"Stop making noises! It's in Tadfield! That was what I was sensing! You must go there and‑"

He took the phone away from his mouth.

"Bugger!" he said. It was the first time he'd sworn in more than four thousand years.

Hold on. The demon had another line, didn't he? He was that kind of person. Aziraphale fumbled in the book, nearly dropping it on the floor. They would be getting impatient soon.

He found the other number. He dialed it. It was answered almost immediately, at the same time as the shop's bell tingled gently.

Crowley's voice, getting louder as it neared the mouthpiece, said, "‑really mean it. Hallo?"

"Crowley, it's me!"

"Ngh." The voice was horribly noncommittal. Even in his present state, Aziraphale sensed trouble.

"Are you alone?" he said cautiously.

"Nuh. Got an old friend here."

"Listen‑1"

"Awa' we ye, ye spawn o' hell!"

Very slowly, Aziraphale turned around.

– – -

Shadwell was trembling with excitement. He'd seen it all. He'd heard it all. He hadn't understood any of it, but he knew what people did with circles and candlesticks and incense. He knew that all right. He'd seen The Devil Rides Out fifteen times, sixteen times if you included the time he'd been thrown out of the cinema for shouting his unflattering opinions of amateur witchfinder Christopher Lee.

The buggers were using him. They'd been making fools out o' the glorious traditions o' the Army.

"I'll have ye, ye evil bastard!" he shouted, advancing like a moth­eaten avenging angel. "I ken what ye be about, cumin' up here and seducin' wimmen to do yer evil will!"

"I think perhaps you've got the wrong shop," said Aziraphale. "I'll call back later," he told the receiver, and hung up.

"I could see what yer were about," snarled Shadwell. There were flecks of foam around his mouth. He was more angry than he could ever remember.

"Er, things are not what they seem‑" Aziraphale began, aware even as he said it that as conversational gambits went it lacked a certain polish.

"I bet they ain't!" said Shadwell triumphantly.

"No, I mean‑"

Without taking his eyes off the angel, Shadwell shuffled backwards and grabbed the shop door, slamming it hard so that the bell jangled.

"Bell,"

he said.

He grabbed The Nice and Accurate Prophecies and thumped it down heavily on the table.

"Book,

" he snarled.

He fumbled in his pocket and produced his trusty Ronson.

"Practically candle!"

he shouted, and began to advance.

In his path, the circle glowed with a faint blue light.

"Er," said Aziraphale, "I think it might not be a very good idea to-"

Shadwell wasn't listening. "By the powers invested in me by virtue o' my office o' Witchfinder," he intoned, "I charge ye to quit from this place‑"

"You see, the circle‑"

"‑and return henceforth to the place from which ye came, pausin' not to‑"

"‑it would really be unwise for a human to set foot in it without-"

"‑and deliver us frae evil-"

"Keep out of the circle, you stupid man!"

"‑never to come again to vex‑"

"Yes, yes, but please keep out of‑"

Aziraphale ran toward Shadwell, waving his hands urgently.

"‑returning NAE MORE!" Shadwell finished. He pointed a vengeful, black‑nailed finger.

Aziraphale looked down at his feet, and swore for the second time in five minutes. He'd stepped into the circle.

"Oh, fuck, " he said.

There was a melodious twang, and the blue glow vanished. So did Aziraphale.

Thirty seconds went by. Shadwell didn't move. Then, with a trem­bling left hand, he reached up and carefully lowered his right hand.

"Hallo?" he said. "Hallo?"

No one answered.

Shadwell shivered. Then, with his hand held out in front of him like a gun that he didn't dare fire and didn't know how to unload, he stepped out into the street, letting the door slam behind him.

It shook the floor. One of Aziraphale's candles fell over, spilling burning wax across the old, dry wood.

* * * * *

C

rowley's London flat was the epitome of style. It was everything that a flat should be: spacious, white, elegantly furnished, and with that designer unlived‑in look that only comes from not being lived in.

This is because Crowley did not live there.

It was simply the place he went back to, at the end of the day, when he was in London. The beds were always made; the fridge was always stocked with gourmet food that never went off (that was why Crowley had a fridge, after all), and for that matter the fridge never needed to be de­frosted, or even plugged in.

The lounge contained a huge television, a white leather sofa, a video and a laserdisc player, an ansaphone, two telephones‑the an­saphone line, and the private line (a number so far undiscovered by the legions of telephone salesmen who persisted in trying to sell Crowley double glazing, which he already had, or life insurance, which he didn't need)‑and a square matte black sound system, the kind so exquisitely engineered that it just has the on‑off switch and the volume control. The only sound equipment Crowley had overlooked was speakers; he'd forgot­ten about them. Not that it made any difference. The sound reproduction was quite perfect anyway.

There was an unconnected fax machine with the intelligence of a computer and a computer with the intelligence of a retarded ant. Never­theless, Crowley upgraded it every few months, because a sleek computer was the sort of thing Crowley felt that the sort of human he tried to be would have. This one was like a Porsche with a screen. The manuals were still in their transparent wrapping.

[32]

In fact the only things in the flat Crowley devoted any personal attention to were the houseplants. They were huge and green and glorious, with shiny, healthy, lustrous leaves.

This was because, once a week, Crowley went around the flat with a green plastic plant mister, spraying the leaves, and talking to the plants.

He had heard about talking to plants in the early seventies, on Radio Four, and thought it an excellent idea. Although talking is perhaps the wrong word for what Crowley did.

What he did was put the fear of God into them.

More precisely, the fear of Crowley.

In addition to which, every couple of months Crowley would pick out a plant that was growing too slowly, or succumbing to leaf‑wilt or browning, or just didn't look quite as good as the others, and he would carry it around to all the other plants. "Say goodbye to your friend," he'd say to them. "He just couldn't cut it . . ."

Then he would leave the flat with the offending plant, and return an hour or so later with a large, empty flower pot, which he would leave somewhere conspicuously around the flat.

The plants were the most luxurious, verdant, and beautiful in Lon­don. Also the most terrified.