His eyes hardened and grew distant. “Our order began a long time ago. You don’t possess the ability to understand it.”
“I need you to tell me. Give me that much, Brother Sage,” I replied bitterly.
His left eye twitched. “I don’t need to give you anything. I already gave you far more than you deserved over the last decade of your life.”
“You owe me. You people took everything from me,” Jennifer told him. “Everything.”
“Life is filled with sacrifices and consequences, Jennifer,” he said.
“I’m sorry . . . so sorry . . .” I whispered to her. I was empty, humiliated, raw. Turned inside out. How many families had James and the Saviours destroyed?
“You’re apologising for me?” James said to me, sounding annoyed. “I have nothing to apologise for.”
“You’re insane,” I breathed. “A psychopath.”
“A psychopath, yes,” he replied. “But not insane. Psychopathy is not regarded as a mental illness. We’re not evil, either. The depths of the human psyche may be terrifying to you, but it is what it is.”
“If I’d known what you were, I’d have killed you with my bare hands.” I meant it. I’d do it now, right now, if I had the chance.
“And so you admit you would kill if you had a reason for it.” His tone was as dry and as vast as a desert, terrifying me.
I struggled to control my own voice. “I would not kill for my own pleasure.”
“Are you sure, Constance?” he said. “I see it in your eyes now that it would bring you satisfaction. But you don’t understand the merest thing about me or about those like me. Psychopaths exist because human evolution had a purpose for us. Unburdened by the same emotions and conscience as the rest of you, we do the things you only wish you could. Throughout history, we’ve led corporations and we’ve waged war. And we’ve been calm minded enough to succeed.”
“If not for the monastery,” said Sister Rose, “far more people would die. People like us would be responsible for the murders of hundreds of people each year. But here, we take a relatively small number of people each year, and we share in the kills. We also keep the worst of our kind here, far away from society. They never leave.”
Jennifer stared at her sharply, fire rising in her eyes. “Do you imagine that any of that excuses what you do?” she accused. “And serial killers are rare—how is it that there are so many of you here? And tell me, how do you all even find each other? I don’t understand that. Decade after decade, century after century. How?”
Jennifer broke off, her voice gone. I guessed that all the questions that she’d had to keep inside her all these years had finally exploded out in a ball of fury.
Sister Rose’s lips twisted into a smile. “We have a number of pathways, but the usual route is through our psychiatrists. I myself am a psychiatrist. When people confess to me that they have conducted a series of murders or they express a desire to do so, I begin a rigorous screening to see if they belong with us. We have many members who have never actually killed anyone, but who just like to watch. In medieval times, it was easier. Serial killers among the wealthy didn’t need to hide themselves as much as they do today.”
“We should begin the ceremony, Sister Rose.” James cast his eyes over the crowd of Saviours, a growing impatience evident on their faces. “We’ve already had many delays. My wife and Jennifer can perhaps discover all that they wish to know in the speeches.”
Sister Rose nodded. “Yes, of course. We should begin.”
The four mentors made their way to the opposite side of the cenote.
The handsome, olive-skinned man standing beside James led the hundreds of assembled Saviours into a song that sounded like a Gregorian chant—the deep tones of hundreds of voices vibrating through my teeth and bones and echoing into the dark reaches of the hexagonal cavern. The sounds were ancient and surreal, with an edge of savagery in the way the voices relentlessly pressed into the air.
James strode to a podium. All faces looked to him.
The chant came to an end.
James leant his hands on the podium, reminding me of so many speeches he’d given at business and charity events. His stance and the expression on his face were exactly the same.
“My brothers. My sisters,” he began. “We are, once more, in the final hours of the challenges that we hold to commemorate the history of Yeqon’s Saviours. We begin the ceremony in our traditional remembrance of our origins. We do not pay homage to the order of monks who built this monastery, nor do we speak their names. These monks of the twelfth century held the belief that they could heal the mentally ill through a direct line to God. The monastery was to be the treatment centre. Built on a system of God’s holy numbers, all rooms hexagonal. And in the exact centre, a cenote, to remind the unfortunates who would come there of the depths of God’s soul.” He paused. “The good monks then set about trying to cleanse the addled minds of the afflicted. On this day each year, we remember the torture of these unfortunates. The monks treated the unfortunates by locking them in cages and thrusting them in and out of the cenote. And they would wake them every midnight to force them through sets of cruel challenges. They kept metronomes running day and night in an attempt to push out supposed demonic possessions and insane thought and allow the minds of the unfortunates to be restored. The worst of the afflicted were kept in metal cages and chains down in the cellar, and the monks would drill holes through their skulls to release their madness. When all failed, the half-dead unfortunates were left out on the hill with the belief that God would save any that deserved saving. The birds would tear at the flesh of those who died on the hill. They all died, of course. These people were then buried out there on the hill, with gravestones that marked not their names but their supposed crimes and afflictions. After decades, the afflicted could take no more.”