Eleven years ago 3 страница

Aziraphale spread his elegantly manicured hands.

" My people are more than happy for it to happen, you know. It's what it's all about, you see. The great final test. Flaming swords, the Four Horsemen, seas of blood, the whole tedious business. " He shrugged.

" And then Game Over, Insert Coin? " said Crowley.

" Sometimes I find your methods of expression a little difficult to follow. "

" I like the seas as they are. It doesn't have to happen. You don't have to test everything to destruction just to see if you made it right. "

Aziraphale shrugged again.

" That's ineffable wisdom for you, I'm afraid. " The angel shuddered, and pulled his coat around him. Gray clouds were piling up over the city.

" Let's go somewhere warm, " he said.

" You're asking me? " said Crowley glumly.

They walked in somber silence for a while.

" It's not that I disagree with you, " said the angel, as they plodded across the grass. " It's just that I'm not allowed to disobey. You know that. "

" Me too, " said Crowley.

Aziraphale gave him a sidelong glance. " Oh, come now, " he said, " you're a demon, after all. "

" Yeah. But my people are only in favor of disobedience in general terms. It's specific disobedience they come down on heavily. "

" Such as disobedience to themselves? "

" You've got it. You'd be amazed. Or perhaps you wouldn't be. How long do you think we've got? " Crowley waved a hand at the Bentley, which unlocked its doors.

" The prophecies differ, " said Aziraphale, sliding into the passenger seat. " Certainly until the end of the century, although we may expect certain phenomena before then. Most of the prophets of the past millennium were more concerned with scansion than accuracy. "

Crowley pointed to the ignition key. It turned.

" What? " he said.

" You know, " said the angel helpfully, " 'And thee Worlde Unto An Ende Shall Come, in tumpty& #8209; tumpty& #8209; tumpty One. ' Or Two, or Three, or whatever. There aren't many good rhymes for Six, so it's probably a good year to be in. "

" And what sort of phenomena? "

" Two& #8209; headed calves, signs in the sky, geese flying backwards, showers of fish. That sort of thing. The presence of the Antichrist affects the natural operation of causality. "

" Hmm. "

Crowley put the Bentley in gear. Then he remembered something. He snapped his fingers.

The wheel clamps disappeared.

" Let's have lunch, " he said. " I owe you one from, when was it. . . "

" Paris, 1793, " said Aziraphale.

" Oh, yes. The Reign of Terror. Was that one of yours, or one of ours? "

" Wasn't it yours? "

" Can't recall. It was quite a good restaurant, though. "

As they drove past an astonished traffic warden his notebook spontaneously combusted, to Crowley's amazement.

" I'm pretty certain I didn't mean to do that, " he said.

Aziraphale blushed.

" That was me, " he said. " I had always thought that your people invented them. "

" Did you? We thought they were yours. "

Crowley stared at the smoke in the rearview mirror.

" Come on, " he said. " Let's do the Ritz. "

Crowley had not bothered to book. In his world, table reservations were things that happened to other people.

- – -

Aziraphale collected books. If he were totally honest with himself he would have to have admitted that his bookshop was simply somewhere to store them. He was not unusual in this. In order to maintain his cover as a typical second& #8209; hand book seller, he used every means short of actual physical violence to prevent customers from making a purchase. Unpleasant damp smells, glowering looks, erratic opening hours& #8209; he was incredibly good at it.

He had been collecting for a long time, and, like all collectors, he specialized.

He had more than sixty books of predictions concerning developments in the last handful of centuries of the second millennium. He had a penchant for Wilde first editions. And he had a complete set of the Infamous Bibles, individually named from error's in typesetting.

These Bibles included the Unrzghteous Bible, so called from a printer's error which caused it to proclaim, in I Corinthians, " Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit the Kingdom of God? "; and the Wicked Bible, printed by Barker and Lucas in 1632, in which the word not was omitted from the seventh commandment:, making it " Thou shaft commit Adultery. " There were the Discharge bible, the Treacle Bible, the Standing Fishes Bible, the Charing Cross Bible and the rest. Aziraphale had them all. Even the very rarest, a Bible published in 1651 by the London publishing firm of Bilton and Scaggs.

It had been the first of their three great publishing disasters.

The book was commonly known as the Buggre Alle This Bible. The lengthy compositor's error, if such it may be called, occurs in the book of Ezekiel, chapter 48, verse five.

2. And bye the border of Dan, from rne the east side to the west side, a portion for Afher.

3. And bye the border of Afher, fromme the east side even untoe the west side, a portion for Naphtali.

4. And bye the border of Naphtali from the east side untoe the west side, a portion for Manaff 'eh.

5. Buggre Alle this for a Larke 1 amme sick to mye Hart of typefettinge. Master Biltonn if no Gentelmann, and Master Scagges noe more than a tighte fisted Southwarke Knobbefticke. I telle you, onne a daye laike thif Ennywone withe half an oz of Sense shoulde bee oute in the Sunneshain, ane nott Stucke here alle the liuelong dale inn thif mowldey olde By& #8209; Our& #8209; Lady Workefhoppe -

FUCK IT!!!

6. And bye the border of Ephraim, from the east fide even untoe the west fide, a portion for Reuben.

Bilton and Scaggs' second great publishing disaster occurred in 1653. By a stroke of rare good fortune they had obtained one of the famed

" Lost Quartos" & #8209; the three Shakespeare plays never reissued in folio edition, and now totally lost to scholars and playgoers. Only their names have come down to us. This one was Shakespeare's earliest play, The Comedie of Robin Hoode, or, The Forest of Sherwoode.

Master Bilton had paid almost six guineas for the quarto, and believed he could make nearly twice that much back on the hardcover folio alone.

Then he lost it.

Bilton and Scaggs' third great publishing disaster was never entirely comprehensible to either of them. Everywhere you looked, books of prophecy were selling like crazy. The English edition of Nostradamus' Centuries had just gone into its third printing, and five Nostradamuses, all claiming to be the only genuine one, were on triumphant signing tours. And Mother Shipton's Collection of Prophecies was sprinting out of the shops.

Each of the great London publishers& #8209; there were eight of themhad at least one Book of Prophecy on its list. Every single one of the books was wildly inaccurate, but their air of vague and generalized omnipotence made them immensely popular. They sold in the thousands, and in the tens of thousands.

" It is a licence to printe monney! " said Master Bilton to Master Scaggs. " The public are crying out for such rubbishe! We must straightway printe a booke of prophecie by some hagge! "

The manuscript arrived at their door the next morning; the author's sense of timing, as always, was exact.

Although neither Master Bilton nor Master Scaggs realized it, the manuscript they had been sent was the sole prophetic work in all of human history to consist entirely of completely correct predictions concerning the following three hundred and forty& #8209; odd years, being a precise and accurate description of the events that would culminate in Armageddon. It was on the money in every single detail.

It was published by Bilton and Scaggs in September 1655, in good time for the Christmas trade, and it was the first book printed in England to be remaindered.

It didn't sell.

Not even the copy in the tiny Lancashire shop with " Locale Author" on a piece of cardboard next to it.

The author of the book, one Agnes Nutter, was not surprised by this, but then, it would have taken an awful lot to surprise Agnes Nutter.

Anyway, she had not written it for the sales, or the royalties, or even for the fame. She had written it for the single gratis copy of the book that an author was entitled to.

No one knows what happened to the legions of unsold copies of her book. Certainly none remain in any museums or private collections. Even Aziraphale does not possess a copy, but would go weak at the knees at the thought of actually getting his exquisitely manicured hands on one.

In fact, only one copy of Agnes Nutter's prophecies remained in the entire world.

It was on a bookshelf about forty miles away from where Crowley and Aziraphale were enjoying a rather good lunch and, metaphorically, it had just begun to tick.

– – -

And now it was three o'clock. The Antichrist had been on Earth for fifteen hours, and one angel and one demon had been drinking solidly for three of them.

They sat opposite one another in the back room of Aziraphale's dingy old bookshop in Soho.

Most bookshops in Soho have back rooms, and most of the back rooms are filled with rare, or at least very expensive, books. But Aziraphale's books didn't have illustrations. They had old brown covers and crackling pages. Occasionally, if he had no alternative, he'd sell one.

And, occasionally, serious men in dark suits would come calling and suggest, very politely, that perhaps he'd like to sell the shop itself so that it could be turned into the kind of retail outlet more suited to the area. Sometimes they'd offer cash, in large rolls of grubby fifty& #8209; pound notes. Or, sometimes, while they were talking, other men in dark glasses would wander around the shop shaking their heads and saying how inflammable paper was, and what a fire trap he had here.

And Aziraphale would nod and smile and say that he'd think about it. And then they'd go away. And they'd never come back

Just because you're an angel doesn't mean you have to be a fool.

The table in front of the two of them was covered with bottles.

" The point is, " said Crowley, " the point is. The point is. " He tried to focus on Aziraphale.

" The point is, " he said, and tried to think of a point.

" The point I'm trying to make, " he said, brightening, " is the dolphins. That's my point. "

" Kind of fish, " said Aziraphale.

" Nononono, " said Crowley, shaking a finger. " 'S mammal. Your actual mammal. Difference is& #8209; " Crowley waded through the swamp of his mind and tried to remember the difference. " Difference is, they& #8209; "

" Mate out of water? " volunteered Aziraphale.

Crowley's brow furrowed. " Don't think so. Pretty sure that's not it. Something about their young. Whatever. " He pulled himself together. " The point is. The point is. Their brains. "

He reached for a bottle.

" What about their brains? " said the angel.

" Big brains. That's my point. Size of. Size of. Size of damn big brains. And then there's the whales. Brain city, take it from me. Whole damn sea full of brains. "

" Kraken, " said Aziraphale, staring moodily into his glass.

Crowley gave him the long cool look of someone who has just had a girder dropped in front of his train of thought.

" Uh? "

" Great big bugger, " said Aziraphale. " Sleepeth beneath the thunders of the upper deep. Under loads of huge and unnumbered polypol& #8209; polipo& #8209; bloody great seaweeds, you know. Supposed to rise to the surface right at the end, when the sea boils. "

" Yeah? "

" Fact. "

" There you are, then, " said Crowley, sitting back. " Whole sea bubbling, poor old dolphins so much seafood gumbo, no one giving a damn. Same with gorillas. Whoops, they say, sky gone all red, stars crashing to ground, what they putting in the bananas these days? And then& #8209; "

" They make nests, you know, gorillas, " said the angel, pouring another drink and managing to hit the glass on the third go.

" Nah. "

" God's truth. Saw a film. Nests. "

" That's birds, " said Crowley.

" Nests, " insisted Aziraphale.

Crowley decided not to argue the point.

" There you are then, " he said. " All creatures great and smoke. I mean small. Great and small. Lot of them with brains. And then, bazamm. "

" But you're part of it, " said Aziraphale. " You tempt people. You're good at it. "

Crowley thumped his glass on the table. " That's different. They don't have to say yes. That the ineffable bit, right? Your side made it up. You've got to keep testing people. But not to destruction. "

" All right. All right. I don't like it any more than you, but I told you. I can't disod& #8209; disoy& #8209; not do what I'm told. 'M a'nangel. "

" There's no theaters in Heaven, " said Crowley. " And very few films. "

" Don't you try to tempt me, " said Aziraphale wretchedly. " I know you, you old serpent. "

" Just you think about it, " said Crowley relentlessly. " You know what eternity is? You know what eternity is? I mean, d'you know what eternity is? There's this big mountain, see, a mile high, at the end of the universe, and once every thousand years there's this little bird& #8209; "

" What little bird? " said Aziraphale suspiciously.

" This little bird I'm talking about. And every thousand years& #8209; "

" The same bird every thousand years? "

Crowley hesitated. " Yeah, " he said.

" Bloody ancient bird, then. "

" Okay. And every thousand years this bird flies& #8209; "

" & #8209; limps& #8209; "

" flies all the way to this mountain and sharpens its beak& #8209; "

" Hold on. You can't do that. Between here and the end of the universe there's loads of& #8209; " The angel waved a hand expansively, if a little unsteadily. " Loads of buggerall, dear boy. "

" But it gets there anyway, " Crowley persevered.

" How? "

" It doesn't matter! "

" It could use a space ship, " said the angel.

Crowley subsided a bit. " Yeah, " he said. " If you like. Anyway, this bird& #8209; "

" Only it is the end of the universe we're talking about, " said Aziraphale. " So it'd have to be one of those space ships where your descendants are the ones who get out at the other end. You have to tell your descendants, you say, When you get to the Mountain, you've got to& #8209; " He hesitated. " What have they got to do? "

" Sharpen its beak on the mountain, " said Crowley. " And then it flies back& #8209; "

" & #8209; in the space ship& #8209; "

" And after a thousand years it goes and does it all again, " said Crowley quickly.

There was a moment of drunken silence,

" Seems a lot of effort just to sharpen a beak, " mused Aziraphale.

" Listen, " said Crowley urgently, " the point is that when the bird has worn the mountain down to nothing, right, then& #8209; "

Aziraphale opened his mouth. Crowley just knew he was going to make some point about the relative hardness of birds' beaks and granite mountains, and plunged on quickly.

" & #8209; then you still won't have finished watching The Sound of Music. "

Aziraphale froze.

" And you'll enjoy it, " Crowley said relentlessly. " You really will. "

" My dear boy& #8209; "

" You won't have a choice. "

" Listen"

" Heaven has no taste. "

" Now& #8209; "

" And not one single sushi restaurant. "

A look of pain crossed the angel's suddenly very serious face.

" I can't cope with this while 'm drunk, " he said. " I'm going to sober up. "

" Me too. "

They both winced as the alcohol left their bloodstreams, and sat up a bit more neatly. Aziraphale straightened his tie.

" I can't interfere with divine plans, " he croaked.

Crowley looked speculatively into his glass, and then filled it again. " What about diabolical ones? " he said.

" Pardon? "

" Well, it's got to be a diabolical plan, hasn't it? We're doing it. My side. "

" Ah, but it's all part of the overall divine plan, " said Aziraphale. " Your side can't do anything without it being part of the ineffable divine plan, " he added, with a trace of smugness.

" You wish! "

" No, that's the& #8209; " Aziraphale snapped his finger irritably. " The thing. What d'you call it in your colorful idiom? The line at the bottom. "

" The bottom line. "

" Yes. It's that. "

" Well. . . if you're sure. . . " said Crowley.

" No doubt about it. "

Crowley looked up slyly.

" Then you can't be certain, correct me if I'm wrong, you can't be certain that thwarting it isn't part of the divine plan too. I mean, you're supposed to thwart the wiles of the Evil One at every turn, aren't you? "

Aziraphale hesitated.

" There is that, yes. "

" You see a wile, you thwart. Am I right? "

" Broadly, broadly. Actually I encourage humans to do the actual thwarting. Because of ineffability, you understand. "

" Right. Right. So all you've got to do is thwart. Because if I know anything, " said Crowley urgently, " it's that the birth is just the start. It's the upbringing that's important. It's the Influences. Otherwise the child will never learn to use its powers. " He hesitated. " At least, not necessarily as intended. "

" Certainly our side won't mind me thwarting you, " said Aziraphale thoughtfully. " They won't mind that at all. "

" Right. It'd be a real feather in your wing. " Crowley gave the angel an encouraging smile.

" What will happen to the child if it doesn't get a Satanic upbringing, though? " said Aziraphale.

" Probably nothing. It'll never know. "

" But genetics& #8209; "

" Don't tell me from genetics. What've they got to do with it? " said Crowley. " Look at Satan. Created as an angel, grows up to be the Great Adversary. Hey, if you're going to go on about genetics, you might as well say the kid will grow up to be an angel. After all, his father was really big in Heaven in the old days. Saying he'll grow up to be a demon just because his dad became one is like saying a mouse with its tail cut off will give birth to tailless mice. No. Upbringing is everything. Take it from me. "

" And without unopposed Satanic influences& #8209; "

" Well, at worst Hell will have to start all over again. And the Earth gets at least another eleven years. That's got to be worth something, hasn't it? "

Now Aziraphale was looking thoughtful again.

" You're saying the child isn't evil of itself? " he said slowly.

" Potentially evil. Potentially good, too, I suppose. Just this huge powerful potentiality, waiting to be shaped, " said Crowley. He shrugged. " Anyway, why're we talking about this good and evil? They're just names for sides. We know that. "

" I suppose it's got to be worth a try, " said the angel. Crowley nodded encouragingly.

" Agreed? " said the demon, holding out his hand.

The angel shook it, cautiously.

" It'll certainly be more interesting than saints, " he said.

" And it'll be for the child's own good, in the long run, " said Crowley. " We'll be godfathers, sort of. Overseeing his religious upbringing, you might say. "

Aziraphale beamed.

" You know, I'd never have thought of that, " he said. " Godfathers. Well, I'll be damned. "

" It's not too bad, " said Crowley, " when you get used to it. "

– – -

She was known as Scarlett. At that time she was selling arms, although it was beginning to lose its savor. She never stuck at one job for very long. Three, four hundred years at the outside. You didn't want to get in a rut.

Her hair was true auburn, neither ginger nor brown, but deep and burnished copper& #8209; color, and it fell to her waist in tresses that men would kill for, and indeed often had. Her eyes were a startling orange. She looked twenty& #8209; five, and always had.

She had a dusty, brick& #8209; red truck full of assorted weaponry, and an almost unbelievable skill at getting it across any border in the world. She had been on her way to a small West African country, where a minor civil war was in progress, to make a delivery which would, with any luck, turn it into a major civil war. Unfortunately the truck had broken down, far beyond even her ability to repair it.

And she was very good with machinery these days.

She was in the middle of a city at the time. The city in question was the capital of Kumbolaland, an African nation which had been at peace for the last three thousand years. For about thirty years it was SirHumphrey& #8209; Clarksonland, but since the country had absolutely no mineral wealth and the strategic importance of a banana, it was accelerated toward self& #8209; government with almost unseemly haste. Kumbolaland was poor, perhaps, and undoubtedly boring, but peaceful. Its various tribes, who got along with one another quite happily, had long since beaten their swords into ploughshares; a fight had broken out in the city square in 1952 between a drunken ox& #8209; drover and an equally drunken ox& #8209; thief. People were still talking about it.

Scarlett yawned in the heat. She fanned her head with her broadbrimmed hat, left the useless truck in the dusty street, and wandered into a bar.

She bought a can of beer, drained it, then grinned at the barman. " I got a truck needs repairing, " she said. " Anyone around I can talk to? "

The barman grinned white and huge and expansively. He'd been impressed by the way she drank her beer. " Only Nathan, miss. But Nathan has gone back to Kaounda to see his father& #8209; in& #8209; law's farm. "

Scarlett bought another beer. " So, this Nathan. Any idea when he'll be back? "

" Perhaps next week. Perhaps two weeks' time, dear lady. Ho, that Nathan, he is a scamp, no? "

He leaned forward.

" You travelling alone, miss? " he said.

" Yes. "

" Could be dangerous. Some funny people on the roads these days. Bad men. Not local boys, " he added quickly.

Scarlett raised a perfect eyebrow.

Despite the heat, he shivered.

" Thanks for the warning, " Scarlett purred. Her voice sounded like something that lurks in the long grass, visible only by the twitching of its ears, until something young and tender wobbles by.

She tipped her hat to him, and strolled outside.

The hot African sun beat down on her; her truck sat in the street with a cargo of guns and ammunition and land mines. It wasn't going anywhere.

Scarlett stared at the truck.

A vulture was sitting on its roof. It had traveled three hundred miles with Scarlett so far. It was belching quietly.

She looked around the street: a couple of women chatted on a street corner; a bored market vendor sat in front of a heap of colored gourds, fanning the flies; a few children played lazily in the dust.

" What the hell, " she said quietly. " I could do with a holiday anyway. "

That was Wednesday.

By Friday the city was a no& #8209; go area.

By the following Tuesday the economy of Kumbolaland was shattered, twenty thousand people were dead (including the barman, shot by the rebels while storming the market barricades), almost a hundred thousand people were injured, all of Scarlett's assorted weapons had fulfilled the function for which they had been created, and the vulture had died of Greasy Degeneration.

Scarlett was already on the last train out of the country. It was time to move on, she felt. She'd been doing arms for too damn long. She wanted a change. Something with openings. She quite fancied herself as a newspaper journalist. A possibility. She fanned herself with her hat, and crossed her long legs in front of her.

Farther down the train a fight broke out. Scarlett grinned. People were always fighting, over her, and around her; it was rather sweet, really.

– – -

Sable had black hair, a trim black beard, and he had just decided to go corporate.

He did drinks with his accountant.

" How we doing, Frannie? " he asked her.

" Twelve million copies sold so far. Can you believe that? "

They were doing drinks in a restaurant called Top of the Sixes, on the top of 666 Fifth Avenue, New York. This was something that amused Sable ever so slightly. From the restaurant windows you could see the whole of New York; at night, the rest of New York could see the huge red 666s that adorned all four sides of the building. Of course, it was just another street number. If you started counting, you'd be bound to get to it eventually. But you had to smile.

Sable and his accountant had just come from a small, expensive, and particularly exclusive restaurant in Greenwich Village, where the cuisine was entirely nouvelle: a string bean, a pea, and a sliver of chicken breast, aesthetically arranged on a square china plate.

Sable had invented it the last time he'd been in Paris.

His accountant had polished her meat and two veg off in under fifty seconds, and had spent the rest of the meal staring at the plate, the cutlery, and from time to time at her fellow diners, in a manner that suggested that she was wondering what they'd taste like, which was in fact the case. It had amused Sable enormously.

He toyed with his Perrier.

" Twelve million, huh? That's pretty good. "

" That's great. "

" So we're going corporate. It's time to blow the big one, am I right? California, I think. I want factories, restaurants, the whole schmear. We'll keep the publishing arm, but it's time to diversify. Yeah? "

Frannie nodded. " Sounds good, Sable. We'll need& #8209; "

She was interrupted by a skeleton. A skeleton in a Dior dress, with tanned skin stretched almost to snapping point over the delicate bones of the skull. The skeleton had long blond hair and perfectly made& #8209; up lips: she looked like the person mothers around the world would point to, muttering, " That's what'll happen to you if you don't eat your greens"; she looked like a famine& #8209; relief poster with style.

She was New York's top fashion model, and she was holding a book. She said, " Uh, excuse me, Mr. Sable, I hope you don't mind me intruding, but, your book, it changed my life, I was wondering, would you mind signing it for me? " She stared imploringly at him with eyes deepsunk in gloriously eyeshadowed sockets.

Sable nodded graciously, and took the book from her.

It was not surprising that she had recognized him, for his dark gray eyes stared out from his photo on the foil& #8209; embossed cover. Foodless Dieting: Slim Yourself Beautiful, the book was called; The Diet Book of the Century!

" How do you spell your name? " he asked.

" Sherryl. Two Rs, one Y, one L. "

" You remind me of an old, old friend, " he told her, as he wrote swiftly and carefully on the title page. " There you go. Glad you liked it. Always good to meet a fan. "

What he'd written was this: