The Vatican, Rome With every passing minute, Alfredo Giordano grows increasingly nervous about talking on the phone to the Carabinieri. Bent over the receiver, in an office closed for renovation, he speaks in a hushed and fearful voice.
Valentina and Rocco scribble notes while Vito continues to ask questions. 'Are there any special markings or symbols on the tablets, Father?'
Alfie answers with one eye permanently on the closed door, stopping whenever he hears a noise outside – feet in the corridor; footsteps coming his way; a door opening and banging shut. Each time he falls silent until he feels safe to continue. 'There are many interpretations – some Vatican scholars see the drawings as representative of priests who turn away from the church because of their own doubts. Satanists see them as signifying the fall of Catholicism…'
Valentina and Rocco scribble notes as Alfie tells them everything he's learned. 'The final tablet, the one on the far right of the artefact, shows Teucer and Tetia lying dead together with a newborn baby beside them. Again, this image is open to interpretation. Death in childbirth was, of course, very common and sceptics say the scene simply reflects that fact and represents a sad ending to the story of a young family struggling in ancient times.' More movements in the corridor make Alfie stop again. He covers the receiver so no noise spills out, and waits until the sound of people walking and closing doors recedes. 'However, there are documents in the secret archive that describe how Satan demonically possessed the body of a man who raped Tetia, the priest's wife. If you believe that, then the child in the last tablet is the son of Satan.' There's silence at the other end of the line and Alfie can tell they're struggling to understand the full breadth of what he's telling them. 'The theological notion is that Satan has spread evil into the DNA of future generations of Man, infecting the gene pool in perpetuity. The Catholic Church has for centuries studied rape and some scholars strongly believed that rapists sowed the seed of Satan.'
Valentina can't help but interrupt. 'So female rape victims are to be branded as the mothers of Satan's children?' She can hardly hide her anger. 'Father, you have no idea how a raped woman feels – and how much worse they would feel if this nonsense ever got listened to. It's ridiculous-'
'Valentina!' Vito glares at her. 'Father, please continue.'
'Signorina, I agree,' says Alfie. 'I am only telling you what some in the Church believed. Remember there was a time when you could have been tortured to death for following any religion other than Catholicism. We are an august body,' he adds sarcastically, 'well used to persecuting women, preventing them taking holy orders and even falsely labelling them as witches, then drowning them to prove their innocence. '
He lets these points of mitigation sink in. 'So: that leaves the first tablet – the one that shows a horned demon believed to be Satan in front of the gate of serpents. This piece is said to be the most important of the trio. When it is placed in its original position on the left of the trinity, it establishes Satan – not God – as the creator of all things. Thus when we pass through the gates of this life into the next, it is Satan we will have to face. The tablets also suggest that it is Satan who created man and woman and gave everyone free will to indulge themselves – not God. The middle tablet is interpreted as recognising that some people started believing in false gods – hence the netsvis impaled upon the staff of doubts. Then the final piece shows Satan's wrath. He was so angered that he sent his own spirit to earth to take human form and punish the priest by raping and impregnating his wife.'
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.'