“The veil isn’t popular like the Shroud of Turin. Still, there are dozens of stories surrounding its history. These days, the Catholic Church avoids talking about it. But during the Middle Ages, for at least two hundred years, they had it on display in the Vatican. I saw it.”
“Did it have a face on it?” Matt asks.
“It had a face most people associate with early Christian paintings. The image was remarkably clear. It had three Vs on the bottom, all in a row. One from his beard, the others from his long, draped hair. I always found the symmetry curious. It didn’t fit the style of art that was popular at that time.”
“Why did the Vatican hide it away?”
“Some say it got stolen. Others say it was shown to be a fake. A few say it burned in a fire.”
Matt frowns. “But somehow, a thousand years after the Vatican lost it, your friends ended up with it.”
“Yes,” I say.
“How? And please don’t tell me it’s a long story.”
“It is, and I have a feeling I’m going to have to tell it to the others. So I might as well tell it all at once.”
“You’re stalling. You know Seymour’s not religious and Brutran is certainly not a regular churchgoer. They won’t have any interest in this veil.”
“They will when I explain why I had to kill Shanti.”
“You think she was going after it?”
“Why else would she have these pictures?”
“Because they’re pictures of people from your past.”
“That means nothing. I’m not in these pictures. What’s important is that these people saved me.”
“Using the veil?”
“Yes. But it’s not the way you think. You have to hear the whole story.” I pause. “Or as much of it as I can remember.”
Matt stares at me, his puzzlement growing. “Sita, you’re the same as me. You don’t forget anything.”
I squeeze his hand and lean over and give him a kiss. He reaches out to hug me in return, but I avoid his embrace by sitting back. All of a sudden I feel dirty, unclean. I fear to infect him. I stare down at the photo again.
“Maybe I’m afraid to remember,” I say.
TWO
We have a meeting planned for early in the morning. There’s much to discuss—like, how are we to stay alive when everyone is trying to kill us?
We get nowhere. As soon as Seymour realizes Shanti is missing, he demands to know why. And when Matt tells him the truth—in more gentle tones than I’ve ever heard him use before—Seymour bolts for the door.
I let him go, feeling he needs to be alone. But as the minutes go by and the temperature outside rises—our motel has lousy air-conditioning—I decide to go after him. The town where we reside, Baker, is what the term “hole in the wall” was born for. I fear Seymour has gone for a walk in the desert. The opposite of an outdoorsman, he has zero survival skills. I worry he’ll get heatstroke.
I have no trouble tracking Seymour. He’s left a trail in the sand and I can hear his breathing a mile away. I chase after him; it doesn’t take long to catch him.
“Go away,” he says as I pull up at his side.
I offer him a bottle of Evian. “Take a drink.”
“Leave me alone.”
“You’re hiking into no-man’s-land.”
“What do you care?”
I grab his arm, stopping him. It’s not as if he has the strength to resist me. “You’re the one person who knows how much I care,” I say.
The pain in Seymour’s face is heartbreaking, and he’s not someone who wears his heart on his sleeve. His eyes burn and he would probably weep if he weren’t so dehydrated. His love for Shanti was like mine—a beautifully foolish thing.
“Why?” he asks, hanging his head.
I let him go. “Matt told you why.”
His head jerks up. “Matt! Matt didn’t kill her.”
“No, I killed her. But what Matt told you was true. She was the spy who’s been tripping us up from the start of this nightmare.”
“You don’t know that for sure. I know how impulsive you are. I bet you never gave her a chance to explain herself.”
“Seymour . . .”
“Okay, maybe she was a spy! But maybe she was forced into the role. Did you stop and think of that before you murdered her?”
“You have to trust me, it wasn’t that way.”
“Oh really, what way was it?”
I hesitate. “She was possessed.”
He looks at me as if I’m crazy. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Turning, I stare out at the desert, seeing the air tremble as it superheats and rises in waves over the bleak landscape. The ground is half dirt, half sand, hot enough to fry an egg. I shake my head.
“When I was at IIC’s headquarters, while I was trying to take control of their Cradle, I had all kinds of strange psychic experiences. I shared some of them with you, but the worst ones, the ones where I came face to face with this demon, I didn’t talk about. I couldn’t. It was so awful, it almost drove me mad.”
“You always seemed in control.”
“It was an act. At the end, I was losing it.”
“How do you know you didn’t lose it last night?” he asks.
I reach out and put my hand on his shoulder, half expecting him to shake it off. But he is listening, my old friend, he continues to listen. Yet he wants hard answers, logical reasons, and I doubt if I can give him those.
“I caught her in a lie,” I say. “A big lie. Then it was only a question of getting her to admit what she was, which she did.”
“What she was? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I told you, she was possessed.”
“Get off it, Sita. This isn’t The Exorcist. Shanti was one of the sweetest girls I ever met.”
“Yeah, sweet as apple pie. I thought the same thing. So damn sweet.” I pause. “Look how we found her, with half her face melted away from acid a jealous boyfriend had thrown at her. How could we help but feel sorry for her?”
Seymour is suddenly confused. “That was true. She didn’t lie about that.”
“Nothing she said was true! She lied to us from the start. Those facial wounds—they were self-inflicted. She poured the acid on herself.”