The Face

says that our future is in the stars, our fate set when we’re born.”
        “There’s much in your old man to admire, son, but as far as his thoughts on fate are concerned, he’s full of shit.”
        “Wow,” said Fric, “can angels say ‘shit’?”
        “I just did. But then I’m new at this, and I’m quite capable of making a mistake now and then.”
        “You’re still wearing your training wings.”
        “You could say that. Anyway, I don’t want to see any harm come [307] to you, Aelfric. But I alone can’t guarantee your safety. You’ve got to help save yourself from Moloch when he comes.”

        Beetles, snails, foreskins…
        On Ethan’s desk with the other items stood the cookie-jar kitten filled with two hundred seventy tiles, ninety each of O, W, and E.
         Owe . Woe . Wee woo . Ewe woo.
        Beside the cookie jar lay Paws for Reflection, the hardcover book by Donald Gainsworth, who had trained guide dogs for the blind and service dogs for people in wheelchairs.
        Beetles, snails, foreskins, cookie jar with tiles, book…
        Next to the book stood the sutured apple opened to reveal the doll’s eye. THE EYE IN THE APPLE? THE WATCHFUL WORM? THE WORM OF ORIGINAL SIN? DO WORDS HAVE ANY PURPOSE OTHER THAN CONFUSION?
        Ethan had a headache. He probably ought to be grateful that a headache was all he had, after dying twice.
        Leaving the six gifts from Reynerd on the desk, he went into the bathroom. He took a bottle of aspirin from the medicine cabinet and shook a pair of tablets into his hand.
        He intended to draw a glass of water from the bathroom sink and take the aspirin. When he glanced in the mirror, however, he found himself looking at his reflection only briefly, then searching for a shadowy form that shouldn’t be there, that might slide away from his eyes as he tried to pin it with his stare, as in the bathroom at Dunny’s penthouse apartment.
        For the glass of water, he went into the kitchen, where no mirrors hung.
        Curiously, his attention was drawn to the wall-mounted telephone near the refrigerator. None of the lines was in use. Not Line 24. Not Fric’s line.
        He thought about the heavy breather. Even if the boy was the type to invent little dramas to focus attention on himself, which he was [308] not, this seemed a pale invention, not worth the effort of a lie. When kids made up stuff, they tended toward flamboyant details.
        After taking the aspirin, Ethan went to the phone and picked up the handset. A light appeared at the first of his two private lines.
        The house phones doubled as an intercom system. If he pressed the button marked INTERCOM and then the button for Fric’s line, he would be able to speak directly to the boy in his room.
        He didn’t know what he would say or why he felt that he ought to seek out Fric at this late hour rather than in the morning. He stared at the boy’s line. He put one finger on the button, but hesitated to press it.
        The kid was most likely asleep by now. If not asleep, he ought to be.
        Ethan racked the handset.
        He went to the refrigerator. Earlier, he had not been able to eat. The events of the day had left him with a stomach clenched as tight as a fist. For a while, all he’d wanted was good Scotch. Now, unexpectedly, the thought of a ham sandwich made his mouth water.
        You got up every day, hoping for the best, but life threw crap at you, and you were shot in the gut and died, then you got up and went on, and life threw more crap at you, and you were run down in traffic and died again, and when you just tried, for God’s sake, to get on with it, life threw still more crap at you, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that eventually all this strenuous activity gave you the appetite of an Olympic power lifter.

        Looking at frosted-glass angels, plastic angels, carved-wood angels, painted-tin angels, while at the same time talking to a maybe-for-real angel on the telephone, Fric said, “How can I ever find a safe place if Moloch can travel by mirrors and moonlight?”
        “He can’t,” said Mysterious Caller. “He doesn’t have my powers, Aelfric. He’s mortal. But don’t think being mortal makes him less dangerous. A demon would be no worse than him.”
        [309] “Why don’t you come here and wait with me till he shows up, and then beat the crap out of him with your holy cudgel?”
        “I