Chapter Text
It should have worked.
A stroke of genius, really, distinguishing between Great and Ineffable. Who could find fault with that logic?
Evidently Beelzebub and Gabriel could. Well, barring divine intervention, we will continue azzzzz we have been inzzztructed and Yes, that sounds reasonable, we’ll expect you in position at the proper time. With or without the help of the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, et cetera, the War would go on.
Crowley kicks at the ground and says a word Brother Francis once told Warlock not to use. “That— they— the!” he yells, once the bosses have faded back into the tarmac and sky respectively. He kicks at the ground again, on the off chance it might help. It doesn’t.
Aziraphale places a hand on Crowley’s shoulder. “Yes,” he says absently, not because he wasn’t listening, but because it is getting rather hard to remain present while the Call is gaining strength. The angels are being summoned. He ought to take his place in the Heavenly army. Aziraphale’s eyes are glowing with the effort to stay on Earth and maintain a form that will not obliterate the nearby humans and/or their sanity.
“I can’t believe this, I cannot believe it,” Crowley is saying, between mingled curses and blessings. “ So bloody close.”
“Are you alright, Mr. Aziraphale?” This from Madame Tracy, who thinks she has a fairly good sense of his character after having it squished up against hers mentally, and who also thinks the look on his face is… just short of frightening, to be honest. She wouldn’t blame Mr. Shadwell for thinking him a demon if this were their first look at him; there is definitely something wrong about the way his body is fitting him at the moment.
“No,” Anathema says dully. “None of us will be, in a moment.”
Newt stares at her, panicked. The wheels of his mind are turning at about the same rate as Dick Turpin’s. “But surely that was it? They’ve had their whole... confrontation and they’ve gone, wasn’t that the end of it?”
Crowley laughs. The sound of it is bitterer than Job at his lowest and darker than the inside of Jonah’s whale. Newt flinches away from him.
Shadwell staggers forward in defense of his fellow Witchfinder. He points at Crowley with a shaking hand and bellows, “D’ye ken what this is, laddie? Watch yerself!”
Crowley rolls his eyes and Shadwell finds himself, abruptly, in a field. He has no way of knowing it, but a few miles south of him is the lovely Hollandstoun. Crowley had his best guess at what could generously be called Shadwell’s accent: the island of North Ronaldsay is known for seaweed-eating sheep, birdwatching, and being as far north as Britain gets. There is an airport not far from where Shadwell stands scratching his head; if the customs officials would accept his witchfinder ID card (wonderful calligraphy, quite old, 9 pence per witch) in place of a passport, he could be back in Lower Tadfield in under six hours.
The problem is that the world will not contain any Tadfield, Lower or otherwise, in six hours.
Adam frowns at Crowley. “That wasn’t very nice.”
“Thanks,” Crowley says, with half a glance at Aziraphale, who tsk s softly. “Right, then. I’d say it’s been nice to know the lot of you, but I don’t, and it hasn’t been.”
“Actually,” Wensleydale begins, but Aziraphale holds up a hand and he falls silent. Everything falls silent. The world is quieter than it has been since before the creation of jet planes, or possibly life.
“You,” Aziraphale says, and his voice doesn’t exactly match up with the way his mouth moves, like his body is a video fallen out of sync. “Child.”
“M’name’s Adam,” says the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of this World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan and Lord of Darkness, eleven years old.
“He’s coming,” Crowley tells him with an exaggerated grimace that does not quite cover the stabbing pain behind his eyes. “Your father.”
Brian disagrees. “But Mr. Young’s got to be at work by now.”
Pepper smacks him in the arm for the comforting familiarity of it. “Not that father, dummy. His other father. Haven’t you been listening at all?”
Brian shrugs. Wensleydale sighs. Pepper despairs. Adam is not paying attention. He is concentrating very hard somewhere else. The earth rumbles. The sky darkens. There is a peal of thunder, although that was purely for dramatic effect, and was likely only thrown in at the last minute.
For several minutes, Anathema has been frantically flipping through The Book to see if she can find any forgotten prophecy, anything that hasn’t been used yet, anything that could come in handy. Newt tugs on her arm.
“Hang on,” she mutters, still searching, “I think perhaps 2286…?”
“Anathema,” says Newt, grey-faced, “we really ought to go.”
“But it’s not over yet!” Anathema insists.
“Oh my,” says Madame Tracy, who in the absence of Shadwell has shuffled closer to the Them in what might be a vague attempt at maternal instincts. “No, I rather think it might be. Look.”
She points. The ground is beginning to split open in front of Adam. A horrible clawed hand starts to make an appearance. Adam shouts something wordless and ancient, incomprehensible to the six humans still present, and the hand retracts, the crack seals, the ground settles.
“What, dear?” Madame Tracy asks, for all the world as though asking him to repeat himself without the mumbling, there’s a good boy, have a sweet. (You know the ones that your grandmother always seems to have in her purse, or her pocket, the ones that haven’t been sold in twenty years. Crowley was rather proud of them.)
“He said,” says Aziraphale, who looks, now, as though his edges are blurring, “to go away.”
“Tha’s right.” Adam nods, pleased. “Wouldn’t be any fun if he came up and ruined everything, just as we’d all gotten everyone to go home ‘n be jolly again. S’that it, d’you reckon?”
He turns to Crowley. Were he still wearing his sunglasses, they would be smoldering; his eyes, on full display, are giving off small sparks. His teeth are gritted. He is finding it difficult to hold back on the hissing.
“Don’t be sssstupid,” he snaps. “He’ssss only gone to rally the resssst of them. Oh, he’ssss angry, it’ssss all in here—” motioning to his chest— “they’re all jusssst furiousssss really. Ooh, I don’t fanccccy being here in ten minutessss.”
“ Now can we leave?”
Anathema gives Newt a capital-L Look, the likes of which Agnus Nutter might have given Thou-Shalt-Not-Commit-Adultery Pulsifer. “What do you think the end of the world means? The end of the Tadfield airbase? There isn’t anywhere to go .”
“She’s right,” says Aziraphale apologetically. “Sorry. This whole business of using Earth as a battlefield… I did try, you know, but I was, er, outranked. And She won’t answer my calls.”
“Your c— Did you try phoning up the Almighty?” Crowley demands, turning to the angel. “Thought you would jussst ring Her up and have a word about the planssss for Armageddon, isss that it?”
“Don’t make fun of me,” says Aziraphale wretchedly, “what else was I supposed to try? I notice your efforts haven’t paid off very well either.”
Crowley huffs. If you were to squint at him now, the effect produced would be something like one of those holographic jigsaw puzzles you sometimes get for your birthday, although you would probably try to return this one to the shop. Turn your head one way, see the angry man; turn the other way, see a dark blur that is only vaguely person-shaped, possibly bursting into flames. The tarmac beneath his feet is softening with the heat he is giving off.
“What do we do now?” Pepper asks, quiet and tired, and it is now easy to see that the human who defeated the very personification of War is after all only a child who is out with her friends somewhere they shouldn’t be. “Adam?”
Because Adam is always the one who comes up with the best ideas. Adam’s never let them down. He thought up the British Inquisition, and their health food diet that one afternoon, and what happened with the Johnsonites at the old folks’ party at the village hall. Adam is the leader. Adam will know what to do. Adam orlways knows.
Except he doesn’t. Adam is biting his lip and staring at the ground, in the manner of a small boy who is trying not to cry, and who wants very badly to be told that everything will be alright.
It will not be. The most that could be said is that it would be very-much-not-alright for only a short amount of time, and then you wouldn’t mind anymore, because there would be no you to mind.
“Adam?” echoes Brian, and then Wensleydale. “Adam?”
Adam screws his hands into fists. “Stop it,” he says. “Stop waitin’ for me to do ev’rything. S’not fair putting it all on me. I din’t ask for this.”
He didn’t. In fairness, nobody in their right mind would ask for this. There is often a small and nasty cult somewhere, usually in the States, filled with the sort of people who will tell you that they would like very much to be in Adam’s place right now, but that is the case only because they are not in his place. Very shortly, none of them will be anyplace at all.
Contrary to what certain poets would have you believe, the world does end with a bang. The air itself tears along the seams of the fabric of reality, accompanied by the smell of burning ozone and, inexplicably, pears. If you were to ask, inhabitants of the Earth who are inclined toward poetic description would call the experience sublime, reminiscent of key works of art of the Romantic period: a poignant reminder of one’s mortality and insignificance in the face of a bigger picture. Those who are not would probably settle for screaming, if they had time.
The atmosphere boils away. The seas turn to blood and then evaporate. In an instant, all terrestrial life ceases to exist. The end of the world is underway.
“Do you smell pears?” says Aziraphale.