A Beast in Venice: (Literary Horror set in Venice) (22 page)

Brigham’s legs felt weak beneath him. His reflection in the canal was the color of green ivory.

“Don’t misunderstand me. It was not for racial reasons that these people embraced my teachings. It was cultural.”

Brigham gazed into the water, eyes unfocused.

“Does an Arab strap a bomb to a child and send him to blow up other children because he’s Arab? No. He does it because his culture allows it. Perhaps demands it.”

Brigham did not respond as he silently considered how he might exit that place.

“And I tell you, that whatever movie you have seen or book you have read about vampires, ghouls, or zombies, or any conceivable atrocious and vile thing done by one person to another, it is the work of a Sunday school teacher when compared to what I do and compared to what you are about to become. Those people hanging back there skinned alive? We do that to add flavor to the meat. You think we just bite people on the neck or drink blood from a glass, sleep in our own graves, and have supernatural power or strength? That’s all the material of fiction and superstition and Hollywood. We have a total and absolute disregard for human life and a desire to see the kind of pain and suffering in the human animal that would cause any sane person to vomit. The shrieks of a man being roasted alive on a spit is to us a Bach violin sonata. We do things that even the Japanese wouldn’t do, just to add spice. A spice more delicious and rare than any you will find in the East. We commit acts the mere thought of which would have even the heathen on his knees praying to Jesus Christ for deliverance and salvation.”

Brigham’s heart pounded, and he felt light-headed and ill. They neared a room from which came screams of unimaginable agony—long, drawn-

out, wailing shrieks of pain. They moved toward the huge door, above which stood the head of a fat angelic cherub smiling happily down on them. Charles reached for the latch.

“Is it necessary to go in?” Brigham asked in a voice like rats’ claws over rough stone. “I think I should really get going. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”

“Don’t be silly, lad. It’s nothing. You’ll see.”

Charles opened the door. There, nailed to a cross, was a young woman from whom long strips of flesh were being sliced and peeled away, accompanied by shrieks of agony.

“Oh my God!” Brigham exclaimed and turned away.

“Come on, dear boy,” Charles said. “It’s not that bad, is it? Behold.”

The woman howled with each stroke of the knife. Staggered by the sight, Brigham involuntarily reached his hand out to her, but he was powerless to intervene.

They continued to a large, dimly lit hall where a long table stretched most of the length of the room. Several human forms, bound and gagged and in various stages of butchery, lay on large wooden planks. They drew nearer. The forms were attached to the planks with large iron spikes driven through their hands and feet. Blood flowed across the floor into the canal and streaked away, black in the water.

No, he had not expected this. Something on the order of the vampire club, perhaps, but this was wholesale slaughter. Although not a lover of mankind, Brigham was no butcher. This wouldn’t do.

As Charles began to speak, Brigham shoved him into the water and ran.

“Stop him!” shouted Charles from the shallow water.

Brigham sprinted along the canal the way he had come. One of Charles’s men attempted a diving tackle and got hold of Brigham’s foot. He shook the man loose and kicked him in the face, sending him into the water. At the stairs leading to the corridor, Brigham encountered another one of Charles’s goons, this one toting a baseball bat. Brigham stopped for a moment, considering what to do. He could see no way out other than up the stairs. The goon came at him, cocking the bat over his shoulder, as if to hit a fastball. He swung, and the tip of the bat caught Brigham in the ribs and the pain blinded him for an instant. Before the batter had a chance to take another swing, Brigham regained his composure and kicked the man in the balls, causing him to drop the bat and fall to his knees. As Brigham picked up the bat, the pain of his bruised ribs seared through him, yet he mustered the strength to swing, striking the man in the back of the head, sending him to the ground.

Brigham bounded up the steps, down the corridor, and fell against the door at the end. He searched for a way to open it. Footsteps echoed on the stairs. Slivers of brick struck his face, accompanied by the crack of a gun. Another bullet shattered the bat. He squatted alongside the door to avoid the bullets. A small object protruding from the wall pressed between his shoulder blades. With a clank, the door slid open. As he leaped toward the opening, something crashed into the back of his head.

BRIGHAM FOUND HIMSELF in a ponderously large bed in a cavernous room. Rich fabric and Renaissance art covered the walls, and plush curtains hung at the windows. A beam of early-morning light cut through a slit in the curtains, giving life to bits of dust floating in the air.

He lay still, taking inventory of his parts to determine whether he still had his body and skin. He didn’t know what Charles had in mind for him, but there was a reasonable chance that he had been nailed to something and otherwise painfully tormented, though he had no recollection of it.

Once he determined himself to be intact, he moved to get out of the bed. His body hurt, his head throbbed, and he felt weak and tired, not unlike a hangover. He stood up. Someone had dressed him in clothes of the fifteenth century—a long robe of heavy, dark green brocade and slippers of purple velvet.

A mirror on the wall opposite the bed revealed a head of hair disheveled to the point of absurdity, and a pale gray face.

Charles entered the room. “How are you feeling, lad?”

“That must’ve been one hell of a party.”

Charles smiled. “You’ll feel better shortly, and the anemic look will pass. You should have known you couldn’t escape.”

“Seemed to be worth a try,” he said, rubbing the back of his head.

“Sorry about your head. My men take their jobs very seriously.”

Brigham ran his fingers though his hair. “Yes, right, that explains the head, but why do I feel so bad otherwise?”

“You are now one of us. We took the liberty while you were out.”

“One of us? You mean…?” Brigham looked at himself again in the mirror.

“Yes.”

Brigham sat heavily on the bed. “You took the liberty? What made you think—”

“Dear boy, why did you think you were here?”

He lay back on the bed gazing at the ceiling. “Undo whatever you did to me!”

Charles held up his hand. “I can’t do that.”

“I know you can undo it. I read—”

“No, I’m sorry—”

Brigham ran at Charles to tackle him, but Charles batted him away like a rag doll.

“I appreciate that you are upset,” said Charles, “but kindly control yourself.”

Landing on the floor next to the bed, Brigham sat up and dusted himself off. “How did you do it? How did you do it with me unconscious?”

“I hate to use a cliché, but we have our ways.”

Brigham got up from the floor and lay back down on the bed. “Now what?”

“You are going to rest here for a while, get back your natural color, change into your own clothes, and then go home.”

“I mean, now what am I supposed to do with myself? How can I go on? And where is my wife?”

“I told you, I can’t help you with your wife. So far as the rest is concerned, you will know.” Charles walked to the door.

“But I don’t—”

“You have eternity,” Charles said over his shoulder and left the room.

Brigham stared at the elaborately painted ceiling. A table covered in an oriental carpet, on which sat a bottle of wine, a glass, and a platter of fruit and cheese, occupied the middle of the room. Apparently, he wasn’t restricted to a diet of human blood and entrails but could still enjoy the pleasure of food and drink.

He poured a glass of wine, tasted it, and then bit into a piece of cheese, finding them both delightful, perhaps the best he’d ever had. He rested in a large chair, sinking into it comfortably, though still weak and tired. The wine and cheese made him feel better. At first, he felt quite unhappy about the circumstances in which he now found himself, but then remembered that he (ostensibly) would live forever. With this knowledge, he realized he was seeing things differently. Colors seemed brighter, and smells more intense. In his past life, he often thought about the walls and bricks of Venice, what they had seen over the centuries. They watched man’s folly and man’s suffering, knowing that they couldn’t be touched by it. The hours, days, years, centuries passed. Time was nothing to them. And now it was nothing to him. But the cost was high. He would have to kill and drink blood and commit other acts of depravity and atrociousness. Would it be a great pleasure or a terrible duty?

He fell asleep in the chair. He woke when Charles returned with his clothes. He felt much better, and a look in the mirror told him that his color was nearly back to normal.

“Time to go, lad,” Charles said.

Brigham took his clothes. “Is there an orientation or something?”

Charles smiled. “No, you will know what to do by instinct.”

“There are more than one of us in Venice. Do we have territories?”

“No. We know our own kind, and there is no rivalry. Now get dressed. You are free to go.”

“I thought I was to be part of a collection. In-house, as you called it.”

Charles nodded. “Yes, normally. At the moment, however, I have reason to let you return to your life. We will consider the alternative another time.”

BRIGHAM WENT TO THE APARTMENT to see whether there was any sign of Rose and to take care of the dogs; it was time for their breakfast. A call to the police was fruitless. they hadn’t heard or found anything, not that they were working on the case anyway. He fed the dogs, then took them with him to his studio. He needed to get some work done and at the same time try to figure out how to find Rose.

At the studio he made a pot of coffee. His reflection in the mirror was normal, although a bit raggedy. He looked into his own eyes, saying, “What are you going to do? How are you going to find Rose? What are you going to do when the hunger comes? Will there be a hunger? Are you going to be able to kill someone and devour them?”

He considered the morality of it. Killing, in and of itself, wasn’t the problem. There are plenty of reasons to kill, but there has to be justification. For example, the administration of justice, or for survival. But to do it all up close, with his victim’s breath warm in his face as they died, was a different thing.  Should make for an interesting night.

Pink Jesus stared out silently from the canvas. After half an hour he said, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Brigham, sitting at an easel painting, looked up. “Have I ever told you that you should take that act on the road?”

“I think you did, once.”

“It’s still a good idea.” He went back to painting.

“Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

“Yes, I know what I look like. And I’m sure you know why.” He scratched paint onto the canvas.

Pink Jesus didn’t respond.

“What have I done? My obsession with growing old and dying has turned into a nightmare. After what I saw at Charles’s house, I don’t want to think of the possible places or states in which Rose could be. My wife has vanished, and I’ve been turned into a parasite, the full nature and extent of which I haven’t yet come to understand. When added to my drunkenness and the other material flaws in my personality, I’m at what might rightly be called a low point in my life, which now, it seems, will last forever. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

“So you intend to sit there and paint?”

He drew a big circle with diluted red paint, which dripped the length of the canvas. “What else can I do?”

“Go find your wife.”

“Sure, I would love to. Any ideas on her whereabouts, Mr. Oracle?”

“Look in your book.”

“What book?”

Pink Jesus didn’t answer and remained quiet the rest of the day.

PINK JESUS, OF COURSE, meant the book with the secret writing, so Brigham sat down to study it. He read the writing between the lines of text. It was plain enough. No apparent hidden meanings. The map showing the vampire club was also clear, although it was not clear why it was included in the book except that there must be a connection between the club and the shroud eaters.

He focused on the letters SMV. What could they mean? The letters S and M together often stood for Santa Maria, leaving the V as the mystery letter. The name of a church? He got his map and went down the list of churches. Lots of Santa Marias, but nothing with a V. Could have been closed or demolished during the French occupation in the early 1800s. He went through the list again. Then there it was. Santa Maria della Misericordia, formerly Santa Maria Valverde. Of course. He should have remembered that. A beautiful little church attached to an old abbey, now used as a warehouse, like many churches that were closed during Napoleon’s rule. It was all starting to come together. The vampire club and an out-of-the-way, deserted church. No doubt related, but how did they relate to Rose?

The only things he hadn’t deciphered from the book were some random marks spread all through it and some numbers appearing with them. He should ask Mauro. And they certainly needed to take a look at Santa Maria Valverde.

XVIII

The next morning Mr. Todd called to tell him that Giorgio had decided to represent him. “Your cut is sixty percent.”

“Sixty percent? The thieving cocksucker. Tell him it’s eighty-twenty.”

Mr. Todd laughed. “Sixty percent is the standard. No one gets eighty percent, not even well-established artists.”

Brigham contemplated this for a moment. “All right, goddammit. How do we get this ball rolling?”