She gazed back once to see if Father Luc Sante followed, and she could see him coming along, slowly but surely. People on the street engaged Luc Sante, called out to him, asked for his blessings. When Jessica returned her gaze to Strand, the man had again vanished. “G'damnit,” she cursed.
Luc Sante, catching up, gasping for breath, asked, “Why have you stopped? Where is he?”
“He's gone.”
“Gone?”
“Vanished.”
“Without a trace?”
“Like smoke… like a chameleon.”
“Oh, and this is exactly where I lost him when last I was here.” Luc Sante jabbed the sidewalk with his black cane.
Circling, staring in all directions, being jostled by the crowd, Jessica said, “Then there must be someplace he is disappearing to, right about here. He can't have stepped into another dimension.”
“Oh, you don't know Strand. He's something of a magician, that one. Had me fooled, and I'm the supposed expert. Let's face it. For all these years, his choirboy looks have gotten him by. He simply is not what he appears to be.”
Jessica began the search through this street-comer madhouse of electric energy, a kind of Sodom and Gomorra of bartering. Every item imaginable could be purchased here, and one of the shops Jessica now stood before must be where Strand purchased his ancient altar. At the same instant Jessica's eyes fell on the incredible array of oaken furniture made to appear ancient. Father Luc Sante, growing excited, pointed it out as well, saying, “This is the shop on the receipt for the altar I told you about, Jessica. This is where he purchased the missing oak altar.”
On entering the shop, Jessica saw that it was filled with an array, indeed the enure spectrum of religious icons and paraphernalia, including crosses as large as the beams on ancient firehouse ceilings. She immediately wondered if Strand had also purchased an ancient cross here, with spikes thrown in to seal the deal? Jessica asked the question of Luc Sante who puzzled it out.
She followed with, “What about having a custom-made brand for the underside of the tongue made here?”
“There is a shop for every taste at this street bazaar,” he assured her. “No doubt there is a shop where this sort of branding is routine, like tattooing now! Or body piercing. Trust me, on this street, anything can be had for a price.”
Jessica could easily imagine it possible here from the evidence of her eyes. For here, staring from every tabletop and street vendor's booth, lay black market items from rhino homs to human skulls, ancient swords too heavy to lift to entire table and chair sets that appeared to have been taken from royal homes, the workmanship that fine and intricate. Here Jessica saw the arcane and archaic, the bizarre and fantastic, including a fellow whose entire stock comprised of branding tools\ Branding irons, both large and small, even miniature in size to create ready-made tattoos without the wait for those able to withstand the pain.
Jessica wondered if the tongue branding iron had not come from this collection of knockabout junk. Jessica saw real family crests for sale, stamps of office, royal seals, extraordinary candles, canes, boxes, paintings, artwork, and sculptures from around the globe; she saw mantels, clocks, children's toys, portmanteaus, chests, armoires, cast iron stoves, kitchenware, pirate ware, fantasy ware, warfare ware, and pinned insects of the most exotic nature, followed by an array of colorful African, handcarved coffins, and beside these, Old World headstones made to order, all this and more within walking distance of St. Albans, and all the variety of wares displayed within feet of one another. Many of the outdoor salespeople had covered ancient doorways, alleyways, and stairwells leading up this way, inviting down that way. The street vendors had built their makeshift booths, like any flea market, wherever they found space, and this section, where Jessica and Luc Sante found themselves, sat squarely in a run-down area of old warehouses that had fallen on hard times many years before, long since abandoned. In other districts, particularly along the Thames, property in ill repair had become fodder for real estate developers following the lead in America to build condominiums and time shares out of old buildings via judicious refurbishing. But this blighted area would have none of that.
So where had Strand disappeared to?
They came up blind at every turn. Every doorway locked, every alleyway empty, every stairwell leading to yet another locked door. Until Jessica found one stone causeway leading gently downward. “This could be where he disappeared to,” she suggested to Luc Sante.
“We should not attempt to go any further alone,” Luc Sante warned. “There's a dark side to Martin that I-forgive me- fell blind to. Me! Me, the so-called expert on evil, and yet I could not recognize it all this dme in my presence in its pleasing form,” lamented Father Luc Sante who suddenly looked old, frail, small, defeated, sunken.
“Exactly right. I saw a pay phone about a block back. Go there and call Sharpe and get the troops here. We may well be onto something.”
“I will not leave you alone here, and you cannot go any further, Jessica,” Luc Sante near ranted. “Do you understand?”
“I'll just wait here undl you get back, in case he shows up again.”
“If you're promising me you will stay put, then I'll make the call, otherwise…”
“I promise. Now, go!”
Jessica watched as Luc Sante disappeared into the crowd around the bazaar. She turned back to the stone walls and stairwell that so caught her attention and curiosity. It was remarkably old, these walls, this stairwell going down into a dark and gloomy place where there might be yet another locked door, but one she could not see. She lifted her penlight from her pocket, the same as she used in the tunnels with Sharpe. She had used it at St. Albans as well, and now here, but the light, as powerful as it was, revealed no door at the long, downward spiral below her feet. Instead, it appeared to be a bend, a cornering which meant the shaft continued onward in a zigzag fashion.
Luc Sante would be some time, she thought. He seemed as genuinely amazed at Strand's sudden disappearance in the area as she had been. He had been certain that this exact area had swallowed Strand up before when he had followed the man here yesterday.
Jessica wondered if she hadn't stumbled on a passage of Roman architecture in the city. She stepped down into the passage which led invitingly, hauntingly into a labyrinth of walls-still Roman in appearance. From here she located another passage going off in yet another direction with its own set of stairs. Strand could be anywhere among the dark corridors of this ancient place.
All the stone stairwells led downward into the bowels of this place. “Damn,” she swore at herself, “why didn't I have Sharpe come along with me?” She continued one step in front of the other, while at the same time thinking, “I've got to go back, let Father Luc Sante know I'm all right and that these walls and stairwells lead somewhere.”
She turned full around, taking a step back toward the direction from which she came, anxious to reenter the bustling world above, to return to street level and the life that abounded there, to see Father Luc Sante's kindly face searching the entryway for her, but a noise from behind distracted Jessica. It seemed the sound of a falling foot, followed by another. Strand? she wondered.
In the dark distance, she could barely make out the form of a man, his back to her, moving steadily onward, downward into this Stonehengelike place.
A rat scurried past, followed by another, each no doubt carrying enough fleas and disease to infect anyone they might bite. She returned to the lip of the opening where she had first stepped into the Roman walls, scanning for any sign of Luc Sante. On seeing the old man tottering back, his cane held high, she cautioned Father Luc Sante, pleading, “Please, remain aboveground and direct authorities when they arrive. Watch for Sharpe.”