Lazzaretto Vecchio, Venezia Torch-smoke clouds the clearing where the Satanists are congregated.
Gatusso is staring into Tommaso's terrified eyes, a gaze so intense it feels like it's touching his soul.
'I asked you a question, Brother. Gave you a chance to play God and spare your sister's life by taking one yourself. What's your decision?'
Tommaso looks right through him.
The high priest shakes his head. 'Then we begin.'
He spins away. His black alba twirls, and the breeze it creates makes the blue-orange flames of the torches dance.
Gatusso raises his arms. 'In nomine magni dei nostri Satanus Introibo ad altare Domini Inferi.'
The acolytes respond. 'Ad eum qui laetificat juventutem meam.'
From the darkness a distinctive hand-bell echoes out towards the lagoon.
The hands of an acolyte swing a chained thurible.
Clouds of incense made from poisonous herbs.
'Domine Satanus. Tua est terra…'
Tommaso tunes out Gatusso's words. He closes his eyes and switches off his jangling nerves by entering a meditative state that has comforted him since he was a child.
Time turns soft. Slips away like spilled cream. He imagines his mother's face, her arms outstretched to both him and his sister.
Tanina screams. Not in his imagined childhood. In the very real now.
She cries so loudly that even Gatusso is startled.
Lydia has plunged the ceremonial knife into Efran's stomach and is opening him up.
Blood and entrails pour down the wooden libation altar.
Acolytes hold silver chalices beneath the crimson fountain.
From the butchered hole Lydia produces a fistful of gore.
Efran's liver.
The acolytes break into a chant, 'Ave, Satanas! Ave, Satanas! Ave, Satanas!'
The hand-bell rings three more times.
Lydia holds the organ in her cupped hands and passes it to Gatusso.
He takes it in a silver casket and places it in the centre of the giant rectangle that encompasses the three altars.
Just as Tommaso was unable to speak earlier, now he is unable to hold his silence.
The words just tumble out. 'Deus, in nomine tuo salvum me fac, et virtute tua age causam meam.'
Gatusso freezes.
'Deus, audi orationem meam: auribus percipe verba oris mei.'
The Prayer of Exorcism.
'Nam superbi insurrexunt contra me, et violenti quasierunt vitam meam; non proposuerunt Deum ante oclus suos.'
'Shut him up!' shouts Gatusso.
Lydia flies at Tommaso.
Instinctively, he turns his face away. Raises a knee protectively.
Lydia runs straight into it.
She rebounds and falls. Scrambles to her feet. Anger blazing in her face.
The knife raised in her hand.
She throws up her arms and screams.
At first they think she's going to strike. Kill the priest too soon.
Then they see it.
She's on fire.
She's backed into a torch and her robes are now ablaze.
Tommaso takes his chance.
Hands still tied, he darts forward and grabs a torch. He rushes at the acolytes near Tanina and sets several of their robes ablaze.
Bedlam breaks out.
Across the flames he sees Gatusso stranded in mid-ceremony, forbidden by ritual to leave the lines of the magic rectangle drawn around the altars.
More acolytes close in on Tommaso.
He glances towards his sister. 'Run Tanina, run!'
She hesitates.
'Run!'
She knows she has no choice. No hope of saving Ermanno. Or even Tommaso.
Tanina sprints for her life.
Straight across the rectangle. Straight across centuries of belief and black magic.
Gatusso is only feet away – but the wrong side of the sacrificial altar.
He can only watch – helplessly out of reach – as she sweeps up the Tablets of Atmanta and disappears into the dead of night.