Vito Carvalho blows out a long breath. It's heavy stuff. Certainly the kind of religious psychobabble that the impressionable and evil would follow. 'Father, do you know the whereabouts of all, or any, of the tablets?'
'No,' says Alfie. 'Over the centuries, the Church has had one or more in its possession, but never all of them. According to the records I can trace – and there may be more in the archives that I have not yet found – Satanists have managed to unite all three, but not for long.'
'And what happens when the three are united?' asks Valentina. 'Some kind of Satanic festival?'
Now it's Alfie's turn to blow out a long breath. 'You know how the Church is always asked why, if there is a God, does he allow terrible things like earthquakes, floods and diseases to happen? And you know how, when world leaders talk of terrorists blowing up innocent civilians they always say that evil people only have to get lucky once, while we have to get lucky every day? Well, there are those in the Church who believe that when the Tablets of Atmanta, or the Gates of Hell, as they are more appropriately known, are brought together they create that window of opportunity for the devil. The combined artefact opens a space in time during which God is powerless and the darkest of all deeds cannot be stopped.'
'A window of opportunity for the devil?' repeats Valentina incredulously.
'Quite.'
Vito almost daren't ask the next question. 'Father, we have found a symbol drawn in blood on altars in Venice.'
'Three divisions of an oblong?'
'Exactly.'
'The rectangle is a symbol of the tablets, the sign of the conspirators of Satan. They have their roots in the north of Italy, back in the times of Teucer and Tetia, long before the first settlements were established in the marshes that became Venice.'
Vito, Valentina and Rocco all exchange knowing looks. 'Beneath the last symbol there was a number,' continues Vito. 'Would that have a significance?'
'A six. I presume it is a six?'
'It is.'
The doors to the tiny office where Alfie is calling from burst open. Two Vatican guards, in full uniform, are facing him.
'Six days,' says Alfie, before they rip the phone from his hands. 'You have six days before they make their last and most significant sacrifice, then the gates of hell will be unlocked and we'll be powerless against the evil that's let loose.'
PART FIVE
1778
Lazzaretto Vecchio, Venezia The tiny island's terrible history floats in the night like an invisible but poisonous cloud.
Lazzaretto Vecchio – Venice's biggest burial ground, the home of the plague dead.
Almost a century and a half earlier, the disease had devastated the city. More than a third of the population – around fifty thousand people – had been killed. Such was the toll, prisoners had to be released to ferry the dead – and the dying – out to the lazaret, Italy's first quarantine island. Back then, it was more benignly known as Isola Santa Maria di Nazareth, but the saintly name was lost as the cadavers stacked up. The hospital did its best to cure the incurable, but it quickly became just a sorting office for the dead and the dying.
Since then, it's been uninhabited.
Or so people believed.
As Tommaso steps ashore, his nerves are in shreds. He remembers only too well the stories the brothers at the monastery told about the island and how mass graves were hurriedly dug to swallow rotting corpses that the city couldn't cope with. He knows that the steps he now takes were once routes for carts full of wasted lives, corpses of men, women and children carried to communal pits to be burned.
Oarsmen with lanterns fall in at the front and rear of the party as it heads further away from the shore and into what seems a dense thicket.
The night is quickly becoming icy, and the ground underfoot hard and slippery. Someone in front stumbles and then the lanterns go out. A woman shouts. Lydia, by the sound of it.
Something cracks into the side of Tommaso's head. He thinks he's cracked it against a low-hanging branch.
Then another blow slams into his head. Much harder this time. Strong enough to knock him flat and to make him realise he's being attacked. He rolls on the hard, slippery ground and covers his face to protect himself.
Pain explodes in his right shoulder.
Now in his side and thighs.
A flurry of clubs smash his head, legs and arms.
A knee thumps into his gut and stays there.
They're kneeling on him. Pressed so close to him that he can smell them.
Alcohol. Garlic. Strange perfume.
A fist pounds his face. Bone-jarring brutality. Blood and teeth in his mouth. He spits and coughs for air.
Hands grab his legs and arms.
He's dizzy. Blacking out.
Something rough touches his face.
A rope.
The last thing he's conscious of is the smell and feel of the noose, as it slips over his busted nose and tightens around his throat.
CHAPTER 61
Present Day Venice Tom's been unconscious for so long he has no idea of the length of time he's been held. Certainly twenty-four hours. Maybe longer. Much longer.
He feels as though he's lost the ability to judge things. Doesn't know whether it's day or night.
Whether he's blind or his eyes are still bandaged.
At times, he can't even tell whether he's awake or asleep.
On the grey movie screen in his mind, familiar scenes flicker by: The Monica Vidic Killing. The Disneyland Murders. The Death of Antonio Pavarotti.
The leading actors are always the same: Vito Carvalho, Valentina Morassi and Lars Bale. The minor ones equally familiar: Tina Ricci, Mera Teale, Sylvio Montesano and Alfie Giordano.
But it's all a mess.
In his muddle of drug-induced plots and subplots, Tom has Vito cast as a Satanic high priest, Giordano as the killer of Antonio Pavarotti and Valentina Morassi as the secret owner of the Gates of Destiny. Drugs do that. They expand your mind, make you think differently, but warp everything in the process.
While Tom has no exact idea how long he's been held captive, he knows it's running into days, not hours. He knows it, because he's developing a tolerance to the drug they're feeding him. The gaps between total immersion in his never-ending narcotic netherworld and gradual surfacing back into the air of the real world are becoming shorter and shorter. Whoever is shooting him the stuff is not as smart as they should be.
Smart or not – they're back.
And they're sticking another spike into Tom's dartboard thigh.
He doesn't go under as quickly as normal, but he can feel it coming. A big heavy train full of the black coals of unconsciousness rumbling around the distant bends of his mind.
It'll be here soon.
Flattening him. Dragging him under its wheels. Leaving him in pieces far down the tracks.
The films are starting up again.
Another muddle of plots – Satanists in silver cowls holding the Gates of Destiny. But this time they have nothing to do with Italy.
South America.
For some crazy reason, Tom's imaginary director is setting this one in Venezuela.
The train's here now. Bearing down on him. Only yards away.
Venezuela.
The word sticks.
Venezuela. Little Venice.
The huge black cowcatcher hits him. Slams into his newborn thoughts. Trundles them through the screaming, hissing darkness.
CHAPTER 62
2nd June Carabinieri HQ It's been a long time since Vito Carvalho has had to kick ass like he's doing right now. Venice was supposed to be a retirement backwater, not a white-water ride around the jagged rocks of Satanism and ritual murder.