By the time Raven left her friends, it was after eleven. Their dinner had extended to drinks and dessert and an evening of conversation and music.
The skies had opened, pouring rain. As usual, there were still a few pedestrians and drivers on the slick streets. Everyone else had retreated indoors.
Or so it seemed.
Raven was glad she kept a long raincoat under the seat of her Vespa. She wore it as she drove, wincing at every drop of water that fell on her new sandals.
When she arrived at Santo Spirito, she discovered the piazza was empty.
Usually patrons sat outside the bar across from her apartment or at one of the cafés. The square itself was often filled with students. Several American universities had study-abroad programs that were housed nearby. But since the rain was falling heavily, the emptiness of the piazza was unsurprising.
She parked her Vespa and had just returned her helmet to the storage space beneath the seat when she heard something. The sound itself was strange, a cross between a growl and a roar.
She whirled around and saw something move at the far end of the piazza.
The falling rain partially obscured her vision and the dimness made it difficult to see. She could discern something large and black moving toward her.
As the figure approached, she realized it was too large to be a dog. It was moving quickly, its outline a blur against the rain.
She turned and tried to run, but her sandals slid on the slick cobble-stones and she fell. Hard.
When she came to her senses, she saw that the animal, which was now running on two legs, was bearing down on her. Snarls and growls echoed across the piazza as it drew nearer.
She tried to stand, her new shoes slipping beneath her. She could hear the animal approaching, its footfalls heavy in her ears.
She scrambled to her feet and was about to sprint toward her building, when she dropped her keys.
“Shit!” She bent to retrieve them just as the creature roared.
Chapter Fourteen
Raven expected the worst. She expected the thing—whatever it was—to crash into her.
She glared at the relic that swung from her neck. She didn’t have time to indulge herself in an “I told you so,” directed at the absent intruder. Silly superstitions had never done her or anyone else any good. They certainly weren’t helping her now.
She braced herself for impact, knowing it was too slippery to run.
There’s nothing I can do.
It’s going to kill me.
She heard sliding and scuffing, as if something had tried to come to a sudden and abrupt halt.
She turned her head just as the dark creature came to a stop several feet away. It roared and lunged toward her with its arms, but its feet did not move.
“Take that fucking thing off! Take it off!” it bellowed, in Italian.
Raven peered through the falling rain at what she realized was a man. He was dressed in dark and dirty clothing, his hair long and matted. A stench filled her nostrils as he moved, as if he hadn’t been washed in a very, very long time.
What she noticed most were his eyes. They were very dark, as if the pupils had expanded to obliterate the whites of his eyes, giving him a strange, insectlike appearance. When he opened his mouth, he exposed a pair of fangs among broken, yellowed teeth.
She moved to run, and once again her ridiculous shoes slipped out from beneath her, landing her hard on her bottom.
The creature roared expletives, waving his arms and pacing back and forth. But he maintained his distance.
“You whore. Take that fucking thing off,” he shouted. “I’ll rip your head off and drain your blood. I’ll fuck you until you die. Take it off!”
Raven moved back, placing more distance between them as he continued to rant almost incoherently.
He started shrieking Latin profanities, which she barely understood. He described someone, a man, as a pedophile and a deviant. He said she was the deviant’s whore and that he was going to kill her.
But, strangely and inexplicably, he came no closer. He simply paced back and forth, like a lion in a cage, roaring and gnashing his teeth.
Raven righted herself and was prepared to flee into the house, when she heard footsteps. Someone was approaching from the direction of the church, which stood to their right.
“Police!” a man called. “Put your hands on your head.”
Raven saw someone dressed in black run toward them, pointing a gun at the madman. It was dark and still raining, so she couldn’t make out the policeman’s features.
In an instant, the madman leapt, knocking the gun out of the other man’s hand. He pulled the policeman’s head back by his hair, baring his neck, and bent over him.
Raven heard a ripping sound and saw blood spurt.
She looked away in horror as the madman bent his mouth to the wound in the policeman’s neck.
Without a backward glance, she skidded to the door of her building, her hands shaking as she fumbled with her keys. She slammed the door behind her, climbing the stairs as fast as she could.
It was only when she was in her apartment, with the door locked and every light on, that she sank to the floor, clutching the gold she wore around her neck.