The Venice Conspiracy (7 page)

Larthuza laughs. ‘It will make
you
feel sick, such is its noxiousness. But it will further remove the fire from Teucer’s burns. I dare not give him more valerian, so this will help keep him bound in the healing folds of gentle sleep.’

Larthuza removes the pads of ram’s wool and pats the poultice gently over the netsvis’s eyes. ‘Injuries such as Teucer’s are similar to those of the battlefield. When the body is wounded it creates its own medicines, powerful potions that race in the blood and kill the pain, but only for a short spell. When the body’s potions are spent, then terrible pain surfaces. Feverfew will ease the agony in Teucer’s mind.’

Tetia is still grimacing from the smell. ‘I hope it is so.’

‘It is, my child. Now I must go. There is sickness with a newborn and I promised its parents I would attend.’

Tetia touches his arm tenderly. ‘Thank you again.’

‘You are most welcome. Now I think you should settle beside your husband for a while and get some sleep.’ He leans closer and whispers, ‘Baby will need it too.’

Tetia smiles as he leaves. She would indeed like to rest. And she supposes it is her duty to endure the awful smell of the poultice. She wipes Teucer’s brow and moistens his dry mouth with fresh water, then she lies next to him and kisses him softly on his dampened lips. She closes her eyes and prays for a speedy recovery.

She is in that magical space between daydreams and sleep, when it happens -

Teucer grabs her by the throat.

Squeezes so hard she cannot breathe.

She kicks out but can’t get free. Grabs his wrists but can’t unlock his grip.

‘Be gone! Be gone!’ shouts Teucer. ‘Dark demon with no name, I vanquish you!’

Tetia gasps for air.

‘I need to kill it. I must kill it!’ His grip tightens murderously.

Tetia kicks again. Connects with something fleshy. She thrashes harder. Her foot hits Larthuza’s fire and scatters embers.

Blackness floods in.

She’s losing consciousness.

Through the sickly fog she sees Teucer’s outstretched arm, his blistered face and the creamy poultice masking his eyes.

And then she collapses.

CHAPTER 16

Present Day
Luna Hotel Baglioni, Venice

By the time they’ve finished making love, the coffee is undrinkable and the pastries too paltry to pacify Tom and Tina’s raging hunger. They quickly shower and dress. Downstairs, in the hotel’s palatial Canova Room, they persuade staff to let them catch the last of the breakfast buffet.

Tom takes in the splendour of the giant ancient oils hung on rich, oak-panelled walls as they work through fresh fruit, smoked salmon with scrambled eggs and enough fruit juice to fill the lagoon outside their window. ‘So, my wonderful writer friend, what can you tell me about Venice?’

Tina looks over her coffee cup. ‘You didn’t read a guide book before you came?’

‘Glanced at some guff.’

‘Hey, travel writing isn’t “guff ”. It’s how I earn my living.’

‘Sorry. I forgot. But tell me anyway - give me the verbal tour.’

‘Okay. Well, next to Rome, Venice is my favourite place on earth.
La Serrenista
has blessed us with so much: Marco Polo, Canaletto, Casanova, Vivaldi - the Red Priest . . .’ She laughs. ‘The list of famous Venetians is endless! This is the place that gave us wonderful words like mandolin and
ciao
and awful ones like ghetto and arsenal. But more than anything, I love the fact that in Venice time stands still - there are no cars on the streets, no overhead power cables and none of those ghastly cell-phone masts. Come here, and you just drift back hundreds of years.’

‘Here’s to drifting.’ He raises a tumbler of juice to toast the fact.

‘To drifting.’ They clink glasses. She sips then asks him, ‘You remember any of the guff?’

Tom looks thoughtful. ‘Some. Way back, there was nothing here but water and marshes, rough fishing harbours and stuff. Then, old Attila the Hun appears in the middle of the first century and people scatter from his murderous wake to the islands around here.’

‘How many islands?’ she says, sounding like a teacher.

‘Lots.’

She laughs. ‘About a hundred and eighteen, maybe a hundred and twenty - even the Venetians don’t always agree.’

‘Like I said, lots.’

‘The main area of initial settlement turned out to be Torcello. Venice itself didn’t develop any real influence until malaria swept through the Torcello and people drifted down to what we now call the Rialto.’

‘Seventh century?’

‘Eighth. The Venetians chose their first doge - a strange sort of democratically elected quasi-religious governor - and set up their own regional government in 720-something. They went from strength to strength and never faltered until the great plague. That knocked them sideways. They got all religious, then, being typically Italian, went off into a period of massive sexual and artistic indulgence. Finally, Napoleon brought their endless partying and copulating to a rude end in the eighteenth century.’

‘Impressive. You ever get bored with travel writing, you could probably bag a job as a city guide.’

‘Thanks.’ Tina wipes a white cotton napkin across her lips. ‘Let’s completely change the subject, now. And forgive me, because this is a bit personal - but do you know that you have about the worst dress sense I’ve ever seen?’

Tom laughs and holds up his hands in surrender. ‘
Mea culpa!
I have no defence. I could plead that my suitcase was lost when I left LA - which is true - but the fact is, you’re still right. It contained nothing that would have convinced you I could strut a catwalk.’

‘You don’t like clothes?’

‘Sure, I like them.
I like them
- to feel comfortable, to fit - be clean - last a long time. Beyond that, I guess they do nothing for me.’

‘Oh my God, you’re a heathen! You can’t walk around Italy with beliefs like that! I think you can even be deported for holding such views.’

They both laugh. The kind of relaxed laughter that inches people closer.

‘Okay, listen, I’m gonna have to convert you. Make sure you see the error of your ways.’

‘And can you do that on five hundred euros? Because that’s about all I’ve got in funds to kit myself out with.’

Tina rests her hand on her chin and pretends to look thoughtful and serious. ‘Hrrm, now let me think. That could buy you a beautiful Versace or Hermès tie. And I can easily picture you in that - just that. But it’s not going to be any good for you once you step outside my bedroom. ’

A stern-faced man in a dark suit and tie approaches their table.
‘Buongiorno. Scusi, signorina
.’ The man looks across at Tina’s guest. ‘Signor - you are Tom Shaman?’

‘Yes. Yes, I am. Why?’

The hotel clerk glances towards the doorway. ‘Signor, there are two officers from the Carabinieri in reception. They wish to talk with you.’

CAPITOLO XII

666 BC
Larthuza’s Hut, Atmanta

Teucer wakes in a makeshift bed on the floor. He’s disoriented. He can feel the warmth of Larthuza’s fire on his face but can see nothing. Pain prickles in every pore on his face, like nettles rubbed into livid wounds. Gradually, he becomes aware of the foul-smelling poultice stuck to his eyes.

He feels claustrophobic. Panicky.

Slowly, in his world of oppressive blackness, he starts to remember it all. The sacrificial circle, the oblong he’d cut in the clay, the strange snakes and figures he’d formed with his knife.

The revelations.

And then - the fire. The roaring fire he’d made for the gods and had flung himself into.

The memory scares him. ‘Tetia! Tetia, are you there?’

His wife is huddled beneath a sheepskin in the far corner of the healer’s hut. The shock of being choked unconscious by the man she loves has left her terrified. Too scared to answer to his voice. She puts her hands protectively over her unborn child. Had he really tried to kill them both?

‘Tetia!’

Perhaps his violence was a result of his fever and his own desperate fight for life? Teucer had never tried to harm her before. She tries to reassure herself.

‘Tetia. Are you there?’

She drops the skin - and her fears - and moves towards him. ‘I’m here. I’m coming.’

Teucer spreads his arms.

She tentatively offers a hand to his outstretched fingers. ‘Wait. Wait there, I’ll get you water to drink.’

He grabs her hand. ‘No! Don’t go. I need you. I need to tell you something.’

She fights back her fears. He is changed. Maybe mad. And will probably never see again.

Teucer senses her apprehension and squeezes her hand. ‘I need you to help me, Tetia. You must destroy the markings I made.’

She flinches. ‘The ones by the fire, in the curte?’

‘Yes. Go there straight away. Do not look directly at them. Just scrub at the land until there is no sign of what I made.’

She looks confused. ‘Why? What troubles you so?’

‘The markings are demonic. They signify the coming of something more awful than you or I have ever known.’

She can see how distressed he is and puts her hands to his damaged face. ‘Tell me what you saw. Speak of it. Share it and let me help you.’

Teucer thinks it weak not to keep the worries to himself. But his blindness scares him and the soft touch of Tetia’s hands dissolves his inner strength. ‘Some demonic god spoke to me. Revealed three visions that will determine our fate, the fate of Atmanta and the fate of future generations.’

‘What visions?’

Teucer imagines himself back in the curte, demons whirling around him. ‘They all took place against some gates, giant gates made out of snakes.’

‘Snakes?’

Teucer uses his hands. ‘Some were dangling, some were sideways. They were all over each other, spitting fire and baring fangs.’

Tetia tries to comfort him. ‘You need not speak of this if it pains you too much.’

‘I will finish.’ He dry-swallows. ‘I realise now what the gates were - they were the Gates of Destiny, linking our world with the afterlife. In the first vision, they were guarded by an unknown demon of terrible power. It is part human, part goat. Horned with eyes as red as fire, he carries a trident dripping with human flesh.’

‘Maybe it was Aita, or Minotaur, and you mistook—’

Teucer cuts her off. ‘Please, Tetia - do not interrupt me. I can speak of this only once, and then you must never mention it. Do you swear?’

Tetia looks down at his desperate grip on her hand. ‘I swear.’

His voice becomes hoarse and low. ‘It is not Aita. Nor any monstrous form of bull. I am sure of it.’ He tries to shut out the memory of his agony in the curte. ‘He is the lord of all darkness and far superior to Aita. The demons and stolen souls of the underworld worship him. He is the font of all evil, the source of everything bad.’

Tetia is frightened. The child inside her moves awkwardly, almost as though it senses her fear.

‘In the second revelation I saw a netsvis at the gates. He was full of doubt, empty of faith, like I feel now, and impaled upon his own lituus.’ He lifts a hand to his bandaged eyes, and Tetia wonders whether beneath the soiled cloths he is crying.

Tetia puts a hand to his forehead. He is hot and, she hopes, hallucinatory. His horrendous ramblings may be naught but wild nightmares.

But perhaps not.

Perhaps a new god really has revealed himself. A singular, universal master greater than any known to man. ‘You said
three
visions, Teucer. The third - what was the third?’

He fumbles for her hands. Not until he is holding both of them does he dare speak. ‘I saw two lovers. Naked. Their bodies entwined, leaning against the gates. A small child sleeps near their feet.’

She glides her fingers over his and thinks for a second of their unborn child. ‘This is not such a bad revelation. I should like very much to sculpt two lovers in just such a pose. And a child, the fruit of the womb - this is surely paradise.’

Teucer pulls his hands free. ‘You must go now and destroy the markings as I asked. No one must see them.’ He falls quiet, hands trembling on his lap.

Tetia takes him in her arms. ‘Shush. Shush.’ She holds his head tight to her.

In her embrace, Teucer softens and grows silent. He lies against her, unable to tell her everything.

Unable to bring himself to say it.

The lovers he saw were himself and Tetia.

They were both dead.

The child at their feet was theirs, and there was no longer any question as to who its father was.

It was the offspring of the beast. Sent to earth to prepare for the day when its father would reveal himself and take what was his.

CHAPTER 17

Present Day
Luna Hotel Baglioni, Venice

Valentina Morassi and her new colleague Rocco Baldoni wait impatiently in the reception area of Venice’s oldest hotel. Valentina finds Rocco a shock to the system after working with her cousin, Antonio. He’s humourless, full of awful machismo, and despite being less than ordinary thinks he’s God’s gift to women. Valentina’s eyes are on Tom Shaman as he slowly walks across the upper-floor landing. He’s talking easily with an elegant blonde, moving lightly for a man of his size and muscularity. The ex-priest has something special, a certain reserve - an enigma, she supposes - that makes him intriguingly attractive.

She pulls herself out of a plush armchair as the couple descend the lobby staircase and head their way. ‘
Buongiorno, Signor Shaman.
’ She pins on her most professional of smiles. ‘This is my colleague, Lieutenant Baldoni. We’re sorry to disturb you.’

Rocco barely comes up to Tom’s chin. His face is without cheekbones and his eyes are so large they look like they’ve been painted on by a child who’s not yet mastered the fundamentals of perspective. He looks quizzically towards the woman at Tom’s side.

‘This is my friend, Tina Ricci.’ Tom glares at Valentina. ‘But I guess somehow you already know that?’

‘Signor, we
are
detectives.’ Valentina enjoys her riposte. ‘Maybe not as well staffed as the LAPD or FBI, but it really does not take us long to call your hotel, then describe you to a few restaurant owners and concierges before we find you. Venice is only a small village if you live here.’

Tom does nothing to hide his irritation. ‘So, what do you want? I really can’t think that there’s anything I can add to what I’ve already told you.’

Valentina glances towards Tina then back to him. ‘I’d rather explain away from here. Somewhere more discreet.’ Her eyes roll back to Tina. ‘We won’t keep him from you very long, signorina. You should have him back in time for him to plump up your pillows.’

Tom reddens. ‘Do I have a choice in this?’

‘
Si.’
Valentina tries her best to look sympathetic. ‘For the moment we are
asking
for your help. It would be kind and courteous if you were to give it freely and save us the trouble of seeking the authority to enforce it.’

Tom gives in. ‘Okay. Let’s go.’

The officers head for the door. He kisses Tina. ‘I’ll call when I’m done.’

She looks more worried than annoyed. ‘Do you want me to fix a lawyer for you?’

He smiles dismissively. ‘No. It’s not that heavy. I’ll be back real soon.’

Minutes later, he boards a Carabinieri boat moored right outside the hotel.

No one says much as they cut through the iron-grey water and head the short distance to the force’s HQ. It’s a carefully restored and extended two-storey, salmon-coloured building with brown shutters, security cameras and doors that can only be electronically buzzed open. Valentina’s office, like that of her major, overlooks the canal and the lawned grounds of a museum where two young boys are playing soccer on a rare patch of grass.

‘Coffee?’ Valentina offers, as they settle on hard plastic chairs near a cheap table filled with expensive paperwork.

Tom sits with his arms crossed and his legs spread.

‘How about an explanation, instead?’

‘In good time. How long have you known your
friend
Tina?’

‘Say that again.’

‘The writer - Tina Ricci - how long have you known her?’

Tom stares. Angry at the growing intrusion into his private life. Valentina matches him eye for eye, prepared to wait indefinitely for his answer.

Eventually, he gives it. ‘We met in Venice. I never knew her before I came here earlier this week. Is this really relevant? ’

‘And you are already so intimate with her that you spend the night together?’

‘That’s none of your business!’ He stands and knocks the chair over as he does.

Baldoni steps nervously between him and the door. ‘Please.’ He gestures towards the fallen seat. ‘We could go to a magistrate and make this a lot more official and very unpleasant.’

Tom picks up the chair. ‘I wish to God I knew what you people wanted. I tried to help a man who had found a dead girl in your damned canal. Ever since then you’ve wanted to know my life story and now that of anyone I’ve met.’

Valentina swings the empty chair around for him. ‘Please sit down and try to see things from our perspective for a moment.’

He lets out an exasperated sigh and sits.

The lieutenant finishes her pitch. ‘For years you’ve been a parish priest, minding your own business, having what I guess is a quiet, calm and celibate life.’ She raises one of her pencil-thin eyebrows. ‘Then all of a sudden you kill two people, abandon your vows, cross a continent and end up in Venice, where - lo and behold - you come across a dead girl’s body.
Then
’ - she gives him her best look of total incredulity - ‘on top of all that, we find you having a relationship with another American whom apparently you’ve never met before. Now, maybe all those things are coincidences. But it’s our job to
check
they are. Even if that means asking you hours of embarrassing questions until we’re fully satisfied.’

‘Fine!’ Tom bites back a building rage. ‘Now look at things from
my
perspective: I try to do the right thing by crossing the road to stop a woman being attacked. But despite my efforts, she’s raped, just yards from me.’ The memory stops him. He wonders for a moment about the poor girl he couldn’t save and how she’s piecing her damaged life together. ‘That night, I had to fight for my own life, and as a consequence ended up killing two people.’ He pauses again, more memories painfully surfacing: the dead kid’s face, white and drained . . . Blood all over his shirt, two dead men - men he maybe could have restrained rather than killed . . . ‘So, you tell me,’ continues Tom, ‘how would you have felt in that situation? Like you’d done the right thing - or got it all wrong? Like God was pleased with you - or angered at the complete mess you’d made?’ Their silence tells Tom he’s getting through to them. ‘Yeah, well, maybe you’d be like me - traumatised -
lost
- desperate to run away from it all.’

Neither Valentina nor Rocco speak as Tom pours himself water from a plastic bottle on the table. The glass is hazy and probably dirty from someone else using it, but he doesn’t care. ‘And as for Tina—’ His anger boils over now. ‘Well, that
really
is none of your business, but I’ll tell you anyway. Yes, we’re strangers. And we’ve become intimate. Now maybe I’ll go to Hell for all this - somehow I don’t think so - but right now getting involved with her is about the only good thing I’ve done.’

‘I’m sorry,’ says Valentina. She studies him for a moment; his passion seems genuine - more than genuine, quite impressive, quite moving. Carvalho had told her she had to be sure about him -
absolutely sure
- before following through with what they’d decided. She looks again into his eyes. She’s a good judge of people, and this guy doesn’t flinch. He’s hiding nothing. She motions to her colleague. ‘Show him the papers, Rocco.’

Baldoni passes Tom a file. ‘It’s the medical examiner’s report.’

Tom screws up his face. ‘If it’s all the same, I’d rather not look at it - I’m sure there’s nothing pleasant in there. I’d just like to leave now.’

Valentina takes the file off him and opens it. ‘We don’t normally let civilians see things like this, but we need you to look.’ She turns it around and places it in front of Tom. ‘You’re right: it’s not pleasant. I’m sorry for that. But right now, none of us in this room can afford pleasantries. Like it or not, we’re all caught up in this young girl’s death.’

Tom glances down. It’s not what he expected. No gory post-mortem photographs. Instead, what he sees is a computerised sketch of Monica’s body. Arrowed, listed, numbered and described are each and every wound inflicted by the killer. Tom turns it around and pushes it back. ‘I’m sorry. I still don’t understand. Is this supposed to mean something to me?’

Valentina stands and walks around the table. She perches on the edge of it alongside Tom. Close enough to feel some electricity from being in his personal space. ‘When you first met me and Major Carvalho, you said something that stuck in our minds. You said, and I quote, “You’re dealing with the devil’s work.” Do you remember?’

He glances down at the sketch on the table. ‘Yes, I remember.’

‘Well, maybe you were correct.’ Valentina pulls the ME’s report close to him. ‘In the bottom corner you’ll see the total number of wounds inflicted upon Monica. The ME has checked them; my boss has checked them; even Rocco here has checked them. There were six hundred and sixty-six, Signor Shaman. Six Six Six. We suspect that number means even more to you than it does to us.’