Good Omens

Then there would be a knock on the door,and Madame Tracy would call out, "Lunch, Mr. Shadwell," and Shadwell would mutter, "Shameless hussy," and wait sixty seconds, to allow the shameless hussy time to get back into her room; then he'd open the door, and pick up the plate of liver, which was usually carefully covered by another plate to keep it warm. And he'd take it in, and he'd eat it, taking moderate care not to spill any gravy on the pages he was reading[58].

That was what always happened.

Except on that Sunday, it didn't.

For a start, he wasn't reading. He was just sitting.

And when the knock came on the door he got up immediately, and opened it. He needn't have hurried.

There was no plate. There was just Madame Tracy, wearing a cameo brooch, and an unfamiliar shade of lipstick. She was also standing in the center of a perfume zone.

"Aye, Jezebel?"

Madame Tracy's voice was bright and fast and brittle with uncer­tainty. "Hullo, Mister S, I was just thinking, after all we've been through in the last two days, seems silly for me to leave a plate out for you, so I've set a place for you. Come on . . ."

Mister S? Shadwell followed, warily.

He'd had another dream, last night. He didn't remember it prop­erly, just one phrase, that still echoed in his head and disturbed him. The dream had vanished into a haze, like the events of the previous night.

It was this. "Nothin' wrong with witchfinding. I'd like to be a witchfinder. It's just, weld you've got to take it in turns. Today we'll go out witchfinding, an' tomorrow we could hide, an it'd be the witches' turn to find US..."

For the second time in twenty‑four hours‑for the second time in his life‑he entered Madame Tracy's rooms.

"Sit down there," she told him, pointing to an armchair. It had an antimacassar on the headrest, a plumped‑up pillow on the seat, and a small footstool.

He sat down.

She placed a tray on his lap, and watched him eat, and removed his plate when he had finished. Then she opened a bottle of Gui

"I've got a tidy bit put away," she said, apropos of nothing. "And you know, I sometimes think it would be a nice thing to get a little bunga­low, in the country somewhere. Move out of London. I'd call it The Lau­rels, or Dunroamin, or, or . . ."

"Shangri‑La," suggested Shadwell, and for the life of him could not think why.

"Exactly, Mister S. Exactly. Shangri‑La." She smiled at him. "Are you comfy, love?"

Shadwell realized with dawning horror that he was comfortable. Horribly, terrifyingly comfortable. "Aye," he said, warily. He had never been so comfortable.

Madame Tracy opened another bottle of Gui

"Only trouble with having a little bungalow, called‑what was your clever idea, Mister S?"

"Uh. Shangri‑La."

"Shangri‑La, exactly, is that it's not right for one, is it? I mean, two people, they say two can live as cheaply as one."

(Or five hundred and eighteen, thought Shadwell, remembering the massed ranks of the Witchfinder Army.)

She giggled. "I just wonder where I could find someone to settle down with . . ."

Shadwell realized that she was talking about him.

He wasn't sure about this. He had a distinct feeling that leaving Witchfinder Private Pulsifer with the young lady in Tadfield had been a bad move, as far as the Witchfinder Army Booke of Rules and Reggula­tions was concerned. And this seemed even more dangerous.

Still, at his age, when you're getting too old to go crawling about in the long grass, when the chill morning dew gets into your bones . . .

(An' tomorrow we could hide, an it'd be the witches' turn to find us.)

Madame Tracy opened another bottle of Gui

He grunted. There was a formality that had to be observed in all this.

Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell took a long, deep drink of Guin­ness, and he popped the question.

Madame Tracy giggled. "Honestly, you old silly," she said, and she blushed a deep red. "How many do you think?"

He popped it again.

"Two," said Madame Tracy.

"Ah, weel. That's all reet then," said Witchfinder Sergeant Shad­well (retired).

– – -

It was Sunday afternoon.

High over England a 747 droned westwards. In the first‑class cabin a boy called Warlock put down his comic and stared out of the window.

It had been a very strange couple of days. He still wasn't certain why his father had been called to the Middle East. He was pretty sure that his father didn't know, either. It was probably something cultural. All that had happened was a lot of fu

They'd looked very unhappy about that.

And now he was going back to the States. There had been some sort of problem with tickets or flights or airport destination‑boards or something. It was weird; he was pretty sure his father had meant to go back to England. Warlock liked England. It was a nice country to be an American in.

The plane was at that point passing right above the Lower Tadfield bedroom of Greasy Johnson, who was aimlessly leafing through a photog­raphy magazine that he'd bought merely because it had a rather good picture of a tropical fish on the cover.

A few pages below Greasy's listless finger was a spread on Ameri­can football, and how it was really catching on in Europe. Which was odd ‑‑because when the magazine had been printed, those pages had been about photography in desert conditions.

It was about to change his life.

And Warlock flew on to America. He deserved something (after all, you never forget the first friends you ever had, even if you were all a few hours old at the time) and the power that was controlling the fate of all mankind at that precise time was thinking: Well, he's going to America, isn't he? Don't see how you could have anythin' better than going to America

They've got thirty‑nine flavors of ice cream there. Maybe even more.

– – -

There were a million exciting things a boy and his dog could be doing on a Sunday afternoon. Adam could think of four or five hundred of them without even trying. Thrilling things, stirring things, planets to be conquered, lions to be tamed, lost South American worlds teeming with dinosaurs to be discovered and befriended.

He sat in the garden, and scratched in the dirt with a pebble, look­ing despondent.

58

To the right collector, the Witchfinder Army's library would have been worth millions. The right collector would have to have been very rich, and not have minded gravy stains, cigarette burns, marginal notations, or the late Witchfinder Lance Corporal Wotling's passion for drawing mustaches and spectacles on all woodcut illustrations of witches and demons.