The Chamber of Ten

Deeper inside the building she could see cubicle dividers and desks, but other than the two men in the front she saw only a handful of people. A woman peered at a computer screen, madly typing away at the keyboard, and two men in suits talked quietly in the back, worried expressions on their faces.

“Excuse me,” Geena said in Italian.

The two cops on their phones ignored her, barking in rapid-fire Italian, reporting the location of various officers and detectives and, in some cases, ordering their deployment to other locations.

Geena took a breath and waited patiently. For perhaps the hundredth time since waking on the floor of that abandoned taverna, she took mental stock of her condition. When she had left there she had rushed back to her apartment, taking a water taxi, too impatient to wait for the bus across the canal. In a taxi there was only the driver to see her bloodstained shirt and smell the lingering odor of sickness on her.

She had showered quickly but thoroughly, and afterward she had stared at herself in the mirror over the sink. The slash on her palm had healed, yes, but so had the wound from where Volpe had stabbed her shoulder. It ached in a hollow, distant fashion, the way her left knee sometimes did in the winter, but there was no longer a wound there, nor any mark at all. Even the small scar on her chin—earned at the age of two from a fall on brick steps—had vanished. The magic that Volpe had worked to purge them of the contagion had apparently done much more.

“Excuse me,” Geena said again, her tone sharper.

This time both cops glanced up at her, though more in irritation than assistance. One of them actually turned away from her to continue his conversation. Geena had pulled her hair back into a ponytail and put on a clean white crenellated top and black Capri pants, trying to look presentable, but though she spoke Italian, all they saw when they looked at her was an American. No matter how fluent she might be, they heard it in her voice, saw it in her face.

“I’m not a tourist,” she muttered, almost to herself.

The officer still facing her arched an eyebrow in apparent amusement. He had gray hair and thick, wiry eyebrows and a ruddy face flushed from a lifetime of alcoholic indulgence, but when he hung up the phone and looked at her, he had a certain charm.

“How can I help you, Signorina?”

“I wanted to clear up a misunderstanding,” she said. “A crazy thing happened. One of my colleagues has been accused of assaulting me—well, stabbing me, actually—and I would like to speak with someone about giving a statement.”

The officer’s eyes had widened when she mentioned stabbing, and now he gazed at her dubiously. One of those thick eyebrows arched upward, but the phone rang before he could speak and he held up a finger to indicate she should wait while he answered it.

He gave curt replies to the phone inquiries, something about a press conference in the morning, and when he hung up, the phone rang again almost immediately. This time he ignored it, muttering something to the younger, black-haired officer, whose only reply was an arrogant glance.

“You don’t look like you’ve been stabbed,” said the officer. He stood up to get a better look at her and she could read his name tag: Pendolari.

“That’s what I’m trying to say. I wasn’t.”

“But someone filed a police report saying you were?” Officer Pendolari asked. “Why would anyone do that?”

Geena hoped her sheepish smile was convincing. “My colleague and I are … involved. We had an altercation in front of some co-workers. They’re not very pleased with him and I’m sure they think they are helping me by trying to get him in trouble—”

“They could get in trouble for filing a false police report,” Officer Pendolari said, wiry brows knitting.

“Oh no. I wouldn’t want that. I just … I’d like the whole thing to go away.”

The phone kept ringing. Past the cubicles in back she could see two men in suits, detectives or ranking officers, perhaps, leaning over the woman who had sat back from her computer to show them something. They must have had a lead on a case, for one started shouting orders immediately and the other snatched up the phone from the woman’s desk.

“Listen, what’s your name?”

“Geena Hodge.”

Pendolari spread his arms wide to indicate the nearly empty police station and the hectic pace of the night.

“When I have a chance, Geena, I’ll see what I can find and I’ll make a note that you came in. Someone may want to talk to you, but do not be surprised if you never hear a word about it. You must know that the Mayor’s been murdered—”

“Of course. I’d heard—”

“Between that and the disaster in Dorsoduro, well, you can imagine what it’s like for us right now. If no one is pressing charges against this man, I suspect it will go away, just as you hope.”

The dark-haired officer slammed down his phone at last and picked up the other, his displeasure evident.

Pendolari smiled apologetically. “And now …”

Geena nodded, gesturing toward the phones. “Yes, yes, of course. And thank you.”

She hurried back out into the night, wondering if the Venice police would have bothered to follow up on her stabbing even if she hadn’t just gone in and lied to them. The Mayor’s murder and that building collapse would be getting worldwide media coverage and the higher-ups would be worried about their jobs and the image of the department. If she could persuade Tonio not to press charges against Nico, maybe it really would just go away, and there would be one less thing for them to worry about if they ever got their lives back.

With every police officer in Venice trying to solve the Mayor’s murder, a little bloodletting at the Biblioteca would be the last thing they wanted to focus on, particularly if the supposed victim denied it had ever happened.

You could do almost anything in Venice this week and they’d barely notice, she thought as she crossed back over the crumbling stone bridge. Halfway across, she faltered, glancing back at the police station and wondering just how true that might be, and how much the theory would be tested.

She needed to talk to Tonio and find out what she could about the tomb in Dorsoduro, never mind doing as Nico had asked and making sure they both had a life to return to when this was all over. And maybe whatever she learned about the building collapse would be moot. A part of her—a willingly naive part—hoped that it would all be over by the time she and Nico reconnected, that Volpe would have found the other two Doges and … killed them, don’t hide from it … before they were reunited.

Geena just had to hold her life and their shared world together until then.

Are you sure this is a good idea? Nico thought, peering into his own mind, trying to get a sense of what Volpe had planned. All the old magician had said was that they would be searching for Foscari and Aretino, the other two Doges he had banished from Venice.

There are other ways to search, but it would be foolish not to begin with a more direct approach, Volpe whispered in his mind.

“Direct approach?” Nico asked. “If they’re waiting for me, we might both be killed by your ‘direct approach.’”

Though for the moment he had control over his own body, he could feel Volpe smile inside.

Then you should make at least an attempt at stealth, don’t you think?

They had achieved a kind of fluidity in their sharing of Nico’s body, an intuitive flow of thought and control. Nico gave Volpe the cooperation he desired so that the magician could rest—playing puppeteer with Nico’s body exhausted him—and in return, Volpe would keep him and Geena alive, and leave them be as soon as he had destroyed Aretino and Foscari.

Nico would have expected it to be difficult to cede command of his own flesh to an outside force, but found it simple enough to retreat within himself. It was an almost meditative state. He did not like the intrusion, the constant presence of Volpe there in his mind, observing his thoughts and actions, but he could endure it.

He paused in front of a small restaurant, raised voices coming from within. A cheer rose up and he wondered what had caused it, a rush of loneliness filling him. He and Domenic had often crowded into this bar with dozens of