Lazzaretto Vecchio, Venice Even with a busted ankle, sitting and waiting isn't something Tom Shaman is good at.
He clambers into an old rowing boat he'd spotted from the tree and takes to the water.
The island is fringed with dense shrubbery and trees, the hospital obscured for much of his journey.
Finally, he sees some outbuildings.
A near-derelict boathouse.
Dark green paint, baked and blistered by a scorching summer sun, peels from its grey weathered doors.
Panic rises inside him.
He knows this place. Knows it like he's visited it in his nightmares. It contains the same evil he felt at the Salute.
From where he's sitting, the dilapidated outbuilding looks no different than dozens of others he's seen in Venice. But this place is different.
It is the most evil place on earth.
Tom's left hand aches, especially around the wrist. At first he thought it was where the plastic ties had chafed him. But now he sees it.
His veins are punctured in several places.
No doubt the spots where they jacked him full of Propofol or whatever it was. From the bruising, it also looks like someone's vampired blood from him. He dreads to think what they want it for.
Tom paddles quietly towards the giant doors. They're shut tight.
He pushes the boat on to a grassy bank and grabs his makeshift weapon. It seems hugely inadequate as he slips into the cold water.
He wades forward slowly, the water level reaching his mouth but not his nose. When he gets to the door he feels his way down for the bottom edge of it.
Tom takes a deep breath and ducks beneath the dark water.
He surfaces very slowly.
So slowly the surface barely ripples.
At first he sees nothing.
Dirty lagoon water stings his eyes and hangs like opaque curtains in front of him.
Gradually, his vision clears.
The entire boathouse is lit by candles. Black candles. It's like staring into a night sky.
A long black gondola floats to Tom's right. It's similar but different to the pictures Valentina showed them of Fabianelli's craft. It's older and has a small cabin. Beyond it, on the same side, is a stretch of two-tier decking.
On the lower tier, rough planks of wood have been bolted together. For many reasons, it reminds Tom of a butcher's table.
Behind it is the high priest. He wears a full-face silver mask, as do the two acolytes flanking him.
Tom slowly dips beneath the water and moves towards the prow of the gondola.
When he resurfaces he can hear and see more.
'In nomine magni dei nostri Satanus. Introibo ad altare Domini Inferi.'
Behind the high priest is an inverted cross. Tom sees it now – the Satanic acolytes are not acolytes, the grandeur of their robes shows they are a deacon and deaconess.
Ad eum qui laetificat meum.
The high priest starts to waft incense over the altar – and also a naked, drugged body lying on top of it.
Tina.
Tom knows the incensing will be done three times.
Then things will get bloody.
Fatally bloody.
Domine Satanus, tu conversus vivificabis nos.
He slips behind the gondola and tries to heave himself slowly out of the water. His clothes are soaked and weigh him down. The edge of the decking is higher than he'd have liked, and he knows it's going to be difficult to pull himself out without making a noise. He puts the iron bar down first. Strains his way up. For a second, he thinks he's going to fall back in, create a splash that will give away his position.
His biceps find some hidden strength and crunch him up and over.
Tom stays low. As still as a statue. Lets the water drip off his clothing and puddle around his bare feet.
Ostende nobis, Domine Satanus, potentiam tuam.
The high priest puts down the incense and takes a silver tray from the deacon.
On it are two shining silver tablets.
Tom's mind spins. The Gates of Destiny. The very objects Alfie had described to him. After all the talk of legends, it's a shock to physically see them.
Two of the artefacts are laid out on Tina's body. He can see one positioned above her breasts and one below her vagina. But where's the third? Tom knows enough about these rituals to understand Tina is being used as a human altar, and shortly the high priest will violate her as part of his offering.
His eyes dart to the space behind the high priest. The deacon now has an old silver goblet in his hand, filled by the look of it with blood. Tom's left wrist itches, almost as though it recognises its own property.
The deaconess comes back into view.
She's holding the third tablet in front of her face. Kissing it. Lifting it.
The Satanists turn towards Tom. He must have made a noise.
The deaconess suddenly flies at him. Hands like claws. Fingers grabbing for his flesh and eyes.
Tom swats her away, like he would a low-flying bird.
He hears the tablet hit the decking and her body splash in the water behind him.
The deacon grabs a ceremonial knife from the altar. It's strangely shaped, like something a carpenter or sculptor would use.
Tom grips the iron bar in two hands, shifts his balance from one foot to the other, creates a moving target as the deacon advances.
He waits for the inevitable lunge.
Cracks the bar across the deacon's wrist, then whips the iron in a low half-circle that's hard enough to shatter a kneecap. The deacon crumples into a screaming heap and Tom steps around him.
He hears thunder.
Hears it but can't place it. It's all around him and his body is shaking.
The high priest is holding a pistol.
Tom can see smoke around the barrel. From the look on the gunman's face he's expecting Tom to fall.
He's been shot.
He knows he has but he can't yet feel it.
Tom glances down. Blood is dripping onto the wood. But he still can't feel it.
Now the pain arrives.
Hot and angry. Raw and intense. The bullet's gone clean through his left hand, piercing the web of flesh between his thumb and index finger.
The high priest fires again.
The shot zips over Tom's left shoulder. He rushes towards the smoking barrel, swings the iron bar one-handed. It connects with a rib but the Satanist pushes Tom into the side of the wooden altar.
Tom loses his footing – and cracks his head on the decking.
The high priest raises his pistol towards Tom's fallen body.
Another shot rings out.
Then another.
Tom's still on the deck recovering from the fall when the high priest drops beside him. Shot dead.
One to the head. Dead centre. Another in the heart.
Valentina Morassi lowers her weapon.
Tom crawls away from the corpse and groggily lurches towards Tina.
She's out of it. Spiked full of sedative.
Soldiers are everywhere now. He's still holding Tina's face as a Carabinieri paramedic moves him to one side and checks her pulse and breathing. Valentina holsters her gun as she walks towards Tom. 'I thought I told you to stay by the trees.'
He almost manages a smile. 'It was good advice. I should have taken it.' They pause as two officers pass them with the now-unmasked deacon – a small-time businessman from the mainland.
Other soldiers lift Tina and carry her out of the boathouse. 'Will she be okay?' Tom asks.
'I don't know,' says Valentina. 'We've got good equipment on the boats, they'll treat her quickly.'
He glances down at his injured hand, still dripping blood on to the decking boards. 'This isn't over, you know.' He motions to the dead high priest, now flat on his back with his mask off. 'Whoever this guy is, he was only part of it. Lars Bale planned something much bigger than just this.'
Valentina looks towards the man she killed. 'I know who he is. It's Dino Ancelotti – Fabianelli's lawyer.' She nods at Tom's hand. 'We need to get stitches in that.'
He's about to say something brave when two male soldiers drag the deaconess past them.
'Wait!' shouts Valentina. 'I need to talk to this witch.'