James Becker - The Nosferatu Scroll

Angela felt a chill of pure terror sweep over her. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. Nothing she could say would make the slightest difference to her fate. She had fallen in with a group of people for whom the sanctity of human life meant absolutely nothing, and who would kill her without the faintest flicker of remorse or regret. The only thing that would concern them was whether or not her death could assist them in their pointless and horrendous activities.

Tears filled her eyes, and she dropped her head into her hands. That something like this could happen to her — to anyone — in a civilized country like Italy, in the twenty-first century, was simply appalling. She wondered where Chris was, whether he was even still alive, or if he was now lying on a slab in some mortuary in Venice. It had been a disaster and it was all her fault, she thought bitterly and inconsequentially. The holiday to Italy had been her idea. Everything had been her idea, even the visit to the Isola di San Michele, which had started everything.

‘Let’s go,’ Marco said. The door of the drawing-room now stood open and two burly figures were waiting in the hall outside.

‘Where to?’ Angela managed, her voice barely audible.

‘We have a convenient cellar. It’s where we hold our ceremonies, in fact. And until tonight you’ll have a bit of company, because the other girl is already waiting down there. But there’s no point in you trying to get friendly with her,’ he added. ‘You’ll both be dead before midnight.’

Angela snapped. She grabbed one of the pencils — the only thing she could see that even slightly resembled a weapon — and swung it as hard and as fast as she could towards Marco’s face, aiming for his eyes.

But it was as if he’d been expecting it, and he effortlessly blocked the blow with his left arm, simultaneously swinging his right hand towards her, catching her a stinging blow with his hand against her cheek.

‘You’ve got some spirit, I’ll give you that,’ he said. ‘It’s a shame you have to die tonight. If we’d had you here a little longer we could have had some fun with you. Taught you a little humility, perhaps. Take her away.’

Bronson had studied the island closely, trying to glean as much detail as he could in the fading light about the terrain and the buildings. It appeared to be quite large, the landscape dominated by another big house built of light-coloured stone, while behind that was what looked like a ruined outhouse of some sort. Most of the walls were still standing, but the roof had vanished. And a little way behind that was another much smaller building, apparently made of wood. At the front of the house, just about visible from where Bronson sat, binoculars glued to his eyes, was quite a large inlet with ample mooring spaces. He could see at least two boats there, both with dark paintwork, but the light had now faded to the point where he could no longer make out colours.

He completed his visual survey of the island and then sat back in the seat in his boat. Then he looked away, because a distant sound was becoming steadily more audible. A powerboat was approaching the area, and Bronson swung round in his seat to try to spot the vessel as it drew near. He assumed it was simply a tourist enjoying an early-evening boat ride, or possibly a police launch sailing through the area as part of its normal patrol route.

In fact, the boat was actually a reasonable-sized launch, and within seconds of spotting it, Bronson realized that it was heading directly for the island in front of him. The obvious conclusion was that the owners of the property — perhaps an Italian family — were returning home after a day out in Venice. And if this was the case, then Bronson knew he’d got it wrong yet again.

He focused his binoculars on the vessel as it approached. There were clearly several people on board the launch, their bulky shapes just visible in the twilight, although it was now too dark for him to be able to see their faces. He watched as the vessel slowed down, and then nosed gently into the inlet. In a few seconds, the sound of the engine died away to nothing, and Bronson watched expectantly for the passengers to alight from the craft.

But before this happened, the main door of the house swung open and two men and a woman stepped out, their figures briefly illuminated by the light streaming out of the property. Could it be Angela? His heart thumping, Bronson ignored the figures who were now walking from the jetty towards the house, and concentrated on trying to see the other three people more clearly.

He couldn’t. The light was very poor, patches of mist were drifting across the water in front of him, and their faces were invisible because they were walking away from him. Even through the binoculars all he could really be sure of was that there were two dark-haired men flanking a blonde woman. Bronson tensed. Angela was blonde, but so were a lot of other women in Venice. The reality was that they could have been anybody, but he kept watching all the same.

They were walking along a path that ran down the side of the house towards the back of the property. It looked as if the woman was having trouble walking — the men seemed to be supporting her on both sides. Perhaps, he wondered, she was physically disabled in some way, or possibly even drunk. The idea of a party going on in the house hadn’t occurred to him until that moment, but it was a possible, perhaps even a probable, explanation for what he was seeing.

The three figures now seemed less important to Bronson than the new arrivals, and he switched his attention back to the area that lay between the jetty and the house itself, and concentrated on the people who were walking towards the front door of the property. And his idea about a party seemed to be supported by what he saw. In the light that streamed out of the front door, he could see that the new arrivals were all men, and all appeared to be dressed elegantly, white shirts and ties in evidence underneath the coats they were wearing against the chilly crossing of the lagoon.

It looked to Bronson as if he was watching a group of early arrivals turning up for a dinner party, out to enjoy an entirely innocent evening. He knew he had to be in the wrong place — again. He lowered the binoculars and stood up. He’d head back to Venice, grab something to eat and get an early night, and then start his search again in the morning.

He was actually standing in ankle-deep water beside the bow of the boat, ready to push it back, when a scream rang out across the lagoon.

Angela struggled as the two men hustled her out of the house and along the path that led to the ruined church, but she was as helpless as a child between the two heavily built men and her frantic attempts to escape achieved nothing. Out of sheer desperation, she released a single scream, a howl of terror that echoed off the building beside her.

One of the men raised his hand to strike her, but the other one stopped him.

‘Don’t do that,’ he said. ‘We don’t want her bleeding everywhere. I’ll give her a jolt instead.’

He pulled a taser from his pocket, held it in front of Angela’s face, and then pressed it against her blouse.

Angela hadn’t understood what the man had said, but she knew what a gun looked like.

‘No, please, no. Please don’t.’

Her voice rose to a crescendo, but was then abruptly cut short as the Italian squeezed the trigger. The current that slammed into her was like being hit by a truck, and she jolted backwards and then tumbled unconscious to the ground.

‘Now we’ll have to carry her,’ the man with the taser said.

They each took one of her arms and looped it over their shoulders, and continued their short journey into the ruined church.