The Chamber of Ten

He let her in and closed the door behind her, sliding the deadbolt. A small statue of the Virgin Mary stood upon a pedestal against the wall opposite the door, but otherwise the entryway was as utilitarian as the exterior of the building. In the dim gray light, which filtered down to them from a room farther along the hall, she studied the face of the priest as he turned to her. His eyes were alight with interest instead of anger now, and he seemed years younger than he had when he’d first opened the door.

“Come along,” he said, and led her toward a door she realized must lead from the rectory into the church.

Geena followed him through the door into a back room of the church, which was lined with wooden cabinets. A big desk sat in one corner, and she was surprised by the clutter—microphone and music stands, two chairs in need of repair, stacks of old missals, the priest’s vestments hanging in an open closet. This disarray humanized him, and that troubled her. She wanted faith and strength, and a certain mysticism.

He gestured to a chair, as if they had all the time in the world. Geena glanced at a clock on the wall—1:17 a.m.

“Go on,” the priest said. “Tell me your story. Dawn is a long way off yet.”

Geena shook her head. “I’m sorry, Father—”

“Father Alberto.”

“I can’t afford for you to simply humor me.” She glanced around the room. “If you let me show you where the vandalism took place, you’ll see soon enough that there are powers at work here you’ve yet to consider.”

The old priest hesitated, and then sighed.

“Lead the way.”

“Wait,” she said. “Do you have a lantern or a candle or something?”

He gave her an odd look, then walked over to open one of the cabinets. Reaching in, he produced a heavy- duty flashlight.

“I know you must spend a lot of time living in the past, Dr. Hodge, but it’s the 21st century.”

“So it is,” Geena said sheepishly as he handed it to her. “I’ve been losing track lately.”

Father Alberto led her out into the vast hall of the church and past the altar. From there, Geena saw the door to the small royal chapel, and she started toward it. The priest turned on a single light switch, a few bulbs providing only wan illumination in the vastness of the church. Her own footfalls seemed too loud on the flagstones as they passed the Tintoretto paintings for which the church’s nave was famous, and then she led him through the door into the royal chapel.

Although she knew the damage had been done, it still took her a few seconds of concentration, staring at the bookshelf under the stairs, before she could see through the spell of concealment that Volpe had cast. The spell could not withstand the scrutiny of someone who expected something other than the illusion. Books had been stacked and scattered on the floor near the wreckage of what had once been an ornate bookshelf. Broken boards leaned against the stone wall.

“How did I not see this before?” the priest asked.

Geena turned and looked at him in surprise. “You can see it now?”

“What do you mean? Of course I can see it.”

Now that she had drawn his attention to it, the spell of concealment could not hide the vandalism from the priest. She narrowed her eyes, stepping right up to the ruined bookshelf.

“Is there a hole in the wall back there?” Father Alberto asked. “It’s too dark for me to make out, but … there is, isn’t there?”

“There is,” she agreed, reaching out to touch the rough, broken edge of the stones that had been pulled out of the wall.

Inside of that opening, a small door hung partially open, and she pushed it inward.

“I’ll be damned,” the old priest muttered.

Geena could not help smiling at him. “I certainly hope not, Father,” she said, and then she clambered through the opening. “Now I think it’s your turn to follow me.”

She clicked on the flashlight and they descended together into a small square chamber Geena had seen before only through the dreamlike lens provided by Nico’s touch. The braziers in the corners were dark and cold and the room’s shadows seemed to resist being dispelled by the flashlight’s wide beam, but soon enough she located bloody sigils inscribed upon the flagstone floor and a cloth bag that she recognized as belonging to Nico.

Father Alberto could not tear his gaze from the markings on the floor, even when she set the flashlight down and knelt to open the bag.

“The Devil’s work,” he said.

“Not the Devil, but a devil, most certainly.”

Geena shone the light into the bag. She thought about how much to reveal to the priest, but she knew that if she wanted his help she would need to shock him. So she took out the ivory seal once used on the city’s official documents and set it on the floor. Then she withdrew the dry and dessicated hand of a dead man and set that down as well.

Father Alberto whispered a blessing as he crossed himself.

“Explain this to me, Dr. Hodge. What it means and how you knew it was here.”

“It will have to be quick, Father.”

“All the better,” he said.

She sat back on the flagstones, the flashlight in her hands, and the tale spilled from her like a ghost story told late at night at summer camp. The flashlight must have contributed to that impression for her, but there was more to it than that. Those stories always felt to her both real and unreal at the same time, and so did the turns her life had taken these past days.

When she had finished, she did not wait for him to reply, afraid that in spite of the evidence she had just shown him and his belief in powers beyond the understanding of humanity, he would think that she had somehow staged it all. Before he could say a word, she reached into the bag again and withdrew the grimoire that Volpe had so coveted. He had left it here for safekeeping, hidden behind a glamour until he could retrieve it, but he had not counted on her having seen it all.

Seen the book. Seen the ritual.

The cover felt unnaturally warm and damp under her touch and the book weighed more than it seemed it should.

“This is Le Livre de l’Inconnu—The Book of the Nameless—and though its name is French, I’ve seen for myself that the incantations and other writings inside are not in that language, or at least not all of them are. It contains a great many impossible things that are nevertheless true.”

She held the book in her palm and let it fall open where it would. Geena had seen it with textbooks and cookbooks and even well-read hardcover novels … after a certain amount of use, a book will fall open to its most frequently used pages. But when Le Livre de l’Inconnu spread its pages, she did not recognize the words and symbols there.

Geena closed her eyes. Time was wasting. Fortune had been with her thus far tonight and she had thought her luck would continue. She opened her eyes and began to turn the pages, but nothing looked familiar. How far had he been into the book? She tried to remember and realized that the ritual Volpe had used had been from little more than a third of the way through its thickness. She paged backward in the book, training the flashlight beam on the hideous things uncovered there—images and words she only half understood and did not want fully revealed to her.

Father Alberto had come around behind her now, reading over her shoulder, and several times she heard him mutter in revulsion or horror.

“This is real?” he whispered at one point. “You’re certain?”

“Are you asking about the authenticity of the book or the magic in it?”

“Both, I suppose.”

Geena glanced over her shoulder at him. “I’m sorry, Father. But both are very real.”

He reached into his pants pocket and withdrew a rosary, which he wrapped around his fingers and then brought up to his lips, kissing the beads once before clutching them against his chest.

And then she found the pages.

“Here,” she said, pointing. “Most of this looks like an antiquated Latin to me—”