Anathema's POV
HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN so stupid? I had left the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter book in the car of the people who nearly ran me over. This book was written by one of my ancestors, who was accused of being a witch. She was incredibly good at making predictions and wrote them all down in one book, the book I had lost. It had given my family unimaginable wealth and correctly predicted absolutely everything. Damn my mother is going to be angry.
In my own frustration with myself, I picked up one of the plant pots and smashed it on the ground of the front garden of my cottage. I watched as the ceramic shards flew everywhere, scattering themselves around the garden.
Suddenly a boy, about eleven years old, walked up to my garden fence with his dog. He had a kind smile on his face but a strange, unnerving feeling washed over me when he came over, something I can't explain.
"Are you alright Miss?" He asked politely.
"Oh, y-yes, I'm ok." I stammered back. "Would you like to come in?" I asked, knowing that he was one of the village children and wouldn't do any harm.
He walked into my house, holding the dog. He looked around at all of my traditional witchcraft objects, not that he knew what they actually were, but then his eyes fixed on a picture of Satan. He stood there staring at it for quite a while but I pretended not to notice. The picture seemed to strike something within him, so much so that he couldn't take his eyes off it.
I coughed lightly, causing him to bring his attention away.
"What's you name?" I asked the boy with a smile, pretending I didn't notice him staring that the photo.
"My name is Adam, Adam Young."
"I am Anathema." I smiled again.
I saw him turn to look at my magazines intently, almost as intently as he looked at the satanic photo. "You can take a few if you want." I offered.
He smiled back at me and without a word he grabbed some of the magazines off the table. They were all about things like Nuclear Pollution and how Atlantis might be underneath the sea. He looked absolutely fascinated by every single one of them.
Because of my family's background in witchcraft, I had been born with the gift of being an occultist, meaning that I can see people's auras. An aura is like a haze around someone. It can tell you a lot of things about that person. I looked for Adam's but strangely I couldn't see his. I looked again but it still wasn't there. But that couldn't be right; everyone has an aura, it is something that is always there. So why couldn't I see Adam's?
"Thank you for these." He said, referring to the magazines. My attention returned back to him and I waved as he left the house; magazines one one side, Dog on the other.
——
There is a reason why Anathema couldn't see Adam's aura. And it is the same reason why people in Time's Square can't see America....
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Aziraphale's POV
I sat on my own, in my bookshop, flicking though the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter by the light of a single lamp. I was trying to find something about the antichrist, something that would help Crowley, Harper and I. I looked on every page but nothing seemed to make any sense, it was all written in such riddles. I was about to give up when a particular prediction caught my eye.
"When that the angel readeth these words of mine, in his shoppe of other menne's books, then the final days are certes upon us. Open thine eyes to understand. Open thine eyes and rede, I do say, foolish principalitee, for thy cocoa doth grow cold."
I gasped. I couldn't be. This was about me. Agnes Nutter had written a prophecy about me, all those hundreds of years ago.
I was in my bookshop - shoppe of other menne's books - and I had a hot cocoa. According to the prophecy, if my cocoa was cold then the end of the world was nigh.
I tentatively reached my hand over to the white mug, begging that it was warm, hoping that the prediction was false.
It was not.
The cocoa was freezing cold. This was bad, very bad. Agnes Nutter had never been wrong, so there was no doubting the prophecy. The antichrist was out there somewhere and was about to start Armageddon. They said the end is coming, and I was one of the only people who could stop it.
Suddenly determined, I flicked through the book, desperately hoping for something helpful.
"Where the Hogg's back ends the young beast will take the world and Adam's line will end in fire and darkness."
Hogg's back. If I remember correctly, that was in the town, Tadfield, the place we dropped Anathema off. If this prophecy was right, which it probably was, the antichrist, son on Satan, was living in Tadfield.
I stopped for a moment and let this new knowledge sink in. Then I had an idea. An idea which was somewhat risky but I couldn't think of anything else.
I knew of a man nearby who prided himself on his unfaltering which-finding abilities, which might mean that he could locate the antichrist. I knew it was a long-shot but sometimes these people really do know what they're talking about - and sometimes they don't of course.
Without any better ideas, I picked up the phone and rang the number of Sargent Shadwell.
"Sargent," I started, "I have a job for you."
I explained the situation and asked the old man to investigate the town of Tadfield. Sargent Shadwell agreed and said that he would send one of his younger witchfinders, Newton Pulsifer.
I put the phone down and sighed, hopefully Mr Pulsifer would be able to locate the Antichrist, I didn't know what to do if he couldn't; the days were numbered.
Suddenly the phone started to ring again. It was Crowley.
"Hello, Aziraphale. Do you want to meet me and Harper at the bandstand in the park in twenty minutes? We need to talk." Crowley said in his usual careless voice.
"Ummm.....ok, see you then."
I wasn't sure whether or not to tell Crowley and Harper about my new discovery, about the Antichrist. After all, I am an Angel, shouldn't I be helping Heaven win Armageddon? That would be the right thing to do. Wouldn't it?
Crowley's POV
Harper had left sometime in the early hours of the day so now I was alone in my flat again. I watched the mid-day London traffic pile through the streets from the big window at the front, thinking of yesterday when I met Harper in the park. I thought about her hair, her clothes, her smile, just everything about her and it horribly tangled my brain. Why was I so intrigued by her, what was it about this girl that did this? Was there something wrong with her? No. I don't think that could even be possible. In that case, there was probably something wrong with me. Yes that was it. I'm the problem.
Maybe I was ill, that would explain the bad feeling in my stomach that occurred. But can demons even get ill? No was the answer to that. I put my head in my hands with despair, what was happening to me? I am a demon but for some reason I felt like I could never lie to Harper, I felt like I could never corrupt her into doing anything, even though I had only known her for just a month. In just a short amount of time she had made me question everything I had believed in since my fall.
I hated it, it made me feel useless and weak, whatever it was.
I stood up from my chair and walked over to the door, leaving my house and my troubles behind.