The Chamber of Ten

architecture. St. Roch taken to Prison was his favorite—an atmospheric piece exuding repression and unfairness.

Almost there, Volpe said, and Nico felt the urge to look down at his feet. The old flagstone floor was worn smooth by centuries of footsteps, and such sights never ceased to fascinate him. He wondered how many people had stepped where he now stood—thousands? millions?—and who they had been, and what their stories were. Places like this had power, and myriad ghosts.

He caught a glimpse of an old priest walking through an arched doorway into the back of the church, perhaps heading for the sacristy. A pair of old women were kneeling in prayer in the front pew, but otherwise the church was quiet and empty as Nico moved around a velvet rope—careful to avoid being seen—and through a side door, closing it behind him. Beyond the door were stairs that he imagined led up to a choir loft, and a tiny chapel area. In centuries past, the Venetian ruling class had once been provided private services here, but now this narrow wing of the church was mostly abandoned. For the moment, he was by himself.

Nico was walked to the dark corner beneath the stairs. He knelt when Volpe urged him to, wondering what he would find in the old bookcase before him. Then Volpe took gentle charge, pulling out a pile of old books and stacking them on the floor in a shower of dust. When there was room he pressed sideways on one of the shelves, exerting pressure until the old wood creaked, then cracked. The shelf upright broke away. Books fell. Nico worried that someone would hear and come to investigate, but then recalled that there were only the two old women in the front of the church, and any sound from this forgotten corner of the building’s history would be muffled, if it was audible to them at all.

Quietly, now, he thought.

And the efforts of his hands did grow more cautious. He felt Volpe eager and frantic in his mind, holding back and yet watching with glee. Soon many of the books were strewn across the floor behind the shelves, and Nico could see the gray stone of the church’s bare walls.

The hole needs to be wider, Volpe commanded, and Nico could only do as he was told. As he prised the shelves away, Volpe was whispering, They can’t have changed this as well. Can’t have. They wouldn’t have been so stupid.

And then Nico saw the first seam in the stonework, filled with crumbling mortar that powdered away at his touch, and Volpe said, I hid it so well.

He dug his fingers into the chalky mortar, quickly loosening one of the stone blocks. When he managed to shove the first block back into darkness—where it landed with a dull thump—Nico caught a whiff of something stale that inspired a rush of strange nostalgia, and he turned his face away trying to find clean air.

Volpe turned his head back and breathed in deeply. “Old air, and the smell of Venice as it should always be,” he said aloud, sighing and breathing in again. Then he pulled back and returned Nico’s body to him, saying, I need to rest, and you need to get inside. I’ll be watching. Light the braziers, but don’t touch anything. This is a special place.

“Special how?” Nico asked.

I told you … the heart of Venice.

Nico glanced over his shoulder at the arched doorway he had come through. The door was closed, but he still worried about being discovered. The priest would not remain in the sacristy all afternoon.

“What if someone comes while I’m in there?” he whispered in the gloom.

He could feel Volpe’s exhaustion and his impatience, but then the old magician surged up inside of him again. Nico felt himself set adrift inside his own body, but he fought to remain aware, to continue to see out of his own eyes, and perhaps because Volpe was tired, he succeeded. His hands came up and clawed at the air, fingers contorted as if he were conducting some cruel symphony. He spit three times onto the dusty flagstones and used the toe of his shoe to scrape odd sigils in the dust.

The air in the room grew dense for a moment, the way it did just before a storm, and in that instant he blinked in surprise. The wall and bookcase looked exactly as it had when he had entered the room, intact and undisturbed. But then he inhaled deeply and the illusion vanished, so that he could see the opening in the wall clearly once again.

What have you done? Nico asked, though he spoke only in his mind.

A simple concealment, Volpe explained. If anyone passes by, perhaps to ascend to the choir loft, they will see nothing out of order.

And now I rest, Volpe added, but his words were only thoughts, as he retreated, fading back into Nico’s mind. Nico could still feel his presence behind his eyes, like a parent overseeing its child’s explorations. He started pushing at the next block.

No one disturbed him in his work, for which Nico was glad. If someone had come, he feared what might have happened. He would black out again for a while, and when he came to his fists would be bruised some more, his clothes more spattered with blood.

At last the hole was large enough to crawl inside. It took a nudge from Volpe to get him going, and he wormed his way through the hole and dropped to the floor. It was scattered with dust and grit and the crumbling remains of rat shit. He pulled the bag behind him, then the memory popped into his head that he’d bought matches the previous night as well as food and water. He had never smoked, but he knew whose idea it had been.

There were four metal braziers scattered around the room, filled with scraps of wood so dry that they ignited at the first touch of a match. Soon the room was illuminated, and Nico took a good look. He stepped back to the hole in the wall and sat on the pile of fallen blocks, enjoying being in control of his own body again—

But am I really in control? He’s only leaving me alone because I’m doing what he wants. If I turned and tried climbing back through the hole with the bag—

You cannot! Volpe screamed in his mind, and Nico winced and clapped his hands over his ears. This is important. This is urgent. Now do as I say, if you value your safety and sanity, and perhaps after that there may be chances to negotiate your freedom.

Nico gasped and stood, swaying slightly as Volpe slipped away once again. When Volpe was to the fore it was like having terrible cramps, his muscles twisted and under the volition of someone else, and when control returned his limbs suffered from tingling pins and needles. Freedom, Nico thought, but he had no way at all of telling how sincere Volpe could be.

The chamber was unremarkable. Square, ten paces wide, the only items it contained were the burning braziers, the only architectural features the slightly vaulted ceiling and the hatchway he had just forced himself through. So what was there not to touch?

“The heart of Venice,” Nico said, hoping for something from the spirit inside. But for now Volpe was silent, and Nico sat and waited for whatever came next.

This is important. This is urgent.

She had heard those words clear as day, drawled in the same not-Nico voice that had told her, Come here, sweetness, just before he’d slashed her shoulder. And whispered into the ear of her mind, they made the Venetian night more threatening, more dangerous, and a place where she knew Nico was once again being driven to do things he did not wish to or could not understand.

She had no idea where Nico was now. She’d left the Palazzo Cavalli soon after realizing she’d missed him, heading across the Grand Canal in the vain hope that she could pick up his trail again. She felt so lost in the city she had quickly grown to love, and several times around midnight she had tapped Domenic’s number into her cell and hovered her finger over the call button. But she had resisted every time. She’d cast herself after Nico now, and this could only end when she found him. After that would come the investigation, the police interviews, Nico’s assessment and possibly prosecution … but that was something to worry about in the future.

So she wandered, waiting for another flash that might tell her where Nico was now. She’d turned her cell off, but every now and then she switched it on again to check whether Nico had, by some miracle, tried to contact her. But the messages were all from Domenic, and the texts were also from him, along with one more from Ramus, and three from Finch. In his third text, Finch asked if she’d like to join him for dinner, and for an appalled moment she thought he was making a move on her. But her tiredness and worry were skewing her perception; it was a business meeting he requested, of course, though one carried out over a friendly dinner. Finch could feign concern for her and her wayward boyfriend—and in truth she thought he really did care, beneath that producer’s veneer and distinctly British bluster—but for him, this visit to Venice was still very much a business concern.