Good Omens

White stood up. There’s one thing you can say for air pollution, you get utterly amazing sunrises. It looked like someone had set fire to the sky.

And a careless match would have set fire to the river, but, alas, there was no time for that now. In his mind he knew where the Four Of Them would be meeting, and when, and he was going to have to hurry to be there by this afternoon.

Perhaps we will set fire to the sky, he thought. And he left that place, almost imperceptibly.

It was nearly time.

The delivery man had left his van on the grass verge by the dual carriageway. He walked around to the driver’s side (carefully, because other cars and lorries were still rocketing around the bend), reached in through the open window, and took the schedule from the dashboard.

Only one more delivery to make, then.

He read the instructions on the delivery voucher carefully.

He read them again, paying particular attention to the address, and the message. The address was one word: Everywhere.

Then, with his leaking pen, he wrote a brief note to Maud, his wife. It read simply, I love you.

Then he put the schedule back on the dashboard, looked left, looked right, looked left again and began to walk purposefully across the road. He was halfway across when a German juggernaut came around the corner, its driver crazed on caffeine, little white pills, and EEC transport regulations.

He watched its receding bulk.

Cor, he thought, that one nearly had me.

Then he looked down at the gutter.

Oh, he thought.

YES, agreed a voice from behind his left shoulder, or at least from behind the memory of his left shoulder.

The delivery man turned, and looked, and saw. At first he couldn’t find the words, couldn’t find anything, and then the habits of a working lifetime took over and he said, “Message for you, sir.”

FOR ME?

“Yes, sir.” He wished he still had a throat. He could have swallowed, if he still had a throat. “No package, I’m afraid, Mister … uh, sir. It’s a message.”

DELIVER IT, THEN.

“It’s this, sir. Ahem. Come and See.”

FINALLY. There was a grin on its face, but then, given the face, there couldn’t have been anything else.

THANK YOU, it continued. I MUST COMMEND YOUR DEVOTION TO DUTY.

“Sir?” The late delivery man was falling through a gray mist, and all he could see were two spots of blue, that might have been eyes, and might have been distant stars.

DON’T THINK OF IT AS DYING, said Death, JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.

The delivery man had a brief moment to wonder whether his new companion was making a joke, and to decide that he wasn’t; and then there was nothing.

Red sky in the morning. It was going to rain.

Yes.

WITCHFINDER SERGEANT Shadwell stood back with his head on one side. “Right, then,” he said. “Ye’re all ready. Hae ye got it all?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Pendulum o’ discovery?”