The Lucifer Sanction

Chapter NINE

Venice, Italy

April 1, 2015



Dom Moreau glanced at the disc and read the coordinates: Forty-five degrees, twenty-six feet and nineteen minutes north. His face took on a defeatist scowl, aware of his failure to travel to the required point of departure.

The malfunctioning converter disc had him locked into a radius of less than three hundred miles of Poitiers, unable to move beyond points north of the 12th parallel. Zurich was now beyond reach - his easterly movement allowed him access only as far as Venice.

Aside from his failure to meet with his associate, Moreau’s mission was complete. He’d successfully spread the Bubonic Plague from China to Europe.

The pandemic hit Pisa in 1348 and quickly traveled to Florence, on to Rome and Bologna. Once in Venice, it rapidly moved into southern Germany and Austria; from Genoa it crossed the Tyrrhenian Sea to Marseilles, France and Barcelona, Spain. It continued through the towns of southern France and reached Paris and England by early June of 1348 and the Low Countries by the summer of 1349. Moreau had indeed ‘completed his mission,’ or so he wanted Libra to believe.

Dom Moreau gazed at the small group of parishioners gathering near the entrance to the basilica. Campion, with his flame red hair, would be immediately recognizable, his crop difficult to conceal even beneath a hat. On the occasion of their first meeting in Dordogne, a local villager had tagged him Denis le Rouge, Denis the Red.

The Dom’s attire drew a few giggles, a few pointers, but a passing young man dressed as a renaissance fair flutist legitimized Moreau’s 14th century attire. He gestured at onlookers and smiled briefly at the flutist. He had a vague familiarity with the Palazzo, having been there on one occasion with Campion.

In 1849 the Palazzo was celebrating its first year of existence. The water level within Venice wasn’t yet an issue. Merchants bustled in a trading frenzy from one business to the next. The colorful Fondaco houses sat several feet higher than the present day’s sinking survivors.

Dom Moreau started for the basilica’s front door. Inside he found a scattering of worshipers, but could see no red headed man among them. He returned to the coordinates opposite the Grand Canal - it was now twelve forty-five. A drunken straggler clutching a grappa bottle appeared just as Moreau was checking his disc. He stumbled forward and said, “Please can you spare some change? My wine - it is all gone.”

At precisely twelve forty-six the bottle shattered at the straggler’s feet. Moreau had dematerialized before his eyes.