The Nosferatu Scroll

70

Bronson knew that if he tried to leave, they would certainly see him. He had to stay where he was.

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.