Venom

by Fiona Paul

  “We’re trying to find a murderer before he finds us.”

  “And that’s it. That’s all?” Cass waited for him to confirm what she was afraid of, that she was his partner in the investigation, but nothing more.

  Falco didn’t answer at first. He steered the boat between the Giudecca and San Giorgio Maggiore. “I’m not sure what you mean, Cass,” he said slowly.

  Cass stared out at the choppy water. It was her turn to go mute. She had thought seeing Falco tonight would fix everything, but she felt more confused than ever.

  They continued toward the Rialto in silence. When they floated past the church of San Giovanni, Falco pointed out the block where the mask maker had his shop. Cass recognized a few of the palazzos across the canal. Most were owned by senators or wealthy merchants. In fact, they weren’t far from Madalena’s house. The streets and canals in the area were dead quiet; everyone was tucked into bed by this late hour. Only the yowl of an occasional cat disturbed the silence.

  Cass didn’t know what she and Falco were looking for, but whatever it was, they weren’t going to find it rowing around wealthy neighborhoods in the dark. “This is pointless,” she said. “The man with the falcon mask could live in any of these palazzos, or none at all. Besides, we don’t even know if he has anything to do with this mess.”

  Falco shook his dark hair back from his face. “I was worried this would be a dead end, but I…” He trailed off.

  “You what?” Cass asked.

  Falco rubbed at the scar under his eye. “I wanted to see you,” he said. “I wanted to spend time with you.”

  Cass looked away from him. Again, she felt like someone was stabbing her between her ribs. “Maybe that’s pointless too,” she said. Their boat floated past a gondola. Two forms were visible in the moonlight. A man and woman lay intertwined on the base of the boat. Bare skin, gentle rocking.

  Falco followed her eyes. “You know that I care about you, Cass.”

  “But it doesn’t mean anything.” Cass tried to keep her voice from trembling. “Because it can’t lead to anything more.”

  Falco set aside the oars and turned her face toward his. “You’re wrong. It means everything. You mean everything.” He held her chin between his thumbs and forefingers. “Why do my feelings have to lead anywhere at all? Why can’t we just be here, now, in this moment?”

  His touch made shivers dance up and down her back. Maybe Falco was right. Why did she care so much about the future? Maybe she should just be thankful that they could be together here, right now.

  “Why can’t you just be who you are?” Falco asked, his lips moving toward hers.

  Because I don’t know who that is anymore. “You’re changing me,” she whispered. “I see everything differently now.”

  Cass didn’t fight it when Falco leaned in and kissed her. She didn’t resist as he tipped her gently backward and laid her down on the wooden bottom of the batèla. Just be who you are. Easy to say, but so difficult to do. Falco unfolded a blanket over her. “So you don’t get cold,” he said.

  “What’s going to keep you warm?” Cass asked softly, reaching up to tousle his hair.

  Falco laughed. “Trust me, I’m plenty warm.”

  “Prove it,” Cass said, pulling him down to her level.

  She pressed her lips to his, surprised at her own bravery, emboldened by the way his body responded to hers. They fell back deeper into the boat, its creaky wooden sides offering privacy in the already-dark night. He kissed her harder, his tongue exploring her lips and mouth in soft circles. The small boat rocked underneath her, swaying with the gentle current of the canal. The weight of his chest pressed down on her rib cage, her hip bones pressed against his, even through the many layers of garments she wore. She felt a rush of warmth, a heat that made her forget everything else that had been bothering her. It was like she had slipped outside of her skin, and that only her soul, her essence, lay in the boat with Falco.

  As Falco traced her hairline with his lips, he reached behind her back and loosened the ties of her bodice. He stroked the bare skin of her upper back. Cass couldn’t believe how warm his hands felt. She let her own hands wander beneath the hem of his shirt. Her fingers traced his muscles—first the stomach and then the chest. His pounding heartbeat accelerated as they kissed. Her own blood raced through her veins, trying to keep up. Again Cass thought of the way the body was a single thing, yet was made up of so many different parts all working together. She could barely believe this was happening. She felt like a stranger, a wild, impulsive stranger.

  “Cassandra,” Falco murmured. He reached up and twisted all her hair into one of his hands, pulling it slightly as he held it behind her head. His lips made their way across her cheek and her jaw and her brow bone. His other hand caressed her left leg through her cotton stocking. His fingers followed the repeating diamond pattern embossed into her leather garter and then stroked the soft skin just above it.

  Cass felt transported by his touch, his soft voice, and the mist rising off the canals. Everything felt otherworldly. It was a dream or a hallucination. Any moment now she’d wake up tucked beneath her covers with Slipper snuggled against her chest.

  Just let go.

  The batèla floated beneath a bridge. A man shrouded in darkness hung over its edge, leering at her. Cass sat up suddenly, wrapping the rough blanket up around her shoulders. She looked back toward the bridge. No one was there.

  “What’s wrong?” Falco asked.

  “I thought I saw someone. Hanging over the bridge. Watching.”

  “Probably just some deviant. Not lucky enough to have the company of a beautiful woman.” Falco moved to kiss Cass again.

  But fear was drumming through her. It sharpened her focus, and made reality come slamming back. Cass put her hand out. “Wait. We have to stop, to slow down.”

  Falco sighed. “You’re right,” he said, running both hands through his hair. “Sometimes I think—well, I fear that you shouldn’t trust me.”

  “Why?” Cass asked. Holding her lantern high in the air, she looked back toward the bridge again, but it was still deserted.

  “Because I don’t trust myself around you.” Falco’s voice turned soft again. He ran the knuckles of his right hand down the side of her face. “Who knows what I might do?”

  Cass blushed. “Who knows what I might let you do?” The words just slipped out, but she didn’t want to take them back. She didn’t want to hide any longer.

  Falco pulled her close to him, positioning her back against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her slender waist and leaned his chin on her left shoulder, his jawbone against her cheek. “Your beauty lights up the darkest night,” he said. “I could paint an entire chapel just for you. Maybe I will someday.”

  Cass imagined herself in the future, standing in a church filled with Falco’s art. She could almost see the nude figures frolicking in meadows and pools of brilliant blue water. The forms might be beautiful or not, but they would be real, so real they would come alive and dance off the walls of the church to sit in the pews and stare at her.

  And then she saw Luca walking down the aisle, in his wedding outfit. She squeezed her eyes shut, as if she might stave off the waves of guilt that threatened to drown her every time she thought of her fiancé.

  “What is it, Cass?” Falco asked. “What just happened?”

  Cass realized she was holding her breath. She exhaled slowly. “There’s something I need to tell you,” she said.

  Falco twisted her around to face him. He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “You can tell me anything, Cassandra.”

  “I’m, I have, when I was young, my parents—” She couldn’t figure out how to tell him the truth: that she was Luca’s, even though she didn’t want to be, that she and Falco could never be together the way they wanted. “I’m engaged,” she finally blurted out, feeling simultaneously terrified and relieved. “My fiancé is away, studying in France.”

  Falco nodded. “Of course you are.
You’re a beautiful woman from a noble family. I’d be shocked to find out that your aunt hadn’t secured your future.” He looked at her expectantly as if he were waiting to hear more.

  “So you aren’t angry with me?” Cass buried her shaking hands in the fold of her skirts. How could he not be furious? She had lied to him. Well, practically. She had let him kiss her, even though she couldn’t be his bride. She had even kissed him back.

  Falco smiled at her through the dark. “Is that what’s been worrying you? No, starling. I’m not angry.” He pulled her body close to his again, burying his face in her hair. “You smell amazing,” he said. “Like roses and butterflies and cool spring mornings.” He held her hand up to his mouth, his fingers untying one of her lacy cuffs.

  Cass’s relief started to fade as Falco’s lips found the bare skin of her wrist. “Wait a minute.” She pulled away. “Why aren’t you angry with me? You and I, we kissed, we might have—” Cass couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence. Exactly how far would she have let things go if she hadn’t been ripped from her moment of fantasy by the stranger on the bridge? When he had loosened her bodice and reached beneath her chemise to stroke the skin of her upper back, all she had wanted was for him to loosen the rest of the laces. She definitely hadn’t been thinking about telling him to stop.

  Falco’s eyes gleamed in the night. “Go on. We might have what?”

  Coldness filled Cass’s whole body. She reached out and pushed Falco away from her. “I think I understand.” She pulled the lace on her cuff tight so that her wrist disappeared beneath the fabric. “All you wanted was a sordid little tryst? You were just going to keep going until I stopped you? That is so—so…” She struggled to find the correct words, but the cold fury that filled her made it difficult to speak.

  “Improper?” Falco said. “Fun?”

  “Fun?” Cass had half a mind to push Falco out of the boat and right into the murky water of the canal. She reached behind her back and made a futile attempt to retighten her bodice. “You’re disgusting,” she spat out.

  “Would you like help with that?” Falco reached toward her.

  “Don’t touch me.” Cass gave up on the bodice. She wrapped herself tightly in the woolen blanket.

  Falco laughed aloud. “You’re the one with the fiancé, and I’m disgusting?” He shook his head. “Women.”

  “You’re disgusting because it doesn’t bother you to have an affair with an almost-married woman.” Cass felt tears pushing at the back of her eyes. That was all he wanted from her: fun. “You could be thrown in prison for that. Executed, even!”

  Falco leaned in toward Cass. She stiffened, but didn’t pull back. “I know you want this as much as I do,” he said. “You aren’t going to report me. And even if you did, I’m inclined to think a night with you might well be worth imprisonment.”

  Cass looked away from him, fighting the urge to soften. He was just trying to flatter her to get what he wanted.

  Falco’s voice turned gentle. “I wish we could have more. I wish I could lie next to you every night. I wish I could parade you around on my arm in the daylight,” he said. “But if we can’t be together like that, then why can’t we be together like this?” He moved to kiss her again.

  A part of her wanted to let him, really wanted to, but she was still offended by his thinking she’d be so willing to have a tryst with him and then marry Luca as if no one would ever be the wiser. “Don’t,” she said, leaning against the side of the boat. She stared into the night, seeing nothing. No movement. No lanterns. It was as if Cass and Falco were the only two people in the world.

  Now it was his turn to look offended. “It can’t be wrong if we both feel the same way.”

  Cass didn’t know how she felt; that was the problem. She could feel Falco’s eyes burning into the back of her neck, and resisted the desire to turn and meet his gaze. She skimmed her fingers over the water. She wondered exactly how she had found herself in this place. They passed a palazzo where yellow fire from a pair of cressets still lingered, long after a party had broken up. Cass saw her reflection ripple across the water. She hardly recognized the girl that looked up at her. Her face was thinner, paler, almost a stranger.

  Then the flames flickered and the reflection shifted slightly. Cass realized she was staring down at a stranger. The girl’s head floated to the surface of the canal, ringlets of dark hair writhing like serpents, vacant eyes staring up at Cass almost accusingly. Cass screamed as the girl’s swollen torso surfaced, her neck encircled with bruises, her chest marred by a bloody X.

  “Leprosy rots the body piecemeal,

  beginning with the nose, ears, and lips,

  endowing the afflicted with the

  appearance of a leering skull.”

  —THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE

  seventeen

  Falco pulled her away from the water. She turned in toward him, hiding her face in his chemise. She was heaving, gasping for breath.

  “It’s okay.” He cradled her with one arm.

  Cass felt the boat come to life and move awkwardly through the water. Falco must be rowing one-handed. She looked up. “What are you doing? Pull over. Here.”

  “What?” Falco released her to man the oars with both hands. The old boat creaked and groaned its way through the canal water, until the grotesque floating body disappeared in its wake.

  “I need to get out.” Cass felt bile rising in her throat. She needed to get off the water immediately. She wanted to hurl herself from the boat, get lost deep within the winding streets of the Rialto, run until the floating body disappeared from her mind.

  Falco rowed to the edge of the canal and moored the boat. Cass clambered over the side without waiting for his help. Grabbing her lantern, she took off down the closest street with Falco right behind her. Cass had no idea where she was going. All she knew was that she had to put as much distance between herself and that floating dead girl as she could.

  She turned into an alley and leaned up against a crumbling brick building, her breath catching in the back of her throat. Falco caught up to her. “Where are you going, Cass?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.” In the distance, she saw the glimmer of armor. Moonlight reflecting off a breastplate. Soldiers. She grabbed Falco’s hand and started pulling him toward the soldiers. “Come on. We can tell them what we found.”

  Falco gripped her arm. “What did I tell you about the soldiers? They’re corrupt. And besides, nothing has changed since the night we found Mariabella.”

  “Are you crazy? Everything has changed.” Cass stared into Falco’s flashing eyes, almost unable to believe he was the man she’d been kissing just moments before. “There’s a deranged killer running loose in Venice. Everyone might be in danger.”

  “Yes, and you’re still out alone at night, with an artist. A peasant. What’s your aunt going to think? How’s that going to look, Cassandra?”

  “I don’t care,” Cass said. Another line from Michel de Montaigne’s writings echoed in her head. A person of honor chooses to lose his honor rather than his conscience. It was true. Cass would not let her crimes with Falco shame her even further. She had done wrong, but she was prepared to accept her punishment. If she got disavowed, or worse, she could handle it. But she could no longer turn her back on a pair of young girls who had been murdered.

  She twisted her arm sharply to break his hold and went running off in the direction of the soldiers. She heard Falco’s boots thudding behind her.

  “Cass, please,” he called.

  Cass ignored him. Maybe he was afraid of the town guard, but she wasn’t. The soldiers had turned a corner and Cass couldn’t see them anymore. She thrust herself deep into the twisted alleys, listening for the sound of their rough voices, their boots tromping in matched cadence against the stone streets. She glanced back over her shoulder. The area behind her was deserted. Either she had lost Falco or he had left her. And the soldiers were nowhere in sight.

  Just as she
was about to give up, she heard gravelly voices coming from a narrow alleyway on her right. Cass plunged into the dark opening and skidded immediately to a stop. Two hunched-over figures were rooting through a pile of trash. Even in the dark, Cass could make out the telltale lesions on their long, spindly arms. Lepers. They weren’t supposed to be out in the streets. The fingers of her left hand reached down toward her rosary, cradling the rosewood crucifix as if it would protect her.

  One of the lepers looked up at her from beneath his hooded robe. Circles of flesh were missing from his left cheek and the bridge of his nose. In the faint light, his eyes looked black as coal, as if he were not just diseased but also possessed. His toothless mouth twisted into a grimace as he reached out to Cass with a hand that had only three fingers.

  “Hungry,” he said, his voice so low and distorted that she almost didn’t understand.

  Digging into her suede pouch, fighting feelings of terror and revulsion, she tossed a couple of coins at the men and watched as the one retrieved the money with his clawlike hand. The second leper didn’t even look up.

  Cass retreated from the alley. Back on the main street, she turned a slow circle, looking, listening for any sign of the soldiers. All she saw were heaps of trash and the shadowy outlines of buildings. A trickle of sweat made its way from her hairline to her right eye. Cass wiped at it with her sleeve. No luck. She peeked down the next alley. It was black as pitch, even with her lantern. Cass glanced down and saw that the beeswax candle had more than half melted away. Soon she would be walking the streets of Venice in complete darkness. Alone.

  How long had the dead girl been in the water? she wondered. Was there a murderer stalking the streets nearby? Cass gave up on finding the soldiers. Someone else would likely report the body at sunrise, if not sooner. It was time for her to find her way back to the Grand Canal so she could get home.

  Squinting between two ramshackle private residences, Cass saw the telltale reflection of moonlight on water. A canal, just a block away. She turned and walked parallel to the canal until it bled into a larger one. She followed the large canal and eventually came upon the Grand Canal once more. She headed back toward the boat, hoping Falco hadn’t deserted her completely. Eventually she saw the blue batèla, bobbing at the edge of the water. It was empty.