Yes, an eclipsing fear in the late 1990s created a wasteland of the soul that mankind had never known before. Mankind collectively stood on the brink of the coming new millennium and teetered there, one foot in the abyss on a slippery slope that led to the end of a particularly black and empty hole, unless… Unless mankind and womankind turned the emptiness inside out, examined it, and came to terms with it. Unless people began to heed their own spiritual voices as had Luc Sante and others like him.
Jessica admired the old man's juggling his dual roles as priest and psychotherapist, his abilities in both fields, and his intellect and calculation that told all who came within his sphere that religion and science sipped from the same vast ocean-sized teacup of the unknown, and that both fields of human endeavor had much to offer the human psyche, and that both could and should cohabit down here on Earth together. The two, religion and science, did not negate one another; the two were necessary for understanding of the human spirit.
Luc Sante turned to Jessica, facing her now at the entranceway to the corridor, the streetlights filtering in through the windowed doors, bathing him in a green glow. Jessica stared into his warm, glowing, and rich blue eyes which spoke along with his voice. “In order to survive to the next level of evolution, mankind and womankind must not only stare deeply into the abyss that is ourselves, our human nature, our souls, my dear. But we also must fully accept and understand our most hideous aspect, our ugliest gargoyles, that we are indeed the beast we fear most, for we are the beast of our own nightmares and our own making. As unpleasant as it is. Well, you of all people understand the wisdom of it. But beware the beast, for it is busy, at this moment, calculating the most advantageous instant it can take hold of you and tear you from the slippery edge you stand on.”
“Then you concede that Satan is of our own making, and not a separate entity from man himself?” she asked.
“I concede nothing of the kind. I tell you it, he-whatever you wish to call evil and the maker of violence-is both within us and without us. No less than the love of Christ is within us and without us.”
Jessica felt a startled recognition at his words. She wondered if this shaman were a mind reader, or simply quite clever and cunning at picking up nonverbal cues. Still, she could not fathom it. How does he know that I have spent a good deal of my life on that brink, looking over the edge of a slippery slope, wondering these exact thoughts. It must be a lifetime of working with troubled people, she concluded.
Jessica momentarily thought of the few truly close friends she had in this life: Donna LeMonte, who had seen her through psychotherapy and had become one of her closest friends along with psychic FBI agent Kim Desinor. There remained her friend and boss Eriq Santiva, and her associate in the M.E.'s office, John Thorpe. She had few contacts outside her work, and whenever she did, the relationship seldom survived for long. That had been the case with James Parry, although she'd managed to hold on to James, and he to her, for six years. Some kind of record. She wanted to add Luc Sante to her list of intimate friends.
It was no coincidence that her best friends were in law enforcement. Even the men she chose to love were in law enforcement. She knew from experience that to ask anyone, who had not been there, to delve so deeply into the rings of hell with her, was asking too much.
After calling for a cab, Jessica shook Luc Sante's hand. Each of them knew that the other had indeed stared into the eyes of Satan and had come away from the experience scarred. Somewhere, somehow, someday she would get the story out of him.
She sensed, with the lingering handshake, that he again knew what thoughts ran fleetingly through her mind.
“Your help, Father, has been invaluable.”
“Bit premature to say so, Doctor.”
“It will prove invaluable then, I am certain.”
“Thank you for the compliment, and good night. I see the cab you called for is here. Go with God.” He waved her off, and then the huge oak doors closed. She felt like Dorothy being put out of Oz.
When she had taken a few steps from the cathedral she felt some innate voice tell her to stop, turn, and stare, as if someone were at the door, watching her. She looked for Luc Sante's fatherly eyes to be upon her, but he had vanished within. She felt a bit foolish, imagining what she looked like standing on the steps, retreating from the gothic old place like a “Pauline in Peril” character depicted on the cover of a raggedy little paperback book. She needed only to bite her knuckles to complete the image.
“Well, to hell with that,” she muttered and consciously felt for the bulge of her Smith amp; Wesson in her shoulder holster. She dismissed her moment of uneasiness. Just being foolish to feel a buzz of intuition telling her that a healthy fear of this place and time might just save her life. Just being foolish, yet the same buzz of fear had saved her life on more than one occasion, and she'd learned to listen to the gift of instinct over the years.
This time she tried to shrug it off, but with each step toward the cab, the insistent intuition that most women felt in moments of danger made her glance back again. Again, there was no one at the door windows. Still, she felt the stare like a hot poker. Her intuition insisting someone indeed must be there. Stillness. She looked overhead at the huge edifice and saw hundreds of gilded and steepled windows staring back like sinister eyes. Someone could be at one of them, staring down on her retreat. Far above these many eyes of the edifice, she saw the stares of twenty or more bug-eyed gargoyles, concrete eyes all glaring down on her.
Her intuition proven right, she now stared back at the creatures of the subconscious sitting atop the cathedral, ostensibly to protect mankind from the far worse creatures that dwelled in even darker shadows at even deeper levels of the human condition. Ironic to fight fear with the images of fear, yet it felt right here in London, and it felt right here at St. Albans, fitdng in with Dr. Luc Sante's message that the thing we should all fear most is ourselves.
In a glint of reflected moonlight and stars, one of the gargoyles winked directly at her.
TWELVE
Given the physiology and the psychopathology of the truly evil among us, there appears no time in the history of mankind, nor in mankind's future worlds when they-the evil among us-will cease to thrive.
When Jessica arrived at her temporary home at the York, she found messages awaiting her attention. The hotel clerk flagged her down at the elevator, telling her there'd been two telegrams and a delivery of flowers.
She loved flowers, and guessed they were from Richard. She lingered at the desk long enough to collect flowers and messages and thank the clerk.
Going to the elevator, a reporter who had staked out the hotel helped her get the elevator. The young woman, her hair in her eyes, quickly introduced herself as Erin Culbertson, reporter for the Times. “I'd just like a few words with you.”
Jessica had been waylaid by reporters before, especially reporters out to make a name for themselves by scoring on a big crime story. And in London, at the moment, the Crucifier was the biggest story going. Jessica replied with caution holding rein at the back of her mind. “And how do you know who I am?”
“The flowers.”
“The flowers?”
“I use flowers often to get an interview.”
“You bought the flowers as a way of telling who I was when I returned, and you've staked out the elevators since?”