The Chamber of Ten

Foscari’s words, however, they paused. The fear Geena glimpsed on their faces was real. She wondered what they had seen done to those who chose not to obey the Doges.

The tall knifeman stalked in toward Nico.

Aretino pulled Geena backward across the cobbles, her feet scrabbling for purchase to prevent herself from being dragged purely by the hair. She knew that shouting and screaming at the old bastard would be useless, but she did so, anyway. She was leaving her friends behind, with Ramus perhaps dead or mortally wounded and the man she loved with a bullet in his chest.

The knifeman drew his arm back close to Nico … and the first flame sputtered to life in his hair. He batted at his head, looking around, knife hand still raised, and several more flames sprung up along his left arm. He dropped the knife to slap at them and the fires spread. First to his hands, then across his chest and stomach as he wiped them there, napalm-sticky. The man shouted. Others around him drew back as the look on his face went from confused to terrified, and as he opened his mouth to scream, Geena saw flames licking across his teeth. Silhouetted against his blazing clothes and hair she spied Nico’s hands clawing at the air, drawing unknown shapes, and she knew that Volpe was saving them both. But as she watched he fell back again, hands resting, and the chaotic storm erupted around the burning man.

Foscari drew close and she caught the shared look between the Doges—confusion, and maybe even fear. Then Foscari grabbed her feet and lifted, and together the two Doges carried her away from the square and into darkness, leaving their hired thugs behind. The glow and screams of the burning man faded away, and Geena closed her eyes and tried to sense Nico.

He was silent. But for now she held on to the sight of him moving on the ground, and Volpe casting spells, and perhaps that would give her strength to survive whatever was to come.

* * *

He knew that Geena had gone, but he could not give chase. Commanding his body to rise, Nico found that he could not move. He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was Volpe remaining in control, but that usual sense of being wielded like a marionette was absent, and he could not sense or hear Volpe’s voice or thoughts. He could turn his head and watch the chaos around the square, and when the burning man fell at last and continued to spit and sizzle, Nico could feel the flames’ heat all down his left side. Maybe that meant he wasn’t paralyzed after all … but he had no idea how these things worked.

He shot me in the chest!

He could not move far enough to see the wound, so he tried lifting his hand to examine what damage had been done. Neither arm obeyed the command. He rolled his head sideways and looked at the cafe and the riot of people there, and one of them was Domenic. He stood staring at Nico, blood on his face and spattered across his white silk shirt. Always so smart, Domenic. Never a ladies’ man, though he could have been, and Nico had always sensed the soft spot he had for Geena. He’d never said anything, of course, because friendship was worth more than that. Now the silver-haired man stared across a calming scene at his wounded friend, and when the shouting inside the cafe became louder he turned and pushed through the broken doorway.

Domenic, Nico tried to say, but he did not have the strength. And then he heard someone shouting Ramus’ name over and over again, and he feared what had happened. He’d seen death today, but only of people he did not know. And other than his terror for Geena, he’d barely considered the nightmare of this coming home to roost.

Sit up! Volpe’s voice commanded, and Nico felt himself sitting. He sighed and groaned, feeling blood running across his chest and stomach.

“Heal it,” Nico said, and his voice had changed. Weaker than before, and there was a wet sighing effect behind it as well.

The shoulder was easy, Volpe said. The heart is more delicate.

Shot in the heart?

Close enough. Now listen to me, Nico. We’ve helped each other a lot today, and—

“You’ve used me,” Nico rasped. “You haven’t helped me.”

I allowed you to come and save your girlfriend.

“Only because you knew they would be here.”

Stop your sniveling! You’re dying, and unless you do exactly what I say, you’ll likely be dead before they torture her to death. Aretino always favored younger boys, but Foscari was a ladies’ man, and he preferred it when they didn’t welcome his advances. You hear me, boy?

Nico groaned and closed his eyes. Dizziness threatened, and for an instant the pain in his chest grew huge and mind-numbing, snapping his eyes open with shock. He caught his breath to scream, but Volpe sighed it out again.

“I can shield you from the worst of it,” he croaked, “but you have to leave here now. There are people dead, and you’ve been shot. We can’t afford the time it would take to deal with the police.”

Nico glanced sidelong at the burning man. The Doges’ other thugs had fled, doubtless already wondering what madness they had become involved in.

“Ramus.” Nico stood, wincing against the expected pain but feeling only a distant numbness. He heard Volpe’s voice, but the old ghost seemed to be mumbling words Nico could not quite make out. He’s just doing his magic, he thought, but it did not feel like that at all. Though shielded from the pain of a terrible wound, control was his once again.

“Which way?” Nico asked. And in that one question he realized his dependence on this thing in his body.

North.

Nico had seen the Doges taking Geena west. That way called him but, even though Volpe had drawn back again, mumbling, fuming, he knew that he had to follow the magician’s lead. So north he went, leaving the square by a small rose-encrusted archway that led to a short alley, emerging onto a narrow jetty. Several boats were tied there, and Nico chose one, starting the motor and steering away from the chaos behind him. He could smell the stench of burning meat on his clothes, see Foscari aiming the handgun at his chest and pulling the trigger, feel the heavy blankness at the heart of him where Volpe was struggling to keep the agony at bay. Is that why his mumblings seem so mad? he wondered. Because he’s taking on all that pain himself?

There was no answer from Volpe, and no sign that he had heard. So Nico guided the dinghy north along the old city canals, passing across the Grand Canal and then entering the shadows once again. He thought of Ramus, certain that his friend was dead. He thought of Domenic staring at him writhing on the ground, then choosing to reenter the cafe to help his other friends. And he thought of Geena.

Soon, Volpe whispered in his mind. And Nico knew that old ghost was still there.

* * *

San Michele, Volpe said when Nico left the lights of Venice behind. The waters of the lagoon were calm, and for that he was glad. There were few lights on the cemetery island.

“What’s in San Michele?” he asked. He’d been there only recently, retrieving the soldier’s hand for the ritual that had been so wasteful. He only hoped that Volpe was not wasting time again now.

Just go, Volpe said. He sounded weak and distracted. Nico had examined the bullet wound in his chest once, and he had no wish to look again. The exit wound on his back must be even worse. But even in that brief glance he’d seen signs that the healing was commencing: drying blood, smoothed skin around the ragged wound, and a puffiness to the flesh that had more to do with fresh growth than bruising. Inside, he knew, the damage must be immense. The heart is more delicate, Volpe had said, and Nico had a flash of something that might have been memory: holding the slick remnants from that smashed urn in his hands as water surged around his feet.

He blinked and changed course slightly.

As larger waves began to slap against the boat’s hull, Nico was shocked by a series of images that flashed across his mind, each one accompanied by the fresh impact of a wave:

A circle of men, each of them grim-faced as if attending a wake, each of them holding a small, curved knife in one hand and in the other—