XXVII
Giovanna never told Rose the purpose of practicing with the crossbow, but she did tell her not to tell anyone, particularly not Charles. It became something of a pastime for her, and she always made sure that no one was around when she used it.
During their time shooting together they discussed many things, such as Giovanna’s mother, who was Irish, and her father, who was Venetian (although they never got to how this union came about), and how as her parents were of humble origins, she was destined to be a domestic servant. She felt lucky to be where she was; Charles was a good master, and the surroundings were pleasant enough.
One thing she refused to discuss was how a person got from one era to another. She alluded to Charles’s coming and going, and the occasional strange occurrence, but that was all. She gave no details and claimed to be ignorant of the workings of time travel.
That is, until one night she knocked quietly but rapidly on Rose’s door. When Rose opened it, Giovanna rushed in, glanced about to be sure no one was there, closed the door, and locked it behind her.
“Signora,” she said in a hushed but excited voice, “get dressed. Put on the Venetian outfit with the shawl and mask.”
“What’s going on?”
Giovanna scurried about collecting the skirt, shawl, three-cornered hat, and moretta mask: a small round black affair that was held in place by the teeth. The other mask of choice, the bauta, was white and more easily seen at night. “Please, there’s not time to explain. Hurry. Put these on. I’ll explain it on the boat.”
Rose did as instructed. Giovanna cracked the door, peeked out, then motioned for Rose to follow. Rose caught her reflection in a mirror in the hallway. She looked like something from a painting by Francesco Guardi, her face blacked out by the odd little mask. As she thought of Guardi, she realized he was still alive, if this were indeed 1756.
Giovanna spirited her out the back door. They moved through the shadows toward the front of the house, which faced the Brenta Canal. There, a small fishing boat, known in Venice as a sandola, stood manned with a single oarsman. He helped them into the boat, and they sat on a plank in the center.
“Quickly,” Giovanna said to the oarsman. “To Venice.”
THE BOAT SLID DOWN THE BRENTA toward the lagoon, the only sound being the quiet splashing of the oars. The water before them shone like a black mirror.
The oarsman held an oar in each hand, with the oars crossed in front of him. He stood while rowing, pushing both oars at the same time. They were nearly invisible in the moonless night in a black boat, dressed in black. Only the stars and faint light from the few houses along the canal provided light.
Rose took off the mask because speaking with her teeth clamped on its bit was difficult. “Now what’s this all about?”
“You are a nice person,” Giovanna said. “A good person. I don’t want them to kill you.”
“Kill me? They kept me around for all this time, in palatial surroundings, just to kill me?”
Even sitting two feet from Giovanna, in that darkness her face was only a dim form. Rose could just make out that she was nodding. “Yes. I didn’t know it at first, but I overheard them talking this evening.”
“Them? Who did you hear?”
“Charles and another man I don’t know.”
“Charles is here?”
“Sì.”
“I haven’t seen him in a long time.”
“He stays in another part of the house when he is here. I don’t know why he keeps himself hidden from you.”
Something splashed in the water next to the boat.
Rose started.
The oarsman laughed. “Pesci,” he said. Fish.
“Be quiet and row,” Giovanna said.
“When were they planning to kill me?”
Giovanna shook her head in the darkness. “I’m not sure, but soon.”
“Why are you risking your life to help me?”
“You do not know these men, signora. They are bad. Evil. I know what they do, and I think it is too horrible for you.”
Charles certainly was a bit odd, but evil? Admittedly, though, she did not know him very well. “Where are we going?”
“Venice.”
“I know. I mean specifically.”
Giovanna leaned closer and spoke into Rose’s ear. “Back to your time.”
THEY ENTERED THE LAGOON at the mouth of the Brenta, where they were met by a stronger breeze and rougher water. In the distance the black form of the steeples of Venice lay against the dark sky.
Giovanna instructed the oarsman to take them into Venice by way of the Cannaregio Canal. Rose knew this part of town. They rowed under the Tre Archi Bridge, past the Ghetto to Rio San Leonardo. Rose recognized this as part of the canals filled in during the nineteenth century, for the most part by the Austrians, who occupied Venice at the time.
Giovanna directed the oarsman down Rio San Leonardo, onto a smaller canal, then to the side of the canal where there were steps leading to the street. They disembarked. The oarsman lit a small lantern and led them through a knot of narrow dark streets.
They approached a doorway that had been walled in with brick. The outline of the door was still there as well as a faded number at the top of the door, which was impossible to read.
“Hold my hand,” Giovanna told Rose.
She thought of Brigham’s “man going through the wall” story. “What are we doing?”
“Take hold of my hand and you will see. And don’t let go.”
As Rose took her hand, Giovanna stepped into the doorway. Rose let out an “ah!” in surprise and stepped through, coming out where they had started.
“Welcome back to the twenty-first century,” Giovanna said.
Rose stood with her mouth open. “How did you do that?”
Giovanna hesitated.
“You’re one of them,” Rose said. “Whatever ‘one of them’ is.”
“Yes. You have no idea.”
“You’re one of the shroud eaters Brigham and Mauro have been chasing.”
Giovanna nodded.
“Then why did you help me?”
“What we do is evil. But we are not all evil on the inside. Now, go to the hospital and take this with you,” Giovanna said, handing Rose a satchel. “Your husband is there. And be careful. Charles will be arriving before long.”
With that, Giovanna turned and walked through the doorway.
XXVIII
Brigham found himself in a blindingly bright hospital room. An old man in the next bed watched a noisy Italian variety show. Brigham tried to move but felt a sharp pain as the needle of an IV poked his arm. At least the IV had blood in it, which he figured would hold him over until he got out of there. A plastic tube stuck out of his nose and an oscilloscope on a stand next to the bed traced out his pulse, respiratory rate, and blood pressure.
A nurse came in and asked him how he felt. He thought he was okay, but he wasn’t sure. He asked her where the people who had been in the boat with him were. The nurse hesitated, then told him they were dead.
Brigham closed his eyes. The nurse went out. He felt bad for Tiberio, who had helped him more than once, but he didn’t know him that well. Gloria, on the other hand, he had come to like very much, though he knew that soon they would have needed to part ways. He fought back tears.
He didn’t know the nature and extent of his injuries, but the blood being given to him was not a good sign. He looked under the sheets. A bandage several inches long covered a wound on his leg. He took up the strips of tape holding it in place just enough to see a large gash held closed with an ugly array of staples. He carefully replaced the bandage. Fortunately, there was no pain. He asked the man in the other bed what time it was. Noon.
The old man next to him had several visitors for lunch. Brigham knew that family was important in Italy, and these people were turning it into a party. Clearly they had slipped the old man something better than the under-cooked pasta that Brigham was choking d
own. In fact, an old woman, apparently his wife, took the pasta from the man’s tray over the bed and put it into the trash. Within a few moments, the old man was happily chewing something from a bowl his wife had taken from a large shopping bag. Brigham expected them to be splashing wine around, which they certainly had, but they were subtle about it, as even in Italy you’re not allowed to bring wine to a guy in the hospital.
Brigham realized he wouldn’t be having any visitors. Gloria was dead, and Rose was probably dead. He couldn’t remember the last time he had spoken to Mauro.
After about an hour the family left. The old man soon began to snore. Good idea. Brigham would try to get some sleep too. Just as he leaned back into his rock hard pillow, two men came into the room to talk to him. Cops. Being in a boat with two people who were killed is likely to pique the interest of local law enforcement.
The policemen came into the room and introduced themselves. They wore the dark uniform of the carabinieri, with a white leather sash, gun belt, and holster. They stood at Brigham’s bedside holding their hats under their arms. One was tall with neatly trimmed black hair, the other shorter with close-cropped gray hair. They started to ask questions in Italian. He told them he didn’t speak Italian very well, so the tall one began to speak in broken English.
Brigham told them about the boat that was chasing them and how they came to be in the water. But he didn’t feel well, and that he didn’t think it was a good idea for him to say anything more without talking to a lawyer. The tall one said they would speak with him another time and that when he was able, he should indeed hire a lawyer.
The police left and he lay back to try and sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come. What a fiasco he had gotten himself and his wife into. His fear of death, arguably irrational, had led him to this pathetic state, to the death of two of his friends, and worst of all, to the kidnapping of his wife. What if he never found her? How could he face her family again? How could he face himself? When he got out the hospital, he would make it his sole mission in life to find her. And he was going to start with Charles fucking Raymond.
As he lay with his eyes closed sensed a presence next to his bed. Charles stood there, gazing down at him. Not his usual dapper self, though. His hair was disheveled and his eyes were red, encircled by dark rings. There was a hole in his pants surrounded by a dark bloodstain.
“Get out,” Brigham shouted.
Charles smiled. “Oh, now, is that any way to treat a friend?”
Brigham pressed the button to call the nurse. Charles held up the end that was supposed to go into the wall and waved it at Brigham. When Brigham opened his mouth to yell, Charles put a hand over it. Brigham strained to see his roommate. He appeared to be asleep, though no longer snoring. Charles held an index finger over his own lips, then removed his hand from Brigham’s mouth.
“Look,” Charles said, “I don’t want to be a prick—”
“Then don’t.”
Charles held up his hand. “I don’t want to be a prick, but you have become a serious problem for me.”
“I’ve become a problem for you? In what way? What have I done?”
Charles closed the door. “My friend Lorenzo Zorzi seems to be jealous of our relationship. He wants you for himself and fancies that he has that right, at the expense of yours truly.”
“Open the door,” Brigham said in a loud, dry voice through gritted teeth.
“No, no, we need a little privacy. And don’t worry about your roommate; he’s dead. And the nurses here work on such low wages, I could buy off the entire floor for the cost of a decent meal.”
Brigham leaned back into his pillow. “What do you want? I can’t help it that you and Lorenzo are having a spat over me. Anyway, neither of you has the right to own me. I don’t belong to anyone.”
Charles stood with his hands in the pockets of his large coat. “What do I want? I already have everything. Do you have everything?”
Brigham closed his eyes. “No, I have nothing, and I will always have nothing.”
“And yes, you do belong to one of us. You belong to me. The spat, as you call it, is your problem, as you can see. And there is the matter of your having killed my wife.”
“I told you that was self-defense. Besides, I thought you wanted to get rid of her. I thought we were over that hump.”
“You’ve heard the saying that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone? Well, that’s how I feel now. Can you imagine how I felt when I saw her in the tomb with a wooden stake sticking out of her eye?”
“I wasn’t aware you had feelings. You sure did a good job of hiding your grief the other night.”
“That was my defense mechanism.”
“I guess so. Perhaps locking me in a dungeon was your way of expressing your sorrow?”
Charles half smiled. “Yes, but what a disappointment you have been to me.” He took a large knife from his coat and held it to Brigham’s throat.
Brigham winced as the blade broke the skin. He didn’t move, afraid to cause the knife to go deeper. Blood trickled down his neck. If Charles intended to kill him, he would already be dead. On the other hand, perhaps he was simply savoring the moment.
Charles leaned toward him, the gray stubble on his face and his wet, black eyes just inches from Brigham’s nose. The pressure of the knife increased. Charles bared his teeth. Brigham was about to jam a finger into Charles’s eye when the door burst open. Charles stood erect at the sound, but before he could turn, the point of an arrow popped out from the center of his chest with a thunk and a spray of blood. Charles stared straight ahead, eyes wide, looked down at the arrow, and then slowly fell to the floor, his mouth moving as if trying to speak.
There behind him stood Rose.
“Rose!” Brigham put his hand to his throat and pulled it back, wet with blood.
Rose rushed to the bed and leaned over Brigham. “Are you all right?” She hugged him. “Let me see. How bad is it?”
“I’m fine. He was just getting warmed up. Is there a towel around here?” Brigham asked, looking around the room, holding his throat with one hand and reaching for Rose with the other.
She wiped the blood from his hands and throat. “I’m gone for ten minutes, and look what you get yourself into.”
“You have no idea. The world has changed for me since you’ve been gone. I’ll tell you about it shortly. Where’ve you been? I was so worried. You just vanished. Were you kidnapped? How’d you get away?”
She held up her hand. “Calm down, I’m fine. Let’s just say that Charles has a taste for pretty, middle-aged women.”
Brigham’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t tell me—”
“Don’t worry, I won’t.”
Brigham put his head back. “Oh my God.”
“You know, you’re looking a bit more… I don’t know… shopworn than the last time I saw you.”
“I’ve had some mileage put on me recently. But how did you know where to find me?”
“Long story.”
“Fine, we’ll talk about this later. Right now we have to deal with Charles. Find a nurse.”
She started for the hall.
“Wait. Does this son of a bitch still have the knife in his hand?” Brigham asked, peering down toward Charles.
“Yes.”
“Good. Get the nurse.”
A FEW DAYS LATER, Brigham left the hospital. The police determined that the dispatching of Charles was a clear case of defense of others and left it at that
Leaving the hospital, they walked past a florist, whose window featured a bucket overflowing with dozens of the biggest red roses Brigham had ever seen. He bought them all.
At the apartment, the corgi barked and howled with joy while the mutt shook his toy and pushed the corgi with it. Brigham got down on the floor to wrestle with them, but after a moment, he had to get up since his injuries were still painful.
“Some things never change,” Rose said.
She put the flowers in a vase on the table in the foye
r. Brigham hugged her.
“I was worried sick about you,” he said. “The fact that I never got a ransom note made me think that maybe you ran away or worse.”
“Didn’t you call my mother or sister?”
“Of course. They hadn’t seen you or heard from you, but I figured they would lie for you.”
She explained that she had been politely, but firmly, requested to accompany two large men, who looked as though they could be unruly if disobeyed. They took her to a very nice house on the Brenta Canal, where she was kept by Charles. Strange thing was, he had told her it was 1756. Then one morning, the little old lady who had been tasked with taking care of her, and whom she had befriended, took pity on her and led her from the house through a doorway to the present.
Brigham shook his head. “I always thought it was Charles, but he denied it to the end, and I never heard anything from him. I have no doubt he intended to use it against me in some way.” She fixed him a pot of coffee, and they went into the living room.
“This is great,” he said, taking a sip. “You make the best coffee.”
He reclined on the sofa with his leg propped up on the cushions. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about the bow and arrow. Where did you get them?”
Rose explained her archery lessons with Giovanna and the satchel she had given her. “I have a question for you.” She sipped her tea. “They told me how you ended up in the hospital.”
“Yeah?”
“Are you aware that the other two people in your boat were killed?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Who was the girl?”
He told her.
“And what were you doing with those people in the middle of the night in a little boat?”
“Looking for you.”
“Looking for me? Out there?”
He explained that Tiberio thought she might be on San Michele.
A Beast in Venice: (Literary Horror set in Venice) Page 26