The Chamber of Ten

she meets the sick bastards they sent after her.”

Geena! Nico shouted in Volpe’s mind. For a moment, their thoughts were merged and Volpe caught glimpses of his own past, of spells he had cast and murders he had orchestrated, of women he had loved and arcane objects he had stolen.

Volpe had to tear his thoughts free of Nico’s.

“We’ve got to get to her!” Nico snapped, and only when the words came from his mouth did Volpe realize the young man had resumed control of his body for a moment.

Volpe pushed him back down even as the Slav staggered forward, released from the puppet strings that had held him. A flicker of confusion crossed the killer’s face at his target’s bizarre outburst, but then the Slav grinned.

“Worry about yourself,” he said, lunging with the knife.

Then his wounded leg gave out and he stumbled, crashing into the base of the chair as Volpe twisted up and out of the way, rolling off the armrest. His heart—Nico’s heart—beat wildly at the thought of how close the blade had come, and what Nico had almost cost him.

“Piece of shit,” Volpe snapped, and he thrust both hands out, muttering a spell and gaining control of the killer again.

The Slav lurched up from the floor, dangling from invisible strings. He had dropped the knife but now, at a gesture from Volpe, he knelt and retrieved it from a smear of his own blood, then stood again.

What are you doing? Nico demanded. Didn’t you hear him? They’re going after Geena. Let me out, you fucker. I have to get to her. We have to warn her. Christ, they may already have her.

We don’t need her—

But you need me! Nico raged.

For now, Volpe thought, and raised his eyes to stare at the Slav again.

“You said you were supposed to bring us in,” Volpe said, lip curling in disgust. “In where?”

The Slav hesitated, for this was the moment when he knew he would have to die. Either his target would kill him in this very room, or his employer would do so the moment that his betrayal had been discovered. Volpe saw all of this in his eyes.

“I am a fair man,” Volpe said. “I can see that you perceive no chance of survival, but I can offer you that chance.”

“How?” the Slav growled.

Volpe grinned. “I will have an answer to my final question, even if it means forcing you to carve your flesh into pieces and eat them. I will not allow you to die without giving me my answer. But if you simply tell me, I make you a promise. I will kill the two men who hired you, so that they can never punish you for your weakness.”

The word “weakness” filled the Slav with momentary fury, but then he sagged upon the invisible strings from which he hung. A moment’s thought, and then he nodded.

“The hotel. The Atlantico.”

Slowly, Volpe shook his head. “No.”

The Slav flinched. “I swear. Those were our orders!”

“I don’t doubt it,” Volpe said. “But Foscari and Aretino would never linger long in a hotel. Too many variables.” He thought a moment. “Where is this palazzo in Dorsoduro?”

The answer made Volpe smile.

All right, Nico. Find her, if you like. I’ll leave you to it. But be wary. If they haven’t caught her already, they will be on her soon, and I will not allow myself to be taken by the Doges, no matter what my freedom costs you.

The magician retreated to the back of Nico’s mind, surrendering control of the body. But not before he forced the Slav to stab himself in the heart, and gave Nico a word of advice.

Never give a man a second chance to kill you.

Geena had kept her cell phone silenced the entire time she had been with Nico, but all along she had felt the vibrations as calls and texts had come in. When she left him to go home and clean herself up, she had been too busy unraveling the confused tangle of her thoughts to worry about those messages. On the way to the police station she had finally taken the time to skim through them—texts from Tonio and Domenic and Sabrina. Ramus hadn’t called or texted, but they had never had that kind of relationship.

Now, leaving the police station, she felt a kind of aimlessness that unnerved her. Tomorrow would be another day. She would talk to Tonio, go to the Biblioteca, lay the groundwork for reclaiming her life once Nico had exorcised himself of the spirit of Zanco Volpe.

Just thinking about it made her tremble. The world had seemed so structured and rational to her only days ago. There had been rules.

There are rules, she thought. You just never knew the real ones.

Volpe. Geena just wanted to be rid of him and everything associated with him. If the Doges truly were as evil as he claimed and were conspiring to spread their influence far and wide, then of course they needed to be stopped. But if Volpe was the lesser of two evils, that did not make him some kind of hero. However noble his motives, he was still a ruthless, brutal man, and Geena trusted him not at all. It seemed very clear that she and Nico were nothing more than useful tools as far as Volpe was concerned, and she feared what might happen if he no longer needed them.

She had to find some way to get an advantage over him, to shift the balance of power between them, just in case. It had been in the back of her thoughts all night, and an idea had begun to coalesce, but it would require more contemplation.

Crossing a canal, Geena stopped on the bridge to watch a gondolier ply the filthy water below. A middle-aged couple sat in the prow of the gondola, snuggling close in a romantic haze, oblivious to the dirty water, the rats scuttling along building ledges, and the dark, malignant powers beginning to wage war in the city around them. She envied them for their blissful ignorance, and hated them for it at the same time.

The gondolier poled toward a blind corner ahead and shouted out to any of his brethren who might be approaching from the other angle. A reply echoed off the stone facades of the buildings around them and the gondolier maneuvered his charges to one side, steadying the gondola as another made the corner ahead, a trio of college-aged girls on board.

The gondoliers greeted one another with a cheerful camaraderie, and it hurt Geena’s heart to see their smiles. Suddenly she could not bear to be alone tonight, could not put off the restoration of her life until the sunrise. How could she sleep at all, alone in her apartment, knowing that Nico was out there with that insidious, conniving magician holding the reins on his soul?

Awash in moonlight, ignoring people who passed her on the bridge and the gondolas now retreating in either direction, she pulled out her phone and stood there listening to the thirteen voice messages that her friends had left her. Even Finch had called twice purely out of concern rather than business, despite the fact that they’d only known each other for a few days.

Tonio wanted her in his office first thing in the morning. His tone was difficult to read, but she knew the conversation would be grim. Yet she welcomed it. Her whole life was crumbling around her and she needed to take action to prevent it from falling apart completely. And whatever was going on in the tomb revealed in Dorsoduro, Tonio would surely know all about it.

There were three new messages from Domenic. He and the rest of the team had gone to a small cafe in San Polo called Il Bacio where they sometimes gathered, and he said they were all hoping she would join them if she felt up to it. Geena doubted that they were all that enthusiastic about her company tonight, but she believed Domenic was sincere, and the lure of human companionship was powerful. And perhaps she wouldn’t have to wait until morning to ask about the hidden Foscari tomb.

Gripping the phone in her hand like some kind of talisman—a connection to normalcy—she left the bridge and canal behind and started off through alleys and courtyards. In the years she had spent in Venice, some areas of its complex labyrinth had become very familiar to her and she tried not to stray into sections she did not know well.