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Armand was shattered, broken, on his knees, the blood tears running straight down his cheeks, horrid streaks on the white flesh.
Humbled and confounded, David merely watched. Keenly, he studied the veil as it moved through the air, her hands still stretching it wide. Keenly, he studied my face. He studied the slumped, broken, sobbing figure of Armand, the lost child in his exquisite velvet and lace now stained with his tears.
"Lestat," Dora cried, tears gushing, "you have brought me the Face of my God! You have brought it to all of us. Don't you see? Memnoch lost! Memnoch was defeated. God won! God used Memnoch for his own ends, he led Memnoch into the labyrinth of Memnoch's own design. God has triumphed!"
"No, Dora, no! You can't believe that," I shouted. "What if it isn't the truth? What if it was all a pack of tricks. Dora!"
She shot past me down the corridor and out the door. We three stood stunned. We could hear the elevator descending. She had the veil!
"David, what is she going to do? David, help me. "
"Who can help us now?" asked David, but it was without conviction or bitterness, only that pondering, that endless pondering.
"Armand, take hold of yourself. You cannot surrender to this," he said.
His voice was sad.
But Armand was lost.
"Why?" Armand asked. He was just a child now on his knees.
"Why?"
This is how he must have looked centuries ago when Marius had come to free him from his Venetian captors, a boy kept for lust, a boy brought into the palace of the Undead.
"Why can't I believe it? Oh, my God, I do believe it. It is the face of Christ!"
He climbed to his feet, drunkenly, and then he moved slowly, doggedly, step by step, after her.
By the time we reached the street, she stood screaming before the doors of the cathedral.
"Open the doors! Open the church. I have the veil. " She kicked the bronze doors with her right foot. All around her gathered mortals, murmuring.
"The Veil, the Veil!" They stared at it, as she stopped to turn and show it once more. Then all pounded on the doors.
The sky above grew light with the coming sun, far, far off in the maw of the winter, but nevertheless rising in its inevitable path, to bring its fatal white light down on us if we didn't seek shelter.
"Open the doors!" she screamed.
From all directions, humans came, gasping, falling on their knees when they saw the Veil.
"Go," said Armand, "seek shelter now, before it's too late. David, take him, go. "
"And you, what will you do?" I demanded.
"I will bear witness. I will stand here with my arms outstretched," he cried, "and when the sun rises, my death shall confirm the miracle. "
The mighty doors were being opened at last. The dark-clad figures drew back in astonishment. The first gleam of silver light illuminated the Veil, and then came the warmer, yellow electric lights from within, the lights of candles, the rush of the heated air.
"The Face of Christ!" she screamed.
The priest fell down on his knees. The older man in black, brother, priest, whatever he was, stood openmouthed looking up at it.
"Dear God, dear God," he said, making the Sign of the Cross, "That in my lifetime, God . . . it's the Veronica!"
Humans rushed past us, stumbling and jostling to follow her into the church. I heard their steps echoing up the giant nave.
"We have no time," David said in my ear. He had lifted me off my feet, strong as Memnoch, only there was no whirlwind, only the risen winter dawn, and the falling snow, and more and more shouts and howls and cries as men and women flooded towards the church, and the bells above in the steeples began to ring.
