Warlock was very determined to help prevent the end of the world. He really rather liked the world on the whole. The world was where all his favourite things were – baseball and his action figures, banana-flavoured gum and video games, comics and cartoons and his BMX bike. The world was where Warlock lived, and where Sister Cat lived, and he wasn't entirely sure if Nanny Crowley and Brother Francis lived on the world anymore, they had lived there once and might be persuaded to do so again provided the whole thing didn't end. There was also a sense of personal affront at the idea of anyone besides him ending the world. Warlock felt he had a proprietary interest in the matter and even if he hadn't wanted to world not to end for other reasons, he felt obligated to put a stop to the whole thing on principle.
So yes, Warlock was very much determined to help prevent the end of the word. There was just one problem. Just the one, which Warlock thought wasn't bad at all, even though if pressed he'd admit it was a fairly large problem. He had no idea what he was actually supposed to do.
The trouble was, while Warlock knew someone was going to try to end the world, he didn't know who. He didn't how. He didn't know where or why or when, aside from that last one being probably fairly soon. Really, the only thing Warlock did know was Nanny Crowley and Brother Francis knew what was going on. Or at least, Warlock thought they knew what was going on, even if someone rather more astute than the average eleven-year-old boy probably would have picked on the fact that Crowley and Aziraphale were flailing about with only slightly more to go on than Warlock did. But the important thing was Warlock believed they knew, and therefor concluded the best way for him to help was to track them down first.
This presented an entirely new problem. Warlock had no idea where Nanny Crowley and Brother Francis could have gone. He'd already tried going through all his parent's things to find some sort of contact information a year ago. Warlock had thought at the time that if Nanny Crowley and Brother Francis weren't allowed to stay with him at the estate anymore, then he would just figure out where they lived and go stay with them instead. Really, that was still his plan, just with saving the world thrown in there as a little addendum.
The good news for Warlock was that while the Dowling's employment records might be miraculously blank with regards to their previous nanny and gardener, he did have two helpful bits of information he hadn't the last time he'd tried to find the two. The first was Brother Francis and Nanny Crowley were an angel and a demon respectively. The second was the two of them had a shop somewhere within driving distance. Those gave way to two new options: either go online and track down this shop or go online and figure out how to summon a demon.
This might bring up some rather alarming images of an eleven year old summoning a demon and getting burned alive or swallowed whole or having his soul ripped to shreds. Don't fret. Warlock is unusually well-versed in occult matters – not surprising as he'd had a demon for a nanny – and if he were to summon a demon, he would almost certainly summon the one he intended. Crowley would never hurt Warlock, physically or metaphysically, though he would give the boy a good long lecture about why one doesn't go around summoning demons. Primarily because demons tend to become rather cranky and unhelpful at having their day interrupted and you're usually better of dealing out whatever death and destruction you wanted yourself. Furthermore, if Warlock were to summon a demon other than Crowley, he still would have been fine. It's important to remember that at the present moment every demon aside from Crowley believes Warlock is the Antichrist. The result would have been a rather star-struck demon gladly performing his master's bidding of fetching the demon Crowley, then shyly asking for an autograph or a selfie before returning to Hell to prepare for the upcoming War. If Warlock were to summon a demon.
In addition to being unusually well-versed in the occult, Warlock is also unusually good at distinguishing reputable sources on the internet from those that aren't for an eleven year old. He's unusually good at it for a person of any age, really. This wasn't something intentional he had learned, but rather something he'd picked up as a side-effect of Nanny's lessons in how to trick and deceive people on the internet. Still, it was a very useful skill to have. With it, after searching through the web for the entire rest of Wednesday and all Thursday morning, Warlock was able to come to the accurate conclusion there were no reputable sources on demon summoning anywhere on the internet.
In fact, with the exception of a single dense tome in the backroom of a bookshop in Soho, there were no reputable sources on demon summoning anywhere on Earth, and there hadn't been since 1592. Eight years prior to that, Crowley had had a very pleasant evening interrupted and decided he'd had enough of this whole summoning business. He'd spent three years tracking down and destroying every single slightly accurate reference to demon summoning, and received a commendation for his work once it was done. Aziraphale, who had been with Crowley on the pleasant evening in question during 1587, had smiled and congratulated Crowley. He'd then spent the next five years tracking down all the more obscure references Crowley, who was far less familiar with the world of the written word than Aziraphale, had missed. Aziraphale had also received a commendation for his work, though he'd kept it from Crowley so as to not hurt his ego.
After deciding he wasn't going to be able to do a demon summoning, Warlock briefly considered a slightly more usual sort of occult summoning. A séance of some sort. He ended up not doing it, feeling like he already wasted too much time on not actually real demon summoning, so other types of summoning would probably be a waste too. He'd keep it as a Plan B.
Instead Warlock began trying to track down this mysterious shop. He spent the rest of the day Thursday and all day Friday searching the internet for clues. As to be expected of the internet, especially when Warlock had so little to go on, most of what he found was largely useless, if occasionally interesting. He particularly liked this one theory that said Nanny Crowley had been the serpent in the Garden of Eden – Warlock thought the serpent seemed like the good guy in that story and it sure sounded like the kind of thing Nanny Crowley would do. Of course, the part where that meant Nanny Crowley was actually Satan was rubbish; she had been talking to her boss on the radio the other day, and the devil didn't have a boss. Besides the devil was evil, but Nanny Crowley was just… bad. But in a good way. Still, as interesting as all that was, it didn't get Warlock any closer to finding the shop.
Eventually, cutting out all the extraneous useless bits, Warlock's train of searching went like this. The demon Crowley led his mortal enemy the angel Aziraphale. Ignoring the mortal enemies bit, since it was obviously written by someone deeply religious and also with no imagination who assumed demons and angels had to be enemies, rather than married people who sometimes had spats like proper married people did, the angel Aziraphale was obviously Brother Francis. The angel Aziraphale was also a protector of books and scrolls and the written word – with the exception of all those books on demon summoning he'd collected and then smote with only a little regret. The books finally led Warlock to a bookshop in Soho, A.Z. Fell & Co.
Once he'd found the shop, Warlock moved away from reputable sources and started looking into it on social media sites. The shop itself didn't have any sort of social media presence, but would make sense because Brother Aziraphale was very old-fashioned. There were a fair number of people who talked about the shop online though. Warlock learned the shop had been opened over two hundred years ago by A.Z. Fell and was still owned and run today by A.Z. Fell. Possibly the same immortal, ageless A.Z. Fell. He learned the shop had erratic opening hours, and those hours had increased significantly a year ago, at the same time Brother Francis and Nanny had left. There was even one mention of A.Z. Fell's husband, with dark clothing and bright red hair and sunglasses on indoors. Warlock had always assumed Nanny was Brother Francis's wife, but Nanny Crowley was a demon, so he supposed there was no reason she couldn't also be a boy if she wanted to.
Warlock was reasonably certain A.Z. Fell & Co. was the right shop, but he wasn't completely certain. He wanted to be completely certain before he tried visiting the place. He found a thread that had been updated fairly recently and typed up a post of his own: "i think i might have been to this shop before when i was in london on holiday. what does the owner look like? (pics if you have them i'm rubbish at faces unless i can actually see them)." He considered the comment for a moment, then changed the words shop, holiday, and rubbish to store, vacation, and terrible to make it sound properly like an American tourist before posting. Then, because it would probably be a little before he got a reply, and it was getting late, and Nanny had always said you had to be well-rested to destroy the world which Warlock assumed applied to saving it too, he crawled in bed and went to sleep. Sister Cat curled up in the curve of his neck, and the both of them slept very well.
Warlock woke up early the next morning, tremendously early really, considering he was an eleven-year-old boy and it was a Saturday during summer holidays. He made sure there was fresh food and water in Sister Cat's bowls, then started up his computer. There were two new post on the thread.
The first wasn't very helpful. It assured Warlock he would remember Mr. Fell and his death glare if he had ever seen it, and went on to describe said death glare in very poetic terms. The trouble was, Warlock had never seen Brother Francis give a death glare. He'd seen annoyed and angry and exasperated, but even when he and Nanny had had fights – which they only rarely did in front of Warlock – or when Warlock had misbehaved very, very badly, Brother Francis had always looked a little fond.
The second post was much better. It read, "Fell's not all bad. He's can be very nice if he doesn't think you've come to steal one of his bookbabies (by steal I mean buy). Plus look at how soft he is for his feccking huge snek boi." Below that was a picture. The focus of the picture was the feccking huge snek boi which was, as promised, feccking huge. It had glossy black scales and a red underbelly and an amber yellow eye. A.Z. Fell was standing near the edge of the frame behind the snake, looking down at it. Warlock thought he might look a little like Brother Francis, if Brother Francis fixed his teeth and trimmed off a lot of hair and started wearing sufficient sunscreen and moisturizing. What really convinced Warlock was the expression on his face. He was looking at the snake the exact same way Brother Francis used to look at Nanny, which made sense as Warlock was pretty sure the snake was Nanny Crowley. (If she could be a girl and a demon and a boy, no reason she couldn't be a snake too.)
It was as Warlock was coming to the conclusion that A.Z. Fell & Co was the mysterious shop that his door burst open. Thaddeus Dowling was standing in the doorway, looking annoyed and angry and exasperated and, if we are being completely honest, not the least bit fond. "What are you doing, son?" he demanded.
Warlock looked down at himself. He was in his pyjamas, sitting at his desk. One hand was on his computer mouse while the other was holding the tail of a toy mouse, dangling it in the air for Sister Cat to play with. He thought it was fairly reasonable Saturday morning behaviour. Good behaviour even.
"Your mother told you last night you needed to be packed up and ready to go this morning," Tad said.
"No she didn't," Warlock retorted.
In fairness to Tad, Warlock would have said that regardless of what Harriet had or hadn't done, so he could not be entirely blamed for assuming Warlock was lying, even if he wasn't in this particular instance. "Yes she did. Now hurry up and get dressed and packed. We're leaving for Israel in 15 minutes."
"I'm not going." This too was an automatic response, but once Warlock realized what Tad had just said he repeated with extra emphasis, "I'm not." He couldn't leave the country when he was supposed to be helping Nanny Crowley and Brother Aziraphale save the world.
"Yes, you are," Tad said. "Now stop playing with your cat and let's go."
"I'm not going unless I can bring Sister Cat," Warlock said, knowing full well what the answer to that would be.
"You can't bring your cat with us on an international trip. The staff will take care of her, and you can see her when you get back."
"I'm not going without Sister Cat," Warlock insisted.
"Yes, you are. The deal when we got you that cat was you would start behaving better. So you are going to go on this trip, you're going to leave the cat behind, and you are going to behave yourself."
"I have been behaving myself, all week," Warlock said. "And now you're trying to take Sister Cat away from me." He scooped the kitten up and held her close to his chest, as though he were afraid Tad might try to physically tear her away.
"We are not taking her away from you. It's an international trip-"
"You are," Warlock said, not quite screaming, but making it clear that option was on the table. "You're taking her away from me. She's the only thing in this house I love, and you're taking her away from me just like you take away everything I love!"
There had been a fair bit of wiling and tempting and other demonic intervention involved in making sure the Dowlings brought Warlock to the Fields of Megiddo at the appointed hour. One such was a compulsion that had been laid on Thaddeus Dowling, to make him agree to this sudden proposed photo op, and to bring his son along with him. Still, demonic compulsions can only go so far; they can't overcome free will. That is rather the point of this whole human thing, after all. Had Warlock been agreeable or apathetic or even his normal level of sullenly disinclined to the proposed trip, Tad would have successfully forced him to go. But not even all the forces of Hell and Satan himself could compel Tad to subject himself to one of Warlock's screaming fits. "I don't have time for this. Fine, you can stay and see how you like being home all alone."
Warlock, being one of the few people who understood getting the last word was not the same thing as winning the argument, refrained from pointing out he'd already had ample opportunity in the last year to decide he didn't like being left home alone in the slightest. Instead he gave Tad a mild look designed to annoy without actually offering any concrete misbehaviour he could be punished for and waited. After a few moments Tad left with a huff of disgust and went to yell at Harriet. The two of them yelled at each other, rushed around to finish getting ready, and left the estate fourteen minutes later. Warlock waited another ten minutes after that, then got up, got dressed, and began packing.
He got out his large messenger bag and began filling it. He was very careful in making sure he picked out only his most favourite toys and books and games, the ones he really couldn't live without. He picked out Sister Cat's two favourite toys – the fake mouse and the wand with a clump of feathers on a string at the end – and put them in the bag too. "We can get more things later," he explained to her as he packed the two toys away. "We only have so much space right now." Sister Cat cocked her head at him, then went back to playing with her third favourite toy – the hollow ball with a bell inside it.
Next Warlock went down to the kitchen and got some snacks for himself. He also went ahead and ate an early lunch, to keep himself from getting too hungry while he was traveling. On his way back up to his room he stopped by Tad's study and grabbed some of the money stashed inside the desk drawer. Much more money than Warlock thought he could possibly need for his trip, just to be safe, but not so much that Tad was liable to notice it was missing.
Back in his room, Warlock packed the snacks for himself and added a bag of food for Sister Cat as well. The last thing he added was some of his clothes. He didn't actually care about any of the clothes themselves, but he did think they made nice padding for the little hollow space he'd left on one side of the bag.
That left only one thing to do. Warlock picked up Sister Cat and, with a fair amount of struggling, got her into her harness. He grabbed her leash and secured it to the strap of his bag. When he turned back to Sister Cat, she was rolling around on the floor, trying to get the harness off. He scooped her up and held her in one hand while gripping the scruff of her neck in the other. "No," he told her firmly. "You have to wear your harness and your leash, so you don't get lost while we're in London." He clipped the leash to her harness, stuck her in the hollow space he'd left, and closed the flap of the bag. Sister Cat made a "mmrph" noise to express her displeasure at the harness, then curled up in the very cosy space and went to sleep.
Warlock took one last look around the room to make sure he hadn't missed anything. He picked his bag up, being careful not to disturb Sister Cat, and put it on. He arranged it so if Sister Cat decided to stick her head out, she could see where they were going. Then he walked out of his room, through the front door, down the drive, and left.
Warlock's plan was very simple. He was going to walk to the bus stop. He would take the bus to the Tube station. He would take the Tube to Soho. Then he would walk to A.Z. Fell & Co. Unfortunately for Warlock, he had never had to take public transportation before, and it turned out he was really actually very bad at it. He took the wrong bus at the bus stop, and once he'd finally managed to sort that out and get to the Underground, he took the wrong train, twice. Eventually he got to Soho, at which point he could at least rely on his phone's GPS to direct him to the bookshop. When he arrived, and this at least Warlock was certain couldn't be blamed on his poor public transportation skills, the bookshop was on fire.
Warlock looked around at all the people crowded watching the place burn down, but he didn't see Brother Aziraphale or Nanny Crowley anywhere. What Warlock didn't know was he had only missed Crowley's departure from the burning shop by the barest of seconds. Given what was to come, and the fragility of the human body to things like being completely engulfed in Hellfire, it was probably just as well he had.
Warlock patted his bag. "Don't worry, Sister Cat. Brother Aziraphale would never let anything happen to his books, and Nanny Crowley would never let anything happen that would make Brother Aziraphale sad. They must have been somewhere else when the fire started. They're fine." Surprisingly, this was not something Warlock was saying just to comfort himself. He believed it; he had faith in Brother Aziraphale and Nanny Crowley. One might even call it Faith, born not just of blind love, but of deep knowledge and understanding. Aziraphale and Crowley both would have been proud of him.
He looked at his phone for a few minutes, then set off again. He still had a Plan B to try. Madame Tracy was due to part the veil in less than an hour, and more importantly she was within walking distance.
