Antonio Navarro was actually still at work. Giant tomes lay on the oak table, subdued ceiling spotlights bathed the room in warm light, and a window was open. A slight murmur of people and tourists could be heard outside the square in front of the palace. On the walls were pictures of princes and palaces, and it took effort to distinguish between the reality of the pictures and the actual reality of the palace. Outside, you could see the Piazza della Signoria in front of Palazzo Vecchio and the moon rising pale above the city clouds.

Navarro, in a suit with a pocket square, was sitting over a sizeable original edition of Boccaccio when Elizabeth, Nikki, Katherine, Adami, and Mike entered the library's study room. He could have passed for a banker from an Italian or Swiss private bank. The two, banking and art, were pretty close in the history of Florence. On the wall above, Navarro hung a painting of an old gentleman. The patron of the Capponi library was written underneath.

Nikki couldn't make out the name but decided to ask again later.

Although Navarro had read about the blood wedding, Adami gave Navarro a rough outline of the two cases. He listened with interest, asked a few brief comprehension questions about the second case with Vincente, and then walked a few steps through his office to organize his thoughts. Finally, he retook his seat and looked at his visitors.

"A ritual murder in Florence," Navarro began, "that may surprise you, but it doesn't surprise me."

Nikki blinked a few times and frowned a few times. "Why?"

"Florence has always been a city of contrasts. I'm sure you're familiar with the Stendhal syndrome, named after the French writer. He was in Santa Croce and almost collapsed in awe when he stood near the tombs of Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and Galileo. It was a state between ecstasy and fainting."

"In Paris," said Katherine, "the Japanese tourists are rather disappointed. They think the city of love should be more radiant and polite."

"Like the radiant angel," Navarro replied, pointing to a miniature painting from the Middle Ages behind a thick pane of glass. It depicted a red demon falling to the ground. Beneath it, in small letters, were the words: I saw Satan fall from the sky like lightning.

Katherine narrowed her eyes. "Satan, right?"

"Right. With a quote from Luke. Satan came down from heaven, it says in Isaiah and wanted to set up a shining throne there. High up, above the stars. Just like in this picture here. But then he rebelled against God and was thrown into hell."

"An exorcist once told us," Katherine said, looking at her sister, "that it was Lucifer, the bringer of light, who rebelled against God and that Satan was already the ruler of hell and then later became Lucifer's superior. People often believe that they are one person. Satan and Lucifer. But it's probably not."

Nikki rolled her eyes. But Navarro jumped right on it.

"That's also possible. Satan or Lucifer are being punished for their iniquity because, just like humans, they want something that God doesn't want."

"And what is that?"

"Winning. It means rising above oneself, like Prometheus in the Greek saga, who brings fire to mankind. Another theory says that Satan, or Lucifer, has been cast out of heaven but is not yet banished to hell. That's why he's with the humans now."

Katherine nodded slowly. "Kind of like Al Pacino as the lawyer in The Devil's Advocate?"

Navarro smiled. "Something like that. Good movie," He flipped through the pages of a thick tome. "Others assume that Lucifer, the bringer of light, thought he would be sent to the humans and not Jesus. Lucifer felt ignored. After all, he was the second most powerful angel after God."

Katherine furrowed her brows. "But Jesus was the son of God."

"Sure, that probably beats everything. The rebellion started once it was clear Lucifer wasn't going to." He looked at Nikki and Adami. "But let's get down to business. May I see the note."

"Of course!" Adami handed him the tiny piece of paper in a clear plastic evidence bag.

Navarro took it, examined it with a giant magnifying glass with a brass handle, and then reached for the pictures, which showed the writing enlarged once again.

He squinted at the image of the mysterious note that Russo, the ME, had found in Vincente's eye socket and skull. "Che morte tanta n'avesse disfatta," he repeated the text. "The whole thing fits very well, the note in the eye of the Medusa, so to speak," he remarked. "Because the Medusa also appears in Dante's Divine Comedy and, as you would expect, in the Inferno in the ninth canto, where the Medusa's fight is also discussed." He raised his head. "Can you tell me a bit more about the family background?" Adami did so. Navarro raised his eyebrows. "So the murder took place in the early hours of this morning? On a Saturday?"

Elizabeth and Adami nodded.

"The sixth day of the week. Or the seventh, depending on whether you consider Sunday the seventh or the first day of the week. In any case, it's the day Jesus descended into hell after the crucifixion on Good Friday."

Katherine frowned a little. "Can that have any meaning?"

"If the murders are as symbolically charged as they are here, and if it really is the same perpetrator, why not?"

"And the saying about the dead?" Nikki wanted to know.

Navarro looked at her long and hard. "The saying Che morte tanta n'avesse disfatta is found," Navarro continued, "in the third canto and means as much as death ever slew so many. It is one of Dante's most famous passages and has been adapted many times, for example, by T.S. Eliot in his poem Wasteland. Basically, this passage is directed against all those who do not take sides in times of great need but only to their own advantage. Dante speaks here of the sissies." Navarro quoted the entire passage from memory:

"And in the rear came a long chain,

So many people I never believed in my life,

That death would ever have slain so many,

Soon I saw a familiar face ...

... and through one of them, I now knew of all,

That these were the wretches, I saw clearly,

Who displease God and God's enemies alike,

This wretched people who were never alive --"

"The wretches are those who can do something but don't. And from which many must then suffer. The whole thing," Katherine said, putting her hands on her hips as she looked at the shelves of ancient tomes, "seems more like a revenge motive to me. Someone is taking revenge on the children and thus indirectly on Visconti, just like the God of the Old Testament does." She looked at Navarro. "What do you mean?"

He nodded slowly and pursed his lips a little. "You could say that. We'd just have to find out the motive for this revenge. What did Visconti do to attract this hatred?"

No one knew the answer; everyone looked at each other, perplexed.

Nikki looked lost in thought at the painting behind Navarro's desk.

"Vito Alberti," Navarro said briefly when he noticed her gaze, "a great patron who donated a huge amount of money to the Capponi library."

"But he has nothing to do with Visconti and the others?" the officer asked with a furrowed brow.

"Not that I know of. But we wouldn't be here without him, and I wouldn't be working here."

xxx

Mike had fetched some cornettos and freshly squeezed oranges from next door. In the meantime, Nikki had made espresso - albeit not with a real Italian machine, but with espresso capsules. You could have had an Italian-style breakfast in a café at the bar, but the view of the cathedral from the roof terrace was simply too beautiful.

"What newspaper did you buy?" Nikki wanted to know with a slight frown.

"Corriere della Sera."

"Do you actually speak Italian? I have to be honest; I didn't know that. Although we've been in a relationship for some time. Shouldn't I know?"

Mike looked at her closely. "I don't have to speak it for the newspaper; I just have to read it."

She grinned wryly. "Smart ass."

"Okay," Mike said, putting the Cornettos in the bag on the table. "I even speak a little. Other than that, it's enough to look at the paper."

The officer raised an eyebrow. "And for showing off. If you walk around with an Italian newspaper, no one will think you're a tourist."

He laughed briefly. "You should have done it once. Tourists get robbed much more often than locals. Your wallet would still be there."

Nikki furrowed her eyebrows. "It's back, too."

"That's right, we should be grateful for that."

Nikki let her eyes wander over the table. "Tell me, do you want to keep it that way?"

"What?"

"The juice bottle without glasses and especially the Cornettos just like that in the bag on the table?"

"Where else are they supposed to go? I thought we were eating at the table?"

"Maybe on a plate or in a breakfast basket?"

Elizabeth came out onto the roof terrace and stretched, yawning. "Is it worth it? We'll go and have another go at the Visconti family anyway."

Nikki looked over her shoulder and frowned a little. "This terrace is so beautiful. It doesn't have to look like a war here, Ma."

Elizabeth paused and pulled the corners of her mouth down, nodding in agreement.

"Okay," Mike snorted and picked up four plates. "Do you eat your cornetto with a knife and fork, then? Or is there special cornetto cutlery for that?"

Elizabeth grinned a little. "Stupid."

"Besides, we're at war," Mike replied as he returned with Katherine. "At war with Satan."

Nikki furrowed her brows. "Don't tell me you believe what that old Visconti keeps saying."

"In any case, the person behind the murders --"

"... if it's even the same person," Katherine replied and sat down.

Nikki looked at her aunt closely. "It looks like it to me, Kate. It would be a bizarre coincidence if two members of the same family were murdered so soon after each other by different perpetrators. In any case, the perpetrator has energy if he can get all these cases together. But I wonder how everything is connected. The blood, then the mention of the sissies, the sixth day, hell."

"Hell is just more press-worthy than heaven," Mike replied, raising an espresso cup to his lips.

Katherine nodded slowly. "It is indeed. In Buddhism, there are even over forty thousand hells, one for each sin. There's one hell for people who sell chickens and another for people who eat rice with candy."

Nikki frowned a little. "Selling chickens leads to hell?"

"If you're Buddhist, maybe it does," Mike replied, lifting his shoulders. "And you shouldn't eat rice pudding with sugar either."

Elizabeth furrowed her brows. "I'm going to eat my cornetto first."

Nikki followed her mother's example and was about to take a bite of her cornetto when her cell phone rang downstairs in the kitchen.

Mike heaved himself out of his chair with a sigh. "I'll get it." He came back two minutes later.

Nikki looked at him intently. "Who was that?"

Mike had her cell phone in his hand. "Adami, he's downstairs. With a letter. Written in red-brown ink. Dropped it in the Visconti's mailbox. Tonight."

Elizabeth looked at him in astonishment. "Doesn't he just want to come up?"

"He wants to take it to Navarro. And he wants us to come with him."

Nikki took a bite of the cornetto and washed it down with the espresso. Then she stood up. "Let's do this then. Not that there's another hell for unwilling investigators."