Of Love and Evil - By Anne Rice Page 0,61

it struck me with a mystical force. And it reminded me that I was dealing with creatures in Malchiah and Shmarya who knew much more about the future than I wanted to know. To be angry with them or resentful of them because they lived with this burden made no sense.

There were many things I wanted to ponder.

Instead I typed a brief and concise account of all that had happened to me since my last “report.” I wrote down not only the story of my adventure in Rome, but also the story of my meeting with Liona and Toby, and what had taken place.

It occurred to me as I finished that there were distinct reasons why my second assignment had been different from my first. In the first adventure, I’d been sent to do something fairly straightforward—save a family and a community from an unjust charge. I’d solved the problem presented to me with duplicity, but there had not been the slightest doubt in my mind that it was the right path to take.

Maybe angels couldn’t encourage lies as I had done in Angel Time, but they had let me do it, and I felt that I knew why.

Many in this world have lied to save themselves from evil and injustice. Who would not have lied to save Jews in our own time from genocide at the hands of the Third Reich?

But my second assignment had involved no such situation. I had sought to use the truth to solve the problems confronting me, and found it a very complex and hard thing to do indeed.

So was it safe to assume each of my missions would be more complex than the last? I was just beginning to reflect on these things, when finally I broke off.

It was noon. I’d been awake for ten hours, and writing for most of that. I’d eaten nothing. I might start seeing angels who weren’t there.

I put on my jacket and went down for lunch in the Mission Inn Restaurant, and found myself sitting there pondering again after the dishes had been cleared away.

I was drinking my last cup of coffee when I noticed a young man at another table staring at me, though when I fixed on him, he pretended to be reading his paper.

I let myself stare at him for a good while. He seemed neither angel nor dybbuk. Just a man. He was younger than me, and as I watched him, he looked at me more than once, and finally got up from the table and left.

I wasn’t surprised to see him in the lobby, seated in one of the large chairs, with his eyes turned towards the restaurant entrance.

I memorized what I saw: he was young, maybe four or five years my junior. He had short brown wavy hair and almost pretty blue eyes. He’d worn dark-rimmed glasses when he’d been reading. And he was dressed a bit nattily in a well-fitted brown corduroy Norfolk jacket, with a white turtleneck sweater, and gray pants. There had been a certain vulnerability to his expression, an eagerness, that completely negated any question in my mind of danger, but I didn’t like it that I was being noticed by anybody, and I wondered who he was and why he’d been there.

If he was another angel on the case, I wanted to know. And if he was another devil, well, he didn’t have the presence or the confidence of Ankanoc and I couldn’t figure his approach.

The question of danger was a real one. Lucky the Fox had always had his antennae out for those who might be watching him, whether sent by his enemies or his boss.

But this man simply did not look the part of a dangerous individual at all. No cop, or agent of The Right Man, would have stared so obviously at me. Another assassin would have never made himself known. If anything the incident served to make me aware of how very safe I felt, though I still had some lingering anxiety about having told my real name to The Right Man.

I forgot about it, found a quiet place on a patio outside, where the sun was pleasantly warm and the breeze cool, and I called Liona.

The sound of her voice almost brought tears to my eyes. And only as we chatted did I realize it had been five days since she and Toby had flown home.

“Believe me,” I said, “I wanted to call you before now. I’ve been thinking about you