Fanatics by William Bell Read Free Book Online Page B

walls.
    The pulley began to creak again.
    I WOKE UP PANTING , breathing raggedly, my heart knocking at my ribs, my eyes frantically probing the gloom for faceless men in hooded robes. There was barely enough pre-dawn light in the bedroom to show the outline of thebedposts and the dresser. It was a dream, I told myself, lying back to stare at the ceiling. Just a nightmare. I forced myself to breathe evenly, repeating my words until my heart rate slowed almost to normal. I threw back the sheet and stood by the bedside, closing the bathrobe and tying the belt tightly. I looked around the room. The window curtains lifted and fell in a cool breeze. The house was silent.
    I made my way on unsteady legs to the bathroom and gulped down two glasses of water, then splashed more on my face. I held my hand out. It was shaking. Tension knotted my stomach. I hadn’t had a nightmare that bad in a long time. I returned to the bedroom and looked out the window. A gold-red line, with a pastel blue band above it, marked the horizon.
    “A normal day,” I said out loud. “I hope.”
    On the dresser top a spent wick lay in a pool of wax on the candle holder.
    I climbed back into bed. Raphaella had once advised me that you should always confront a nightmare right away. Lie back, tell the dream to yourself, analyze it, ask yourself what the dream is trying to tell you. That way you can put it in perspective. A fear faced is a fear defeated. Show your terror who’s boss, she told me. But I wasn’t ready to face the horrors I had witnessed. I had seen five men calmly torture a sixth, indifferent to his suffering.
    I pushed the images away, reminding myself they were only that—images—and forced myself to concentrate on my plans for the day. I would return home for a change of clothes, call Raphaella, and see if she could come and begin to catalogue the books. I would work on the mantel while she got started in the library.
    Fixing on normal, everyday things brought me back to reality. I rolled over, hoping to catch an hour or so of sleep. I dozed. A black rat scuttled into my mind. A candle flame flickered. Suddenly, the room was flooded with light. I jumped up, jolted with adrenaline, looked frantically around the bedroom.
    “What the—?” I yelped.
    The overhead light had come on, as had the lamp by the bed. The electricity was back. I hadn’t switched the lights off when the power failed in the storm.
    “Stupid fool,” I said into the empty room.

Five
I
    M RS . S TOPPINI HAD BREAKFAST READY when I came downstairs. She had dark circles under her eyes. For my part, I had managed an hour of fitful half-sleep that hadn’t relieved my fatigue one bit. And my head ached.
    “Good morning, Mr. Havelock.”
    “Morning, Mrs. Stoppini.”
    “I would customarily enquire as to how you slept, but I expect no one for miles around managed a restful sleep last night.”
    “You can say that again.”
    The music of robins and starlings trickled in from the yard, and outside the patio door a hummingbird darted and hovered over flowers sagging from the night’s onslaught of wind and rain. Mrs. Stoppini rose from her chair and stepped over to the espresso machine on the counter. She wore the same type of long-sleeved black dress that fell pasther knees—only this one had a velvet collar—and woollen stockings with black lace-up leather shoes.
    “Cappuccino or straight espresso?” she asked. “Or perhaps you’d prefer a caffè macchiato.”
    “Er … a—”
    “Espresso marked with a little milk foam,” she explained. “It was the late professor’s preferred morning drink.”
    “Sounds good.”
    There was a plate of small pastries in the centre of the table alongside a bowl of warm rolls. Mrs. Stoppini placed a small cup of deliciously aromatic coffee in front of me and indicated the food with a turn of her hand. “Please,” she invited.
    As I layered butter on a roll she sat down. “The patio chairs and umbrella seem to have