Let the Games Begin

They had been haemorrhaging for a while. The first one to leave had been little Paolo Scialdone, aka The Reaper. Without a word, he had dumped them and become part of the Children of the Apocalypse, a Satan-worshipping group from Pavia. A few weeks later Antonello Agnese, aka Molten, had bought a secondhand Harley-Davidson and joined the Hell's Angels from Subiaco. And to top it off Pietro Fauci, aka Nosferatu, Mantos' right-hand man and founder of the Beasts, had got married and opened a plumbing and heating supplies store on the Abetone.

They were down to four members.

It was time to give them a serious talking to, tell them to get their shit together and pull in some new recruits.

âMantos, what are you having?' asked Silvietta, the group's Vestal. A scrawny redhead with bug-eyes sticking out beneath thin eyebrows that sat too high on her forehead. She wore a silver ring in one nostril and another in the middle of her lip.

Saverio took a quick look at the menu. âI don't know . . . A
marinara pizza
? No, better not, it gives me heartburn . . . Pappardelle, yeah.'

âThey do 'em greasy here, but they're delicious!' said Roberto Morsillo, aka Murder, approvingly. A chubby guy almost six foot six, with long dyed-black hair and glasses covered in oily fingerprints. He wore a stretched Slayer t-shirt. Originally from
Sutri, he was studying Law at Rome University and worked at the Brico DIY centre in Vetralla.

Saverio studied his disciples. Even though they were all over thirty, they still dressed like a mob of head-banging losers. He couldn't remember how many times he'd told them: âYou've got to look normal, get rid of these body-piercings, and the tattoos, and the bloody metal spikes . . .' But it didn't make any difference.

Beggars can't be choosers
, he thought to himself, downhearted.

Mantos could see his image reflected in the Birra Moretti mirror hanging behind the pizzeria's counter. Skinny, five foot six, with metal-framed glasses, he wore his dark hair parted on the left. He was wearing a short-sleeved, light blue shirt buttoned right up to the throat, dark blue cords and a pair of slip-on moccasins.

A normal-looking guy
. Just like all the great champions of Evil: Ted Bundy, Andrei Chikatilo and Jeffrey Dahmer, the Milwaukee Cannibal. The sort of people you would see on the street and you wouldn't even give the time of day. And yet they were the Demon's Chosen Ones.

What would Charlie Manson have done if he'd had such hopeless disciples
?

âMaster, we have to talk to you . . . We've been sort of thinking . . . about the sect . . .'

Mantos was caught off-guard by Edoardo Sambreddero, aka Zombie, the fourth member, a haggard-looking guy who suffered from congenital oesophagitis: couldn't swallow garlic, chocolate or fizzy drinks. He worked for his father assembling electrical systems in Manziana.

âTechnically,' he said, âwe, as a sect, don't exist.'

Saverio had guessed what he was up to, but pretended not to understand.

âWhat do you mean?'

âHow long's it been since we took the bloody oath?'

Saverio shrugged his shoulders. âIt's been a few years.'

âThey never talk about us online. But they talk plenty about the Children of the Apocalypse,' whispered Silvietta so softly that nobody heard her.

Zombie pointed a grissino at his chief. âIn all this time, what have we ever accomplished?'

âAll those things that you promised . . . How many of them have we done?' Murder chimed in. âYou said we'd make loads of human sacrifices, but we haven't seen hide nor hair of them. And what about the initiation ritual with the virgins? And the Satanic orgies?'

âWell, for one thing, we did make a human sacrifice, we did indeed,' Saverio pointed out, annoyed. âIt might not have worked, but we made it. And the orgy, too.'

In November of the year before, on the train to Rome, Murder had met Silvia Butti, an off-campus student at the Faculty of Psychology at Tor Vergata University. They had a lot in common: their love for the Lazio football team, for horror films, for Slayer and Iron Maiden, basically for your good old 1980's-heavy metal. They had started chatting on MSN and hanging out on Via del Corso on Saturday afternoons.

Saverio had been the one who came up with the idea of sacrificing Silvia Butti to Satan in the forest of Sutri.

There was just one problem. The victim needed to be a virgin.

Murder had sworn to it. âShe and I have done everything, but when I tried to fuck her, she just wouldn't cave in.'

Zombie had burst out laughing. âDid it ever occur to you that maybe she just doesn't want to fuck a fatso like you?'

âShe's taken a chastity vow, you idiot. She's definitely a virgin,
no doubt about it. And anyway . . . I mean, if it turned out she wasn't one, what would happen?'

Saverio, the group's master and theoretician, looked worried.

âWell, it's pretty serious. The sacrifice would be worthless. Or even worse, it could turn against us. The powers of Hell wouldn't be satisfied, and they could attack and destroy us.'

After hours of arguing and online investigating, the Beasts had come to the conclusion that the purity of the victim was not a substantial problem. So they had set to work on a plan.

Murder had invited Silvia Butti out for pizza in Oriolo Romano. There, by the light of a candle, he had offered her
supplÃ¬
rice balls, salted cod fillets and a huge glass of beer in which he had dissolved three tablets of Rohipnol. By the end of the dinner the young woman could barely stand and was mumbling incomprehensibly. Murder had gotten her into the car and, using the excuse that they should go to see the sunrise over the lake of Bracciano, he'd carried her into the forest of Sutri. There the Wilde Beasts of Abaddon had used tuff bricks to build a sacrificial shrine. The girl, half-unconscious, was undressed and laid down on the altar. Saverio invoked the Evil One, chopped the head off a chicken and sprayed the blood over the naked body of the psychology student, and then they'd all done her. At that point they had dug a hole and buried her alive. The ritual had been performed and the sect had undertaken its journey down into Evil's tenebrous lands.

The problem had arisen three days later. The Beasts had just come out of the Flamingo cinema, where they had seen
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
, and ran straight into Silvia. The girl, sitting on a bench in the gardens, was eating a
piadina
. She couldn't remember much about that evening, but she had the feeling she'd had fun. She told them how, when she'd come to her senses underneath the dirt, she dug her way to the surface.

Saverio had then signed her up as the sect's official high priestess. A few weeks later she and Murder were an item.

âYeah, that's right, you did have an orgy,' Silvietta giggled nervously. âYou've told me about it a hundred times.'

âYeah, but you weren't a virgin. And so, technically, the ceremony didn't work,' Zombie commented.

âHow on earth could you think that I was a virgin? My first time . . .'

Saverio interrupted her. âIt was still a Satanic ritual . . .'

Zombie cut in. âAll right, forget the sacrifice. What else have we done?'

âWe've cut a few sheep's throats, if I remember rightly. Haven't we?'

âThen what?'

Mantos unwittingly raised his voice. â“Then what?! Then what?!” Then there's the grafitti on the viaducts in Anguillara Sabazia!'

âSure. Did you know that Paolino and those guys from Pavia disembowelled a nun?'

The only thing that the leader of the Wilde Beasts of Abaddon had managed to do was neck a glass of water.

âMantos? Did you hear me?' Murder put his hand to his mouth, like a loudhailer. âThey disembowelled a fifty-eight-year-old nun.'

Saverio shrugged his shoulders. âThat's bollocks. Paolo's just trying to make us jealous, he regrets leaving us.' But he had the feeling that it wasn't bollocks.

âYou watch the news on TV, right?' Murder insisted, unmerciful. âYou remember that nun from Caianello that they found decapitated near Pavia?'

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