The Chamber of Ten

Domenic nodded. “I do. I promise. If you promise to tell me why whenever this—whatever this is—is over.”

She kissed his cheek and whispered a thank you, then started moving toward the door. On cue, the icy blond and her goateed lover stood and, without looking at her, started on a path to intercept. The black man near the door closed his book without marking the page, and then she knew it was all true, that they were really there for her.

She ran, rushing through the crowd, bumping chairs and spilling drinks, nearly plowing into a waiter. The door was in sight. If Nico had been close, he might be here any minute. She could elude them long enough for Volpe to help.

The door loomed ahead. The black man reached for her arm but she shook him off as she grabbed the door and yanked it open.

A man filled the doorway, blocking her path to the street. His white beard had been knotted beneath his chin and his startling green eyes froze her where she stood.

She knew him at a glance. Pietro Aretino.

“Good evening, Dr. Hodge,” he said. “We need to talk.”

Then he grabbed her by the hair and dragged her out into the moonlight.

XV

NICO’S BREATH was harsh, muscles weak, limbs shaking as he ran as fast and hard as he could toward his true love. He tried to send her reassuring sensations, but it seemed that he could only concentrate on one thing at a time. I’m coming, Geena, he thought, and he barreled into a couple emerging from a restaurant, stumbling and tripping over the man’s feet. He grunted as he fell, rose again, and ran on without looking back, the woman’s shouts pursuing him as echoes and threats.

He concentrated purely on running, because getting there in time was more important than telling Geena he was on his way. He’d folded his cell and slipped it into his pocket and he dreaded hearing it ring again. That would mean they had her.

But as he turned the corner into the small square where Il Bacio sat, the noises he heard told him that he’d been a fool to hope for anything else.

Help me, he thought to Volpe, and without waiting for an answer he ran at the struggling shapes.

At first he could not see Geena. There was a knot of figures at the cafe’s main door, and behind them in the square stood several more men and women, armed, tensed, squatting slightly as they watched the commotion. More hired thugs, Nico thought, and two of them turned at the sound of his approach. He was waiting for Volpe to rise up, waiting to feel his hands claw at the air as they scratched out arcane sigils to shove the thugs aside, flip them on their heads, or send them crashing backward through windows. But though he felt Volpe close behind him now—pressing against his eyes and senses like a child eager to see outside—the magician’s attention was focused elsewhere.

The man was tall and thin, and something long glinted in his hand. The woman was shorter, with a terrible burn marring the left side of her face. Her hands were full with something Nico could not make out, and he hit her first.

Surprise was on his side. They’d been watching the struggle in front of and inside the cafe, not expecting an attack from behind, and he felt a grim satisfaction when the woman opened her eyes wide, his shoulder striking her chin and shoving her backward across a slew of tables and chairs. Bottles smashed, and the woman cried out as she skidded across a carpet of broken glass.

Nico was already ducking. He’d never been a fighter, but perhaps Volpe was steering him subtly now, for he heard the swish of something passing just above his head. When he looked up, the tall man was already swinging the knife back, repeating its arc, except lower this time, its vicious blade held flat, ready to slash across Nico’s eyes.

Nico lashed out with his right hand and closed it around the man’s unprotected genitals. As he twisted and pulled, he had a flash memory of a sweat-sheened naked woman slicing through a man’s erection somewhere so long ago, and inside he felt Volpe laugh.

The man screamed and dropped the knife. Nico rose quickly and brought an elbow up beneath his chin, then pushed him aside and went for the doorway.

Volpe quickly came to the fore and stilled him, and for a second Nico railed against this intrusion. His blood was up, his rage burning bright, as he saw Geena thrashing and struggling in the grip of an old, old man. He wanted to go to her, help those others who were already trying to help, but then he realized why Volpe had stopped him in his tracks. The old man was Pietro Aretino, one of the three Doges, and on his face was the calm certainty of success.

Time seemed to slow. Aretino turned to look at Nico, grinning a grotesque smile as he twisted Geena’s hair harder in his clenched fist. All around them, the struggling continued at full speed, but these two men simply stared at each other. Nico was aware of Domenic standing in the open doorway, trying to reach past Geena toward Aretino, while a black man bashed at the side of Domenic’s head with a closed fist. Behind Domenic, in the chaos of the cafe, Nico thought he saw Ramus fighting with a blond woman, fists flailing, sharper things whispering at the heavy air.

“Volpe,” the old man said in a heavy, guttural voice, and then Nico was flung back into the flow of things. He darted toward Aretino, his eyes on Geena. His arm, he thought. I’ll go for his arm. It looks old enough to snap at the first breath of wind and—

Something struck him across the stomach. He bent forward and exhaled, pivoting over the extended leg even as it bent back and kicked in again. He was ready the second time—Volpe was there, quickening his reactions with a touch of something that felt sickeningly unnatural—and he caught his attacker’s foot and twisted.

The man had a neat goatee and slicked-back hair, and resembled a lawyer more than a killer. He might have come from any one of a hundred countries. But his skills were refined, his eyes cold and calm, and as Nico twisted, the man jumped and span with the twist. As he spun, his other leg caught Nico across the back of the head, and he went sprawling.

“Volpe, for fuck’s sake,” Nico whispered, rolling just as a foot skimmed across the cobbles toward his face. It struck his shoulder instead and he turned away and became entangled in other legs, feeling bodies falling around and onto him and searching all the time for Geena, hearing her strangled gasps as that old bastard twisted her hair even more. He was about to call out to her when he felt his body starting to burn.

Nico was on his feet instantly, and Volpe raised his hands. He muttered a few words, clawed his right hand in the air a couple of feet in front of the bearded man’s face, then clenched his fist.

The man grabbed the sides of his head and screeched as he went to his knees.

Domenic and the black man were fighting in the doorway, but both seemed to have paused at the sound of goatee-man’s screams. Domenic was wide-eyed and disbelieving, the man he was fighting bleeding from a gash above his right eye. Never thought Dom had it in him. But when Domenic looked at him there was no trace of goodwill in his glance, and he looked quickly away to where the old man had started dragging Geena away.

Through the shattered door Nico caught sight of the confusion in the cafe: chairs and tables overturned, patrons backing away, waiters and waitresses retreating behind the small bar, one of them talking frantically on the phone. And Ramus on his knees before the blond woman, hands raised to ward off the blows raining down on him.

Then Nico’s attention was torn away as Volpe went after Geena.

“Leave her, old man,” Volpe said, and if there was a hex in his words they did not affect Aretino at all. The white-haired man only laughed as he pulled Geena harder. He was walking backward, dragging her by her hair. She’d raised both hands to clasp at his wrists, lessening the strain, but still it must have been agony. She saw Nico at last, but in her eyes he saw the reflection of Volpe.

“I won’t be as easy as Caravello,” Aretino said. “He always was a dandy, too concerned with his appearance to—”