Ann wandered into the library at close to midnight. The official closing time was nine, but nobody really cared about books or libraries anymore. It was more of an underfunded warehouse than anything else.

She looked as if someone had crumpled her up, put her in a back pocket, and gone horseback riding. She plopped down into the chair next to mine and dropped her head upon a pile of notes.

"Happy Birthday," she muttered, looking down at the papers touching her cheek, staring blearily through the desk to the floor.

"Thanks, doll, but you're off by nearly half a year."

"Mmm," she groaned, gazing through the papers to the other side of the planet. "I just finished speaking to Canfield. The crew's installed the Theta Wave Amplifier onboard Starfinder. Canfield's personally integrating the neural interruptors into the amplifier. And Bridget has submitted her altar design for the payload section. It looks good. It can work. Dr. La Vecque says that her heart's in prime condition-no circulatory problems. He thinks she can survive the flight." She sighed.

"What's wrong?"

She shrugged. "I thought that keeping the books at Bautista Corporation was a chore. This campaign of yours is so diversified that I'm shotgunning all over the place just trying to keep the finances straight." She raised her head from the table and rested it on one arm. "Working with Zacharias's money doesn't simplify things. He's being audited, so I've got to save his ass to cover ours."

I ran my hand gently through her golden hair. "He should be thankful for all the work you're doing for him."

She laughed in a peculiarly weak fashion. "One thing alone is keeping all of this from blowing us up into the public eye." She rolled her head to one side in order to gaze up at me. "Whenever I have to deal with people who might have an interest in tracking us down, they barely notice me and don't remember me five minutes after I'm gone."

"You make a great front man," I said.

She didn't take the comment well. "It's tough," she said. "It's tough knowing that you're moving through life like a phantom. Knowing that you drift through the memories of the people you meet like a faint breeze. Feeling that sometime-late at night-they'll remember you in a dream and wake with a shudder or a scream, only to forget again." She turned her face back down. "It's like not really being alive at all."

"How long have you been like this?"

She sat up and sighed. "All my life. There were times when even my… parents couldn't see me." She stared at the bookcases in silence.

I sat there watching her. Even though tired, she radiated a glow of life that warmed me to my soul-assuming that I still possessed one.

I quit dreaming and returned to my book.

After a moment, Ann said, "Dell?"

"Yeah?"

"I guess my point is that-with every other man-I have to exert a lot of mental power to hold their attention. That's one reason I put so much effort into my clothes and makeup."

"You certainly catch my eye, sister." It was obvious she was heading toward a point. I let her take her own route.

"That's the point," she said. Bingo for me. "I don't have to do anything. You see me."

She stood up with what the poets call "feline grace"-a lovely flowing motion. For an exhausted person, she stored an astonishing reserve of energy.

"You can see me because you are the man who doesn't believe lies."

I snorted. That was a laugh. "Tell that to the Reverend Zacharias."

She dismissed the gag with a flip of her hand. "You don't believe lies, and you seek to uncover the truth. You don't take the easy way out if it involves belief in things false."

"`What is truth?'" I asked, mostly to show her I'd been doing my reading. "Look where it's taken me-to a life of murder. That's the truth for you." I closed the book to gaze at her. I felt tired. "How's this for a lie-telling myself that the world is wrong and that the generals and kings and politicians I killed were evil men who deserved to die. Have I made the world any better?"

Her earth-red nails tapped at the tabletop. "I seem to recall asking you a similar question a few weeks ago. You've apparently changed your mind. You told me you only killed tyrants."

"Everyone else called them `leaders.' It'd be pretty presumptuous of me to put my opinion above everyone else's."

"Stop playing devil's advocate, Dell."

My laughter echoed through the library. It took me awhile to calm down. All of three seconds.

She hit me with that gaze of hers.

"I don't really care what you think you believe. Do you know what it's like being unable to hold a man's full attention for more than a few moments? The closer he gets, the harder I have to concentrate. Usually the effort is too taxing, and he snaps away. He stands there wondering where he is and what he's doing there."

"Must make shopping difficult."

She didn't even hear me.

"I don't know," she said. "Maybe I just didn't want any of them."

"But we want each other." I figured it was my place to state the obvious. They must have been the magic words, because she suddenly fell silent and gazed dreamily at me with those piercingly blue eyes.

"And I wasn't even trying," she murmured. "You truly want me?"

I nodded.

"Then," she said with a luscious smile, "take me."

I looked around me. "Here?"

"Of course not," she said, reaching to take my hand. "In the philosophy section!"

She was the sea; I, a mighty rider sailing upon the crests of her waves. She moaned like the wind through hidden forests; I bent like a tree beneath her. She burned-a fiery essence; I was consumed utterly. She covered me like soft, warm earth; I lay buried in ecstasy.

I had run out of metaphors.

I had also run out of cigarettes. Somehow, though, I had no craving for smoke. I just lay there gazing at her, a golden treasure.

I was having a difficult time finding the right words to say. Despite the reputation my profession has received as lusty villains in popular thrillers, an assassin almost never gets involved with women. Except perhaps as tools. My affairs had always been just that-affairs. A short farewell, if any.

I'd never made love to a friend before.

Tough guys aren't supposed to think about such things as love and warmth and worship and forever. Dell Ammo was a tough guy. Dell Ammo never worshipped a woman. Or a man. Or a God.

What did I worship, then? Anything? Could I fool myself into thinking I worshipped justice? Yeah-I could sprain my arm patting my back over that. Dell Ammo, assassin. Crusader for justice. It had a cozy counterfeit ring to it.

Ann interrupted my thoughts by pulling me closer.

"Do you still see me?" she asked.

"Like a dream I carried over into waking."

"You're no thug," she said, stroking my hair. It had grown out jet black again, as it had been years ago. "You're a sensitive, brilliant man."

"Rats, doll, you've blown my cover. All these scars are fake. I'm actually John Donne."

"That was no island," she said. "That was a continen-"

The air rumbled around us. Ann stared at me. A dull, stunned expression spread across my face. The library swirled about me and snapped like wet silk.

I floated in a totally black realm. From somewhere in the darkness, Isadora screamed out a warning. The library returned to my vision, her words reverberating in my head.

"Run, Dell!" she cried. "The Ecclesia's attacking!"