James Becker - The Nosferatu Scroll

He ran towards the door, his trainers 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 towards 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 torch, the beam shining downwards 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 only taken 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 towards 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 towards 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 semi-automatic 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 towards 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 towards 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 side wall of the building, they would see him immediately. It was a chance he was going to have to take.