"Now we art all here," said Hastur meaningfully, "we must recount the Deeds of the Day."
"Yeah. Deeds," said Crowley, with the slightly guilty look of one who is attending church for the first time in years and has forgotten which bits you stand up for.
Hastur cleared his throat.
"I have tempted a priest," he said. "As he walked down the street and saw the pretty girls in the sun, I put Doubt into his mind. He would have been a saint, but within a decade we shall have him."
"Nice one," said Crowley, helpfully.
"I have corrupted a politician," said Ligur. "I let him think a tiny bribe would not hurt. Within a year we shall have him."
They both looked expectantly at Crowley, who gave them a big smile.
"You'll like this," he said.
His smile became even wider and more conspiratorial.
"I tied up every portable telephone system in Central London for forty-five minutes at lunchtime," he said.
There was silence, except for the distant swishing of cars.
"Yes?" said Hastur. "And then what?"
"Look, it wasn't easy," said Crowley.
"That's all?" said Ligur.
"Look, people—"
"And exactly what has that done to secure souls for our master?" said Hastur.
Crowley pulled himself together.
What could he tell them? That twenty thousand people got bloody furious? That you could hear the arteries clanging shut all across the city? And that then they went back and took it out on their secretaries or traffic wardens or whatever, and they took it out on other people? In all kinds of vindictive little ways which, and here was the good bit, they thought up themselves For the rest of the day. The pass-along effects were incalculable. Thousands and thousands of souls all got a faint patina of tarnish, and you hardly had to lift a finger.
But you couldn't tell that to demons like Hastur and Ligur. Fourteenth-century minds, the lot of them. Spending years picking away at one soul. Admittedly it was craftsmanship, but you had to think differently these days. Not big, but wide. With five billion people in the world you couldn't pick the buggers off one by one any more; you had to spread your effort. But demons like Ligur and Hastur wouldn't understand. They'd never have thought up Welsh-language television, for example. Or valueadded tax. Or Manchester.
He'd been particularly pleased with Manchester.
"The Powers that Be seem to be satisfied," he said. "Times are changing. So what's up?"
Hastur reached down behind a tombstone.
"This is," he said.
Crowley stared at the basket.
"Oh," he said. "No."
"Yes," said Hastur, grinning.
"Already?"
"Yes."
"And, er, it's up to me to—?"
"Yes." Hastur was enjoying this.
"Why me?" said Crowley desperately. "You know me, Hastur, this isn't, you know, my scene…"
"Oh, it is, it is," said Hastur. "Your scene. Your starring role. Take it. Times are changing."
"Yeah," said Ligur, grinning. "They're coming to an end, for a start."
"Why me?"
"You are obviously highly favored," said Hastur maliciously. "I imagine Ligur here would give his right arm for a chance like this."
"That's right," said Ligur. Someone's right arm, anyway, he thought. There were plenty of right arms around; no sense in wasting a good one.
Hastur produced a clipboard from the grubby recesses of his mack.
"Sign. Here," he said, leaving a terrible pause between the words.
Crowley fumbled vaguely in an inside pocket and produced a pen. It was sleek and matte black. It looked as though it could exceed the speed limit.
"S'nice pen," said Ligur.
"It can write under water," Crowley muttered.
"Whatever will they think of next?" mused Ligur.
"Whatever it is, they'd better think of it quickly," said Hastur. "No. Not A. J. Crowley. Your real name."
Crowley nodded mournfully, and drew a complex, wiggly sign on the paper. It glowed redly in the gloom, just for a moment, and then faded.
"What am I supposed to do with it?" he said.
"You will receive instructions." Hastur scowled. "Why so worried, Crowley? The moment we have been working for all these centuries is at hands."
"Yeah. Right," said Crowley. He did not look, now, like the lithe figure that had sprung so lithely from the Bentley a few minutes ago. He had a hunted expression.
"Our moment of eternal triumph awaits!"
"Eternal. Yeah," said Crowley.
"And you will be a tool of that glorious destiny!"
"Tool. Yeah," muttered Crowley. He picked up the basket as if it might explode. Which, in a manner of speaking, it would shortly do.
"Er. Okay," he said. "I'll, er, be off then. Shall I? Get it over with. Not that I want to get it over with," he added hurriedly, aware of the things that could happen if Hastur turned in an unfavorable report. "But you know me. Keen."
The senior demons did not speak.
"So I'll be popping along," Crowley babbled. "See you guys ar—see you. Er. Great. Fine. Ciao."
As the Bentley skidded off into the darkness Ligur said, "Wossat mean?"
"It's Italian," said Hastur. "I think it means 'food'."
"Funny thing to say, then." Ligur stared at the retreating taillights. "You trust him?" he said.
"No," said Hastur.
"Right," said Ligur. It'd be a funny old world, he reflected, if demons went round trusting one another.
Crowley, somewhere west of Amersham, hurtled through the night, snatched a tape at random and tried to wrestle it out of its brittle plastic box while staying on the road. The glare of a headlight proclaimed it to be Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Soothing music, that's what he needed.
He rammed it into the Blaupunkt.
"Ohshitohshitohshit. Why now? Why me?" he muttered, as the familiar strains of Queen washed over him.
And suddenly, Freddie Mercury was speaking to him:
BECAUSE YOU'VE EARNED IT, CROWLEY.
Crowley blessed under his breath. Using electronics as a means of communication had been his idea and Below had, for once, taken it up and, as usual, got it dead wrong. He'd hoped they could be persuaded to subscribe to Cellnet, but instead they just cut in to whatever it happened to be that he was listening to at the time and twisted it.
Crowley gulped.
"Thank you very much, lord," he said.
WE HAVE GREAT FAITH IN YOU, CROWLEY.
"Thank you, lord."
THIS IS IMPORTANT, CROWLEY.
"I know, I know."
THIS IS THE BIG ONE, CROWLEY.
"Leave it to me, lord."
THAT IS WHAT WE ARE DOING, CROWLEY AND IF IT GOES WRONG, THEN THOSE INVOLVED WILL SUFFER GREATLY. EVEN YOU, CROWLEY ESPECIALLY YOU.
"Understood, lord."
HERE ARE YOUR INSTRUCTIONS, CROWLEY.
And suddenly he knew. He hated that. They could just as easily have told him, they didn't suddenly have to drop chilly knowledge straight into his brain. He had to drive to a certain hospital.