Tom finishes dressing and walks closer.
Now he sees it.
Driven into the very centre of the sacred stone on the front elevation of the altar is a human organ.
It's pinned to the marble by a massive masonry nail.
Ironmongery as horrible as any hammered into the body of Christ.
Tom crosses himself again, and whispers softly, 'In nomine patris, et filii et spiritus sancti.' He can hear carabinieri officers nearby, talking in Italian. Soft voices. Sombre tones. Baldoni joins them.
There's something else.
Red paint smeared all over the floor of the altar.
Not paint.
Blood.
Valentina is the first to spot Tom. She stands and walks over. 'Thanks for coming.' She sees his stare is hooked on the nailed organ. 'Montesano thinks it's a human liver. Isabella Lombardelli – the scientist from RaCIS – is on her way over, she'll do tissue matches with the bodies we've already got.'
He points to the smeared lines of blood on the floor near the altar. 'What's that?'
'We don't know. Major Carvalho thought maybe you would have an idea.'
Tom nervously approaches the daubed blood.
The major looks up from where he's kneeling, gets to his feet and moves towards him. 'It's not been done by accident, it's not spillage or spatter.'
Tom swallows and tries to stay calm. The tension he's experiencing is familiar. He's had it at exorcisms. Had it when he visited prisoners on Death Row. Had it during the fateful street fight in LA.
It's the closeness of evil.
'It looks like a book,' says Tom, aware his voice sounds stretched. He stoops a little to study the strange marks on the floor. 'If we were in LA, I'd be thinking about gang tags, graffiti signatures, stuff like that.' His mind flashes back to the fight – the kicks and punches he delivered that killed the young men – the battered face of the girl he couldn't save from being raped. His head feels as if someone's squeezing it in a vice. There's a sharp pain across his heart. He feels hot and dizzy. He forces himself slowly to keep blowing out the air and sucking it in again, calm and slow.
Valentina moves towards him but Vito grabs her arm and pulls her back.
Tom can see now that the blood marking is not the outline of a book.
It's a rectangle.
Divided into three perfectly equal sections.
The smears of blood ripple across it, like a river of red demon snakes.
CAPITOLO XXXVII
26 dicembre 1777 Venezia Amun Badawi has almost bled to death.
Louisa ties another tourniquet. Smiles as she leaves him dangling, dripping blood. The other acolytes undo his gag and force the end of his severed penis into his mouth before re-gagging him.
Swallow or choke. The choice is his.
Ave Satanus
The congregation dip their fingers in bowls of his blood, anoint themselves and smear it over each other.
Dominus Satanus
Frenzied intercourse begins. A demonic race to climax before the sacrifice dies.
No one is to miss out. Everyone will enter – or be entered by – someone else.
Except for the high priest.
His Diabolic Holiness abstains.
Nothing must distract him from the duties he still has to perform. He ignores the writhing and groaning of his followers and raises his cloaked arms. 'It is time, my brothers and sisters. Acolytes, attend the sacrifice.'
Bodies disentangle. Hands grab cloaks and straighten masks.
The high priest winds his way to Amun's pale body.
'Lord of lords, god of gods, we offer this sacrifice in glorification of you.' He raises his left hand. In it is a small pointed blade. 'Grant us your wisdom and divinity.' He plunges the knife into the crown of Amun's head.
'Grant us vision.' He stabs the blade into the middle of the forehead.
Amun snorts the last of his breath through his nostrils.
'Grant us the voices of leadership.' He digs the blade into the throat.
Amun barely feels it. His brain is shutting down.
'Grant us love and understanding.' The knife slides between Arum's ribs and punctures his heart.
'Grant us fortitude and strength of ego.' Entrails pop through a fresh wound in his stomach.
'Grant us self-gratification, promiscuity and fertility.' The priest holds the remaining stump of penis and saws it off.
He shifts his grip on the knife.
Holding the blade skywards, he reaches between the dead man's buttocks towards the end of his spine. 'Finally, lord of all worlds, grant us salvation.' Slowly he drags the blade in a vicious U-cut all the way to Amun's scrotum.
Ave Satanus
The officiator moves away from the mutilated offering.
Ave Satanus
Two acolytes advance with identical ceremonial knives.
Ave Satanus
The knives are passed. The wounds counted out.
Six hundred and sixty-six in total.
The ground is sodden with blood. The corpse hangs like a butchered carcass in an abattoir.
'Cut him down,' shouts the high priest. 'Place him on the altar stone.'
Amun is laid on a slab of red-veined marble stolen from the top of a sarcophagus.
'Bring me his instruments.'
One acolyte carries a silver Etruscan casket. Another, a bucchero bowl. A third, a sculptress's clay modelling knife. A fourth, a small oblong object, wrapped in a long roll of silk.
Even the most devoted followers in the curte grimace as he sets about the grisly task of removing Amun's liver.
A whoosh of gas comes with the deep cut high into the right side of the abdomen. More intestines snake through the wound.
The officiator hacks away unwanted tissue, slices out the liver. He trims veins, fat and other residue and slides the organ into the casket. 'Children, make the offering.'
Wood is thrown on the two fires, bringing them together into one giant, crackling pyre. In the orange light of the spiralling flames the fourth acolyte unfolds the silk wrap and removes a precious silver tablet.
A third of the famed Gates of Destiny.
The engraving of the demon stares up at the high priest.
He kisses his fingertip and slowly traces it over the horned deity and the serpents that fill the precious tablet.
He raises the artefact above his head.
'Behold the true lord, Lucifer, etched in his own precious metal six centuries before the rocking cradle of the Christ child. Great Satan, we pay homage to you. Now for your glorification and for our salvation we dedicate this sacrifice.'
He lowers his head and extends the tablet so it points at the butchered corpse of Amun Badawi. The four acolytes grasp the dead man's hands and feet, then swing him into the roaring flames.
CHAPTER 39
Present Day Piazzale Roma, Venice Although the Salute is only a short hop from his hotel, Tom Shaman needs a long walk before he's ready to return to the solitude of his tiny room.
The blooded symbol near the altar had emanated an intensity of evil he's never experienced outside of an exorcism. In truth, he'd been quite unprepared for it. He'd naively thought he'd left such encounters behind when he'd left the clergy.
Apparently not.
Only when his feet are aching, his thirst unbearable and his head almost clear does he drag himself back to his bedroom.
He kicks off his shoes and quickly finishes a half-empty plastic bottle of warm water. The Carabinieri have loaned him an old laptop and cheap cellphone, and he now makes good use of both. He goes online and digs back in his AOL mail account until he finds the number he wants.
Alfredo Giordano – Alfie, to those close to him – is the New York-born son of Italian immigrants and an old and trusted friend.
Tom punches in his number and waits an eternity for people to go and find him. The place where Alfie spends his long days and nights is huge. It's more than five centuries old and is one of the most protected buildings on the planet: the Holy See – the library of the Vatican.
'Pronto. Giordano.' He juggles the phone between ear and shoulder.