The Nosferatu Scroll (33 page)

Over to his left was an old jetty, much smaller than the large landing stage he’d seen at the front of the house, and tied up to it was a small powerboat.

As he’d already established from his survey of the island before night fell, the land was reasonably flat, and
projected only a matter of a few feet above the water level in the lagoon. There were no fences or barriers that he could see, and the most distinctive feature was the bulk of the house that stood at the northern end of the island and was blotting out the night sky directly in front of him—a massive, featureless gray monolith, its shape relieved only by the lighter gray outlines of the shuttered windows.

Between Bronson and the house were the walls of the ruined building, which he now thought might be the remains of another house, or possibly a chapel or small church. The light wasn’t good enough for him to tell for sure. And a short distance over to his left was the other structure, which looked like a wooden stable or a farm outhouse.

Bronson sniffed the air. He’d never thought he had a particularly sensitive nose, but he’d detected an unusual smell. He sniffed again. Whatever it was, it seemed to be emanating from the wooden structure.

He checked around him, then ran across to it. There was a single door on one side, and a window to the right, through which he looked cautiously. The interior was completely dark, but he had the strange sense that there was something, something large, moving around inside. He pressed his ear against the wooden wall, and quite clearly detected a rubbing, scuffing sound from the interior. The door was secured by a large new padlock and a substantial hasp, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to unlock it or force it without tools. He could probably
shoot off the padlock with the Browning, but that was hardly an option.

For a few moments, he wondered if Angela might be held captive inside the building, and if he should tap on the glass or the door, to attract her attention. But something stopped him—some visceral feeling that told him whatever was imprisoned in the shed was not human. His heart thumping, he stepped backward, away from the door.

Instead, he switched his attention to the gray stone house and the ruins behind it. Choosing his path carefully, every sense attuned to any signs of life, he walked as quietly as he could toward the stone wall that marked the end of the tumbledown building.

As he approached, he realized that his earlier guess had been correct. It was a small church. A few of the roof trusses were still in place, but the battens, tiles and joists had long since vanished. What was left were the four stone walls, a couple of windows and the original door. The windows were above his eye level, and the door closed, so he was unable to see what was inside.

Bronson did a full circuit of the building before pausing beside the door, the only entrance to the ruined interior. He checked all around him, looking and listening, but the night was dark and silent, the only sound the distant lapping of waves against the shore. Lights twinkled all around, principally from the city of Venice itself in the northeast, and from the mainland, which extended in an arc around to the north, but none of the other islands at this end of the lagoon appeared to be inhabited.

He made a final check, then took hold of the ring that formed the handle of the old church door and very slowly turned it. There was a faint squeak as the old metal moved, and then he felt the door give slightly. He pushed gently against it, and the door swung inward almost silently. Looking round again, he stepped through the opening into the ancient building.

Dotted here and there across the old stone floor were piles of stones and lumps of wood. Grass and other plants were starting to grow in the cracks between the paving slabs that composed the floor. There had clearly been no attempt made to restore the building. Whoever owned the island was apparently quite happy to let the place fall apart, and for nature to reclaim the site. And yet Bronson felt uneasy. Why had the entrance door opened so easily? It was almost as though the hinges were kept lubricated, and that the door itself was well used.

Then he heard a door opening and closing somewhere beyond the ruined building. Footsteps of at least two people sounded from outside, heading toward him, and Bronson knew that he didn’t have time to get out of the church.

He was trapped inside the building.

Before Angela could reply, the cellar lights clicked on and she was able to look at her prison for the first time. Seconds later, a guard strode down the stairs and walked across the stone floor to Marietta’s cell. He was carrying towels, two buckets of warm water and a pair of white robes.

“It’s time,” he ordered. “Get ready; and be quick about it. The first members have already arrived, and we don’t want to keep them waiting.”

He tossed a towel and a robe onto the bed, gave Marietta a malicious grin, and left her to wash. Next, he stood at the entrance to Angela’s cell. Stepping forward, he threw the robe and towel onto her bed, said something to her in Italian, then turned and left the cellar.

“What did he say to me?” Angela asked, once the cellar door had rumbled closed.

For a few moments, Marietta didn’t respond. Then she gave a heavy sigh. “He told you that the show was
about to start,” she replied, “and we’d both have starring roles. I think they’re going to kill us both.”

The girl’s voice sounded flat and resigned, as if she’d somehow managed to come to terms with the inevitability of her fate.

“I know,” Angela replied, her voice choked with emotion. “They told me we’d die together tonight.”

For a minute or so there was silence in the cellar; then Angela spoke again.

“What are you going to do?” she asked. “Will you cooperate with them?”

Marietta’s voice broke into sobs. “I’m going to do exactly what they tell me,” she said finally, and Angela could hear her starting to wash in the adjacent cell. “What else can I do? If I don’t obey their instructions, that bastard guard will send a couple of his men down here to rape or beat me. If I do as I’m told, I’ll only get raped during the ceremony itself. And I’ve seen what happens down here, so I suggest you cooperate as well. In the end, it’ll make it easier for you.”

“Dear God,” Angela murmured, as the appalling inevitability of their situation hit home.

Bronson knew that if he tried to leave, they would certainly see him. He had to stay where he was.

He ran toward the door, his sneakers making almost no sound on the stone floor, and flattened himself against the wall beside it. Pulling the Browning pistol out of the belt holster, he held it in a two-handed grip, the muzzle pointing down toward the floor. He clicked off the safety catch, and waited.

But the footsteps didn’t stop at the door. Instead, Bronson heard the two men—and he guessed from the snatches of conversation that there were only two of them—walk past the church and on—or so he guessed—to the wooden stable.

Easing the door open a crack, he peered out and crept forward to the corner of the wall where he could see the stable. Two shadowy figures were standing beside the door, both apparently looking down. One held a flashlight, the beam shining downward to illuminate the padlock
while the other man unlocked it. There was a faint metallic clicking; then they opened the door and stepped inside.

For a few moments, Bronson didn’t move. If Angela was in the stable, he would be able to tackle the two men with his Browning, get her into the boat, and return to Venice before anybody could stop him. But this seemed way too easy. No, wherever Angela was, she’d be in a much less accessible location.

On the other hand, whatever was in the shed was clearly of some importance; otherwise why would the door be kept locked?

He turned back, intending to walk around the opposite side of the ruins of the church, where he would be invisible to the men in the stable, but he’d taken only three or four paces when an unearthly howl tore through the night.

He froze instantly. It sounded like a huge dog, and for a brief, terrifying moment, Bronson thought that the island might be protected by attack dogs. If it was, the dogs would pick up his scent wherever he went and whatever he did. The Browning would dispose of them—he wasn’t worried about that—but the men in the house would know immediately that they had an intruder, and he would stand no chance against half a dozen armed men. He’d be lucky to get off the island alive, and there’d be no chance of finding and rescuing Angela.

Then he relaxed slightly. Guard dogs, or those trained to attack intruders, either worked silently or would bark
or growl. The sound he had just heard was neither. It had been more like an animal in pain, and it had sounded close by. Bronson’s thoughts spun back to the wooden stable. There had definitely been something alive inside it.

And that was where the two men had gone.

Bronson ran swiftly around the old stone walls of the church, a moving shadow in the deeper blackness of the night. Before he’d covered more than a few feet, he heard the howl again, echoing from the stones around him, and filling the air with a sense of mournful and impending doom. He reached the end of the ruined building and crouched down beside a bush. The door of the stable was open and a dim glow came from the window that he’d tried to look through before.

Keeping well to one side of the building, Bronson made his way stealthily back toward where he’d left the boat, then circled around to approach the stable from behind. As he did so, the animal howled again, the sound dying away to a threatening growl. Then there was silence broken only by a faint whimpering noise. Bronson edged his way along the rear wall of the stable, turned the corner and stopped beside the window. For a few seconds he just listened, relying on his ears to warn him of the approach of anyone through the darkness. But apart from the noises emanating from the shed, the night was silent.

Slowly, carefully, Bronson looked through the small window. Inside, the walls were unadorned, just plain wood. The men were still out of sight, somewhere over
to his left, but beside the door, which was wide-open, he saw a long wooden table, a number of tins and packets placed on it, together with several metal bowls, a handful of forks and spoons, and a couple of metal jugs that possibly contained water. It was fairly obvious what he was looking at: the table was where they prepared food for the dog.

Bronson moved slowly, infinitesimally slowly, to the right, steadily bringing more and more of the interior of the stable into view, until at last he could see the whole building. Breathing in sharply in shock, he stepped back. The occupant of the stable was not the dog he’d expected. And what the men were doing to the animal made no sense at all.

Bronson shrank back into the undergrowth beside the old church and waited. About fifteen minutes had passed, and the men had just left the stable and were walking back toward the ruins. For an instant, he thought they might have seen him, but their posture was wrong: they were too relaxed, too casual.

They were still talking together as they passed him, and then, stepping slightly in front of the other, one of the men seized the ring handle on the church door and pushed it open. They both stepped through into the ruins and disappeared, leaving the door wide-open behind them.

Bronson stood up slowly. For a few seconds there was total silence, and then he heard a distant rumbling that seemed to come from somewhere close by. It sounded like one heavy stone being moved across another.

Bronson reached the open door, looked inside—and shook his head in astonishment. The two men had simply
disappeared. He’d walked around the entire interior of the building, just half an hour before, checking for any other way out, and had found nothing. But now, as he stared across the weed-strewn interior, piles of stone and wood faintly illuminated in the moonlight, he realized that there had to be a hidden door, or trapdoor, or something, somewhere in the building, and he had obviously missed it.

And wherever that door was, and whatever space it gave access to, it had to be the most likely place for Angela to be imprisoned.

If he’d seen where the two men had gone, he would have been able to wait outside and tackle them. One man armed with a semiautomatic pistol facing two unarmed men was no contest. He’d missed that chance but, he rationalized, sooner or later they would have to come out. And when they did, he’d be ready.

It was a simple enough plan, and almost immediately it started going wrong.

Marietta looked up when she heard the cellar door swinging open. “Not so soon, please, no,” she whispered.

Shaking with fear, she looked with terrified eyes toward the stairs, and almost wept with relief when she realized that she still had a little time left. The two men were dressed in normal street clothes, not the hooded robes they would wear for the ceremony itself. One of them was carrying a small metal jug, which he placed on a ledge on the wall behind the stone table. Then they walked across the stone floor and peered at both Marietta
and Angela, presumably making sure that they had obeyed their instructions and were wearing their robes in preparation for the ritual.

One of the men nodded toward Marietta and smiled; then they both turned and walked back to the spiral staircase.

Bronson stepped silently into the ruined church. Most of the debris littering the floor comprised individual lumps of stone and lengths of wood or small piles of rubbish, far too small for him to use for concealment. The only option he could see was about halfway down the wall to his left, where somebody had made an effort to clear some of the timber and building materials. The result was a heap of debris about two feet high and eight feet long, positioned quite close to the wall. It was just about big enough for him to hide behind, at least lying down, and would keep him invisible to anyone entering through the church door, though if somebody stepped across to the sidewall of the building, they would see him immediately. It was a chance he was going to have to take.

The Browning in his hand, he crouched down behind the collection of old timbers. The only sound he could hear was the wind sighing through the branches of the handful of trees on the island, the branches creaking and groaning faintly as they moved. Even the animal imprisoned in the shed seemed to have fallen silent.