1

      At a table in Jerry's Pizzeria 2 in Oriolo Romano the Wilde Beasts of Abaddon were holding a meeting.

      Their leader, Saverio Moneta, aka Mantos, was worried.

      The situation was critical. If he didn't succeed in taking back command of his sect, this might very well be the last get-together of the Beasts.

      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.

      ‘Mantos, 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. ‘I don't know . . . A marinara pizza? No, better not, it gives me heartburn . . . Pappardelle, yeah.’

      ‘They 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: ‘You'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?

      ‘Master, 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.

      ‘Technically,’ he said, ‘we, as a sect, don't exist.’

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

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘How long's it been since we took the bloody