The Nosferatu Scroll (6 page)

“So we’ve come full circle,” Bronson suggested. “We’re back to the woman in the grave.”

“Exactly,” Angela agreed. “The death toll from the Black Death was simply enormous. For obvious reasons, no accurate figures have survived, but it’s been conservatively estimated that in some towns where the plague took hold, as many as half, sometimes even two-thirds, of the population died. This meant that individual burial of bodies was simply impossible. The dead were tossed into huge communal graves—plague pits. But for anyone suspected of being a vampire, special precautions had to be taken, to avoid the vampire feeding on the other victims buried alongside it in the pit. And perhaps the commonest preventative measure was to jam a brick between the vampire’s jaws.

“Two or three years ago, right here in Venice, a plague pit was discovered and excavated, and one of the skulls from a female skeleton was recovered intact, with the brick still jammed into her mouth. That body dated from the sixteenth century, because although the Black Death was at its height in Europe in the fourteenth century, there were recurrences of the epidemic right up to the eighteenth century, and mass graves have been found that date from this whole period.”

“Do you think somebody believed that the woman in the grave we saw tonight on the Isola di San Michele was a vampire, and applied an ancient remedy to ensure that she would stay dead and buried? So why did they also cut off her head?”

“That was another traditional way of killing a vampire. Because they sucked blood from their victims, removing the head from the body would prevent them from feeding.”

“So in her case it was a kind of belt and braces—the brick in the mouth and decapitation.”

Angela nodded. “Yes,” she said, “but actually, it’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“According to legend, most vampires were heretics, criminals or victims of suicide, and in most cases such people would be denied burial in a Christian graveyard because of religious sensibilities. The tomb that cracked open was quite an expensive burial chamber and, as far as I could see, she was the only occupant. If she had been
suspected of being a vampire in life, even if she came from a wealthy and aristocratic family, she would probably have been buried in an unmarked grave on unconsecrated ground. That’s the first point.

“The other thing that struck me was that the vertebrae in her neck had crumbled when it was smashed. I’m not a forensic pathologist, obviously, but that suggests to me that the body was already at least partially skeletonized when the head was removed.”

“So you think she was just buried in the usual way, and then several years later somebody decided that she might have been a vampire, cracked open the tomb, and did their best to ensure that she would stay there for eternity.”

“That makes sense,” Angela said, “except for three things. Did you notice anything odd about the grave?”

“You mean apart from the decapitated body and the skull with the brick rammed into its jaw? No, not really.”

Angela sighed. “Almost every tomb I looked at on that island had either a crucifix inscribed on the slab covering the grave or a separate stone cross standing at one end of it. That grave had neither, and that’s unusual.”

Bronson looked puzzled, but didn’t say anything.

“And the remains of those pottery jars we saw in the grave suggest something slightly different about the original burial,” Angela went on. “I have a feeling that she probably
was
buried as a vampire, but by people who didn’t find that concept in any way offensive, a kind of vampire cult, if you like.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I think those jars were deliberately smashed when the grave was opened later. Pottery was never normally placed inside Christian tombs, but if it had been, in a sealed environment, it should have remained intact. The fact that those jars—there were at least two of them—were broken suggests a deliberate act. And why would a pair of sealed pottery vessels be placed in a tomb? To me, the only thing that makes sense is that they were there for the benefit of the dead woman. And if they thought she was a vampire, they would probably have contained blood, most likely human blood. I’d love to get my hands on them and analyze what’s left of the contents.”

“Are you serious?” Bronson asked, startled. “A vampire cult?”

“They’re not unknown,” Angela said, “though I’m not aware of any operating in Venice around the time our woman was buried. The inscription on the lid of her tomb was badly weathered, but I did take a few pictures of it, and I’m pretty sure the year she died was eighteen twenty-five. At least that bit of the inscription was still legible. And I’m guessing that the grave was opened again before the end of the nineteenth century, and that the ritual killing of the vampire inside it took place then.”

Bronson leaned back and stretched. The chair he was sitting in was cramped and really too small for him. “It seems to me that you’re deducing the existence of an entire—and pretty bizarre—secret society on the basis of
a few bits of smashed pottery and one crumbled neck vertebra on a two-hundred-year-old skeleton.”

“No, there’s something else.” Angela reached into her handbag, and pulled out a small, heavily discolored black object, which appeared to be bound in leather. “This was lying under the body,” she said. “I think it was originally inside a wooden box, probably placed under the coffin, but over the centuries both the coffin and the box rotted away. I spotted what was left of the box underneath the skeleton, but when I touched it, the wood crumbled away to nothing and I saw this.”

“So now you’re a grave robber,” Bronson said.

“I trained as an archaeologist,” Angela replied, “and ‘archaeologist’ is just a polite word for a tomb raider. It’s what we do. And if I hadn’t picked it up, it would have either been sealed up again in the grave or taken by some tourist who would have no idea what it was.”

“And what is it?”

“I think,” Angela said, “it’s a kind of diary.”

The dark blue powerboat was speeding through the inky darkness of the Venetian night, heading south, past San Clemente, toward a small island situated some distance from its nearest neighbor.

This island covered only three or four acres, and was dominated by a large and impressive Venetian mansion, a five-story edifice in gray stone that sat at its highest point. Directly below the house was a substantial stone-built jetty capable of berthing perhaps a dozen powerboats. At first sight, the jetty seemed ridiculously large, but the lagoon provided the only means of access to and from the property.

Four other vessels were already secured to the buoys that edged the jetty, but the driver of the blue powerboat had plenty of space to maneuver. He brought the boat alongside the landing stage, put the gearbox into reverse, and expertly stopped the vessel close enough for one of the other men to step ashore. In moments, both mooring lines were secured and the engine shut down.

The driver assisted his two passengers in manhandling the rolled carpet onto the jetty, where they lowered it to the ground.

“I think she can walk from here,” one of the men said, unrolling the carpet and pulling Marietta Perini to her feet. The man with the Taser checked her wrists were still securely bound, ripped off her gag, then aimed the weapon at her and squeezed the trigger. The girl shrank back as the evil blue spark jumped from one electrode to the other with an audible crack.

“What do you want with me?” she said, her voice trembling with fear.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” the man snapped. “Now, do exactly what we tell you, or—” He triggered the Taser again, then pointed toward the house. “Go up there,” he ordered.

Marietta stared around her, at the small island with its grass-covered slopes, clumps of bushes and occasional small trees, and at the house itself. Beyond it lay the waters of the Venetian lagoon. Pockets of mist were drifting over the surface, driven by light breezes. She looked at the pitiless faces of the three men who had abducted her from the city of her birth. A surge of pure terror coursed through her body as she realized she was beyond help.

“I have a friend,” she said desperately. “I was on my way to visit him. When I don’t arrive, he’ll call the police.”

The man with the Taser smiled at her, but it was not a smile of amusement. “I’ve no doubt he will, and I’m sure
the carabinieri will make all the right noises and do their best to reassure him. But we left no clues, and nobody saw what we did. It’s as if you simply vanished from the face of the earth. The police will never find us, or you. And even if they did,” he added, “it wouldn’t make any difference, because you’re not the first.”

Marietta stared at him, and then she screamed, a cry of terror that stopped only when the last vestige of breath had been driven from her lungs.

“Feel better now? Get moving. We have people waiting for you.”

Marietta gasped for breath and stared round again, looking desperately for anything or anyone that might offer her some hope. But there was nothing.

“A diary? You mean a
vampire
diary?” Bronson asked. “Are you serious?”

“I’ve only had a very quick look at it,” Angela said, “but as far as I can tell it contains a list of dates and events, which is pretty much the definition of a diary, I suppose.”

“So what are these events? If they’re written in Italian, you’ll probably need my help to translate them.”

“Actually, I won’t,” Angela said, “unless you’ve added Latin to your repertoire of languages. At the time this burial originally took place, Latin was still being used as an international language, and it remained the language of classical scholarship right through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Even today some documents and treatises are composed in Latin, and of course it’s still the official written language of the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican.”

She leaned forward and handed the book carefully to Bronson.

“Our woman was buried in the first half of the nineteenth century. If she came from an educated and aristocratic family, which she probably did if her tomb is anything to go by, she might well have spoken Italian or a local dialect in daily life, but she would certainly have been able to read Latin, and probably would have used it for all her letters and written communications. Frankly, I’d have been amazed if the language in the book was anything other than Latin.”

“So what have you translated so far?” Bronson asked.

“I haven’t had time to do more than glance at a few of the pages. But I’ve already found several references to blood, to its healing and rejuvenating properties, and in a couple of places there are descriptions of rituals that seem to involve drinking blood. I really think this might be a vampire’s diary.”

Bronson groaned. “Does this mean that our sightseeing holiday is now going to be replaced by the two of us sitting in this hotel room translating a two-hundred-year-old diary, written by someone who thought she was a vampire?”

Angela grinned. “Of course not. This is just a curio. Nobody knows we found it, and it’s frankly of little or no interest to anybody except someone like me, or an historian specializing in that period of Italian or Venetian history. It’s pretty fragile, so what I will do is scan the pages into my laptop so that the text will be preserved, even if the book falls to pieces. Then I’ll take it back to London
and work on it in my spare time. As far as I’m concerned, we continue with our holiday just like before.”

She looked across at Bronson. “Speaking of which,” she added, “isn’t it about time we had something to eat? That bar of chocolate we shared on the island seems like a long time ago.”

Bronson glanced at his watch and nodded. “You’re absolutely right. I feel a bowl of spaghetti coming on. That family restaurant on the corner might still be open.”

“Good idea,” Angela said, standing up. “I’ll just nip down to reception and see if I can borrow their scanner, and then I’ll be ready to go.”

Marietta Perini walked slowly toward the double wooden doors set into the front facade of the gray stone house. Her senses were acutely sharpened by the terror coursing through her, and she noticed that the ground-floor windows, on the right-hand side of the entrance door, were brightly illuminated. Through the old glass, she could see a pair of elegant chandeliers, brilliant clusters of cut glass studded with tiny electric lights. And she could also see figures in the room, perhaps three or four men in elegant evening clothes, moving about and talking and drinking.

She took another couple of steps toward the doors, then felt a tug on her arm.

“Not that way,” one of her captors snapped, pointing instead to a stone path that ran around the side of the house.

Marietta turned down the path, wondering about the scene she’d glimpsed inside the spacious salon. It looked
to her like an upmarket reception, a social evening, or maybe even a group of wealthy men enjoying an aperitif before sitting down to a banquet.

But that didn’t square with what was happening to her. The men who had abducted her in Venice were malevolent, evil, she was certain. Though it didn’t make sense, perhaps they were nothing to do with the elegantly dressed men in the salon she was walking away from. Maybe the people inside the property could be her salvation?

Marietta took a deep breath and screamed her heart out, a shriek of agony and terror that bounced off the walls of the house.

As she had hoped, the sound clearly penetrated the windows of the lighted room, and, as she looked back, all of the men turned to stare at her. A couple of them even walked across to the tall windows and looked out, straight at her.

One of her captors seized her and turned her to face the house, so the people inside could see her more clearly. The two well-dressed men by the window smiled at her, and one nodded approval. Then the man holding her started to laugh. In that instant, the terrified girl knew she was beyond any help, any hope of rescue.

She stared around her. Surely somewhere there was a place to hide, to get away from the three men behind her. But even if by some miracle she could manage to elude them, she would still be a prisoner on the island.