Good Omens(91)

But something had happened to the M25. Something that hurt your eyes, if you looked directly at it.

From what had been the M25 London Orbital Motorway came a low chanting, a noise formed of many strands: car horns, and engines, and sirens, and the bleep of cellular telephones, and the screaming of small children trapped by back.. seat seat.. belts for ever. “Hail the Great Beast, Devourer of Worlds,” came the chanting, over and over again, in the secret tongue of the Black priesthood of ancient Mu.

The dreaded sigil Odegra, thought Crowley, as he swung the car around, heading for the North Circular. I did that.. that's my fault. It could have been just another motorway. A good job, I'll grant you, but was it really worthwhile? It's all out of control. Heaven and Hell aren't running things any more, it's like the whole planet is a Third World country that's finally got the Bomb ...

Then he began to smile. He snapped his fingers. A pair of dark glasses materialized out of his eyes. The ash vanished from his suit and his skin.

What the hell. If you had to go, why not go with style?

Whistling softly, he drove.

* * * * *

hey came down the outside lane of the motorway like destroying angels, which was fair enough.

They weren't going that fast, all things considered. The four of them were holding a steady 105 mph, as if they were confident that the show could not start before they got there. It couldn't. They had all the time in the world, such as it was.

Just behind them came four other riders: Big Ted, Greaser, Pigbog, and Skuzz.

They were elated. They were real Hell's Angels now, and they rode the silence.

Around them, they knew, was the roar of the thunderstorm, the thunder of traffic, the whipping of the wind and the rain. But in the wake of the Horsemen there was silence, pure and dead. Almost pure, anyway. Certainly dead.

It was broken by Pigbog, shouting to Big Ted.

“What you going to be, then?” he asked, hoarsely.

“What?”

“I said, what you.. ”

“I heard what you said. It's not what you said. Everyone heard what you said. What did you mean, tha's what I wanter know?”

Pigbog wished he'd paid more attention to the Book of Revelation.

If he'd known he was going to be in it, he'd have read it more carefully. “What I mean is, they're the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, right?”

“Bikers,” said Greaser.

“Right. Four Bikers of the Apocalypse. War, Famine, Death, and, and the other one. P'lution.”

“Yeah? So?”

“So they said it was all right if we came with them, right?”

“So?”

“So we're the other Four Horse.. , um, Bikers of the Apocalypse. So which ones are we?”

There was a pause. The lights of passing cars shot past them in the opposite lane, lightning after.. imaged the clouds, and the silence was close to absolute.

“Can I be War as well?” asked Big Ted.

“Course you can't be War. How can you be War? She's War. You've got to be something else.”

Big Ted screwed up his face with the effort of thought. “G.B.H.,” he said, eventually. “I'm Grievous Bodily Harm. That's me. There. Wott're you going to be?”

“Can I be Rubbish?” asked Skuzz. “Or Embarrassing Personal Problems?”

“Can't be Rubbish,” said Grievous Bodily Harm. “He's got that one sewn up, Pollution. You can be the other, though.”

They rode on in the silence and the dark, the rear red lights of the Four a few hundred yards in front of them.

Grievous Bodily Harm, Embarrassing Personal Problems, Pigbog and Greaser.

“I wonter be Cruelty to Animals,” said Greaser. Pigbog wondered if he was for or against it. Not that it really mattered.

And then it was Pigbog's turn.

“I, uh ... I think I'll be them answer phones. They're pretty bad,” he said.

“You can't be ansaphones. What kind of a Biker of the Repocalypse is ansaphones? That's stupid, that is.”

“S'not!” said Pigbog, nettled. “It's like War, and Famine, and that. It's a problem of life, isn't it? Answer phones. I hate bloody answer phones.”

“I hate ansaphones, too,” said Cruelty to Animals.

“You can shut up,” said G.B.H.

“Can I change mine?” asked Embarrassing Personal Problems, who had been thinking intently since he last spoke. “I want to be Things Not Working Properly Even After You've Thumped Them.”

“All right, you can change. But you can't be ansaphones, Pigbog. Pick something else.”

Pigbog pondered. He wished he'd never broached the subject. It was like the careers interviews he had had as a schoolboy. He deliberated.

“Really cool people,” he said at last. “I hate them.”

“Really cool people?” said Things Not Working Properly Even After You've Given Them A Good Thumping.