“He's right, you know,” agreed a small girl with a pony tail. “You are rubbish. And probably a faggot.”
Aziraphale stared desperately at Crowley. As far as he was concerned young Warlock was obviously infernally tainted, and the sooner the Black Dog turned up and they could get away from this place, the better.
“Now, do any of you young'uns have such a thing as a thruppenny bit about your persons? No, young master? Then what's this I see behind your ear ... ?”
“I got cartoons at my birthday,” announced the little girl. “An I gotter transformer anna mylittleponyer anna decepticonattacker anna thundertank anna ...”
Crowley groaned. Children's parties were obviously places where any angel with an ounce of common sense should fear to tread. Piping infant voices were raised in cynical merriment as Aziraphale dropped three linked metal rings.
Crowley looked away, and his gaze fell on a table heaped high with presents. From a tall plastic structure two beady little eyes stared back at him.
Crowley scrutinized them for a glint of red fire. You could never be certain when you were dealing with the bureaucrats of Hell. It was always possible that they had sent a gerbil instead of a dog.
No, it was a perfectly normal gerbil. It appeared to be living in an exciting construction of cylinders, spheres, and treadmills, such as the Spanish Inquisition would have devised if they'd had access to a plastics molding press.
He checked his watch. It had never occurred to Crowley to change its battery, which had rotted away three years previously, but it still kept perfect time. It was two minutes to three.
Aziraphale was getting more and more flustered.
“Do any of the company here assembled possess such a thing about their persons as a pocket handkerchief? No?” In Victorian days it had been unheard of for people not to carry handkerchiefs, and the trick, which involved magically producing a dove who was even now pecking irritably at Aziraphale's wrist, could not proceed without one. The angel tried to attract Crowley's attention, failed, and, in desperation, pointed to one of the security guards, who shifted uneasily.
“You, my fine jack.. sauce. Come here. Now, if you inspect your breast pocket, I think you might find a fine silk handkerchief.”
“Nossir. 'Mafraidnotsir,” said the guard, staring straight ahead.
Aziraphale winked desperately. “No, go on, dear boy, take a look, please. ”
The guard reached a hand inside his inside pocket, looked surprised, and pulled out a handkerchief, duck.. egg.. blue silk, with lace edging. Aziraphale realized almost immediately that the lace had been a mistake, as it caught on the guard's holstered gun, and sent it spinning across the room to land heavily in a bowl of jelly.
The children applauded spasmodically. “Hey, not bad!” said the pony.. tailed girl.
Warlock had already run across the room, and grabbed the gun.
“Hands up, dogbreaths!” he shouted gleefully.
The security guards were in a quandary.
Some of them fumbled for their own weapons; others started edging their way toward, or away from, the boy. The other children started complaining that they wanted guns as well, and a few of the more forward ones started trying to tug them from the guards who had been thoughtless enough to take their weapons out.
Then someone threw some jelly at Warlock.
The boy squeaked, and pulled the trigger of the gun. It was a Magnum .32, CIA issue, gray, mean, heavy, capable of blowing a man away at thirty paces, and leaving nothing more than a red mist, a ghastly mess, and a certain amount of paperwork.
Aziraphale blinked.
A thin stream of water squirted from the nozzle and soaked Crowley, who had been looking out the window, trying to see if there was a huge black dog in the garden.
Aziraphale looked embarrassed.
Then a cream cake hit him in the face.
It was almost five past three.
With a gesture, Aziraphale turned the rest of the guns into water pistols as well, and walked out.
Crowley found him on the pavement outside, trying to extricate a rather squishy dove from the arm of his frock coat.
“It's late,” said Aziraphale.
“I can see that,” said Crowley. “Comes of sticking it up your sleeve.” He reached out and pulled the limp bird from Aziraphale's coat, and breathed life back into it. The dove cooed appreciatively and flew off, a trifle warily.
“Not the bird,” said the angel. “The dog. It's late.”
Crowley shook his head, thoughtfully. “We'll see.”
He opened the car door, flipped on the radio. “I.. should.. be.. solucky,.. lucky.. lucky.. lucky.. lucky,.. I.. should.. be.. so.. lucky.. in.. HELLO CROWLEY. ”
“Hello. Um, who is this?”
“DAGON, LORD OF THE FILES, MASTER OF MADNESS, UNDER.. DUKE OF THE SEVENTH TORMENT. WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU?”
“The hell.. hound. I'm just, uh, just checking that it got off okay.”
“RELEASED TEN MINUTES AGO. WHY? HASN'T IT ARRIVED? IS SOMETHING WRONG?”
“Oh no. Nothing's wrong. Everything's fine. Oops, I can see it now. Good dog. Nice dog. Everything's terrific. You're doing a great job down there, people. Well, lovely talking to you, Dagon. Catch you soon, huh?”
He flipped off the radio.
They stared at each other. There was a loud bang from inside the house, and a window shattered. “Oh dear,” muttered Aziraphale, not swearing with the practiced ease of one who has spent six thousand years not swearing, and who wasn't going to start now. “I must have missed one.”
“No dog,” said Crowley.
“No dog,” said Aziraphale.
The demon sighed. “Get in the car,” he said. “We've got to talk about this. Oh, and Aziraphale ...?”
“Yes.”
“Clean off that blasted cream cake before you get in.”
* * *
It was a hot, silent August day far from Central London. By the side of the Tadfield road the dust weighed down the hogweed. Bees buzzed in the hedges. The air had a leftover and reheated feel.
There was a sound like a thousand metal voices shouting “Hail!” cut off abruptly.
And there was a black dog in the road.
It had to be a dog. It was dog.. shaped.
There are some dogs which, when you meet them, remind you that, despite thousands of years of man.. made evolution, every dog is still only two meals away from being a wolf. These dogs advance deliberately, purposefully, the wilderness made flesh, their teeth yellow, their breath a.. stink, while in the distance their owners witter, “He's an old soppy really, just poke him if he's a nuisance,” and in the green of their eyes the red campfires of the Pleistocene gleam and flicker ...