purpose of the treatise. In the following paragraphs, it was stated, fully detailed instructions would be provided so that mere mortals, if seized with a true and honest wish and desire to achieve a state of sublime perfection, might be elevated to a higher plane and actually join the legions of the undead.
She’d been right: what she was translating was a do-it-yourself vampire kit. Angela finished the introduction, read the Latin text and her English translation once more, then placed the page on one side of the desk.
Marco, who’d been sitting in a chair a few feet away from Angela while she worked on the text, stood up and walked over to the desk. He picked up the English translation she’d prepared, and nodded to her to continue working.
The next section of the text provided a stark reminder of the life of Carmelita Paganini, and of what she had tried to achieve. One sentence in particular served as a hideous confirmation of her apparent attempts to join the ranks of the undead, and even offered other people the opportunity of trying to join her. It also served as a further confirmation of Marco’s contention that there was, indeed, an older source document that Carmelita must have seen.
This sentence read: I now know the truth of the deeper realities that have governed the actions and conduct of my ancestors, and of the gift of eternal life that only the most dedicated adepts can enjoy, and I have had sight of the rules governing the conduct of those sacred rituals and measures which will enable seekers after this most exquisite of gifts to benefit to the fullest possible extent, to achieve immortality through the mingling of new blood with sacred relics, to become a sister of the night, a member of the holy brotherhood and sisterhood of blood, as I have done.
Angela read the sentence again a couple of times, changed a few of the phrases to make it read better, and then put the page aside. The meaning seemed absolutely clear to her. Clear, but senseless. The woman who’d kept the journal and written those words had believed that she’d found the secret of eternal life, by becoming a vampire. Granted, the actual word ‘vampire’ didn’t appear in the sentence, but the last few phrases seemed to be clear enough. Carmelita Paganini had believed she was going to live for ever, by feasting on a diet of blood and sacred relics – whatever they were.
There were only two problems with her belief, as far as Angela could see. First, vampires don’t exist. They are a myth, a pre-mediaeval legend, with no basis in reality whatsoever. Second, Angela had found the woman’s diary in a grave on the Isola di San Michele, lying underneath what was left of a wooden coffin, which contained the bones of the woman herself, the presumed author of the book, and she’d looked pretty dead to her.
Belief was one thing, reality quite another.
Angela turned round in her seat and looked across the room at where Marco was sitting in a comfortable easy chair. She knew what she was reading was rubbish and then she made the mistake of telling Marco precisely what she thought.
‘I know exactly what this is,’ Angela said. ‘This book is some kind of do-it-yourself vampire kit. It’s bullshit.’
The slight smile left the Italian’s face and he stared at her in a hostile manner. ‘I’m not interested in your opinion,’ he snapped, ‘only in your skill as a translator.’
Angela tried again. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘the bones of the woman who wrote this are lying in a two-hundred- year-old tomb on the Isola di San Michele, crumbling away to dust. I think that’s a fairly compelling argument to suggest that she didn’t live for ever.’
‘How do you know she wrote it?’
The possibility that the book had actually been authored by somebody other than the occupant of the old grave hadn’t occurred to Angela. But it didn’t change anything.
‘I don’t, but it was a reasonable assumption. But whether she did or not, I know – and I hope you do too – that vampires don’t exist. They’re a myth, nothing more.’
Marco didn’t respond for a moment, then he shook his head. ‘I already told you,’ he said coldly, ‘I’m not interested in your opinion, ill informed though it obviously is. Just get on with that translation.’
He stood up and walked across to where Angela was sitting. ‘Have you found any references to the source yet?’ he asked.
Angela nodded and pointed at the last sentence she’d translated. ‘This says that she’d seen some other document, but I haven’t found any mention of when she saw it or whereabouts it was.’
Marco scanned her translation swiftly and nodded. ‘Good. Keep going. Let me know as soon as you find a mention of where the source might be hidden.’
In fact, the very next section of the Latin text seemed to provide a clue. An obscure clue, granted, but the first indication she had seen of where the other document, the mysterious ‘source’, might be concealed.
Carmelita had again referred to the ancient dead and the screaming dead, neither of which made very much sense to Angela, but the next sentence did provide what looked like a location. Once she’d translated it and rendered the words into readable English, it read: Our revered guide and master has graced us with his sacred presence, and has instructed us in the ancient procedures and rituals, these being recorded by him for all time and for all acolytes in the Scroll of Amadeus, and then secreted beside the guardian in the new place where the legions of the dead reign supreme.
She didn’t like that last expression, though it could obviously just refer to a graveyard somewhere; and the idea of a ‘guardian’ really troubled her. But, despite her unshakeable conviction that vampires were nothing more than a pre-mediaeval myth, it was the first part of that sentence that sent a chill down Angela’s back.
It suggested that Carmelita had actually met, or at least seen, the person – Amadeus? – who had authored the source document. But that made no sense. Carmelita had died in the third decade of the nineteenth century. Whoever had written the source document must have died some seven hundred years earlier. Maybe she meant that there had been a succession of ‘masters’ through the ages, each acting as the head of the ‘Vampire Society’ or whatever name had been given to the group that Carmelita had been a member of.
But that wasn’t what the Latin said. And Latin was a peculiarly precise language.
40
Behind the tomb on the island of San Michele, Bronson spotted a glint of metal from one side of the unconscious man’s belt. Risking a closer look, he saw a dull black shape: the lower end of the magazine for a semi-automatic pistol, tucked into a quick-release leather pouch. There was no reason why a man would carry a magazine unless he also had a pistol, which meant he must be wearing a belt holster, not a shoulder rig.
Bronson looked up again at the man with the pistol. He was taking a couple of steps closer to him – shortening the range to ensure that his next shot would be the last he would have to fire.
The unconscious man was lying face-up, which meant the weapon had to be tucked into the small of his back, otherwise Bronson would already have seen it. Jerking him over on to his side, he rammed his other hand behind the man’s back, inside the windcheater he was wearing.
His fingers closed around a familiar shape and, as the approaching man stopped and took aim, Bronson rolled sideways behind a vertical gravestone. As he moved, he racked back the slide of the automatic pistol with his left hand to chamber a round.
His movement took him just beyond the gravestone and, as he emerged from that fragile shelter, he aimed the pistol straight at the approaching figure, who swung his pistol towards him and fired two rapid shots.
Bronson flinched as a copper-jacketed nine-millimetre bullet slammed into the gravestone right beside him, but he held his aim and squeezed the trigger.
During his short career as an army officer, Bronson had become quite proficient with the Browning Hi-Power semi-automatic pistol, then the standard officer’s sidearm, but he also knew how inaccurate such weapons were at anything other than very close range. So he wasn’t surprised when his shot went wide.
But his target was clearly shocked to be under attack himself. He turned and ran, dodging around the gravestones as he fled.
Bronson rose cautiously to his feet, the pistol he’d grabbed – which he now saw actually was a nine- millimetre Browning, the weapon he’d got so used to firing in the Army – still pointing towards the fleeing figure. The second man had also taken to his heels, and was a few yards ahead of his accomplice, a bulky bag clutched in
