Jennifer shook her head. “He described how they took their last breaths and what their last words were. After that, he began speaking so fast that half of it was gibberish. Talking about predators behind walls that no one could see, watching their victims.” She took a shuddering breath, gathering herself. “I went to the police with what he’d told me. Barely an hour later, someone crept into the ward where he was being held and killed him. In the media, it was reported as a suicide.”
“How do you know it wasn’t—a suicide?” I asked.
“They said he hung himself with his belt. He hadn’t been wearing any belt. He’d been wearing hospital pyjamas. The police dismissed everything I’d told them, saying that the knock to his head had merely triggered a psychotic episode. My best guess is that the accident didn’t cause a psychosis but just released the inner workings of his mind. The head injury affected his ability to keep his mouth zipped about the things he’d been involved in and about Yeqon’s Saviours.”
“We know the name, Yeqon’s Saviours,” I said bitterly.
“A few people know of it,” said Sethi. “But ranks seem to close around the name. As soon as mention is made of it, it is shut down. People die.”
Jennifer bent her head in acknowledgment. “I have come close to finding out where these people gather so many times, but I am always blocked at some point along the line. I admit that I still can’t quite grasp the whole thing. How is it possible such a thing as this has survived for so long? For centuries? How is it possible that more than a handful of people are involved? There has never been anything like this in the world.”
I became aware of my surrounds again, realising I’d been holding my breath and caught deep inside Jennifer’s story. I’d seen the ancient illustrations in Rico’s book, but some part of me had desperately hoped that the modern-day version of this group just practiced rituals and that they weren’t the same as they’d been in the distant past. “It just doesn’t seem like it can be real . . .”
Jennifer inhaled deeply, letting her eyes drift open to the sky. “And I think that’s why no one has believed me. It’s impossible. Less than one percent of the world’s population are serial killers. They’re rare.”
Gray rose suddenly and strode away to the side of the house, his shoulders hunched, stopping to stare out at the ocean.
“I fear the talk of serial killers has become too much for him,” Sethi said to me.
I nodded softly. “It’s too much for me, too. I need a break.”
Pressing her lips in firmly, Jennifer reached to touch my arm. “Go. We’ll talk more when you two are ready.”
I stepped along the stone path to where Gray was standing. Silently, I offered him a cigarette. We remained there for the next several minutes, puffing away furiously, trying to find an equilibrium on the horizon. But the whole world had been tipped.
“I’ll tear these people apart if they’ve touched a hair on Evie’s head,” Gray said finally.
I couldn’t speak. I didn’t want to put a coherent voice to my thoughts.
Gray stubbed the cigarette out on the ground then strode into the house. He returned a moment later with a folder and laid it on the table where Sethi and Jennifer were. “This symbol. The thirty steps. The same stuff that the Alastair guy was raving about. We need to find out the source of the symbol.” He sounded desperate, showing them his photocopy of the monks descending the thirty rungs of the ladder.
Walking back to the table, I looked on.
“Rico and Petrina told me they showed you the historical books containing this symbol,” Jennifer said to Gray. “For a while there, many years ago, I confessed to them what I was doing. Just after the incident with Alastair Bastwright. I was horrified and terrified, and I needed support. I drip-fed them tiny pieces of information, certainly not everything, because if they knew it all, I knew they’d throw everything at trying to stop me. For the next year, they researched the Saviours with me. But it became too dangerous. Good people that I talked to about this symbol began dying—murdered.”
“Are Rico and Petrina still looking for clues about the Saviours with you?” I asked her.
“No,” she replied with a definite tone. “After the spate of murders years ago, I pulled back. I couldn’t risk more people dying. I didn’t tell them about the murders, but Rico and Petrina could still see how dangerous it was getting. They made me promise I’d give up the search, and I promised them I would. I was lying, of course.”