The Chamber of Ten

by Christopher Golden; Tim Lebbon

  Geena kissed him softly. “I won’t let that happen.”

  “Good,” Nico said. “But if the other Doges are here, and Caravello found you, they may be able to as well. You have to be very careful. You shouldn’t go back to your apartment.”

  Geena frowned as she considered this, then shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “If Caravello followed me, it was from the Biblioteca. It was the project that brought him there, the shattering of Volpe’s heart and the opening of the Chamber of Ten. We don’t have any reason to think that he knew where I lived. Never mind that this is all happening so quickly. It doesn’t make sense to think Aretino and Foscari would know anything about me, if the other two are even here.”

  Nico did not like it, but he could see she would not be dissuaded.

  “If you see or even sense anyone following you or anything out of place at your apartment, tell Tonio and Domenic and the others the whole story. They might not believe you, but they’ll keep you safe for a time. Long enough to finish this, I hope.”

  “Where will you go?” she asked.

  “I suppose we’ll keep moving,” he said, feeling Volpe waking up further, growing restless inside of him. “Make sure you have your cell phone. Call me if you learn anything, and I’ll do the same. But if, for any reason, we can’t reach each other, we will meet on the north side of Rialto Bridge tomorrow night at eleven.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Meanwhile, be careful.” Nico reached out and cupped her cheek in his hand, then bent to kiss her softly, ignoring the lingering stink of disease on her breath, just as she must be doing in return.

  I wish you could just come with me, Nico thought.

  Geena touched his hand and gently pulled it away. “I can’t. We need to know what’s happening with that tomb. And you’re right. By now Tonio will be furious with me. I need to get myself out of hot water and try to smooth things over for you, too.”

  “Is that even possible? As far as the rest of the team is concerned, I stabbed you.”

  “Let me worry about that,” she said, walking over to a window. “Besides, I’m more concerned about the fact that they reported the attack. If we want to have a future in this city, I’ve got to start with the police.”

  Caravello’s corpse burned like the newspaper Geena’s father had always used to start fires when she was a girl, crumbling up the movie section or the real estate pages and shoving them under the logs before setting them alight. They’d caught quickly, the edges flaring orange and red with rising flames, and then they would ignite with crackling, hungry fire.

  Her heart pounded as she watched the flames burn away the ancient Venetian’s clothing and flesh as if it were nothing more than yellowed papyrus.

  “We’ve got to go,” she said, reaching out to tug on Nico’s wrist. “Someone will see.”

  But in the darkness the fire cast dancing shadows on his face and she could see in that smile and those narrowed, furtive eyes that Nico was absent again, and Volpe had taken over.

  “Cleansing fire,” he whispered.

  She squeezed his wrist. “If we’re caught—”

  Volpe shot her a dark look that reminded her that should they be discovered here, it would not be them who were in danger, but whoever had the misfortune to attempt to interfere.

  “We won’t be caught,” Volpe assured her.

  “If they are already in Venice, Foscari and Aretino will be looking for Caravello by now,” Geena reminded him. “What if they’ve tracked him here? What if they’re out there in the square right now, waiting for us?”

  The old magician turned and glared at her with Nico’s eyes, then looked at the side door through which they had originally entered. With a wave of his hand, not even looking at the corpse, he doused the flames. The fire crackled and popped and burned down to cinders in the space of seconds, and all that remained of Caravello were black ashes.

  “This way,” Volpe said, leading her through the kitchen.

  “Afraid?” Geena asked, both genuinely curious and taunting.

  At the thick metal door at the back of the kitchen, he spun to sneer at her. “Of what would happen to my city if they should catch me unprepared, if they should destroy me? Of course I am.”

  Volpe passed a hand in front of the lock and she heard it click as the deadbolt drew back. The man would never need a key to any door. He glanced out into the narrow space between the taverna and the darkened bookstore next door.

  “And so should you be,” he said, and then he slipped out.

  Geena followed, pulling the door quietly shut behind her. To the right, the canal ran by, but Volpe hurried along the alley to the left, pausing to make sure they weren’t being watched.

  “Why?” she whispered as she caught up to him. “Because you’re the lesser of two evils?”

  “The Doges would control every breath taken by the people of this city. They would corrupt and kill and enslave. There would be a great deal of blood; the Mayor is only the beginning. And while they might do all of this in secrecy, people would still be dead. Those whose hearts continued to beat would live only at the whim of these devils. And they would spread their cruelty and influence across Europe and beyond. Am I the lesser of two evils? I am the Oracle of Venice. The rest is for you to decide. If it helps you to focus, though, consider this: as long as this is my city, you get to live.”

  Volpe stepped out onto the cobblestoned street and walked north, ambling along as if he had not a care in the world. The time had come for them to part ways, but Geena stared after him for several seconds before turning south and heading for home, shuddering as those final words echoed in her mind.

  Geena stood beside a narrow canal and tried to breathe through her mouth to avoid inhaling the stink from the water. All of the smaller waterways in Venice were rank with human waste and gasoline spill-off from the thousands of small boats that plied her canals, but various factors mitigated the smell. The tides swept in twice a day to attempt a cleansing they never quite managed. The breeze and the temperature also played a part, but there were some places in the city that seemed to stink ferociously no matter what the variables.

  From the darkness just beyond the reach of a lamppost, she stared at the grimy, deteriorating façade of one of the city’s police stations. The stink here was especially strong, and the irony attached to that observation did not escape her. The Italian government and all associated authorities were so rife with corruption that people had long ago accepted the fact as immutable. Payoffs to the right officials in sufficient amounts could achieve almost any desired result. And yet in Geena’s experience, day-to-day business in Venice proceeded in the same fashion as that of other cities. The police kept the peace and tried to protect the public to the best of their ability. Of course, it would have been much simpler if the Venice police never did their jobs at all.

  Going in, she thought, unsure if Nico could hear her, or even where he might be now. They had parted ways nearly two hours ago, and she could no longer sense his touch at all. Either he had traveled far from her, or he was purposefully keeping himself hidden. Or Volpe was. It was probably a smart decision, but that did nothing to take the sting out of it.

  She crossed the dingy stone bridge that led to an alley that ran between the police station and a small hotel that seemed to have frozen in time during the 1950s. Small boats moored at the canal door of the police station and, as she passed, two uniformed officers came out onto the landing and dropped down into one of them, grim-faced and tired-looking.

  Geena took a deep breath and went in through the alley door, which for civilians would be the main door, she supposed. The foyer had old benches with cracked leather seats and a thick barrier of glass or plastic—bulletproof, no doubt, and perhaps explosive-resistant as well—separating her from the two officers who sat on the other side, both of them with phones clutched against their ears, snapping off instructions.

  Deeper inside the building she could see cubicle dividers and
desks, but other than the two men in the front she saw only a handful of people. A woman peered at a computer screen, madly typing away at the keyboard, and two men in suits talked quietly in the back, worried expressions on their faces.

  “Excuse me,” Geena said in Italian.

  The two cops on their phones ignored her, barking in rapid-fire Italian, reporting the location of various officers and detectives and, in some cases, ordering their deployment to other locations.

  Geena took a breath and waited patiently. For perhaps the hundredth time since waking on the floor of that abandoned taverna, she took mental stock of her condition. When she had left there she had rushed back to her apartment, taking a water taxi, too impatient to wait for the bus across the canal. In a taxi there was only the driver to see her bloodstained shirt and smell the lingering odor of sickness on her.

  She had showered quickly but thoroughly, and afterward she had stared at herself in the mirror over the sink. The slash on her palm had healed, yes, but so had the wound from where Volpe had stabbed her shoulder. It ached in a hollow, distant fashion, the way her left knee sometimes did in the winter, but there was no longer a wound there, nor any mark at all. Even the small scar on her chin—earned at the age of two from a fall on brick steps—had vanished. The magic that Volpe had worked to purge them of the contagion had apparently done much more.

  “Excuse me,” Geena said again, her tone sharper.

  This time both cops glanced up at her, though more in irritation than assistance. One of them actually turned away from her to continue his conversation. Geena had pulled her hair back into a ponytail and put on a clean white crenellated top and black Capri pants, trying to look presentable, but though she spoke Italian, all they saw when they looked at her was an American. No matter how fluent she might be, they heard it in her voice, saw it in her face.

  “I’m not a tourist,” she muttered, almost to herself.

  The officer still facing her arched an eyebrow in apparent amusement. He had gray hair and thick, wiry eyebrows and a ruddy face flushed from a lifetime of alcoholic indulgence, but when he hung up the phone and looked at her, he had a certain charm.

  “How can I help you, Signorina?”

  “I wanted to clear up a misunderstanding,” she said. “A crazy thing happened. One of my colleagues has been accused of assaulting me—well, stabbing me, actually—and I would like to speak with someone about giving a statement.”

  The officer’s eyes had widened when she mentioned stabbing, and now he gazed at her dubiously. One of those thick eyebrows arched upward, but the phone rang before he could speak and he held up a finger to indicate she should wait while he answered it.

  He gave curt replies to the phone inquiries, something about a press conference in the morning, and when he hung up, the phone rang again almost immediately. This time he ignored it, muttering something to the younger, black-haired officer, whose only reply was an arrogant glance.

  “You don’t look like you’ve been stabbed,” said the officer. He stood up to get a better look at her and she could read his name tag: Pendolari.

  “That’s what I’m trying to say. I wasn’t.”

  “But someone filed a police report saying you were?” Officer Pendolari asked. “Why would anyone do that?”

  Geena hoped her sheepish smile was convincing. “My colleague and I are … involved. We had an altercation in front of some co-workers. They’re not very pleased with him and I’m sure they think they are helping me by trying to get him in trouble—”

  “They could get in trouble for filing a false police report,” Officer Pendolari said, wiry brows knitting.

  “Oh no. I wouldn’t want that. I just … I’d like the whole thing to go away.”

  The phone kept ringing. Past the cubicles in back she could see two men in suits, detectives or ranking officers, perhaps, leaning over the woman who had sat back from her computer to show them something. They must have had a lead on a case, for one started shouting orders immediately and the other snatched up the phone from the woman’s desk.

  “Listen, what’s your name?”

  “Geena Hodge.”

  Pendolari spread his arms wide to indicate the nearly empty police station and the hectic pace of the night.

  “When I have a chance, Geena, I’ll see what I can find and I’ll make a note that you came in. Someone may want to talk to you, but do not be surprised if you never hear a word about it. You must know that the Mayor’s been murdered—”

  “Of course. I’d heard—”

  “Between that and the disaster in Dorsoduro, well, you can imagine what it’s like for us right now. If no one is pressing charges against this man, I suspect it will go away, just as you hope.”

  The dark-haired officer slammed down his phone at last and picked up the other, his displeasure evident.

  Pendolari smiled apologetically. “And now …”

  Geena nodded, gesturing toward the phones. “Yes, yes, of course. And thank you.”

  She hurried back out into the night, wondering if the Venice police would have bothered to follow up on her stabbing even if she hadn’t just gone in and lied to them. The Mayor’s murder and that building collapse would be getting worldwide media coverage and the higher-ups would be worried about their jobs and the image of the department. If she could persuade Tonio not to press charges against Nico, maybe it really would just go away, and there would be one less thing for them to worry about if they ever got their lives back.

  With every police officer in Venice trying to solve the Mayor’s murder, a little bloodletting at the Biblioteca would be the last thing they wanted to focus on, particularly if the supposed victim denied it had ever happened.

  You could do almost anything in Venice this week and they’d barely notice, she thought as she crossed back over the crumbling stone bridge. Halfway across, she faltered, glancing back at the police station and wondering just how true that might be, and how much the theory would be tested.

  She needed to talk to Tonio and find out what she could about the tomb in Dorsoduro, never mind doing as Nico had asked and making sure they both had a life to return to when this was all over. And maybe whatever she learned about the building collapse would be moot. A part of her—a willingly naïve part—hoped that it would all be over by the time she and Nico reconnected, that Volpe would have found the other two Doges and … killed them, don’t hide from it … before they were reunited.

  Geena just had to hold her life and their shared world together until then.

  Are you sure this is a good idea? Nico thought, peering into his own mind, trying to get a sense of what Volpe had planned. All the old magician had said was that they would be searching for Foscari and Aretino, the other two Doges he had banished from Venice.

  There are other ways to search, but it would be foolish not to begin with a more direct approach, Volpe whispered in his mind.

  “Direct approach?” Nico asked. “If they’re waiting for me, we might both be killed by your ‘direct approach.’”

  Though for the moment he had control over his own body, he could feel Volpe smile inside.

  Then you should make at least an attempt at stealth, don’t you think?

  They had achieved a kind of fluidity in their sharing of Nico’s body, an intuitive flow of thought and control. Nico gave Volpe the cooperation he desired so that the magician could rest—playing puppeteer with Nico’s body exhausted him—and in return, Volpe would keep him and Geena alive, and leave them be as soon as he had destroyed Aretino and Foscari.

  Nico would have expected it to be difficult to cede command of his own flesh to an outside force, but found it simple enough to retreat within himself. It was an almost meditative state. He did not like the intrusion, the constant presence of Volpe there in his mind, observing his thoughts and actions, but he could endure it.

  He paused in front of a small restaurant, raised voices coming from within. A cheer rose up and he wondered what had caused it, a
rush of loneliness filling him. He and Domenic had often crowded into this bar with dozens of others to watch soccer games on the television hanging above the bar. Were they cheering a goal in there now, or some feat of alcoholic indulgence? The situation with Volpe and the Doges had to be dealt with, but in some ways he thought Geena’s mission the more vital. Without her, the life he had led before descending into the Chamber of Ten would be forever out of his reach.

  Do not even think about her, Volpe said in his thoughts.

  Nico clenched his fists in anger, but he had no one to hit. The magician was right. They did not know the extent of the Doges’ spellcraft, so for the moment it was better if he did not reach out to Geena with his thoughts. Still, it made him all the lonelier.

  Stealth? he thought.

  It might be wise.

  All right, then.

  Nico hesitated. His apartment was not far from here, two blocks up and through a narrow alley into a hidden garden courtyard that almost made up for the shabbiness of the musty old building. But that would be the approach that anyone else would take, so he backtracked past the restaurant—leaving the noise of the bar behind—and turned onto a street whose broken gutters slanted down just enough to let rainwater and whatever else flooded into them run the three blocks to the lagoon.

  Past a small pharmacy, its green and white light burning though the place was dark, he hugged close to the buildings and watched every doorway and street corner for signs of hidden observers. A small trattoria had been defaced with an obscenity scrawled on the stone wall beside the glass door.

  He darted into a side alley that ran for blocks behind the buildings. The stink of piss and garbage had seeped into the brick and cobblestones. Rats scurried behind a row of dented trash cans. Some damn fool had parked a motorcycle behind the service doors of a small apartment building, heavy chains around the tires and looped to a grate in the street.