What it came down to is this: Warlock was a cat person.

This might be in part attributed to his childhood nanny, though Nanny Ashtoreth wasn't a cat person so much as she was an anti-dog person. "Nasty, slobbering, stupid animals," Nanny would say. "You must never get a dog, Warlock. And if you ever see a stray, you mustn't name it." And Warlock would nod and solemnly agree.

That might have contributed to it, but the reality probably was Warlock was a cat person simply because he liked cats. No particular reason for it. It's ineffable, really.

Thaddeus and Harriet Dowling were not cat people. This didn't bother Warlock all that much. He liked cats, but he didn't want a pet cat particularly. He already had Brother Snail and Sister Slug and whole flocks of birds that would eat straight out of his hands if Brother Francis put the seed there and all the other creatures in the garden. One time Warlock spotted Brother Fox hiding in the bushes; Brother Francis had coaxed him out, and Warlock got to pet him for a full five minutes before Brother Fox decided he was ready to be on his way.

The first time this came to a bit of a head was one week after Warlock's eighth birthday. Tad, Harriet and Warlock were having a family birthday dinner to make up for Tad and Harriet having been out of town on Warlock's actual birthday. On the whole Warlock was finding it to be vastly inferior to said actual birthday, where he had climbed to the very top of every tree in the garden under Brother Francis's supervision and had been given cake for every meal by Nanny.

Warlock had just finished his last bite of belated birthday cake – which admittedly had tasted just as good as the cake on his actual birthday, even if cake for dessert was much less impressive than cake for breakfast – when Tad clapped his hands together and smiled. "We've got a big surprise for you Warlock, to make up for missing your birthday. We've decided it's time you got your very own dog. A Lab, a Golden Retriever, whatever kind you like." It was understood that "whatever kind you like" included things like Labs and Golden Retrievers or Collies or German Shepherds or even a Doberman Pinscher or a Pitbull. It did not include things like Chihuahuas or Pomeranians or any kind of dog that was small and yappy and, worst of all, girly. "But if we get you a puppy you're going to have to be responsible for taking care of it."

"I won't," Warlock replied promptly.

"You won't?" Tad said disbelievingly. "Now you listen here, young man-"

"Oh for Christ's sake Tad," Harriet interrupted. "He just means he doesn't want a dog. We can get you something else. Some tropical fish maybe?" Thaddeus Dowling might be a dog person, but Harriet Dowling didn't care for pets at all. She found them to be messy and loud and in constant need of care and attention, even when one finds it inconvenient. Much of the same could be said of children, something she unfortunately hadn't realized until after she'd had one of her own. Harriet did like tropical fish however, primarily because she thought of them less as pets and more as exotic living artwork.

"I don't want fish," Warlock said. He had a very similar opinion on tropical fish to his mother, except as an eight-year-old boy he found the idea of exotic living art significantly less appealing than she did.

"Then what do you want?" Tad asked.

Warlock considered. All he really wanted at the moment was to be excused so he could go play in his room. He doubted that answer would go over well. "A bike," he said instead.

Tad was pleased by Warlock's choice. "You're absolutely right; it's past time I taught you how to ride a bike. We'll get you the best bike on the market, son."

The promised bike arrived two days later. A day after that, Tad left town again for business. Harriet didn't go with him this time, but saying she was still present at the estate might be overstating the matter. Instead Brother Francis taught Warlock to ride his new "velocipede" while Nanny watched them from the porch and sipped on a glass of wine while offering constructive criticism.

The second time the subject of pets got brought up, it was far less civil. Warlock was standing in the entry hall, his face red and blotchy, his eyes watery and bloodshot, and his throat painfully sore from screaming for over an hour now. The first fifteen minutes of that had been spent clinging to Nanny's skirts begging her not to go, despite knowing full well it wasn't her choosing to leave. After she had been bustled out, Warlock screamed at his parents for another ten minutes demanding they bring her back. At first they tried to reason with him, explaining why he was not allowed to have this thing he wanted. As anyone who has attempted to reason with a distraught ten year old can attest, this was venture doomed to failure. Eventually they left the room in the vague notion of letting him cry himself out. Warlock continued to scream at the universe at large for another forty-five minutes. Shortly before dinnertime Tad returned, determined to sort Warlock out. He threatened Warlock with no dessert, then no dinner, then with taking away his Xbox – Warlock did not have an Xbox of any kind, but the general sentiment of the threat was understood – all to no avail.

Eventually Tad broke down and said, "For god's sake Warlock, she's just a damned nanny. If you need something to love that badly, I'll get you a fucking dog."

That finally stopped Warlock's screaming. This was not, as Tad initially assumed, a good thing. "I don't want a dog," Warlock hissed venomously. "If you get me a dog, I will crush it beneath my boot heel and tear it to bloody pieces."

Tad was momentarily taken aback. "Listen to yourself, son. It's a good thing we got rid of that nanny if that's the kind of thing she's been teaching you. You just threatened to kill an innocent dog."

At this Warlock stood stock-still for a moment and went dreadfully pale. Then he pushed his way past his father and outside to the garden. Tucked away in the corner was the little cottage where Brother Francis stayed. Warlock burst in the front door and found what he most feared: the place was empty.

Not truly empty, mind. Most of the furniture in the cottage had been there long before Brother Francis had arrived, and it was all still there. But everything that Brother Francis had brought with him – the little antiques, the throw pillows and tartan blanket, the dozens and dozens of books – were gone. All that was left was an envelope on the table with Warlock's name in copperplate script.

Warlock screamed yet again. He grabbed the letter off the table and ran inside to the dining room where there was a fire blazing away in the fireplace. Warlock tore the letter in half, then quarters, then threw it into the fire. As soon as the flames began to lick the paper, Warlock let out a cry of loss and tried to pull the pieces out again. The maid, who had up until this point been setting the table and trying very hard to pretend she wasn't there, quickly grabbed Warlock and held him until the letter was gone completely. As soon as she let go, Warlock ran back to his room and cried himself to sleep.

The next morning Harriet came to wake Warlock up. She looked down her nose at him and said, "Are you done throwing your little tantrum now?"

Warlock looked her straight in the eyes and said, quite calmly, "No."

The third time it was Warlock himself who brought the subject up. He waited until his father was out – not difficult – and his mother was home and available – rather more difficult. Warlock had spent the past year in a drawn-out, slow simmer tantrum, but when he sat down in the drawing room across from his mother he was perfectly contained and polite.

Harriet set her romance novel down and eyed him with suspicion, which was honestly a completely reasonable reaction. Warlock was indeed Up To Something. "What is it now?" she asked.

"I want a cat for my birthday," Warlock said. His birthday was two weeks away, and he had so far demanded a lot of very expensive things for both presents and the party itself. This, however, was the first one he really cared about. Ever since Brother Francis left, the animals in the garden hadn't been nearly as numerous or friendly, and Warlock knew a cat couldn't tuck him into bed and read him a story, but he thought it might be persuaded to cuddle up next to him on the pillow and purr.

"A cat," Harriet echoed flatly. Cats were only slightly less objectionable than dogs in her opinion. And Warlock hardly struck her as loving pet owner, largely because she didn't have much of impression of Warlock at all outside of those occasions when she needed to Deal With Him.

"A cat," Warlock agreed. "I want a girl kitten that's slim, and ladylike and dignified." He also wanted his kitten to be black with a streak of mischief, but he decided to keep that part to himself. He knew who he was describing, but he also knew who his mother thought he was describing, and he thought it in his best interest to keep it that way. That's why he hadn't asked for the other kind of cat he wanted, a large scruffy friendly kitten, with long tan fur.

"I don't know," Harriet said, still reluctant, but rather charmed that Warlock wanted a cat that reminded him of her.

"Please, mom?" Warlock said. "I promise to take care of her. I'll feed her and water her and clean out her litter box every day."

This struck Harriet as being just a bit too earnest, and she eyed Warlock with suspicion all over again. "You know your father and I have had just about enough of your carrying on lately. If we get you this cat, then you better start behaving better."

"I will, I promise," he agreed readily. What Warlock knew, and what Harriet should have known but perhaps hadn't thought of, was better behaviour was not the same thing as good behaviour.

"Okay," Harriet said, already picking her book back up, "we'll get you the cat."

As promised, Warlock received a kitten shortly before his eleventh birthday party, and she was in Warlock's estimation completely lovely and perfect. Sister Cat, as Warlock had named her largely because it never occurred to him he could name her anything else, was not a black kitten like he had wanted. She was soft grey with bright green eyes and a tiny pink mouth that showed whenever she mewed. A Russian Blue, Harriet had told him; a very nice cat, though they might have gotten him something nicer if he had given them more than two weeks' notice. By nice, Harriet meant expensive, as she often did. None of which Warlock cared about. All that mattered to him was when he had picked Sister Cat up for the first time, she had cuddled into him and began purring straight away.

Warlock held her all through his birthday party, paying very little attention to the festivities that had been arranged. Really, he hadn't even wanted a magician in the first place; Sister Cat was much more interesting.

At precisely 3:02 in the afternoon at Warlock's birthday party on the Wednesday before the End of the World, three things happened at exactly the same time. The first was the waiter with sunglasses and bright red hair looked away from Warlock and off into the distance, as if impatiently anticipating something's arrival. The second was Trixie, who had been in a foul mood ever since Warlock refused to let her hold his new kitten, threw a cupcake, causing the magician to look away from Warlock and down at the frosting now covering his lapel. And the third was Sister Cat, who was actually quite shy, decided that as fond as she was of Warlock, she did not care for all the crowds of people around him right now, and ran off to find somewhere quiet and alone. The result of these three things was Warlock running out of the party - area after Sister Cat, completely unobserved by the two supernatural beings that had come with the express purpose of observing him.

Warlock made it as far as the drive before he stopped dead in his tracks. Sitting there, a little off to the side, in the same place it had always parked, was Nanny's car. Nanny and Brother Francis had come to see him.

It should be noted at this point Warlock's assumption that Nanny's car meant Brother Francis had returned as well was not an unreasonable one from his point of view. As far as Warlock was concerned, Nanny and Brother Francis were married or as good as. Had they been asked Crowley and Aziraphale, those being the names Nanny and Brother Francis more typically went by, would have denied this supposition. Crowley would have instead called them friends, or possibly best friends if he were feeling particularly bold that day. Aziraphale would have, after a good deal of fretful sputtering, supplied a nonsensical term like companionable adversaries. Of the three of them, Warlock probably had the right of it.

Warlock might have run back to the party that very second to look for Nanny and Brother Francis, but he had to find Sister Cat first. He peered underneath Nanny's car, and luckily there she was, though Warlock had to walk around to the front of the car to be able to reach her. He was just scooping her up when he heard two people coming from the direction of the party.

"It was all a bit of a disaster, I'm afraid," said the first one. Warlock thought he was the magician. That would make sense. Even though Warlock hadn't really been paying attention, he'd got the impression the magician had been a bit rubbish.

"Nonsense. You gave them all a party to remember. Last one any of them will ever have, mind," the other person answered, and Warlock once again froze. That was Nanny's voice. The accent was all wrong, but it was definitely Nanny's voice. It had to be Nanny, because she was opening the door and getting in the driver's seat of Nanny's car, and Nanny would never let anyone else drive her car. (Warlock had asked once if he might be allowed to drive it once he was old enough. Nanny's expression had gone very tight, and she had said, "We'll see.")

If the second person was Nanny, then the magician had to be Brother Francis in disguise. Warlock could understand why they might have had to come to his birthday in disguise after being let go, but he didn't know why they wouldn't have told him they were there. Warlock was very good at keeping secrets, if for the rather unfortunate reason he had no one really to tell secrets to. The other possibility that occurred to Warlock was he had been meant to figure out the disguises on his own and he had failed. That caused a very unpleasant feeling to coil in his gut.

Warlock's bout of surprise was cut off by a whole new bout of surprise when the radio suddenly fizzed and crackled then started talking directly to Nanny. "Hello, Crowley."

"Uh, hi. Who's this?" Nanny answered. That confused Warlock because Nanny's name wasn't Crowley at all. Then it occurred to him perhaps Nanny's name really was Crowley. Perhaps the reason for the disguises and their sudden leaving a year ago and all the other odd things Warlock had noticed over the years was Nanny and Brother Francis were aliases and the two of them were actually spies.

Imagine for a moment you are putting together a jigsaw puzzle. You've already finished all the easy bits. You've done the corners and the edges. You've done all the grass and the trees and flowers and whatnot. You've finished the tire swing with the five children playing on it. You've completed the picnic with the tartan blanket where what appears to be the children's dramatic goth uncle sits with his stodgy English professor husband. You've even put together the little grey kitten playing with a black and white terrier who must have caught the light just wrong when the picture was taken as his eyes are an alarming shade of red. All that's left is a vast expanse of clear blue sky. It's a lot of sky, without any sort of clouds or sun or flying mopeds to differentiate it, to the point you're beginning to wonder if the creator of the puzzle wasn't a tad bit sadistic. (She isn't, She's mysterious, but it can be easy to get those two confused.) There is one sky piece you've found that's shape has an odd sort of squiggle on the side of it. It's such a strange piece it feels like it should be very easy to find were it goes. Despite that, you've been hanging onto this piece for a good long while now. Finally you see a spot that has an odd sort of inverse squiggle and you place your piece there. You have to push unusually hard to get the piece in the space, and once it's there you can tell the blues aren't quite the same shade. You go on with the puzzle anyway, pretending you've found where the piece goes even though deep down you know you'll have to move it eventually.

That was precisely how Warlock felt when he decided Nanny Crowley and Brother Francis must be spies.

"Dagon, Lord of the Files, Master of Torments," the radio said.

"Yeah, just checking in about the hell hound," Nanny Crowley said. Warlock, who was still desperately trying to believe in his spies theory, decided hell hound must be code for something.

"He should be with you by now. Why? Has something gone wrong, Crowley?" said the radio.

"Wrong? No, no. Nothing's wrong. What could be wrong? Oh, no, I see him now, yes. What a lovely, big hell-y hell hound. Yes, Okay, great talking to you," Nanny Crowley said before quickly turning the radio off.

That was a lie. Nanny Crowley had just lied. Of course, that wasn't surprising, but she had lied so badly. If Warlock had ever lied that badly, Nanny Crowley would have lectured him for it.

"No dog," Brother Francis said after a moment.

"No dog," Nanny Crowley echoed.

"Wrong boy."

"Wrong boy."

"So is that it? The world's going to end?" Brother Francis said.

"Don't say that, angel. We just have to…"

"To what?"

"Do something," Nanny Crowley said a bit wildly. "Starting with going back to the shop and getting a stiff drink." She pulled her door closed, and Warlock only just scrambled out of the way before the car went speeding off.

Warlock watched it until it disappeared, which didn't take long with how fast Nanny Crowley liked to drive. Then he held Sister Cat up in the air in front of him so he could look her in the eye. "Sister Cat, that was Nanny and Brother Francis."

Sister Cat blinked slowly. Warlock took that for agreement.

"That was Nanny and Brother Francis, and the two of them are, I think they're, they're…." Warlock hesitated to say it, haunted by the ominous feeling that if he said it out loud, then it would be true. That wasn't the case at all, of course. As Crowley and Aziraphale had just discovered, Warlock wasn't the Antichrist, but more-or-less regular human boy with no occult ability to shape reality to his whim whatsoever.

Warlock took a deep breath and said, "Nanny and Brother Francis are a demon and an angel." While this declaration had no effect on actual reality, it did make it feel real to Warlock. Surprisingly, this wasn't distressing in the slightest. To return to an earlier metaphor, it felt like after having that squiggly sky piece in hand for hours and hours and trying it in dozens of different spots, finally sliding it into the right space with a satisfying shunk.

"They also said somebody's going to try to destroy the world. Somebody else, that is." This did not sit well with Warlock at all. He'd always been told he was going to be the one with the power to destroy the world. He felt this worked out well, because it meant all he had to do was choose not to do that, and everything would be fine. But he couldn't trust that someone else would make that decision.

"We'll just have to help Nanny and Brother Francis stop them, whoever it is," Warlock declared.

Sister Cat closed her eyes and began purring. Warlock took that for agreement too.