out of his cab, not letting any part of the real Byron Portia ooze out of the cracks. Byron thought of it as locking himself away in a little room inside his head. Like one of those rooms on the old cop shows with one-way glass where he could look out and see them, but all that the person in the room would see was a reflection of themselves staring back at them.
It had worked. No more whores causing commotions in bars. Simple and efficient.
And so, here he was years later, heading south on I-15 towards Los Angeles. Still undiscovered. Protected. With much work behind him but far more still to come.
It was New Years Eve and there would be an awful lot of people out celebrating. That was just fine by him. He could lose himself easily in a crowd, walking among those he had been given the task of watching over. Watching for those that he hunted. And tonight he felt the pull, the need, the powerful imperative that flowed through his blood when the calling was upon him.
His truck hurtled along the highway, surrounded on either side by desert and the sun a liquid ball shimmering on the far horizon. He was just a couple of hours outside of LA, if everything remained copasetic he would find somewhere near Burbank airport and park up for the night, with enough time to clean himself up and go see-what-he-could-see.
Tonight he would hunt.
Three
Monsignor Jacob Pike pushed the great oaken doors into place, drew the two huge metal bolts, fastened the locks, and sealed off the outside world from Saint Bartholomew’s Church for the night.
With the final lock securely in place, the priest’s face seemed to lose all strength, dragged as though by some sudden pulse of gravity towards the cold slab floor, leaving in its wake a hollow shell of the man he had imitated for the past twelve hours.
Through sheer force of will he had managed to preserve his facade of normalcy; it was the least he could do for his audience, he supposed. To maintain the pretense he was what he claimed to be, this final selfless act of a lost soul.
His face now drawn and haggard, his viridian green eyes dull and jejune, Monsignor Pike took one painful step after the next, making his way along the aisle between the rows of lemon-oiled pews, the fragrance of incense still clinging to the air. He shuffled towards the chancel, the echo of each footfall his only escort through the now empty church.
Not bothering to genuflect as he reached the communion table, he paused instead to stand at the head of the aisle, his eyes drifting upwards, before settling finally on the life-sized crucifix that was the centerpiece of the sanctuary area.
During the day, the natural light of the huge stained-glass window that stretched from the floor to the ceiling nearly fifty feet above, would light this emblem of Christianity. The window reproduced the fourteen Stations of the Cross, images that symbolized scenes of suffering in each of the successive stages of Christ’s passion. A design created to instill a sense of awe in all who entered the church, to humble the proud and spark joy in the hearts of the downtrodden.
The colorful mosaic of painted glass lent an otherworldly etherealness to the church, sunshine pouring like wine through the beautifully colored scenes, but at night, without the sun’s illumination, the window was black and lifeless.
Soulless.
The aged priest understood the dichotomy.
To compensate for the loss of light; once the sun set, hidden blue and red spotlights sparked into life, tastefully highlighting the effigy of the suffering Christ hanging from the cross, his face a mask of suffering. The sculptor had captured perfectly Christ’s torment; a vicious crown of thorns digging into his head, a spear wound in his side bleeding water and blood down over his hip. His agony was so obvious; his suffering so profound, that no one looking upon the scene could fail to be moved by the enormity of this God-man’s sacrifice.
That was not what the Monsignor saw.
He saw an icon of deception, a promise to the human race that would never be fulfilled,
As empty as he now felt.
Like a cancer, his own despair had eaten through him, coring him out like termites devouring the foundation of his spiritual house, until finally, with nothing left to support it his belief had collapsed in on itself. And, for the past three years, Monsignor Jacob Pike had been faithless.
He no longer believed in the wonder, the resurrection or any of the underpinning principles that had drawn him to the Church and a life of service to God. He performed his daily duties out of habit rather than devotion. He was unworthy, he knew, to be a leader of his flock.
How could he be expected to lead when he was so lost himself?
He had so very many questions, and not one of them could he find an answer to within the pages of the book of books.
That first morning, he awakened with a feeling of disquiet and unrest in the pit of his stomach. Stumbling through the morning prayers and service, he found himself distracted and unsure of himself, something that he had never experienced before in his forty-two years as a priest.
For a while, he thought he may be sick. And in a way, he supposed he was sick, but it was a malady of the soul, not of the flesh. It would have been so much easier to deal with a life-threatening illness; instead, he was facing a much harsher future.
The feeling of disquiet only grew stronger with each passing day until, finally,
He had prayed every day for guidance. Beseeching the Lord God Almighty to show him the way back to the path of enlightenment, to help him find his way home, to guide him back to divinity. Every day he awaited an answer, and every day he drifted further away from his religion when no answer came.
Finally, he had stopped trying, too tired and too old to continue to bother. The Church had priests trained to help those like him but he knew that would have involved him stepping down from his position within the parish, surrendering his flock to another. The embarrassment would be too much for him. Besides, he had battled his inner demons for too long and now he was tired. No, now he was
Standing under the stone arch of the doorway that would take him from the transept to the vestry, he paused and looked back into the cavernous interior of Saint Bartholomew’s, his fingers hovering over the bank of switches that controlled the multiple sets of lights within the church. Forty-five years of his life spent in service to God in churches around the country, the last twelve years here at Saint Bartholomew’s.
Looking out across the rows of pews that, until minutes earlier had seated hundreds of parishioners, the priest waited — hoped for — a flicker of some low smoldering spark of belief that might remain, hidden away deep in his heart, a final chance at redemption, a sign that he was not forgotten.
Instead, a bitter draft skulked through the doorway on frosty feet, sweeping any hope of salvation with it as it blew over him.
With a final sigh of resignation, the priest turned off the overhead globe lights and then flicked the remaining switches, extinguishing the rows of footpath lights and the spotlights beneath the crucifix, plunging the church into darkness.
A row of dove-gray filing cabinets lined one wainscoted panel-wall of the vestry. The metal cabinets contained the parish records for the last sixty-five years, all meticulously recorded by Monsignor Pike and his predecessors. A history of the priests and people who had lived, loved, and died in the parish. A rack of three simple
