The Nosferatu Scroll

28

Getting washed when the only equipment to hand was a bucket of lukewarm water and a small bar of soap was difficult enough. Doing so standing up in front of a stranger – a man – who was staring at her body with unconcealed lust was one of the most unpleasant experiences of Marietta Perini’s short life.

She began by trying her best to conceal her private parts from his gaze, but quickly realized that this was impossible. Eventually she just ignored him, never looked in his direction, and pretended that she was alone. When she’d finished and dried herself, the guard nodded his approval.

‘Very good,’ he said. ‘Now put on the robe. Don’t bother with any underwear. You’re not going to need it.’

Shaking with fear, Marietta pulled the robe on over her head, then her captor snapped the handcuff back around her wrist, securing her to the wall of the cellar once again. Then he walked out of the room to the adjoining cell, and repeated the operation with Benedetta, who initially refused point-blank to take off a single item of clothing. But her resistance ended moments later when the crackle of the taser told its own story. When she’d recovered she washed and put on the white robe, but Marietta could hear her sobbing in terror and fury as she did so.

As soon as Benedetta had finished dressing, the guard turned to leave the cellar. But before he could walk across to the foot of the stone spiral staircase, another sound intruded into the relative silence of the cellar. Somebody, or something, was coming down the steps, but the noise sounded more like a kind of slithering than footsteps.

Marietta stared across the flagstone floor, trying to see who it was. Then she noticed that the guard seemed incredibly uncomfortable, almost scared. He’d moved back until he was almost standing against the wall opposite and he, too, was staring fixedly towards the entrance to the cellar.

Then a figure entered the chamber. Clad in an all-enveloping black robe, the hood pulled forward to obscure his face, hands invisible in the long sleeves, the new arrival moved a few feet forward and stopped.

Marietta was immediately conscious of a sharp and unpleasant odour, and then a feeling, a sudden and completely irrational feeling, of abject terror. Never before had she felt that she was standing in the presence of such unremitting and undiluted evil. And she knew that, whoever it was, he was staring straight at her. She could feel his eyes, still invisible under the hood, roaming up and down her body.

The figure turned towards the guard and asked a question, his voice soft and sibilant, the words inaudible to the two girls. The guard took a couple of hesitant steps forward, pointed at Marietta and then spoke.

‘That is the Perini girl, Master,’ he said; ‘the other one is Constanta. She has the strongest bloodline. Both are linked to Diluca.’

The figure looked back towards the two girls, and appeared to nod, although the large hood made it impossible to see a definite movement of his head. Then he glided – that was the word that sprang unbidden into Marietta’s brain – across the floor and into Benedetta’s cell. There was a sudden high-pitched scream, followed by the sound of terrified sobbing.

A few moments later, the figure reappeared, and Marietta caught a glimpse of his left hand as he moved past the open entrance to her cell. It was only fleeting, but just enough for her to see he had unusually long fingernails and white skin, mottled with age spots.

The figure pointed back to Benedetta’s cell, and said something in his soft voice. The guard nodded, but didn’t move until the hooded figure had crossed to the cellar doorway and vanished.

Marietta was the first to find her voice. ‘Who was that?’ she demanded.

‘It’s probably better that you don’t know,’ the guard said. ‘It’s better that no one knows.’

‘Are you OK?’ Marietta asked, as soon as he’d gone. ‘What did that man do to you?’

For a few moments Benedetta didn’t respond. Then she spoke again, her voice tremulous with fear and loathing.

‘He just touched me, that was all. He ran his fingers down my cheek, but his hand was like ice, freezing cold, and his breath – his whole body – simply reeked.’

‘I smelt something too,’ Marietta said, shuddering at the recollection, ‘but I didn’t know what it was.’

‘He smelt like rotting flesh, as if he had gangrene or some hideous disease. It was all I could do not to throw up when he got close to me. And before that, the guard stared at me the whole time I was getting washed. I’ve never been so terrified in my entire life.’

‘That’s all he did, though? He didn’t do anything else to you, did he?’

‘No. But I have a horrible feeling that all that’s about to change. I think he’s been told not to go near us, in case he sullies us. We’ve been saved for some kind of special event, haven’t we? And it’s going to happen tonight. Why else would we be told to wash and dress in this stupid outfit? Oh, God, Marietta. I don’t want to frighten you, but somehow I don’t think we’re going to see tomorrow.’