James Becker - The Nosferatu Scroll

The dark-robed figures standing around the table gave no sign that they could even hear her. They just looked down at her struggling naked body, the flickering light from the candles which they still held giving their features a demonic cast.

Another two men stepped forward and stopped one on either side of Benedetta’s head, which Marietta suddenly realized was resting on the small stone extension, the extension that she’d noticed when she’d first seen the table. And suddenly the purpose of the table was all too clear. One of the men held Benedetta’s head still while the other strapped a leather belt around both her forehead and the stone, and then cinched it tight to prevent her from moving.

Yet another man approached the table, a funnel and a small bottle held in his hands. He walked across to Benedetta’s head, placed one hand on her chin to force her mouth open, and pushed the funnel between her teeth. Then he removed the stopper from the bottle and poured a white liquid into the funnel.

Benedetta coughed and choked, but only when the bottle was empty did the man remove the funnel and step back.

Immediately, the girl started to scream again, spitting out some of the white liquid. But then the man who’d tightened the belt around her head produced a pad of white material, positioned it over her mouth and secured it in place with adhesive tape.

Terrified and nauseous, Marietta simply couldn’t take her eyes off the scene in front of her, at the wriggling helpless figure of a girl she barely knew, and the cold and haughty appearance of the men — and she’d now counted thirteen of them — who surrounded her. Men who were about to do something unspeakable to their innocent victim, and Marietta feared that she, too, would have to endure the same fate within minutes.

With Benedetta’s cries now reduced to little more than a whimper, the silent figures drew closer, so close that any of them could have reached out and touched her body. But clearly rape was not their objective, Marietta thought. That, at least, was a small mercy. Then even that assumption was shattered when the hooded man issued another quiet instruction to the man on his right, and he, in turn, pointed at two of the silent, robed men.

One of them bowed in response, handed his candle to the man next to him, then stepped out of the circle and pulled his robe over his head. Underneath it, he was naked apart from his sandals, and Marietta could see immediately that he was completely prepared for the act he was about to perform. He folded his robe to form a pad, placed it between Benedetta’s legs as a cushion for his own knees, pulled on a condom, climbed on to the stone table, lay on top of the girl and thrust himself into her.

Then the second man removed his robe as well, opened a small packet and took out a condom, clearly waiting for his turn on the table with the girl.

Marietta could hear Benedetta’s muffled howl even through the gag, but then her attention switched to the hooded man, who had moved for the first time since he’d joined the others at the table, and watched him walk over to the girl’s head. Behind him, another man followed, carrying what looked like a large white ceramic bowl. Marietta noticed that the attention of all the men around the table was not on the girl, but instead on what their leader was about to do.

She strained to see what was happening, but the old man bent down and his body completely blocked her view. What he did next provoked another agonized moan from Benedetta.

There was almost complete silence in the cellar, just the rhythmic pounding of the naked man riding Benedetta on the stone table, and her muffled cries of pain. Then Marietta heard a new sound, a kind of sucking noise.

And then, as the hooded man moved to one side and half-turned towards Marietta, she recoiled in shock. Even in the gloom of the cellar, illuminated only by the flickering light of the candle flames, she could clearly see the long pointed canine teeth gleaming white in his open mouth. They had to be false, inserted in his mouth for the ceremony, they just had to be. Marietta’s brain wouldn’t accept any other explanation.

For an instant she thought he had a beard, and then realized, with a further jolt of terror, that the dark, almost black, discoloration covering his chin and the sides of his mouth was fresh blood.

At last Marietta saw the appalling fate that awaited her. On the right-hand side of the other girl’s neck was a round wound, and her blood was flowing freely from it into the bowl beneath.

Marietta couldn’t help herself. She threw back her head and let loose a scream that was deafening in its intensity, a howl of absolute terror and utter dismay. The men turned as one to look at her, even the one lying on top of Benedetta, and their leader responded with an angry gesture.

One of the group walked swiftly over to Marietta, grabbed the front of her robe at the neck and ripped it forwards and down, the seams parting instantly to reveal her naked torso. He pulled out a taser from his pocket, held her around the throat so she couldn’t wriggle free, placed the electrodes of the device between her breasts and pulled the trigger.

A surge of current ripped through her body, sending her limbs into spasm, and a moment later she slumped backwards and fell to the ground unconscious.

Bronson had barely slept a wink. Every time he’d closed his eyes, a horrific full-colour image of Angela, blood streaming from a ragged wound in her neck, had flooded his consciousness. Just after six in the morning he gave up, climbed out of bed and got ready for whatever the day might bring.

He was keenly aware that there was nothing useful he could do. Angela’s fate was completely in the hands of the carabinieri , and what really bothered Bronson was that he was certain somebody in the police force was leaking information to whoever had taken her. But there was nothing he could do about that, either, because in Italy he had no official standing, and he was familiar enough with the labyrinthine ways of Italian bureaucracy to know that registering a complaint would achieve absolutely nothing, except to make any further cooperation with the carabinieri almost impossible to achieve.

As far as Bronson could see, the only thing he could do was again study the book Angela had retrieved from the tomb on the Isola di San Michele, and hope he could identify something in it, some clue, that would help him find her. He didn’t know much Latin, although he recognized that the Italian language he loved so much had been derived from it. But Angela had downloaded a Latin-English dictionary from somewhere on the web, and he supposed he’d be able to use that to translate some of the entries in the diary.

He switched on Angela’s laptop, checked the signal strength on his mobile phone, and left his room, locking the door behind him.

He was the first guest to step into the dining room for breakfast. He wasn’t hungry — he rarely had much of an appetite in the morning — but he knew he ought to eat something. He poured himself a cup of coffee and picked up a couple of croissants from the buffet, then carried them over to their usual table, and ate them while he stared through the window at the early morning bustle. Then he drank a second cup of coffee before returning to their room.

The first thing he did was to read all the notes and translations that Angela had already prepared. He’d done the same thing the previous day, but nothing of importance had struck him. Then he started looking at some of the Latin sentences on later pages in the book. As Angela had said, most of the text seemed to consist of diary entries, but towards the back of the book he found a separate section that looked rather different. There were no dates or times or places listed, only paragraphs of closely written Latin text.