The beautiful blank gaze fell on Adam Young, and then turned sharply to look at the concrete beside it, which was boiling.
A figure rose from the churning ground in the manner of the demon king in a pantomime, but if this one was ever in a pantomime, it was one where no one walked out alive and they had to get a priest to burn the place down afterwards. It was not greatly different to the other figure, except that its flames were blood.. red.
“Er,” said Crowley, trying to shrink into his seat. “Hi ... er.”
The red thing gave him the briefest of glances, as though marking him for future consumption, and then stared at Adam. When it spoke, its voice was like a million flies taking off in a hurry.
It buzzed a word that felt, to those humans who heard it, like a file dragged down the spine.
It was talking to Adam, who said, “Huh? No. I said already. My name's Adam Young.” He looked the figure up and down. “What's yours?”
“Beelzebub,” Crowley supplied. “He's the Lord of.. ”
“Thank you, Crowzley,” said Beelzebub. “Later we muzzed have a seriouzz talk. I am sure thou hazzt muzzch to tell me.”
“Er,” said Crowley, “well, you see, what happened was.. ”
“Silenzz!”
“Right. Right,” said Crowley hurriedly.
“Now then, Adam Young,” said the Metatron, “while we can of course appreciate your assistance at this point, we must add that Armageddon should take place now. There may be some temporary inconvenience, but that should hardly stand in the way of the ultimate good.”
“Ah,” whispered Crowley to Aziraphale, “what he means is, we have to destroy the world in order to save it.”
“Azz to what it standz in the way of, that hazz yet to be decided,” buzzed Beelzebub. “But it muzzt be decided now, boy. That izz thy deztiny. It is written.”
Adam took a deep breath. The human watchers held theirs. Crowley and Aziraphale had forgotten to breathe some time ago.
“I just don't see why everyone and everything has to be burned up and everything,” Adam said. “Millions of fish an' whales an' trees an', an' sheep and stuff. An' not even for anything important. Jus' to see who's got the best gang. It's like us an' the Johnsonites. But even if you win, you can't really beat the other side, because you don't really want to. I mean, not for good. You'll just start all over again. You'll just keep on sending people like these two,” he pointed to Crowley and Aziraphale, “to mess people around. It's hard enough bein' people as it is, without other people coming and messin' you around.”
Crowley turned to Aziraphale.
“Johnsonites?” he whispered.
The angel shrugged. “Early breakaway sect, I think,” he said. “Sort of Gnostics. Like the Ophites.” His forehead wrinkled. “Or were they the Sethites? No, I'm thinking of the Collyridians. Oh dear. I'm sorry, there were hundreds of them, it's so hard to keep track.”
“People bein' messed around,” murmured Crowley.
“It doesn't matter!” snapped the Metatron. “The whole point of the creation of the Earth and Good and Evil.. ”
“I don't see what's so triflic about creating people as people and then gettin' upset 'cos they act like people,” said Adam severely. “Anyway, if you stopped tellin' people it's all sorted out after they're dead, they might try sorting it all out while they're alive. If I was in charge, I'd try makin' people live a lot longer, like ole Methuselah. It'd be a lot more interestin' and they might start thinkin' about the sort of things they're doing to all the enviroment and ecology, because they'll still be around in a hundred years' time.”
“Ah,” said Beelzebub, and he actually began to smile. “You wizzsh to rule the world. That'z more like thy Fath.. ”
“I thought about all that an' I don't want to,” said Adam, half turning and nodding encouragingly at the Them. “I mean, there's some stuff could do with alt'rin', but then I expect peopled keep comin' up to me and gettin' me to sort out everythin' the whole time and get rid of all the rubbish and make more trees for 'em, and where's the good in all that? It's like havin' to tidy up people's bedrooms for them.”
“You never tidy up even your bedroom,” said Pepper, behind him.
“I never said anythin' about my bedroom,” said Adam, referring to a room whose carpet had been lost to view for several years. “It's general bedrooms I mean. I dint mean my personal bedroom. It's an analoggy. That's jus' what I'm sayin'.”
Beelzebub and the Metatron looked at one another.
“Anyway,” said Adam, “it's bad enough having to think of things for Pepper and Wensley and Brian to do all the time so they don't get bored, so I don't want any more world than I've got. Thank you all the same.”
The Metatron's face began to take on the look familiar to all those subjected to Adam's idiosyncratic line of reasoning.
“You can't refuse to be who you are,” it said eventually. “Listen. Your birth and destiny are part of the Great Plan. Things have to happen like this. All the choices have been made.”
“Rebellion izz a fine thing,” said Beelzebub, “but some thingz are beyond rebellion. You muzzt understand!”
“I'm not rebelling against anything,” said Adam in a reasonable tone of voice. “I'm pointin' out things. Seems to me you can't blame people for pointin' out things. Seems to me it'd be a lot better not to start fightin' and jus' see what people do. If you stop messin' them about they might start thinkin' properly an' they might stop messin' the world around. I'm not sayin' they would, ” he added conscientiously, “but they might.”
“This makes no sense,” said the Metatron. “You can't run counter to the Great Plan. You must think. It's in your genes. Think.”
Adam hesitated.
The dark undercurrent was always ready to flow back, its reedy whisper saying yes, that was it, that was what it was all about, you have to follow the Plan because you were part of it..
It had been a long day. He was tired. Saving the world took it out of an eleven.. year.. old body.
Crowley stuck his head in his hands. “For a moment there, just for a moment, I thought we had a chance,” he said. “He had them worried. Oh, well, it was nice while.. ”
He was aware that Aziraphale had stood up.
“Excuse me,” said the angel.
The trio looked at him.
“This Great Plan,” he said, “this would be the ineffable Plan, would it?”