The Chamber of Ten

The idiot. What is she doing? Turn around, damn you! Go back up!

“Who? I thought you said they weren’t here yet?”

It’s not the Doges. It’s your damned woman, meddling with dark rites she hasn’t the power to —

“Geena?” Nico called, continuing toward the light at the bottom of the stairs.

Turn around! Volpe shouted in his mind.

Nico felt the magician surging forward within him, taking control of his limbs. His arms were tugged, his body twisted, and the puppeteer inside of him began to turn on the stairs.

No! Nico fought him, thinking only of Geena, trusting her, knowing that whatever she had planned it meant he had to bring Volpe to the Chamber of Ten as she’d asked.

For just a second, he wrested control of his body back. Then Volpe shunted him out again, but now he was off balance. His foot slipped on a step and he fell in a tangle of arms and legs, spilling down the stone stairs and then sprawling through the vacant doorway into the inch or so of water that covered the floor.

He’d struck his head. Disoriented, Volpe tried to get Nico’s body off the ground, drawing his knees up beneath him. The whispers had risen to a determined incantation and Volpe looked over to see Geena kneeling nearby, using a chunk of the broken wall as a table. A lantern stood upon it, illuminating the sigils she had scrawled on the rock, and other things as well. Nico saw them now and understood—the hand of a soldier, the seal of the master of the city, The Book of the Nameless, and a long knife.

Her eyes were wide, her hair wild, beads of sweat on her forehead. She launched herself toward him like a madwoman, the blade glittering in the lantern light. Fear crashed over Nico, but it was not his own.

“No, you stupid bitch, you—”

Geena kicked him onto his side. He tried to raise his hands to defend himself, tried to scramble away, but she was too fast, too savage. The blade hacked into the meat of his forearm, blood spattering the thin layer of water.

Instantly she retreated, racing to the book and lantern and the ritual symbols she had drawn on the broken stone. She looked at the open pages and started in with the incantation again. Nico struggled within Volpe—he had wrested control once and knew he must be able to do it again—but the bastard was too strong.

You fool! Volpe thought. You let her see the entire ritual through your eyes.

You’d never have given me back my body. You’d never have left us alone.

That remains to be seen, Volpe replied.

Trapped within his own body, Nico could not even cry out as Geena used the knife on her own palm. Seconds later she began to flick her wrist, spattering blood off of the knife in a complex pattern around the Chamber. The lantern light flickered.

Volpe began to laugh, rising slowly to his feet.

Geena looked up in panic.

What are you going to do? Nico thought.

Volpe let the pain of the knife wound through and Nico groaned, but the bastard did not give up control of the flesh.

“Dear Geena,” Volpe said. “You’re adorable, really. You had me worried for a moment. I thought you might actually know what you’re doing.”

Geena glared at him, fearless and full of venom. “You think I don’t know what you’re talking about? The Repulsion and Expulsion ritual only works if the banished is already outside the city. You’ve got to be out before I can keep you out. But guess what, Zanco? You are outside the city. Last night, I had my friend Domenic scrape what was left of your black heart—all that’s left of your dead husk—off the floor. He’s removed it from Venice.”

Defiantly she stood and flicked the knife three times more, thrice repeating the last words of the incantation.

Volpe let his shoulders slump, let his eyelids flutter.

“Nico?” Geena asked, and the hope in her voice broke his heart. She dropped the knife and rushed toward him.

No. No, stop! Nico shouted. He raged against Volpe, clawed at the magician’s very soul, forced himself upward, and took control just long enough to work his own lips, his own tongue.

“… didn’t … work … still here …” he slurred.

Geena staggered to a halt, confusion in her eyes. Volpe dropped the act and reached out to grab her by the throat. He slapped her hard enough that the sound echoed off the walls of the Chamber of Ten, off the three stone columns in the center of the room, off those ten obelisks that housed the remains of the men who had been loyal to Volpe and who had murdered him at his own behest.

“My heart may no longer be in Venice, but I am still here,” Volpe snarled. “I’m right here in front of you. If you understood the first thing about spellcraft, you might have managed to bind my soul to my heart and then your foolish gambit would have worked. Why the Spirit of Venezia chose the two of you to be its next Oracles is baffling to me.”

Oracles. The two of us?

Geena tried to speak, tried to claw at the fingers cutting off her air, but she couldn’t get the words out.

Nico was the one who answered: Volpe thinks the city has chosen us both, that we’re both Oracles.

You will be one day, but only if you live, Volpe replied. Now listen to me, young fools. You were never in any danger from me. He shoved Geena away and she splashed to the floor, gasping.

“I hope you have a better plan for dealing with Foscari and Aretino, Dr. Hodge, because they’re nearly here.”

A soft, chuffing laughter filled the Chamber and the lantern light flickered in time with it. Volpe and Geena both spun around and Nico saw the Doges and their hired killers stepping into the Chamber.

“‘Nearly’?” Aretino asked. “You’re slipping, Volpe.”

Foscari licked his lips, glancing from Geena to Nico and back. “A lovers’ quarrel. And we’re just in time. Please don’t let us interrupt. We’ll happily watch you murder each other.”

Wearing Nico’s body, Volpe glanced at Geena. Something passed between them— among them, all three.

Geena smiled. “It can wait until the two of you are as dead as Caravello.”

“You’d betray us?” Foscari asked, feigning insult.

“I kept my part of the bargain,” she said. “I brought you Volpe.”

“Yes, thank you,” Aretino said, nodding to her in gratitude. Then he glanced at his hired killers—the slim man in his gray suit and the blond woman were in front—and gestured at her with a flourish of his hand.

“My friends, if you’d be so kind. Kill her.”

XVIII

I HAD TO try, Geena thought.

Nico’s reply did not come in words but in an outpouring of anguished love. As she stared at the two mad Doges and their hired killers, at cold eyes and gun barrels, she knew that she was about to die. Aretino and the depraved Foscari had not waited for dawn. Her only regret was that Nico would die with her, and that he would die with Volpe still inside of him. She’d tried to drive the magician out, thinking it was her only chance to free the man she loved, the only opportunity to prevent Volpe from claiming his body forever.

The Doges had to be stopped, but she’d told herself that she and Nico could do it. They’d already killed one of the ancient lunatics. It could be done. She’d been taking huge risks, flying by the seat of her pants, relying on hope and the way fate seemed to have been running her way … as if the city itself was on their side. And if Volpe was right, and she and Nico were meant to become the new Oracles of Venice, maybe it had been. But now her luck had run out.