The Nosferatu Scroll

54

The descent of the bell tower was noticeably quicker than the climb up, because Marco was clearly in a hurry, eager to show what they’d found to the hooded man who seemed to inspire such fear in everyone, not just in Angela.

On the ground floor Angela was again handcuffed by one of the men while Marco unrolled the parchment so that he and the others could examine it more closely. It was obviously old, stained by the passage of years, the edges frayed and torn, but the men handled it as if it was pure gold. Then Marco carefully slid it back into the steel cylinder and secured the end cap.

Within minutes, Angela was back in the cabin of the powerboat, her wrists again secured to a handrail as the boat picked up speed across the waters of the Venetian lagoon.

This time, the hooded man didn’t share the cabin with her, instead he remained at the rear of the boat with Marco and the others, and Angela was able to stare out of the window, back towards Venice. The afternoon was bright, but patches of mist drifted across the water, giving the lagoon a ghostly and ethereal appearance. Her view was partially blocked by the island of Giudecca, lying just to the south of Venice, but what she could see of the eastern end of the old city seemed almost to float, the mist obscuring much of the lower levels of the buildings. But even over the bulk of Giudecca, she could still make out the top of one of the most enduring images of Venice: the Campanile di Marco, the huge bell tower in the Piazza San Marco.

She remembered when she and Chris had joined the thousands of other tourists and walked around the square, looking up at the huge brick structure. The original, she remembered, had been built in the sixteenth century, but then collapsed unexpectedly in 1902. The people of Venice had rejected every new design produced by hopeful architects, and simply had the tower rebuilt to exactly the same plan as the original.

They’d been happy, that afternoon, despite the crowds milling around them, and had even thrown caution to the wind and ordered a coffee in one of the cafes that lined the piazza, wincing at the price but revelling in the atmosphere. Now, Angela pondered, as she stared back through the small cabin window towards Venice, she had no idea where Chris was, what had happened to him, or even whether he was alive or dead. And Marco had made it perfectly clear that her own lifespan was now measured in hours rather than years. She had no future, but without Chris beside her she realized she wasn’t actually sure she wanted one.

For a moment, she felt like giving way, letting the tears flow, tears of utter and complete despair, but she steeled herself. If Chris was alive, she knew that he’d be tearing Venice apart looking for her, and she owed it to him, as well as to herself, not to give in without a fight.

There was nothing she could do in the bouncing speedboat, no way to attract attention, but once they got back to the island, maybe she could escape from the men, perhaps even try to swim to another island. She shivered at this prospect, not from fear, but at the simple realization that if that really was her last, desperate resort, then she’d be far more likely to die from hypothermia in the cold waters of the lagoon.

But even that might be better than whatever fate Marco had planned for her.