The Ancient Curse (12 page)

Fabrizio suddenly realized that he was almost 200 metres from the house, at the edge of the wood, when he heard a low whining at first, then a deep, rumbling snarl coming from the trees. He switched off his torch at once while a stream of adrenalin coursed through his blood and he took off towards the house, his heart hammering in his chest and pounding at his temples. He tripped in the darkness over a dry branch and pitched forward, skinning his hands, arms and chin. He stumbled frantically to his feet, slipped again, then sprinted back in the direction of the house as the low growl became a long, bloodcurdling howl that spread through the gully between the two hills, as if the voice of hell were exploding in the still night air.

He flew past the edge of the wood and started down the path that led to his house, but the howl was filling his ears and he could sense the raging pace of the beast catching up on him. The door was less than thirty metres away. He’d left it half open and he could see the lights on inside the room.

He darted in, closed all the doors and windows as quickly as he could and ran over to the gun rack, but he stopped in his tracks as he suddenly heard the growl echoing inside the house. The sound was coming from the central hall, to his right. Fabrizio felt the blood freeze in his veins. ‘Oh, my God. It’s inside,’ he said out loud, remembering the half-open door.

He took the rifle from the rack, feverishly attached the shining torch to the barrel with some tape he’d left on the table, locked and loaded the gun and headed towards the hall. He pushed open the door and moved fast to flatten himself against it. The hall was deserted and, as the torch beam took in the two doors that led to the second floor, he could see that both were shut. He switched on the light and drew a long sigh. He could plainly see the wrought-iron grating at the end of the hall which gave on to the outdoor courtyard. What he’d heard had been an echo reverberating over the curved vault of the ceiling.

He closed the door behind him and went through the house to check that the other door was bolted shut. As he passed in front of the window he noticed the headlight of a bicycle travelling down the hillside and could even hear the tinkling of its bell. ‘Oh, shit,’ he swore, his teeth clenched tight. He realized that another victim was about to be added to the death toll, his throat ripped out.

He ran back out into the courtyard as he jabbed Reggiani’s number into his mobile phone. As soon as he heard Reggiani pick up, he screamed, ‘This is Fabrizio. Hurry, for the love of God. It’s here!’

‘What’s there?’ shouted Reggiani’s voice on the other end, but Fabrizio had already thrust the phone away and was advancing with his rifle levelled. He shone the beam of torch light in the direction of the bicycle and shouted as loudly as he could, ‘Watch out! Get out of here!’ But the man was still too far away to hear and continued at the same steady pace.

Fabrizio shouted again, but at that same moment he heard the snarl of the beast lying in wait and then the ferocious howl that had curdled his blood just a few minutes before. A huge dark mass sprang out of the woods towards the road as Fabrizio tried unsuccessfully to take aim. He heard a terrified scream, a confused clattering and then only the muffled growl of the animal as he sank his snout into blood.

Fabrizio jumped from the embankment to the middle of the road and for an instant he saw it plainly: the bristly fur, the bared fangs covered with blood, the yellow eyes. He aimed his gun and fired, but the animal was gone. It had bounded back into the woods with a spectacular leap, as light as if it were made of air.

A hail of shots exploded behind him in the same direction and Fabrizio threw himself to the ground, terrified, as the scene of the massacre was illuminated all at once by powerful beams of light. A loud screeching of tyres and Reggiani’s Alfa Romeo pulled up sharply, a few centimetres from his feet. The officer burst out, pistol in hand, rapidly emptying the entire magazine of his Beretta into the woods.

Thirty or more men wearing combat gear and carrying assault rifles arrived ten minutes later and charged into the woods with a pack of Alsatian dogs. Before long a helicopter was hovering overhead, scanning the forest with its headlight.

Lieutenant Reggiani approached the body and couldn’t hold back a shudder of disgust. It was practically decapitated. The neck vertebrae were crushed and the head was attached to the torso by only a few shreds of flesh. Fabrizio got to his feet, still holding the smoking rifle in his hands, and approached as well.

‘I botched it,’ he said, his voice cracking with emotion. ‘It was so fast. I had it in front of me, in my sights . . . I fired . . . I was sure I’d hit it.’

‘You saw it, then?’ asked Reggiani. ‘I mean, up close?’

Fabrizio nodded. ‘The torch on the rifle barrel was on and I saw it for an instant in full light. This thing is monstrous . . . It’s a beast out of hell . . . It’s . . .’

Reggiani looked at him. Fabrizio was shaking convulsively, his face was drained of colour, his eyes were bloodshot and his breath was coming in short gasps.

The officer put a hand on his shoulder. ‘You’re in shock,’ he said. ‘An ambulance is on the way. It’s best they take you to hospital.’

Fabrizio straightened up. ‘I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong with me,’ he replied. ‘I’ll be fine.’

The ambulance arrived and waited as the police finished examining the scene of the crime.

‘Are you sure you don’t want them to give you a quick check-over?’

‘No, trust me, I’m OK. But I think I’ll go home. I just need to sit down. My legs are shaking.’

‘I can believe it,’ said Reggiani. ‘After what you’ve been through, face to face with that monster . . . Too bad you didn’t nail him. We would have been finished with this once and for all.’ He turned to the sergeant standing behind him. ‘Massaro, I’m going with Dr Castellani. If you need me, I’ll be in the house.’

‘Don’t worry, sir. We have everything under control here,’ replied Massaro.

Reggiani shook his head as they walked off. ‘Under control my arse,’ he muttered. ‘As soon as the public prosecutor gets wind of this, there’ll be hell to pay.’

Massaro’s suddenly agitated voice called them back. ‘Sir! Over this way, quick! The helicopter has found it!’

‘What the fuck . . .’ shouted the lieutenant as he wheeled around and ran towards his car. He grabbed the radio. ‘Reggiani here. What’s happening? Over.’

‘We’ve spotted it, sir!’ shouted the co-pilot, his voice unable to contain his excitement. ‘Twice, we’ve seen it twice. With the heli’s night vision. I can’t believe how fast it’s running, sir!’

‘Shoot the fucker! Use the machine gun. What the hell are you waiting for? Over.’

‘We’re trying to do that, sir. We’re trying . . .’ The crackle of machine-gun fire came through over the radio. Then the voice of the co-pilot, shouting, ‘Watch out! Watch out! Turn! Turn!’

‘What in God’s name is happening?’ Reggiani was shouting into the microphone. ‘Answer me, damn it!’

There was the co-pilot again, still shouting. ‘We’re yawing! Give it gas!’

Reggiani’s ear was glued to the receiver and his heart was in his throat as he waited for the sound of the explosion. Instead, a few moments later, the pilot’s voice came through.

‘It’s Warrant Officer Rizzo here, sir. We risked crashing into the mountainside. We’re OK now, but we’ve lost it. We’ll continue the search. Over.’

‘Damn! Damn! Damn!’ cursed Reggiani, slamming the receiver on the driver’s seat. He turned to the sergeant. ‘The thing got away and they nearly ran the heli into the mountain. That’s all we need. You stay here at the radio, Massaro. I’m going.’

Massaro shook his head, discouraged. ‘They were close, sir. They were really close . . . You go ahead. I’ll call you if anything happens.’

‘What happened?’ asked Fabrizio.

‘They nearly bagged it.’

‘No!’

‘Nearly. They spotted it twice with the night-vision beam and fired at it with the Browning. Then they lost it.’

‘What the hell . . .’

‘Is this thing made of flesh and blood? Why has no one been able to nail it?’

They walked into the house and Fabrizio put the rifle back on the rack, then went to a cupboard and opened a bottle of whisky. ‘I need this,’ he said. ‘Want a drop yourself?’

‘Nice gun,’ observed Reggiani, looking over at the Bernar-delli. ‘Yeah, thanks. I don’t mind if I do,’ he added, dropping into a chair.

Fabrizio took two gulps, then drew a long breath. ‘Flesh and blood? I don’t know. Yeah, of course. But if you’d seen what I saw . . .’

Reggiani took a sip himself, then looked straight into Fabrizio’s eyes.

‘Tell me what you saw. From the beginning to the end,’ he said.

Fabrizio took another swallow. Some colour was coming back to his face and his hands weren’t trembling nearly as much.

‘First of all, what is it?’

Fabrizio took another sip.

‘Hey, take it easy with that stuff. It’s not Coca-Cola.’

Fabrizio set the empty glass on the table and suddenly thought of the virtual reconstruction that Sonia had done of the skull taken from the skeleton buried with the Phersu.

What is it?’ he repeated. ‘I . . . I don’t know. All I can say is that my colleague showed me a computer-generated image of the animal in the Rovaio tomb and . . . Listen, you won’t believe this, but it looked exactly like this thing.’

‘But what is it?’ insisted Reggiani. ‘A dog? A wolf? A panther? It has to be something recognizable, damn it.’

‘Yeah, well, it does look like a dog or a wolf. Only its proportions are humongous and it’s capable of making huge leaps and . . . oh, shit, I don’t know. It just doesn’t make sense!’

‘OK, let it go,’ said the officer. ‘The important thing is, it’s not a ghost. Those boys up in the heli were close to pumping it full of lead . . . I could hear that Browning sing over the radio.’

The transmitter he had attached to his epaulette suddenly crackled with Massaro’s voice. ‘Sir?’

‘What is it?’

‘The public prosecutor is here.’

‘I’m coming.’

Reggiani put on his cap and gloves and went to the door. ‘I’ll be right back,’ he said. ‘I just need long enough to tell him to fuck off if he starts breaking my balls.’

He stopped outside the door, lit a cigarette, took a long drag and then walked to the site where a couple of agents were still taking measurements and collecting evidence.

‘Listen, Reggiani,’ began the public prosecutor in a shrill voice.

Reggiani tossed his cigarette stub to one side, raised his hand to his visor and said, ‘Yes, sir.’

‘This is the third body—’

Oh, so he can count to three, thought Reggiani.

‘And we’re no further along than when we started. It’s just an animal, for God’s sake.’

‘It’s not just an animal, sir,’ replied Reggiani, swallowing hard. ‘It’s a bloody monster we’re dealing with here. It’s some kind of dog or wolf as big as a lion, with fangs seven centimetres long, that probably weighs over a hundred kilos and runs so fast that my helicopter nearly crashed into that mountain down there trying to keep up with it. A monster. And let me tell you, my guys were this close from taking it out. The search is still under way, with men and dogs. We’re giving it all we have. No one’s standing around scratching his balls.’

‘Lieutenant!’

‘If you’ll excuse my saying so, sir.’

Massaro approached with the victim’s wallet.

‘Who is he?’ asked Reggiani.

‘No ID.’

‘Have you taken his prints?’

‘Of course. I’ve already sent in the photos to headquarters to see if anyone has a file on him. Haven’t got an answer yet.’ He pointed to the mobile phone sitting on the bonnet of his car, connected to a laptop. They stopped a moment to watch the steady flow of forensic data filling the screen.

The public prosecutor turned to Reggiani again. ‘Just what do you intend to do now?’

‘We have to find out where the thing’s den is. The heli is in contact with the men on the ground. They’ll succeed in tracing this animal, I’m sure of it. They’ve seen it, for God’s sake, and they’ve shot at it. They’ll have to fix the exact point . . .’

Massaro approached them. ‘We have a match, sir.’

Reggiani walked over to the computer and saw the front and side mugshots of the victim. At the bottom of the screen was a white band with the man’s name and record: Cosimo Santocchi, son of Amedeo. Unemployed, no permanent residence, born in Volterra on 15/4/1940. Previous arrests: petty larceny, dealing small quantities of drugs.

‘At least this one doesn’t look like another tomb robber,’ commented Reggiani.

‘Maybe not,’ replied Massaro, ‘but you never know.’

‘Right . . . So the fingerprints match up as well?’

‘Yes,’ replied the sergeant. ‘Look.’ He inserted a gelatin slide into a separate unit connected to the computer and the prints were instantly read and compared to those on the record. ‘Perfect match.’

‘I can see that,’ Reggiani nodded. ‘Analyse the soil on the soles of his shoes and see if there’s any trace of that yellow clay from the Rovaio area. I wouldn’t be surprised if he took part in that little picnic as well.’

‘Right away, sir.’

‘I’ll be leaving, then,’ said Reggiani, addressing the public prosecutor. ‘I have to finish my conversation with Dr Castellani. He was a witness to the killing. I’ll catch up with you later.’

‘Yes, yes, go on. We still have quite a lot to do here.’

Reggiani started walking back to the house. He raised his eyes to the sky before he went in and could see clouds gathering.

Fabrizio was still sitting at the table and was scribbling on a notepad. Alongside was the printout of Sonia’s virtual reconstruction.

‘Is that it?’ asked Reggiani.

‘Yes, and look. It’s very similar to the animal I saw. Identical, really. A little unnerving, wouldn’t you say? This virtual reconstruction is at least 90 per cent true to an animal that died either of suffocation or a heart attack about twenty-four centuries ago. It is so singular that we’ve found no match for it, at least for the time being. No match, except for the beast that struck again here, which is practically a photocopy of this ancient creature and which materialized the night that the tomb was opened.’