So the FBI has hired an archaeologist to help them poke around underground. Under ordinary circumstances, I would be intrigued. I have always been fascinated by history. Humanity has had so many years to get things right, and yet we just can’t manage it. How hard is it, really, to be kind?
Too hard, apparently.
When Lonnie made the error of bringing the bomb topside, he opened me to exposure in a way that I never anticipated. How could I have guessed that the bomb would go off in the one and only place that could open the catacombs under this city to scrutiny?
The true catacombs, the ones inhabited by people too poor to better their lives in any other way, are no danger to me. It is The Sanctuary that puts my freedom on the line, and the freedom of those I love most in this world. The room is very old, but the paintings aren’t, and they say too much. Or they did.
The paintings that addled, egotistical Lonnie left behind were a problem. They did not bear scrutiny, not by anyone and certainly not by someone trained to interpret them and, even worse, put a date on them. They needed to go and now they are gone.
And, unfortunately, Dr. Faye Longchamp-Mantooth needs to go, too. The FBI has done nothing but peek through the door, and this would not worry me, if they hadn’t taken an archaeologist with them. Detailed photos of the paintings cannot possibly exist. I was in The Sanctuary mere hours ago, and there were no footprints in the dust on its floor but Lonnie’s. Dr. Longchamp-Mantooth is the only expert who has seen them and she is the only expert who will ever see them.
She can estimate their age. She can interpret the history behind Lonnie’s religious ravings. The risk that she can connect the paintings to my family is too great. This is regrettable, but once evil is obliterated, the second commandment emerges in full force. It tells me I must protect the ones I love. If I could do that and spare Dr. Longchamp-Mantooth, then I would. I cannot, so I will do what must be done.
This is what Lonnie taught me, and I am far stronger than Lonnie ever was. I keep the commandments he taught me, as I always have. He never suspected that those commandments would lead me to wipe him from existence.