by Sam Christer
1778
Lazzaretto Vecchio, Venezia
When Tommaso regains conciousness, he finds he’s not the only one to have been beaten and bound.
Tanina and Ermanno are sitting on the floor opposite him, backs against a damp brick wall, a thick black candle burning between them.
The young monk guesses they’re in an old ward of the plague hospital.
A place where thousands drew their last breath.
Ermanno is motionless.
Dead?
Asleep?
Or just unconscious?
Tommaso is not sure which. The Jew’s face is bloody and bruised, his left eye so swollen that, if he is still alive, it’s unlikely he’ll ever be able to see through it.
Tanina looks petrified. But apart from a face streaked with dirt and tears, she appears unharmed.
Tommaso’s legs hurt, especially around the right knee. His ankles are bound and his hands, like those of the others, are tied behind his back.
Tanina notices that he’s come round. ‘Tommaso, are you all right?’
He understands he’s expected to put a brave face on things. ‘I think so. Are you?’
She nods. ‘Yes. But Ermanno keeps losing consciousness. I’m worried about him.’ Her face creases, and he can see she’s fighting back tears.
The candle on the floor almost blows out. The flame has been rocked by a breeze from a door to the left.
Tommaso doesn’t recognise the man entering the room. But Tanina does.
Lauro Gatusso is no longer wearing the smart trousers, linen shirt and embroidered coat that he wears to greet customers in his shop. He is dressed from head to toe in a black hooded robe, the Satanic vestment known as an alba.
‘Tanina! I see you are surprised.’ He spreads his arms wide, just as he used to when she was a child. ‘This is indeed going to be a day of revelations for you.’ He turns to Tommaso. ‘And for you too, Brother.’ He walks over to Tommaso and peers at him. ‘You have some nasty cuts there. If you were going to live, we would have to get them attended to.’
Gatusso says something else but Tommaso doesn’t hear. He’s too intent on piecing together what has happened. No doubt it’s all connected to the Etruscan artefact. He’s sure now of the innocence of Tanina and Ermanno, but Efran’s absence speaks volumes. He must have gone to the monastery on his own, without them knowing, staged the fire and theft, and then sold the artefact to Gatusso.
Loud voices outside the room.
Lydia sweeps in.
She’s wearing the same robes as Gatusso, and a look of triumphalism. She walks over to Tanina. Two hooded men trail behind her. They’re dragging something.
The dead body of Efran.
They drop the corpse and leave.
Tommaso feels all his solid reasoning start to crack.
Was Efran innocent? Or did they kill him because he’d served his purpose?
Lydia touches her friend’s cheek. ‘Dearest Tanina, do not look so perplexed. Your worthless shop-girl life is finally about to have some meaning.’ She turns to Gatusso.
He places his hand on Tommaso’s shoulder. ‘Brother, meet your sister, Tanina. Children of a truly traitorous bitch – but also the flesh and blood of one of our most revered high priests.’
CHAPTER 63
Present Day
3rd June
San Quentin, California
Three days to go.
Seventy-two hours.
Four thousand three hundred and twenty minutes.
Just over a quarter of a million seconds – you count every one of them when your Execution Notice has been issued.
Lars Bale gets moved from the cell he’s known as home for more than a quarter of his life. He’s pushed unceremoniously into the execution unit lock-up, just a wince away from the stab of lethal needles.
Bale won’t miss the tiny cell. He doesn’t even mind the fact that he’s no longer allowed to paint.
His work here is over.
It is time for greater things.
His paintings have been removed, donated at his request to a Death Row charity that will sell them to raise funds to appeal for pardons. He’s even sent a log of his works to the press and the governor, to ensure guards don’t steal the canvases and sell them to collectors. He’s about to become the most famous artist the world has ever known.
Bale takes stock of his new – and very temporary – home.
A single bunk. Fixed to the floor.
Mattress. Stained.
Pillow. New.
Blanket. Rough.
Radio. Old.
TV. Small.
Pants. Grey.
Underwear. Old and grey.
Socks. Faded black.
Shirts. White.
Slippers. Cosy.
And one other thing.
A guard. Sour-faced and permanent. There outside the bars, like a never-blinking owl, staring in, twenty-four seven. Always watching but never seeing.
If he so much as had a clue what was going on inside Bale’s head, he’d already be pressing the Panic Button.
Three days to go.
Bale sits on the hard bunk and smiles contentedly.
CAPITOLO LVII
1778
Lazzaretto Vecchio, Venezia
Tanina and Tommaso can’t make sense of what Gatusso has just told them.
‘Let me explain,’ he says, ignoring the dead body of Efran in the middle of the room. ‘Your father – and his father before him – were leading members of our Satanic brotherhood. He was a trusted guardian of one of the Tablets of Atmanta.’ He grows reflective. ‘Fate had it that, because of a death in the brotherhood, your father took possession of a second tablet – a most unusual and undesirable practice.’ He walks to Tanina and cradles her chin in the cup of his left hand. ‘Now your sweet mother comes along, and during her cleaning finds both tablets concealed in their bedroom. Women being the inquisitive creatures that they are, she wants to know more about the hidden silver, so she begins listening in to his conversations and piecing things together.’ He lets Tanina’s head drop and walks back to Tommaso. ‘So, the dear deluded woman sees this as a chance to escape the marriage in which she has apparently been unhappy, and promptly disappears with you worthless pair and our sacred tablets.’
Tommaso can’t take his eyes off Tanina. He can see only the vaguest of resemblances between them. Perhaps the eyes. Maybe they both have their mother’s eyes.
Gatusso slaps the monk’s head. ‘Tell your sister what became of you.’
Tommaso winces. ‘My mother – our mother – left me with the brothers at San Giorgio. She also left the tablet, which you’ve seen, and a letter.’ His words dry up. The thought of his mother’s message floods his eyes. She’d begged him not to seek out his sister, and he’d ignored her.
Gatusso strikes him again. ‘Get on with it!’
‘She told me I had a sister – an older sister – who’d also been left a tablet.’ He bows his head in shame. ‘And that I should not try to find her – that the tablets should always be kept apart.’
Tanina looks frightened. Her anxiety amuses Gatusso. ‘Poor child. You’ve never seen any tablet or letter left for you. But I have. Two decades ago one of the holy sisters came to me and sold me the silver. How Judas-like. Apparently, a masked courtesan had given the tablet to her, along with a young girl and a certain amount of lire.’ He bends and tenderly touches her cheek. ‘That child was you, my little dove. Unfortunately, your mamma turned to the wrong sister of mercy. The nun she left you with was pregnant herself, and knew the artefact could buy her a new beginning elsewhere.’ He walks away from Tanina, pacing as he enjoys the completion of the story. ‘She was right. I paid her handsomely – very handsomely – and I also agreed to take the child. Now why – why, oh why, would I take you in?’ He looks to Lydia with amusement.
‘Because – clever Gatusso – you had read the letter.’ Lydia waves it in her friend’s face. ‘And you knew her mamma ha
d left another baby and another tablet. It was inevitable that one day the missing brother would seek out the missing sister.’ Lydia looks to Tommaso. ‘I did so enjoy our little chat at my house – so sweet of you to confide in me.’
The young priest feels an alien surge of anger within him. To think he’d been taken in by all Lydia’s talk about sending out servants to search the convents.
Gatusso claps. ‘Bravissimo!’ He turns back to Tommaso. ‘So, here we all are. It took a little longer than I expected. But here we are, nonetheless. You’d be surprised how many monasteries there are in this part of the world, and how difficult it is to get monks to talk.’ He laughs. ‘Of course, vows of silence don’t make them natural storytellers! No matter – we are all united, and the three tablets are back in our possession.’ He moves close to Tommaso. Bends so their eyes are on the same level. ‘Yes, Brother, I said three. For in addition to the one I took from your sister and the one we stole from the abbey, my own family has guarded the other for centuries.’ He reaches into a pocket inside his cloak and produces the first tablet – polished silver, inscribed with the horned demon. Gatusso holds it lovingly, the dull grey glow reflecting in his pupils. ‘Now, our lord – the one true lord – can be properly honoured. Bringing these tablets together – consecrating them in a ceremony of blood and sacrifice – gives us enormous powers. Powers for our deeds to go unchecked. And you – you and your sister over there – you will be our blood and our sacrifice.’
CHAPTER 64
Present Day
Carabinieri HQ
Alfredo Giordano looks nothing like Vito expected. He’d imagined a small monk-like man, perhaps with a balding head and a learned face interrupted by wire-framed glasses. Alfredo is a good six-footer, as broad as a rugby player, with a full head of sandy-coloured hair.
It takes Alfie more than an hour to explain his repeated searches in the secret archives on behalf of Tom. ‘I didn’t have time to tell you on the phone, but the stories of the Tablets of Atmanta span centuries. The Catholic Church has linked them with some of the worst losses of life the world has ever known.’ He sips on an espresso Valentina has brought him. ‘They were said to have first been used to cause an underground mine explosion in Atmanta that wiped out noblemen from all over Italy – the world’s first recorded case of mass murder. Then they were linked to many events: the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, China’s deadliest ever earthquake in the mid 1500s, the sinking of the Titanic, floods in Holland that killed more than a hundred thousand people, cyclones in Pakistan, the Chernobyl meltdown in Russia, the 9/11 attack, and even the latest tsunami in Asia.’
‘In fact, almost everything that is monumentally bad,’ concludes Vito.
Alfie nods. ‘It is convenient to blame the tablets. Evil is everywhere, the tablets have just come to symbolise it.’
‘You call them the tablets,’ notes Valentina, ‘not the Gates of Hell, or whatever. Why’s that?’
‘They didn’t get their alternative names until much later in their existence, probably in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, so it’s factually more appropriate to call them the Tablets of Atmanta.’
‘Father, do you think Satanists would kill for possession of them?’
Alfie answers instantly. ‘Major, there are sections of the Church that would kill for them.’
‘We’ve had several deaths here,’ confides Valentina, glancing at Vito to make sure it’s okay to continue, ‘including that of a fifteen-year-old girl. Her liver was cut out. Can you see that being linked in any way to the artefact?’
Alfie looks pensive. ‘Perhaps. Tetia, the wife of Teucer, was only a teenager, probably around fifteen – when she gave birth to their baby. This is the child Satanists believe is the son of Lucifer. Sacrificing a girl of about the same age would have a ritualistic significance.’
‘And the liver?’ presses Vito.
‘Tetia was said to have cut the liver from the man who raped her, so cutting out the liver of someone they’ve selected to symbolically represent Tetia would, in the mind of Satanists, restore a spiritual balance and signify just revenge.’
Valentina hesitates before asking the next question. ‘And would the blood of a priest, or the liver of a priest, have ritualistic significance as well?’
‘Of course,’ snaps Alfie. ‘To shed the blood of a soldier of Christ is always a triumph for these people. Given that Teucer himself was a netsvis – a priest of sorts – you can see how this might also be of value to them in some ceremony to celebrate bringing the tablets together and opening the gates of hell.’
‘And that would go for an ex-priest, too?’
‘It would,’ confirms Alfie, frowning. Vito’s sure he’s about to ask why she posed the question when the door opens and Nuncio di Alberto sticks his head into the room.
‘Scusi. Major, I am sorry, but I need to talk to you urgently.’
Vito excuses himself and steps outside.
Nuncio is holding a wad of papers. He looks anxious. ‘I think I’ve managed to trace the ownership of one of the tablets.’
Vito looks surprised.
‘The curator at the Scuola Grande della Misericordia in Venice told me he’d heard of a silver Etruscan artefact with the image of a young priest on it being traded in Austria or Germany about five years ago.’
Vito dredges his memory. ‘That was the middle tablet.’
‘Si. It was a good lead. Look—’ He holds out a photocopy of what appears to be a page from an auctioneer’s brochure with a drawing of the silver tablet.
Vito’s eyes light up as he takes it from him. ‘Bene. You’ve done well. Wait here while I show this to the priest from the Vatican.’
He walks straight back into the room. ‘Father, please look at this—’ He hands over the photocopy. ‘What would you say it was?’
Alfie instantly recognises it. ‘It’s the middle tablet, the one depicting the netsvis Teucer. Where did—’ Alfie never gets to finish asking his question.
Vito walks out and returns the paper to Nuncio. ‘The priest confirms it’s the tablet. So who owns it?’
Nuncio is not about to give an abridged version of his story. He wants to milk his success for all it’s worth. ‘The curator was right. I found it had been traded in auction at the Dorotheum in Vienna – one of the oldest art houses in the world, renowned for its discretion.’
‘Who?’ says Vito, impatiently.
‘It had been bought anonymously by a German art collector for a cool one-point-one million dollars. After his purchase, the trail gets complicated. It turns out the anonymous buyer sold it the next day to another trader, this time in America. He in turn sold it on again, within a week of the first transaction. Each time a sale took place, the price rose by exactly twenty per cent, almost as though an agreed commission was being paid. No further auction houses were involved.’
Vito still wants to get to the name of the owner, but he can see why the trail is important; whoever stumped up the cash wasn’t just shy of being identified – ownership of the artefact had been systematically laundered.
‘So – now to the owner.’ Nuncio’s eyes brighten. ‘The tablet was eventually purchased not by an individual but by an offshore company registered in the Cayman Islands.’ He slips a sheet of paper to his boss. ‘A company owned by our hippy-loving billionaire, Mario Fabianelli.’
Vito feels his heart quicken as Nuncio hands him copies of the bank transfer and the incorporation of the offshore company. He taps the papers. ‘You’re sure of the trail? Certain this payment ties all the way back to the artefact?’
Nuncio feels a jangle of nerves. ‘Si. I’m certain.’
‘Va bene. I’ll finish up with the man from the Vatican, then we go and get a warrant to see Mario Fabianelli and his commune of happy campers.’
CHAPTER 65
When Tom wakes, all he sees is an unnerving blackness.
They’ve re-bandaged his eyes.
Cuffed him as well. But left his feet untied.
He has an awful headache. But he’s thinking clearly. More clearly than he’s done for weeks.
He’s been moved again.
Things are different.
The air is fresher. He can smell things. Grass. Wild garlic. Catmint.
And he can hear different things, too. Birdsong. Leaves rustling.
He knows he’s still lying down.
Flat on his back. On something hard. Outside somewhere.
But where?
And why?
Why have they moved him from that room?
Possibilities – and fears – tumble into his head like a game of Tetris.
Mera Teale – Lars Bale – the Gates of Destiny – Monica Vidic – the sixth of June – Venezuela – Little Venice.
Suddenly he’s being lifted into the air.
He’s on a hard stretcher. Several people carrying him. By the sound of their feet, four rather than two.
Moving him forward, then lowering him to the ground.
Mutterings in Italian.
No!
Not Italian. Latin. They’re mumbling something in Latin.
A mass?
His stretcher is lifted again. It wobbles. Someone’s shoulder braces it.
‘Satanus …’
Tom hears it clearly. Satanists – rehearsing a ceremony of some sort.
Preparing themselves – and him – for a ritual that’s going to happen soon.
A sacrificial ritual.
And Tom is pretty sure he knows who the sacrifice will be.
But when?
The stretcher moves again. The air changes. They’re going back inside.
Not now.
Not yet.
Thank God for that.
They lower him into a place that he’s never seen, but knows intimately.
He’s back in his room.
They mumble softly then walk away.
Clat-clat, clat-clat, clat-clat, clat-clat, clat-clat.
Ten steps.
Clii-ck-kkk.
One lock. Old and slow to close. Not heavy-duty. Not bolted.
