A Beast in Venice: (Literary Horror set in Venice) by Michael E. Henderson

face glowing ghostly white. Shelves of ancient leather-bound books lined the walls. “ Buongiorno ,” he said without looking up.
    “ Buongiorno ,” Brigham said. He headed for the section in English. Collections of Shakespeare, a history of Venice, books by John Ruskin, and a few stray works on art.
    He paced around the tiny shop, absorbing the library-like atmosphere and examining a few volumes of etchings lying open on a table, reflecting a beam of late-afternoon sun cutting through the dust-speckled air like a ray of hope.
    Returning to the English section to have one last look, he noticed a thin book with a pale leather cover. Script in faded brown ink along the spine spelled out the title, but he couldn’t read it. He took the book from the shelf. Still unable to make out the faint stylized script, he carefully turned to the title page. Vampires and Witches in Venice . “You’ve got be kidding me,” he said.
    “I beg your pardon?” the owner said.
    “Nothing. Just thinking out loud.”
    The pages of the worn, formerly water-logged, leather-bound book from the eighteenth century crackled as he leafed through it. The paper, though affected by water and age, was still white, having been made from good rag stock, with the type still dark and deeply imprinted on the page. Wonderful drawings illustrated its points. It smelled of history… knowledge… magic. What a coincidence. He had to have it.
    Finding no price on the book, he approached the man at the desk.
    “Excuse me.”
    The man finished typing something, then looked up. “Sì?”
    He showed the man the book. “ Quanto costa ?” 
    The man gestured toward the book. “The price is in the back.”
    “I looked. I didn’t see one.”
    The man snatched the book from Brigham’s hands and opened it to the back page. He grunted, then checked the front pages. No price there either. He set the book down, shuffled through the papers on his desk, and like a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat, retrieved a ledger from the chaos.
    The bell on the door tinkled as another customer came in. The man ignored the new patron and slid his fingers down a column of titles, stopped, then ran his finger across the page to an adjacent column. He punched numbers into a calculator. “ Duecento ,” he said.
    Brigham’s heart skipped a beat. Two hundred for a book. Rose, though a book lover herself, would be… critical… of such a purchase. “ Grazie ,” he said, turning to return the book to the shelf.
    “ Aspetti . Wait. For you, one fifty.”
    Brigham slowly paged through the book.
    The bell on the door tinkled again as the other customer left.
    “I could probably lie my way out of a hundred,” Brigham said, “but my wife would shoot me if she found out I spent a hundred and fifty euros on a book. She doesn’t share our enthusiasm for these things.”
    The man smiled. “You are American. You let your wife tell you what to do.”
    “She doesn’t tell me what to do. She makes strong suggestions and encourages me to do the right thing. Anyway, I’ve seen your women at work. You do the same.”
    The man nodded and made a circular motion with his hand, the meaning of which Brigham could never decipher. “ Va bene. Cento . One hundred. Cash.”
     
     
     
    AT A CAFÉ IN CAMPO SANTA MARGHERITA, Brigham sipped wine and leafed through the book. Why was it in English? Why not Italian or Latin?
    An attractive young woman of perhaps twenty-five walked past him and sat down a couple of tables over. She glanced over at him several times. Her sandy, shoulder-length hair coarsely framed her delicate features. The mass of her more interesting features pressed against the thin material of her long dress. He mustered the will to ignore her and to study the book.
    The woman seemed to be interested in what he was doing. Their eyes met; they each made a faint smile and looked away. After a few moments she approached his table.
    “I see you’re reading a book about vampires