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"What was it in his face?" Dora asked.
"Horror, horror that such a thing had happened. You see, when he reached for me, I think that his two fingers, like this, went into the eye socket, overshooting the mark. He had merely meant to grab me by the hair. But when his fingers plunged into the socket, he tried in horror to draw them out, and out came the eye, spilling down my face, and he was horror-stricken!"
"You love him," said Armand in a hushed voice.
"I love him. Yes, I think he's right about everything. But I don't believe in anything!"
"Why didn't you accept?" asked Armand. "Why didn't you give him your soul?"
Oh, how innocent he sounded, how it came from his heart, ancient and childlike, a heart so preternaturally strong that it had taken hundreds of years to render it safe to beat in the company of mortal hearts.
Little Devil, Armand!
"Why didn't you accept!" he implored.
"They let you escape, and they had a purpose," said David. "It was like the vision I saw in the cafe. "
"Yes, and they had a purpose," I said. "But did I defeat their purpose?" I looked to him for the answer, he the wise o
ne, the old one in human years. "David, did I defeat them when I took you out of life?
Did I defeat them somehow some other way? Oh, if only I could remember, their voices in the beginning. Vengeance. Someone said that it wasn't simple vengeance. But it was those fragments. I can't remember now. What's happened! Will they come back for me?"
I fell to crying again. Stupid. I fell to describing Memnoch again, in all his forms, even the Ordinary Man, who had been so extraordinary in his proportions, the haunting footsteps, the wings, the smoke, the glory of Heaven, the singing of angels. . . "Sapphiric. . . " I whispered.
"Those surfaces, all the things the prophets saw and sprinkled throughout their books with words like topaz and beryl and fire and gold and ice and snow, and it was all there. . . and He said, 'Drink my Blood!' I did it!"
They drew close to me. I'd scared them. I'd been too loud, too crazed, too possessed. They stood around me, their arms against me, her fiery white human arms, the warmest, the sweetest of all, and David's dark brow pushed against my face.
"If you let me," said Armand, his fingers slipping up to my collar, "if you let me drink, then I'll know. . . . "
"No, all you'll know is that I believe what I saw, that's all" I said.
"No," he said, shaking his head. "I'll know the blood of Christ if I taste it. "
I shook my head. "Back away from me. I don't even know what the veil will look like. Will it look like something with which I wiped my blood sweat in my sleep as I dreamt? Back away. "
They obeyed. They were a loose triangle. I had my back to the inner wall so that I could see the snow on my left side, though I had to turn my head to the left now to do it. I looked at them. My right hand fumbled inside my vest, it drew out the thick wad, and I felt something, something tiny and strange which I could not explain to them, or put into words even for myself, I felt the weave, that weave of cloth, that ancient weave!
I drew out the veil, not looking myself, and held it up as if I were Veronica showing it to the crowd.
A silence gripped the room. A motionlessness.
Then I saw Armand go down on his knees. And Dora let out her long, keening cry.
"Dear God," said David.
Shivering, I lowered the veil, still held wide open with both hands, and turned it so I could see the reflection of the veil in the dark glass against the snow, as if it was the Gorgon and was going to kill me.
His Face! His Face blasted into the veil. I looked down. God Incarnate staring at me from the most minute detail, burnt into the cloth, not painted or stained, or sewn or drawn, but blasted into the very fibers, His Face, the Face of God in that instant, dripping with blood from His Crown of Thorns.
"Yes," I whispered. "Yes, yes. " I fell on my knees. "Oh, yes, so very complete, down to the last detail. "
I felt her take the veil. I would have snatched it back if either of them had tried. But into her small hand, I entrusted it, and she held it up now turning round and round, so that all of us could see His dark eyes shining from the cloth!
"It's God!" she screamed. "It's Veronica's Veil!" Her cry grew triumphant and then filled with joy. "Father, you've done it! You have given me the Veil!"
And she began to laugh, as one who had seen all the visions one can endure to see, dancing round and round, with the veil held high, singing one syllable over and over again.
