“They buried him there, and in time Venice rose above him. Akylis is dead. There is no awareness remaining in him. But his evil survives beneath the city, captured like the rancid gases inside a bloated, decaying corpse. Over the ages, many of those who have dabbled in magic in this city have touched this evil and been tainted by it, and throughout all of those many centuries it has been the duty of the Oracle to protect the city from those dark magicians. Only the Oracle can brush up against the evil trapped in the Well of Akylis without being tainted.”
Geena sipped at her coffee, but did not take her eyes off Volpe. As he spoke, his voice almost mesmerizing, she had begun to really see him in that face, though the features were Nico’s.
“That’s what happened to the Doges,” she said. “They delved into magic—”
“Their hearts were already dark with greed,” Volpe said. “But, yes, they were tainted. It began with Caravello. Even before he became Doge he had already set his schemes in motion, sending cousins and uncles out of Venice, to the other great cities of the Mediterranean, with instructions to wheedle themselves into positions of influence. The family did the same, of course, in Venice. There were murders and blood sacrifices. But I heard every whisper of their conspiracy. Caravello wanted more than to be Doge of Venice. He wanted his family to take all of Europe, and perhaps beyond, one enchantment, one ritual, one murder at a time. And if that kind of black magic took the blood sacrifice of every man, woman, and child in Venice, he minded not at all, so long as his family continued its reign.”
“Fuck’s sake, why didn’t you just kill him?” Geena asked, then blinked in surprise at the savagery of the sentiment.
“We fought a war of influence,” Volpe said. “I did have some members of the family quietly arrested and secretly executed. But I couldn’t kill the Doge without losing control of Venice. I needed to be in the position to protect the city, because even after I arranged to have the Council ban Caravello, I knew that the family would not surrender entirely. The war continued. I managed to keep them out of power for nearly two decades before Aretino became Doge. Even then I watched carefully, uncertain how far he would take it. But he followed the plan that Caravello had set in motion, becoming a minor magician himself, tapping into the evil power of Akylis, and I had to arrange for him to be driven from the city as well.
“Foscari was the last. Over the years after his banishment, I arranged for nearly every relative I could find to be killed. By then I had taken complete control of the Council of Ten and arranged to have them build an enormous crypt beneath a new school being erected in Dorsoduro. My influence did not reach beyond Venice, so there was nothing I could do about those outside the city. But I protected my—”
Geena held up a hand. “Wait. Stop.”
Shaken from the reverie of memory, Volpe narrowed his eyes further. “What is it?”
Mind reeling, Geena took a breath to clear her head, trying to remember exactly what the waitress had told her at the pizzeria earlier in the day.
“A building collapsed today in Dorsoduro. A bunch of people were killed. Supposedly they found a massive tomb hidden beneath it.”
Volpe stared at her, then turned away with a snarl of disgust. “I should have known.”
“What?”
“I should have felt it,” Volpe said. He looked out the window at the fading daylight. “I am less than alive, but more than dead. Not a ghost, but not a man. When you told me the Mayor had been murdered, it upset me that I had not already felt it. I am the Oracle of Venice. The soul of the city is bonded to my own. But since my awakening, now that I am also bonded to Nico, my connection to the city is muffled and unfocused. I should be able to feel them.”
“Because you’re the Oracle,” Geena said, and it wasn’t a question.
Volpe nodded thoughtfully. “They knew enough magic even when I banished them to hide their precise locations from me, but not their presence in the city. Perhaps now that Nico and I have begun to … accommodate each other, my rapport with the city will grow clearer.
“I never imagined that they had leached enough of the magic from Akylis’ essence to keep themselves alive for this long, but perhaps the three of them worked together to reinforce what they had absorbed and what they had learned of magic. But now that they are back in Venice, they are already tapping into that evil repository beneath the city. They will sap all of the magic from it that they can. By killing Caravello though, we have bought ourselves some time.”
Geena leaned back in her chair. “Time to do what? I mean, what is it that they’re planning?”
“They will throw the city government into disarray, try to reclaim their old family properties—those still standing—and set old schemes in motion. The murder of the Mayor is a part of that, making the city council argue amongst themselves over who is really in charge of Venice. The destruction of that building in Dorsoduro incites chaos, draws the eyes of the city’s authorities away from whatever else they might be doing in the shadows. There will be other assassinations. Already they will be moving lackeys and pawns into positions of influence.”
“But what about the tombs of their relatives? Why would they expose the resting places of so many members of their family?” Geena asked.
“Perhaps simply to give the city something else to focus on, another distraction. Perhaps because they don’t want their dead to be forgotten.”
Something didn’t sound right to Geena. “So they’re just starting from scratch?” she said. “If what they wanted was to spread their influence across the Mediterranean, how will they accomplish that when all of their relatives have been dead for centuries?”
Volpe frowned, obviously troubled. “I don’t know. But I am quite sure that we’ll have the answer soon enough.”
As she spoke, she scratched at the back of her hand again, and this time she winced and looked down to see a purplish-red sore.
What the hell? she thought. And then fear rippled through her and she looked up, thinking that somehow Volpe had done this to her, infected her with something. But when she saw the look in his eyes as he stared at the discolored, swollen blotch on her hand, she knew she was wrong. He knew what it was, but he hadn’t done it.
“What?” she asked, her voice a rasp. “What is it?”
Her throat had been dry and a bit raw, but now as she swallowed, it actually hurt. She coughed softly into her fist.
Volpe looked down at his forearm. Where he’d been idly scratching, there were several of those sores.
“Bastard,” Volpe sneered, but in his eyes—Nico’s eyes—she saw fear.
“Tell me!” she snapped, too loud, drawing the attention of the other people in the little café. Twin girls eating lemon granita looked up at her. The barista fixing iced cappuccinos behind the counter gave an eye-roll and a shake of her head that showed her feelings about Americans.
Geena took in the entire scene in a single moment. But then Volpe was standing, his chair sliding back. He put his spoon into his coffee cup and followed it with Geena’s, then stuffed both of their napkins into his pocket and shot her a hard look.
“Take your cup,” he said, fury making his voice shake.
She wanted to ask why, but her imagination had already begun to supply answers that made her want to collapse into a fetal ball or scream or run or all of those things. In her entire life, she did not think she had ever stolen anything, but as Volpe swept past her she lifted her cup from the table and followed him out.
“Signora!” the barista yelled.
Geena heard a ruckus behind her, realized it must be the barista or a waitress coming after them, and ran through the open café door. With Volpe beside her, she fled along the alley and onto a stone bridge spanning a narrow canal. A shout came from behind, but they ran on.
Volpe coughed and she glanced at him to find that he had pulled Nico’s shirt up to cover his mouth and nose. Her chest burned with the effort of running—exertion that should not have troubled her at all—and she
felt her own cough building. She cleared her throat.
“Cover your mouth!” Volpe barked.
Breathless, shivering, they darted down an alley on the right, then took the first jog to the left and ducked into a doorway. For a long minute they only stood there, still covering their mouths, but soon it became clear that the barista had abandoned the pursuit.
Volpe stepped away from the recessed doorway. “Come.”
“Where are we going?”
“Back to Caravello’s corpse.”
“But what if the police—”
“We’ve got to reach it before they do. Before anyone else is exposed.”
Icy dread filled her. “Exposed to what?”
Nico’s eyes narrowed, but then his expression softened and she saw that Volpe had retreated deeper into his mind, letting Nico come to the fore again. He faltered a moment, turning to stare at her, then glancing at the cup and spoons in his hand. He squeezed his eyes shut and then nodded decisively.
“Nico?” she said.
“Hurry, Geena. He can still save us.”
“From what?”
Nico’s face went slack, his gaze numb as he reached up to scratch his arm and then dropped his hand, picking up his pace.
“Contagion. Plague. Call it what you like. We’ve been infected, and we’ve got the plague, and we’ve got to stop it before it spreads.”
They stood on the opposite side of the courtyard from Chiesa di San Rocco, watching warily for some sign that the murder of Giardino Caravello had been discovered. In the fading light of day, she could make out the blood that stained the cobblestones near the stairs. A spattered, broken trail led through the alley beside the church and up to the side door of the small taverna whose owner had abandoned it after the last flood.
“No police yet,” Geena said quietly.
“So no one saw us,” Nico replied, and coughed softly into his shirt.
The little church square was still quiet. One old woman swept the steps of a small ladies’ clothing shop. They waited until she had gone back inside before starting across the courtyard.
“I just had the ugliest thought,” Geena said. “What if a cat licked it? Or … or rats? That’s how it all starts, right?”
“Whatever this contagion might be, it’s not going to follow any rules,” Nico replied. “Volpe has retreated now. It exhausts him, taking control.” He coughed, a wet rattle in his throat. “But I gleaned enough from him to know that this isn’t any ordinary sickness. It’s some kind of dark magic, some kind of booby trap or fail-safe that Caravello had running through his veins.”
“But it’s been barely an hour,” Geena said. “Not even plague kills that fast.”
Nico glanced anxiously at her. “We just have to pray. Otherwise …”
He let that hang in the air between them. Neither of them wanted to think about “otherwise.” They hurried over the cobblestones, Geena feeling a prickling on the back of her neck that might have been a result of her rising fever but felt like the eyes of hidden observers. She shook it off as paranoia. The feeling had none of the skin-crawling urgency and certainty that she had felt when Caravello had been stalking her. But how strange she thought the two of them must look, covering their faces and carrying coffee cups in their hands …
“What now?” she muttered as they approached the bloodstains …
… and felt Nico touch her mind. His fear blazed brightly, along with a fierce love for her. He was more frightened of losing her than he was of dying himself, and the raw intensity of that love nearly brought her to tears. God, why had this happened to them? They had been so happy.
And will be again, Nico thought, sending the words to her.
Lowering the shirt from over her mouth, Geena glanced around the church square. You believe that?
I have to.
She nodded, turning to him. “We need Volpe.”
The old Venetian, the magician—whatever he was—had retreated into Nico’s mind. The question of what exactly he was lingered in Geena’s thoughts and she had seen it in Nico’s as well. If there were such things as ghosts, that was one thing, but Volpe was obviously something else. To possess the body of a man five hundred years after your own death … Volpe had power. But exerting it exhausted him, and he had been silent in Nico’s mind since they had fled the café. Geena had no sense of him in there. He had left Nico with a firm impression of what must be done, but they needed Volpe now.
Nico nodded. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Whatever Nico did to attempt to summon Volpe, Geena heard nothing in her own mind. But then Nico gave a sharp intake of breath that became a hacking cough and he brought a hand to his mouth to cover it. And when he lowered his hand, his expression had changed again. She knew she was looking at Zanco Volpe, hiding behind Nico’s face. And Volpe looked tired.
“Are we being watched?” Volpe asked wearily.
Geena shook her head. “I don’t think so. What can you do? We can’t just leave the blood out here if it’s infected.”
“No,” Volpe agreed. “We can’t.”
He began to turn, but then shifted his gaze back to her. Geena did not have to ask what he was looking at. New sores had appeared on her arms and legs and one on her left cheek. More had erupted on Nico’s flesh as well.
“It’s moving so quickly,” Volpe said.
“Too quickly for us to … to have a chance?” Geena asked. She had been about to say “survive,” but couldn’t bring herself to use the word.
“This is insidious magic,” Volpe said. “Caravello’s blood exposed us to this infection. I could almost admire it—the assured destruction of whoever might be responsible for your own murder—but this won’t only kill us. This is a hex-plague. Thousands could die, and all out of spite.”
For the first time, Geena understood the loyalty Volpe had to his city. The old magician could be cruel and brutal in his efforts to preserve and protect Venice, and his arrogance was monumental. But she no longer doubted that the Doges were the enemy here. They were putrid creatures. Only a truly evil man could conceive of such an abhorrent act as Caravello’s fail-safe contagion.
Volpe handed her his coffee cup and their two spoons but otherwise ignored her. He glanced around once, then thrust his arms downward, palms open and fingers splayed as though he were warming his hands over a fire. His fingers contorted, sketching odd symbols in the air, and he whispered something she could not hear.
The bloodstained cobblestones burst into flame. Geena gasped and stepped back as fire raced along the spilled blood and flashed up from each of the splotches they had left behind when moving the Doge’s corpse to the abandoned taverna. It lasted only an instant, not much longer than the fire from the hand of some stage magician—a parlor trick.
But what Volpe had done was no parlor trick. The cobblestones were not scorched at all, but they were clean—cleaner, perhaps, than they had been in generations—and no trace remained of the blood of Giardino Caravello and the sickness it carried.
Nico staggered coming through the side door of the taverna. “So fast,” he muttered.
Geena followed him in. He watched her close the door and said a silent prayer that no one had seen them. But his prayers weren’t only for their benefit. If the police came and caught them before the work they needed to do here had been completed, all of Venice might be in danger. All of Venice, and far beyond.
She winced in pain as she coughed, and Nico felt her pain as his own. He tried to soothe her with his mind, but it was of no use. He could let her feel the depth of his love for her, the fullness of his heart, but he could not hide his own fear.
Geena’s thoughts were clear. We just need to focus. Please. If there’s any chance to save ourselves, we have to hurry.
Nico nodded. Together they slid a table against the door to prevent anyone else from coming in. The broken lock would be easily discovered, but at least this would gain them seconds in which to attempt escape, or finish the task at hand.
&
nbsp; With Geena so close, he could not avoid looking at the purplish-red swelling under her neck and the wet, leaking sores on her face. He bit his lip and forced himself to focus.
Caravello’s body lay behind the bar, just as they had left it. The bloody trail on the floor had vanished, cleansed by the fire Volpe had summoned, but the corpse remained. Now, though, the flesh was pustulent and raw, and the dead Doge’s throat had swollen massively and turned black. They set the coffee cups and spoons and napkins on the floor beside the body.
“I don’t understand,” Geena said. “If the Doges want Venice, why would Caravello do this, knowing it might kill everyone in the city?”
“I don’t know,” Nico said. “Maybe it’s a side effect of accessing Akylis’ power? His evil? They’re contaminated.”
“Maybe,” Geena said. “Or maybe he didn’t even trust his cousins. Maybe the fail-safe was so the other Doges couldn’t betray him. We don’t even know if the others are also carrying it.”
Nico started to reply, but choked on a cough, which turned into a hoarse, seal-like bark that bent him double. When at last he caught his breath, he spat blood onto the floor.
Geena stared at him. “Nico, your eyes.”
The Chamber of Ten Page 19