The Burden of Mercy by Tom Henderson

About the book

Golgotha 33 A.D.
On April 5th of that year, a Roman legionary, Gaius Cassius Longinus thrust his spear into the side of Christ as He dangled from the cross. The wound closed in on itself, and Longinus realized instinctively that the spear held the promise of great power. Whether for good or evil, he did not know.

Rome 1494 A.D.
Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, was a cunning, superstitious man. His papacy has become reviled for its excesses. Convinced that he needs the Holy Spear to make himself and his children unassailable, Alexander gains possession of it. The Vatican outrages escalate, stage-managed by Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia. Drunk with power, Alexander considers himself God's equal, but, just when he needs it most, the Holy Spear goes missing - stolen! Things unravel quickly as Alexander's power evaporates. Vatican politics turn viciously on the Borgias and they meet ignoble ends.

Boston 1997 AD
Spaniard Rodrigo Borja is 47, the world famous conductor of the Boston Symphony. He has been ruined by the Catholic Church, persecuted since childhood for his left-handedness and incurable stuttering. He is also a diabetic, irrationally convinced that the Church infected him with the disease. In revenge, he murders five European and three Boston Catholics. He worships the left-handed Longinus as the first Satanist, and considers the Spear the first weapon against Christianity. He is certain that contact with it will bring him the thing he seeks the most - the arrival of the Antichrist in 1998 - the third cycle of 666 - the Number of the Beast.

Heather Farnese is a nun, lover of classical music, and a distant relative of the sitting Pope, Nazareno Farnese, Innocent XIV. The nun, however, has a private cross to bear and is constantly at war with her own carnal impulses.

Lupo Zizakovik is the BPD Homicide Detective in charge of the Boston murders, and he depends heavily on the help of Nikki Thomas, a former girlfriend, computer genius and the Head of the FBI Forensics Division in Boston.

A mutual love of music brings Heather Farnese and Roderick Borja together and they become intimate. News of Pope Innocent's Global Pilgrimage delights the world. He will be accompanied by the Holy Spear. In Boston, Borja escorts Heather when she meets the Pope. Like Alexander VI 500 years earlier, Borja feels invincible after he touches the Holy Spear and rashly discards his diabetes medication.

Borja is about to kill Heather when she startles him: "I'm pregnant - with your child." Borja's one thought: this baby, his son, will be the Antichrist! Borja's lapse allows Zizakovik time, but the confrontation takes a twist: Borja collapses from insulin shock and dies as did Alexander VI, poisoned by his own vanity and arrogance.

Months later, in Spain, excommunicated and close to insanity, Heather Farnese delivers a healthy baby boy. It is 1998, the third cycle of 666 - the Number of the Beast. She is unsure whether to nurse the infant or suffocate it, but God will not help her now.

About the author

I live in Vancouver with my wife, Marguerite, and we both love to read. I'm a big fan of detective fiction, notably the work of P.D. James, Elizabeth George, Anne Perry, Ruth Rendell, Thomas Cook, Mary Willis Walker, Jeffery Deaver, Dennis Lehane, Ian Rankin, John Harvey, and, of course, the Dr. Lecter sagas of Thomas Harris. Crime, both real life and fictional, has always held a morbid fascination for me, and serial murder is especially intriguing. What makes these people tick? What dark forces are at work that a person takes pleasure in the prolonged torment and murder of a complete stranger?

I've researched the field of serial murder carefully for ten years - interviewed police in Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Boston, and read dozens of books on the subject. Three names of professional researchers stand out as both qualified and accessible to the layman: Robert D. Hare at UBC in Vancouver, Vernon L. Quinsey at Queen's in Kingston, and Robert K. Ressler, retired FBI profiler in Virginia. Their theories discuss the biological, environmental, and cultural factors that may be at work in creating psychopaths, and their clear, sequential presentation of material appeals hugely to logic and common sense.

Every now and then I find myself thinking that, in addition to degrees in literature and music, I should have taken one in criminology as well. But then I realize - when would I have found the time to read, or write The Burden of Mercy?