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aback.
    "Well, I should think—" he began.
    "Two," said Crowley. "Elgar and Liszt. That's all. We've got the rest. Beethoven, Brahms, all the Bachs, Mozart, the lot. Can you imagine eternity with Elgar?"
    Aziraphale shut his eyes. "All too easily," he groaned.
    "That's it, then," said Crowley, with a gleam of triumph. He knew Aziraphale's weak spot all right. "No more compact discs. No more Albert Hall. No more Proms. No more Glyndbourne. Just celestial harmonies all day long."
    "Ineffable," Aziraphale murmured.
    "Like eggs without salt, you said. Which reminds me. No salt, no eggs. No gravlax with dill sauce. No fascinating little restaurants where they know you. No Daily Telegraph crossword. No small antique shops. No bookshops, either. No interesting old editions. No"—Crowley scraped the bottom of Aziraphale's barrel of interests—"Regency silver snuffboxes…"
    "But after we win life will be better!" croaked the angel.
    "But it won't be as interesting. Look, you know I'm right. You'd be as happy with a harp as I'd be with a pitchfork."
    "You know we don't play harps."
    "And we don't use pitchforks. I was being rhetorical."
    They stared at one another.
    Aziraphale spread his elegantly manicured hands.
    "My people are more than happy for it to happen, you know. It's what it's all about, you see. The great final test. Flaming swords, the Four Horsemen, seas of blood, the whole tedious business." He shrugged.
    "And then Game Over, Insert Coin?" said Crowley.
    "Sometimes I find your methods of expression a little difficult to follow."
    "I like the seas as they are. It doesn't have to happen. You don't have to test everything to destruction just to see if you made it right."
    Aziraphale shrugged again.
    "That's ineffable wisdom for you, I'm afraid." The angel shuddered, and pulled his coat around him. Gray clouds were piling up over the city.
    "Let's go somewhere warm," he said.
    "You're asking me?" said Crowley glumly.
    They walked in somber silence for a while.
    "It's not that I disagree with you," said the angel, as they plodded across the grass. "It's just that I'm not allowed to disobey. You know that."
    "Me too," said Crowley.
    Aziraphale gave him a sidelong glance. "Oh, come now," he said, "you're a demon, after all."
    "Yeah. But my people are only in favor of disobedience in general terms. It's specific disobedience they come down on heavily."
    "Such as disobedience to themselves?"
    "You've got it. You'd be amazed. Or perhaps you wouldn't be. How long do you think we've got?" Crowley waved a hand at the Bentley, which unlocked its doors.
    "The prophecies differ," said Aziraphale, sliding into the passenger seat. "Certainly until the end of the century, although we may expect certain phenomena before then. Most of the prophets of the past millennium were more concerned with scansion than accuracy."
    Crowley pointed to the ignition key. It turned.
    "What?" he said.
    "You know," said the angel helpfully, "'And thee Worlde Unto An Ende Shall Come, in tumpty-tumpty-tumpty One.' Or Two, or Three, or whatever. There aren't many good rhymes for Six, so it's probably a good year to be in."
    "And what sort of phenomena?"
    "Two-headed calves, signs in the sky, geese flying backwards, showers of fish. That sort of thing. The presence of the Antichrist affects the natural operation of causality."
    "Hmm."
    Crowley put the Bentley in gear. Then he remembered something. He snapped his fingers.
    The wheel clamps disappeared.
    "Let's have lunch," he said. "I owe you one from, when was it…"
    "Paris, 1793," said Aziraphale.
    "Oh, yes. The Reign of Terror. Was that one of yours, or one of ours?"
    "Wasn't it yours?"
    "Can't recall. It was quite a good restaurant, though."
    As they drove past an astonished traffic warden his notebook spontaneously combusted, to Crowley's amazement.
    "I'm pretty certain I didn't mean to do that," he said.
    Aziraphale blushed.
    "That was me," he said. "I had always thought that your people invented