And on the other hand, you got people like Ligur and Hastur, who took such a dark delight in unpleasantness you might even have mistaken them for human.

Crowley leaned back in his executive chair. He forced himself to relax and failed appallingly.

"In here, people," he called.

"We want a word with you," said Ligur (in a tone of voice intended to imply that "word" was synonymous with "horrifically painful eter­nity"), and the squat demon pushed open the office door.

The bucket teetered, then fell neatly on Ligur's head.

Drop a lump of sodium in water. Watch it flame and burn and spin around crazily, flaring and sputtering. This was like that; just nastier.

The demon peeled and flared and flickered. Oily brown smoke oozed from it, and it screamed and it screamed and it screamed. Then it crumpled, folded in on itself, and what was left lay glistening on the burnt and blackened circle of carpet, looking like a handful of mashed slugs.

"Hi," said Crowley to Hastur, who had been walking behind Ligur, and had unfortunately not been so much as splashed.

There are some things that are unthinkable: there are some depths that not even demons would believe other demons would stoop to.

". . . Holy water. You bastard," said Hastur. "You complete bas­tard. He hadn't never done nothing to you."

"Yet," corrected Crowley, who felt a little more comfortable, now the odds were closer to even. Closer, but not yet even, not by a long shot. Hastur was a Duke of Hell. Crowley wasn't even a local counsellor.

"Your fate will be whispered by mothers in dark places to frighten their young," said Hastur, and then felt that the language of Hell wasn't up to the job. "You're going to get taken to the bloody cleaners, pal," he added.

Crowley raised the green plastic plant mister, and sloshed it around threateningly. "Go away," he said. He heard the phone downstairs ring­ing. Four times, and then the ansaphone caught it. He wondered vaguely who it was.

"You don't frighten me," said Hastur. He watched a drip of water leak from the nozzle and slide slowly down the side of the plastic con­tainer, toward Crowley's hand.

"Do you know what this is?" asked Crowley. "This is a Sainsbury's plant mister, cheapest and most efficient plant mister in the world. It can squirt a fine spray of water into the air. Do I need to tell you what's in it? It can turn you into that, " he pointed to the mess on the 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.

"Maybe 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.

"Yes," 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.

"So," hissed Hastur, "time to go, Crowley."

"I think there's something you ought to know," said Crowley, stall­ing for time.

"And 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?

"Ngh," 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."

"Have you gone mad?"

"Nope. 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."

"Crowley, 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.

"So 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 marks 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.[35]

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.[36] 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 telephone

RING.

Crowley went through two telephone exchanges at a very respect­able fraction of light‑speed. Hastur was a little way behind him: four or five inches, but at that size it gave Crowley a very comfortable lead. One that would vanish, of course, when he came out the other end.