The Chamber of Ten

Geena hurried quickly away, losing herself amidst the people bustling this way and that. The Mayor, dead? Who would have done such a thing? Why? Her mind was running, trying to decide if these were all pieces of a larger puzzle. Murder and disaster had struck Venice in a single day, and she could not help feeling as though chaos was spreading throughout the city. She looked at the faces of the people she passed and they all seemed troubled to her. Uneasy, as though they sensed dark forces working against them, just out of sight.

Or maybe you’re just projecting, Geena thought, and managed a small smile. But what if she wasn’t merely being self-indulgent? Could all of these things really be unrelated? Memories of the flashbacks she’d been following mixed and merged. Whatever Zanco Volpe had been—magician, murderer, manipulator—he had been first and foremost a politician, dedicated to the city he both loved and secretly controlled.

Stabbed to death, the man had said.

Though she fought against it, and ghastly though the idea was, she had little trouble imagining the knife in the hand of the man she loved; the hand now controlled by Zanco Volpe.

Volpe gave him back his nerves, but kept muscle and bone. He let him feel the pain that damage to his flesh caused, but retained mobility and impetus, exerting a terrible control that left Nico helpless in his agonies. It was a terrible, vengeful torture, and all the while Volpe kept shouting out the reason:

“You … slowed … me … down!”

He ran across the chamber again and struck another stone wall. The impact stole his vision, and he staggered back and fell.

“No!” Volpe said, hauling Nico to his feet again, wiping blood from his eyes so that he could launch himself at one of the flaming braziers. He tripped and went sprawling, pain biting in everywhere. Nico so wanted to scream, but Volpe had his mouth, using it to rant and rage.

“You made me late, you slowed me down, you let them get in!”

I let no one in, Nico thought, but he knew that was not quite true. He’d let Volpe in, and now the consequences of that mistake were mounting. The Book of the Nameless lay torn beneath him, the seal rolled across the floor, and close to his right hand lay the knife.

Volpe picked it up, and Nico screamed.

The scream was real. Volpe paused, holding the knife with its tip pointing toward Nico’s right eye, inches away and invisible in the poor light. Volpe moved it closer, and Nico could sense it there, the cool sharp metal that was now smeared with a mixture of his and Geena’s blood.

I’ve done nothing to you, he thought. You’ve done it all to me. But he tried to draw back, and thought as secretly as he could, I love you, Geena, and I’m sorry, but the monster is going to kill me.

Volpe stood, groaning as he took some of the pain he had bestowed. Nico felt a sense of wonder in the spirit, because he had not felt such pain for so long. It was almost liberating. His heart thudded, blood flowed, and as Volpe moved toward the small entrance hole into the chamber, Nico quietly assessed his injuries.

“I’m no monster,” Volpe said, his tone betraying a sense of hurt.

Then give me back my life.

“I cannot. Not yet. Things have gone … wrong. There’s danger to Venice. Its people and the city itself are in peril, and what I’ve been holding back for centuries might now—”

Might what? Nico thought. How are you any different from them? They dabbled in dark magic? They were power-hungry bastards? So what? That describes you just as well. They’re just like you!

“No,” Volpe said, “they’re not.”

What makes them so different?

He could feel Volpe’s anger subsiding into grim determination.

“Listen well, Nicolo, and I will tell you.”

For long minutes, the old magician whispered to him. Nico listened, first incredulous, then amazed, and finally terrified.

“I need rest,” Volpe said, when he was through. “You need to find somewhere quiet, somewhere private, and rest yourself. I have injured you, and for that you have my apologies. But I can heal you. The longer we are joined together, the stronger the bond between us, and the greater control I have over my magic. While we both rest, your injuries will fade and your vigor will be restored, just as mine will be. I despise the thought of losing even a moment, but we must be at our best. We have a fight ahead of us.”

“We?” Nico said, surprised at the sound of his voice. Volpe was already sinking down, and the pains across his body roared in like a fire bursting alight. Nico groaned and spit blood from mashed lips, and he hoped Volpe really could heal him.

You’ve no choice, Nico, from somewhere deep inside. Venice needs you now, as much as it ever needed me. Now rest … and later, we will scheme.

XI

STANDING BEFORE Chiesa di San Rocco, Geena was unsure exactly what had brought her here. Since hearing about the Mayor’s murder she had walked in a haze, the world around her seeming less real than the scenarios that came to life in her imagination. There were no more hints of something following her, but with her attention switched inward she probably wouldn’t have noticed, anyway.

The church looked empty, and yet … there was something about it. An air of potential, or the sense that something momentous had just happened. Perhaps it was the silence that hung around the place, as if the walls themselves were shocked dumb.

“Nico?” she called. There was no trace of his presence, no inkling of the touch that had been fading in and out like a badly tuned radio. Her voice echoed only briefly then faded again to silence. She could hear sounds elsewhere in the city—the ever-present buzz of boat engines, wooden shutters clapping shut, and from somewhere distant the incongruous sounds of a party—but they only emphasized the silence. I shouldn’t even be here, she thought, and then the church doorway opened.

She wanted to hide, but there was nothing close enough to hide behind.

When he emerged into the slanted sunlight on the top step, she heard something behind her, as though the night itself had gasped in disbelief. But she could focus only on Nico. She ran to him, mindless of the knife in his hand, forgetting everything that had happened save for losing him, and when he looked up he smiled with bloodied eyes.

“Nico!” She tried to yell but it came out as a whisper as she ran up the five steps. On the top step she paused, the sight of him stifling her joy. He looked terrible—face smeared with blood, lips gashed, one eye swollen shut, and he held his left side as if he’d cracked ribs. But in his good eye she saw only Nico—no one and nothing else.

“Sweet Geena,” he said, and it was Nico’s voice. She stepped to him and opened her arms, not even glancing at the knife he held in his outstretched right hand. But just as she moved in close, ready to rest her head against his shoulder and feel his heat, she saw his eyes open wide with shock and sensed something coming at her from behind.

She turned, her hand pressed against the small of his back. He moved in front of her and raised the knife. A figure streaked across the paved area in front of the church, a confusion of billowing darkness, and its footsteps had a peculiar pattern—slap, thunk, slap, thunk.

The man came to a halt before the steps, his sudden stillness more striking than the startling movement. He was dressed in a black cloak and hood, and as he raised his face, Geena felt terror clasping talons into her flesh. He’ll have no face, he’ll be nobody …

But it was only a man, his hair long and completely gray, his hands thin and fingers spindly. And when she saw his face—

I’ve seen this man before!