The Mona Lisa Sacrifice Read Online Free PDF Page B

resembles the dream one. If the Louvre staff knew what they really had on their hands, they’d have taken her out to some quarry and blown her up with explosives a long time ago. Or maybe dropped her off the edge of some tanker in the middle of an ocean. All right, maybe not. Curators being what they are, they’d probably just lock her in some crate somewhere in the basement, to be opened only during drunken staff Christmas parties. Which would make it much harder for me to ask her questions about the Mona Lisa, so all’s well that ends well.
    I stepped to the side of a pillar and used a bit of Remiel’s grace to conceal myself with a sleight. Now if people looked at me they’d think I was just a bit of dust in their eye. I used that cover to climb up on to a window ledge away from anything that anybody would want to photograph. I leaned back against the wall of the ledge and soaked up the sunlight coming in through the window. I dozed a little but I made sure not to drift off too much. I didn’t want to fall from the ledge and onto someone walking by. Things could get awkward.
    I waited for the museum to close, surrounded by dead memories.
    Naturally, I dreamed of Judas.

ATER THE RESURRECTION
    The Romans had thrown my body into a cave and then sealed the entrance with rocks. Or maybe Judas had done it. I don’t know why I hadn’t been left on the hillside where I’d been crucified with all the other dead. I guess someone wanted me to disappear forever. But, as I’ve since learned, the world is full of surprises.
    Once I learned how to sit up and then walk again, I pushed the rocks aside until there was enough room for me to wriggle out, into the light. I left the cave where I was born and went out into the world. I didn’t know how long my body had lain in that cave, but I discovered I was now a stranger in a strange land. My body had been transported far from where I had wandered in Christ’s days, to a region where no one knew me or had heard tales of the miracles he had performed. I was just another anonymous drifter.
    I wandered from village to village in those days, hiring myself out for whatever jobs were available for a man with no past. A man who didn’t know who he was. Sometimes I was a shepherd or a common labourer. They were good jobs for someone with no skills. At least I knew a couple of languages, thanks to Christ’s memories.
    I didn’t try to follow in his footsteps and preach the word of God. Look where that had got him. Besides, whatever I was, I knew I was a man, and I wasn’t the sort of man Christ ever would have been able to convert.
    Mostly, I worked as extra muscle in the militia of some chieftain or another. I learned how to fight, and I discovered that my body healed fast, which was handy in that line of work. This was back before I knew all the tricks of grace. Hell, this was before I even knew what grace was. All I knew was that I was always hungry, I always felt an emptiness inside that drove me from one place to another, searching for something to fill it. I didn’t know then it was hunger for what I’d lost with Christ.
    I only shared what had happened to me once, when I was deep in my cups with fellow members of a town guard one night. Somebody asked me where I was from and I told my tale. There was a silence, and then somebody else bought another round. That was the last thing I remembered until I woke up the next morning outside the town, amid the smouldering fires of the refuse pits. I’d been stabbed twice in the chest, but luckily my assailant’s aim had been off and he’d missed my heart. I likely had the cheap wine to thank for that one. I was naked and religious symbols had been carved into my skin, the marks of a god that had probably been long dead even then. I lay there for a few days and nights, until my wounds healed enough for me to stand, and then I left that place, in search of a place with a more welcoming air.
    I mostly didn’t tell anybody who I was or