Crowley sighed. “I just hope he’ll know how to cope with the hell-hound, that’s all.”
Aziraphale raised one eyebrow. “Hell-hound?”
“On his eleventh birthday. I received a message from Hell last night.” The message had come during “The Golden Girls,” one of Crowley’s favorite television programs. Rose had taken ten minutes to deliver what could have been quite a brief communication, and by the time non-infernal service was restored Crowley had quite lost the thread of the plot. “They’re sending him a hell-hound, to pad by his side and guard him from all harm. Biggest one they’ve got.”
“Won’t people remark on the sudden appearance of a huge black dog? His parents, for a start.”
Crowley stood up suddenly, treading on the foot of a Bulgarian cultural attaché, who was talking animatedly to the Keeper of Her Majesty’s Antiques. “Nobody’s going to notice anything out of the ordinary. It’s reality, angel. And young Warlock can do what he wants to that, whether he knows it or not.”
“When does it turn up, then? This dog? Does it have a name?”
“I told you. On his eleventh birthday. At three o’clock in the afternoon. It’ll sort of home in on him. He’s supposed to name it himself. It’s very important that he names it himself. It gives it its purpose. It’ll be Killer, or Terror, or Stalks-by-Night, I expect.”
“Are you going to be there?” asked the angel, nonchalantly.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the worlds,” said Crowley. “I do hope there’s nothing too wrong with the child. We’ll see how he reacts to the dog, anyway. That should tell us something. I hope he’ll send it back, or be frightened of it. If he does name it, we’ve lost. He’ll have all his powers and Armageddon is just around the corner.”
“I think,” said Aziraphale, sipping his wine (which had just ceased to be a slightly vinegary Beaujolais, and had become a quite acceptable, but rather surprised, Chateau Lafitte 1875), “I think I’ll see you there.”
Wednesday
IT WAS A HOT, fume-filled August day in Central London.
Warlock’s eleventh birthday was very well attended.
There were twenty small boys and seventeen small girls. There were a lot of men with identical blond crew cuts, dark blue suits, and shoulder holsters. There was a crew of caterers, who had arrived bearing jellies, cakes, and bowls of crisps. Their procession of vans was led by a vintage Bentley.
The Amazing Harvey and Wanda, Children’s Parties a Specialty, had both been struck down by an unexpected tummy bug, but by a providential turn of fortune a replacement had turned up, practically out of the blue. A stage magician.
Everyone has his little hobby. Despite Crowley’s urgent advice, Aziraphale was intending to turn his to good use.
Aziraphale was particularly proud of his magical skills. He had attended a class in the 1870s run by John Maskelyne, and had spent almost a year practicing sleight of hand, palming coins, and taking rabbits out of hats. He had got, he had felt at the time, quite good at it. The point was that although Aziraphale was capa
ble of doing things that could make the entire Magic Circle hand in their wands, he never applied what might be called his intrinsic powers to the practice of sleight-of-hand conjuring. Which was a major drawback. He was beginning to wish that he’d continued practicing.
Still, he mused, it was like riding a velocipede. You never forgot how. His magician’s coat had been a little dusty, but it felt good once it was on. Even his old patter began to come back to him.
The children watched him in blank, disdainful incomprehension. Behind the buffet Crowley, in his white waiter’s coat, cringed with contact embarrassment.
“Now then, young masters and mistresses, do you see my battered old top hat? What a shocking bad hat, as you young ’uns do say! And see, there’s nothing in it. But bless my britches, who’s this rum customer? Why, it’s our furry friend, Harry the rabbit!”
“It was in your pocket,” pointed out Warlock. The other children nodded agreement. What did he think they were? Kids?
Aziraphale remembered what Maskelyne had told him about dealing with hecklers. “Make a joke of it, you pudding-heads—and I do mean you, Mr. Fell” (the name Aziraphale had adopted at that time). “Make ’em laugh, and they’ll forgive you anything!”
“Ho, so you’ve rumbled my hat trick,” he chuckled. The children stared at him impassively.
“You’re rubbish,” said Warlock. “I wanted cartoons anyway.”
“He’s right, you know,” agreed a small girl with a ponytail. “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 thrup-penny 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.