'JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.'
In which an angel, a demon, and their adoptive daughter decide to stop Armageddon. Except it's days away, they've lost the antichrist, Heaven and Hell are both breathing down their necks, and th...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
In which our heroes realize they have made an enormous mistake.
***
Freddie wasn't sure how much more of this she could take. It was Wednesday, a warm and sunny summer afternoon, on the grounds of the Dowling's large home, and the sixteen year old couldn't help but wonder if this would be the place where she died, embarrassment being the cause. She straightened the sleeves of her suit jacket and tried not to cringe too visibly. And she hoped, hoped with everything in her, that she would never need to play magician's assistant again.
Aziraphale floundered with his handful of cards, attempting yet another trick that he was bound to mess up. "Where has he got to? Is he in here... somewhere? There he is! Ha! This-"
The deck of cards went spilling from the Angel's hands. The children at the birthday party all looked bored and unimpressed, unless they were playing on their phones. Freddie met a pair of sunglass covered snake eyes, father and daughter both experiencing the utter humiliation of witnessing this poor excuse for a magic show.
"We'll come back to that one," Aziraphale said. Freddie bit her lip; this was going horribly. Why had she and Crowley agreed to let the Angel entertain, again? (Well, Freddie thought, Crowley couldn't deny Aziraphale anything, and she hadn't had any better ideas).
"You see, it's me old top hat." Aziraphale tapped the hat with his prop wand, and Freddie heaved a sigh, hoping that no one she knew ever discovered she had been the assistant in this disaster. "But wait! What's that? Could it be, our old furry friend, Harry the Rabbit?"
He pulled up a fluffy white rabbit that had been rented just for this purpose. The rabbit looked as if it would rather be anywhere else. Freddie could sympathize.
"It was in the table!" Warlock shouted, annoyed.
The young girl beside him huffed. "You said there was gonna be a celebrity magician. I had Penn and Teller at my party, and I had a silent disco, and I got-"
"You're rubbish!" Warlock continued to heckle Aziraphale.
"Excuse me, he's right, you know. You're actually rubbish," another boy chimed in. He wasn't wrong, though Freddie would never tell him that. She didn't want to agree with annoying pre-teens on principles, and besides, Aziraphale might have been a horrible magician, but he was her horrible magician Pops, and no one else got to insult him.
Freddie looked to the back of the tent, and saw Crowley looking at his watch and mumbling to himself. Freddie tracking the words he was mouthing. "Five, four, three, two one."
