by James Becker
The unknown author then moved on to the details of the ritual itself. First, a section of the skull was to be ground exceeding fine and placed in a suitable container. Only then was the girl introduced to the proceedings. Her body was to be washed thoroughly and she was to be immobilized in a position convenient for all. At least two people had to take part in the next phase of the ritual, for one would have to rape the girl, to ensure her blood would flow sufficient free, while the other person would bite into her neck to open the veins and allow the bleeding to start. The text recommended allowing the blood to flow until the heart could pump no more – which would obviously mean that the girl would die as part of the ceremony – for her sublime ecstasy in surrendering her soul and spirit would help guarantee the success of the proceedings.
The blood was to be collected in a suitable receptacle and mixed with the powdered bone of the skull, and the mixture then drunk by the participants. The author cautioned that it might be necessary to repeat the process several times before success would finally be achieved.
At this point, Angela put down her pencil and sat for a few moments just staring at the Latin text. The document, ludicrous though its suggestions undeniably were, was essentially a recipe and, to a certain extent, a justification for repeated rape and murder, enshrouded in a quasi-religious ritual.
Then she started translating the final section dealing with the ritual, and found herself totally engrossed in the text. There was, the author asserted, a further refinement that was essential if success was to be achieved. As well as the ground-up bones of a long-dead vampire and the fresh blood of one of the creature’s lineal descendants, the mixture also required the addition of blood taken from another woman, from someone who had never had any connection with any of the vampire families, but who otherwise met the same criteria. This infusion of blood, the author said, would give added strength to the mixture, and was to be extracted from the subject in the same way, by multiple rape and severing the blood vessels in the neck.
When Angela read that, she closed her eyes and shook her head, wondering how she could subtly alter the translation to avoid the inevitable conclusion from being drawn.
But as she reached for her pencil, she realized that Marco was standing directly behind her, and had already read exactly what she’d written.
‘I knew that we’d find a more entertaining way to kill you than just a bullet,’ he said. ‘You’ll be able to take your turn on the table tonight.’
61
Bronson tucked the Browning pistol into the waistband of his trousers and stared out across the still waters of the Venetian lagoon. Afternoon was steadily turning into evening, and the grey light of early dusk was deepening the aquamarine of the waters around the island.
There were two islands directly in front of him, both about the same size as the one he was standing on, and both inhabited. He could see lights shining through the windows of the small properties that had been erected on them. They looked homely, welcoming, and were also quite close together. That juxtaposition argued against either of them being the location of any kind of illegal activity, simply because anything that happened on one of the islands would be clearly visible to the people who lived on the other. The only way that either could be the place he was looking for was if the residents on both were involved in some kind of joint conspiracy. And that was a stretch.
Bronson scanned the islands through the binoculars, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Then he looked over to the left, where another small island was visible in the fading light. But as far as he could see, there were no buildings of any sort on that one. It was a similar story when he searched the lagoon further to the west: just a couple of small islets without any sign of habitation. So where, exactly, had the two men vanished to earlier that afternoon?
He lowered the binoculars and stared out across the lagoon, despair clutching at his heart. He’d been so convinced that he’d found where Angela was being held, so sure that he’d be able to rescue her. But the cold hard reality was that he was no further forward than he’d been the previous day. All he could think of doing was climbing back into his boat and carrying out a visual search of all the islands in the vicinity, and just hoping that he spotted the blue powerboat – the right blue powerboat.
He was about to reach down to release the bow line when a tiny gleam of light attracted his attention. It was coming from the area between, and obviously behind, the two inhabited islands he’d already looked at. At first, it looked as if the light might actually be on the mainland, but when he brought the binoculars up to his eyes he could see that there was another island in the lagoon, quite some distance to the south, which he’d never noticed. He’d been so fixated on the island owned by the Italian politician that he hadn’t thought to check any further south.
He studied it carefully through the binoculars, and noticed straight away that it was reasonably isolated. The only thing anywhere near it was a tiny patch of reeds and scrubby vegetation about a hundred yards away from its western shore. Bronson wasn’t even sure that he’d find any solid ground there, but it was absolutely the only possible vantage point from which he could see what was happening on the island.
There was another grey stone house there, and some kind of outbuilding nearby. The light he’d seen was coming from a downstairs window, and was a mere sliver escaping through the gap between two shutters. Other than that, he could see no sign of life.
Bronson took a final look at both the island, where the thin vertical line of light still marked the position of the house, and the tiny clump of reeds, fixing their relative positions in his mind. Then he unhitched the rope, climbed down into his boat, started the engine and moved slowly away. At least the gathering darkness might help conceal him from anyone who might be watching from the island.
He steered the boat well out to the west, then turned the bow so that it pointed directly towards the reeds, closed the throttle still further and approached at little more than walking pace. He kept as low as he could in the vessel, knowing that the silhouette of a man sitting in a boat was very distinctive, and that by lying almost flat, his craft would hopefully just look like another shadow on the water in the gloom.
He turned off the engine when he was still a few feet clear of the reeds, and allowed the boat to drift into them. At the very least, they would hold the boat reasonably steady while he looked at the island through his binoculars.
But in fact, a few moments later the hull grounded, probably on mud, and the boat shuddered to a stop. That was better than he had hoped. Bronson climbed out of the vessel and pulled it further into the reed bed. The ground, such as it was, was soft and spongy underfoot, and several times his feet plunged into holes several inches deep, soaking his shoes and trouser legs. But he didn’t care. His search for Angela was back on course.
Making certain that the boat was wedged tightly in place, Bronson stepped back on board and resumed his scrutiny of the island through his binoculars.
62
Marco hadn’t finished with her. Despite his bleak statement to her that she would be dead – dying screaming in agony – within hours, there was still the final section of the text to be translated. And Angela knew she had no option but to comply.
Tears clouding her eyes, she again bent forward over the photocopied pages.
After describing in graphic detail the appalling ceremony designed to turn a human being into a vampire, and which would, almost incidentally, necessitate the rape and murder of not one but two young women, the author of the work had concluded by describing how an initiate would know if the process had been successful.
This section of the text was perhaps the least detailed of the entire corpus of work. The author admitted that there was no definitive proof, but suggested that an increasing dislike of consuming the meat of animals, of the beasts of the fields, and an aversion to daylight, were positive indicators. And if the initiate eventually found that he could only be sustained by the flesh of the re
cently dead, then it was certain that he would live for ever.
And now she even knew the name of the lapsed monk, as Marco had described him, and where he’d lived, because the very last section of the Latin text contained a single sentence that identified him, clearly written by the member of the society who’d copied down the words of the author. The translation read: Inscribed by my hand this fourteenth day of the month of August in the year eleven hundred and twenty-six, from the sacred words of our most sacred and illustrious Master, the noble and revered Father Amadeus of Györ, Transdanubia.
Angela had actually heard of Györ – it was one of the counties of what became known in the eighteenth century as the Districtus Trans-Danubianus, that part of Hungary which lay to the south and west of the River Danube. It was one of the twelve counties of Transdanubia whose boundaries had been established by Stephen I of Hungary, and which remained unchanged until 1920.
But if ever a monk – lapsed or otherwise – had been misnamed, it was Amadeus of Györ. His name meant ‘lover of God’, and what Angela had read had convinced her that she’d rarely read anything more evil, more contrary to the essential goodness preached by most religions and especially by Christianity, than the treatise in front of her.
She shuddered slightly, and handed the page to Marco, who retreated to his chair, where he read slowly through the rest of what she had transcribed.
‘So what happens now?’ Angela asked nervously.
Marco smiled coldly at her. ‘The good news,’ he said, ‘is that you get to keep all your fingers. But you already know the bad news. You’ll take part – in fact, you’ll have a starring role – in the ceremony tonight.’
The slight smile left his face, and he nodded at her, his eyes travelling up and down her body appreciatively.
‘It would have been helpful if you’d had your passport in your handbag,’ he continued. ‘But even so, we’ve managed to initiate some enquiries in Britain, and on the Internet, into your family history, and as far as we can tell there’s no evidence that your bloodline – any of your ancestors, I mean – have ever been linked to one of the noble families of the immortals. So you’re an ideal candidate for the ceremony. You’re here on the island, and we need to dispose of you anyway, simply because you’ve seen our faces and you know too much about us. And, to look on the bright side, having you here means we don’t have to snatch another girl off the streets of Venice. So your death will actually save the life of a stranger.’
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.’
63
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.
64
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.
