .
    Then again, you might just as well ask how many demons can dance on the head of a pin. They’re of the same original stock, after all. And at least they dance. 36
    And if you put it that way, the answer is, quite a lot actually, providing they abandon their physical bodies, which is a picnic for a demon. Demons aren’t bound by physics. If you take the long view, the universe is just something small and round, like those water-filled balls which produce a miniature snowstorm when you shake them. 37 But if you look from really close up, the only problem about dancing on the head of a pin is all those big gaps between electrons.
    For those of angel stock or demon breed, size, and shape, and composition, are simply options.
    Crowley is currently traveling incredibly fast down a