Where are you going? Volpe wondered.
Nico ignored him. Why the stealth? he asked instead. Isn’t there a spell you can use to find them? If they can sense you—
Were I still alive I could have found them by touching the ground or a stone in any wall and thinking about them. But my bond with the city is frayed. For the moment, at least.
Are you sure they’re not just hiding, somehow? Nico asked. You’ve been dead for centuries while they’ve been out there together, learning more magic. They managed to pool the power they leached from Akylis enough to keep themselves alive this long. Is it really impossible they’ve found a way to make themselves invisible to you?
A ripple of unease went through Volpe. The old magician did not like the question.
I do not know the extent of their magic, Volpe replied. But that is why we have come here. They would have investigated the Chamber of Ten to discover what happened to disrupt the spell of Exclusion, to see if anything remained of me there. Caravello, or one of his lackeys, focused on Geena. Perhaps they sensed her connection to you, and thus to me. If they have traced my essence from the Chamber, they may have followed it here, or located you because of your work at the Biblioteca. They will want to make certain I am out of their way forever. And if they have a way to sense the location of the next Oracle, that might bring them here as well.
All right. I’m convinced it’s worth a shot, Nico thought. But do you really think I’m the next Oracle?
I don’t think it was only your mind-touch that led you to me. And with a magician as powerful as Caravello—imbued with the evil of Akylis … the blood of the Oracle is one of the only things that could have killed him.
How do you know that?
Nico felt Volpe hesitate a moment before forging on.
Do you think that I never felt the dark power lingering down in the well of Akylis? When I first sensed it down there beneath the city, I tapped into that magic.
What?
It did not corrupt me, but it would have if I had been anyone else. That’s why I could not allow other magicians to remain in Venice. The soul of the city is in me, Nico. You must understand that, especially if you are to be the Oracle yourself. And Venice is more powerful than Akylis. The soul of the city resists Akylis’ evil influence.
Nico frowned. So the blood of the Oracle does what? Disrupts the magic keeping them alive?
Precisely. The soul of the city is bonded to mine, and apparently to yours as well.
Geena’s blood was on the knife, too.
For long seconds, Volpe’s voice was silent inside Nico’s mind. He could feel the magician there, and knew Volpe was troubled, but not the source of that unease.
I’ve thought about that, he said at last. But there is another possibility. On rare occasions, a city might choose twins or lovers to share the weight of its secrets and its history.
Wait, you mean Geena and I might both have been chosen?
I sensed something in both of you the moment you entered the Chamber of Ten, Volpe admitted. Your mind-touch, that gift, makes you more sensitive to ethereal powers, but the bond of love between you and Geena … there is precedent.
This isn’t just a guess, is it? Nico thought. I can feel it in your mind. You believe we’ve both been chosen.
I do.
I hope you’re wrong. I don’t want this.
The city chooses the Oracle, not the other way around.
The words weighing on him, Nico reached a wider part of the alley, where moonlight splashed in between the tops of buildings. He hewed close to the rear of a stone structure that had once been a school but was now being gutted and transformed into apartments. The demolition phase had ended but new construction had yet to begin, so the place looked as if a bomb had exploded inside, crumbling the walls and blowing out doors and windows.
A crane sat silent and dark behind the shell of the old school and Nico slipped into its shadow, glanced around to be sure he had gone unobserved, then darted through the arched entry, rubble shifting underfoot.
So this direct approach you’re talking about, Nico thought, you just want to let them find us? If you don’t know the extent of their magic, you cannot be certain you can overcome them.
No, I cannot, Volpe agreed. Which is the reason for our stealth.
Nico continued onward, moving quickly and quietly through the skeletal building to the staircase. He took the steps two at a time, ascending to the third floor, then he crossed the empty space to what had once been a window.
Beyond the gaping hole where the window had been was a stone balcony, and beyond the balcony a tower of metal scaffolding the workers had erected weeks ago. Crouched low, he crossed the balcony and climbed over onto a wooden platform on the scaffolding, and from there he could see across a narrow gap—only five or six feet—into the tall French doors of his own balcony.
Hidden from the moonlight by the upper levels of the scaffolding, he knelt and studied every available glimpse into his apartment. Only shadows lurked within. His home seemed a gray limbo of a place, silently awaiting his return. After five minutes on the scaffolding, he opened his mouth to say as much to Volpe, but before he could get the words out, he saw a shape separate itself from the darker shadows within and move across his apartment before settling again into a corner of the living room that would be out of sight of anyone who might foolishly come through the door.
“Jesus,” Nico whispered.
Hush, Volpe thought, coming forward to seize control again. A passenger in his own mind, Nico could read Volpe’s thoughts for the moment at least. The magician could see better in the dark, and a look at those windows from Volpe’s perspective showed Nico there were two men inside. Reaching out with his mind, he could feel them—
No! Volpe cried in his thoughts.
What? Nico demanded, feeling the magician’s panic.
Volpe shook his head. Never mind. Whoever those men are—lackeys and cutthroats, I would imagine—the Doges are not with them.
So what do we do? Nico asked.
Volpe grinned darkly and shuffled back to the edge of the balcony. He rose to his feet, ran to the edge of the scaffolding, and hurled himself through the night, twenty-five feet above the stinking alley below.
In his mind, Nico screamed.
XIV
VOLPE SAILED across the gap between buildings. At the last moment, he feared he would not clear the top of Nico’s balcony and began to thrash in the air, lifting his feet. He made it by an inch. His feet touched the balcony but momentum hurtled him forward and he brought his arms up to shield his face—Nico’s face—as he crashed through the French doors.
Wood splintered, glass shattered, and Volpe heard Nico screaming inside of him. Glass shards sliced his shoulders and arms and stabbed his thighs as he stumbled forward, but he managed to keep his footing.
There were two men inside the apartment, one in the kitchen and one sitting on the edge of the sofa. Murderous thugs but not seasoned killers; he could see that instantly, and it confirmed a suspicion—the Doges had not had time to enlist more competent help.
The pale man on the sofa stood, but Volpe had rested well and the fool might as well have been moving in slow motion. The one in the kitchen swore in some Slavic tongue as he slid a knife from a hidden sheath, even as the other fumbled behind his back, reaching under his jacket for a weapon.
Gun! Nico cried in Volpe’s thoughts, and instantly the magician saw in Nico’s mind what such a weapon could do.
Volpe dropped, snatched up a long sliver of broken glass, and darted at the pale man. Even as the gun came up, he swung the glass dagger and slashed open the gunman’s throat. Blood sprayed in an arc, splashing Volpe’s face, and the dying man pulled the trigger twice. The weapon had been silenced, the shots making only a muffled pop. One bullet went wide but the other punched through his shoulder, spinning him around in a spatter of crimson.
Volpe continued the spin, shot his hand out, and pulled the gun from the pal
e man even as he collapsed to the floor. He tore the weapon free, feeling in Nico’s thoughts for how it was to be held, and then he pointed it at the Slavic killer even as the man rushed him with a long, wickedly gleaming blade.
The Slav faltered, arrogance and bloodlust battling logic in his brain.
What are you doing? Nico shouted in Volpe’s head.
What must be done! Now be silent.
Volpe faced the Slav covered in blood, only some of it his own. The bullet hole seared his flesh with pain, but already it was diminishing, closing. Nico knew he had not suffered from earlier wounds as much as he would have because of the magic coursing through Volpe’s spirit, and the magician’s connection to the soul of the city. But it had taken powerful ritual magic to purge his and Geena’s bodies of the plague, and heal all their other injuries. He wondered why it had become so simple and immediate now … but even as he wondered, he found the answer in the touch of Volpe’s mind, could see the truth. The bond they were sharing—two spirits in one body, like the bond that Volpe shared with the city—had strengthened. The old magician’s power was building back to its true strength.
“Listen carefully,” Volpe told the Slav. “You still live because I needed one of you alive and your companion posed a more immediate threat. There are things I wish to know. Things that you will tell me.”
The Slav scowled and spat on the floor between them.
Volpe inhaled sharply. “You are very stupid.”
He thrust out his free hand and twisted his fingers in the air as though gripping the reins of a horse. To Volpe, the Slav seemed no less an animal, a beast to be controlled.
The thug straightened abruptly, arms flailing. Awareness lit up his eyes with panic as he recognized that he no longer controlled his own body, and he tried to fight. Eyes narrowed, snarling with the effort, he brought his knife around in front of him and took two staggering steps forward, murder in his eyes.
Nico whispered in Volpe’s mind. Is this magic?
What do you think? Volpe thought.
But how is it done?
Volpe scowled. He had no time to explain himself to Nico. The young archaeologist had left his mind open to exploration several times and Volpe had learned a great deal about the modern world from him, among other things. But in order to fulfill his own plans, he needed Nico’s cooperation, which included silence when necessary. And so he reached out to Nico in his mind, let barriers fall that he had erected in ages past. Nico—and through him, Geena—had glimpsed many of Volpe’s memories already, but now he let Nico into the landscape of his mind and gave him free rein to explore … almost everywhere.
Nico is a boy, perhaps twelve years of age, on the night he waits in the corridor outside of the maid’s chamber in his father’s house. The woman speaks Italian perfectly but there is the hint of Arabia in her voice, and her almond eyes and coffee skin suggest such lineage. Her lips are full and sensuous, her body ripe beneath her draped clothing, and she has been the object of the boy’s desire since the first stirring of his cock.
Tonight she cries out in a throaty rasp, hoarse with lust, and he has come to spy upon her. But as he peers through the keyhole, watching her serviced by an Athenian sailor whose thickly muscled body is slicked with sweat, his own maddening lust turns to fear and shock. The sailor hurts her, strikes her, begins to choke her, and she slashes his face with her fingernails, fighting against him.
The sailor bleeds and laughs and begins to pummel her face with every thrust.
After the fifth blow, somehow she seems to transcend the pain. Through the keyhole, Nico can see her eyes glittering with hatred in the candlelight, her teeth bared. He sees her arms drop back as though in surrender, but she is not surrendering. She twists her fingers until her hands appear to be huge spiders weaving their webs, and she rasps words in some guttural Arabic tongue.
The sailor lifts off of her as though the hand of God has snatched him from the bed. He flails, dangling above her, cursing her as a witch in his native tongue. Her chanting continues and the Athenian begins to twitch, batting at his glistening skin in fear, slapping as though killing insects. Nico has not mastered much of the Greek language, but he understands enough to know the sailor sees spiders on his flesh, digging holes, laying eggs. The man slaps and claws at his face, digging deep furrows in his cheeks, then he plunges fingers into his eye sockets and rips both eyes out, screaming that the spiders are still digging.
The nude woman, body still flushed with arousal, crawls from the bed, corded muscles standing out in her neck as though she herself is holding the sailor off the ground. Then, with a gesture, she lets him fall and he collapses to the bed, turning as though to search for her with those empty, gore-rimmed eye sockets.
Nico never sees where she finds the knife, but it is there. She reaches out and grips the sailor’s sex in one hand, then brings the blade down swiftly. While he is screaming, she cuts his throat.
Nico cannot breathe. He cannot identify what he feels at the sight of this horror—the heart-stopping magnificence of the maid’s nakedness, the violence, the blood. But he understands that the Athenian thought her vulnerable, thought himself her better, and that the maid has proven that an error.
She holds her hands out, palms turned downward above the dying man, and chants briefly. Fire leaps from the corpse and the floor and the bed, rages brightly for several seconds and sends a wave of heat blasting through the keyhole. Then, as abruptly as it began, the fire is gone and only charred ash remains. The maid picks up the bedclothes and shakes them out, and he sees that they are not burned at all.
The maid has only to sweep away the ash and the only sign of the Athenian ever being there will be the unfulfilled dampness of her sex and the marks of his hands upon her throat, and both will fade.
He should go, sneak back to his room and pretend that he has seen nothing. He could, and she would never know. But he cannot.
As if his actions are no longer his own, he rises, lifts a hand, and raps on the door. The house is empty other than the two of them. No one else has heard the screams. No one else is coming. And she will know that it can only be him at the door. Still, long seconds pass.
When the door creaks open she is clad in a thin robe and she studies him with a ravenous curiosity as he enters the room. And then she smiles.
“Zanco, what did you see?” she asks.
“Nothing,” Nico lies.
By her bedside is a small silver mirror. She picks it up and holds it so that he can see his reflection. The skin around his right eye is burned a bright red in the shape of a keyhole.
She smiles.
Nico feels his heart thundering in his chest and wonders if she can hear it. His prick is rampant, straining against his clothing. His lower lip quivers and he cannot meet her gaze, but then he forces his fear away and lifts his eyes.
“Teach me,” he says, and he does not stammer.
He is asking so many things with those two words, and she seems to understand them all. She releases the catch on her robe and it glides down her copper skin to pool at her feet.
And the magic, and the power, begin.
But he is not Nico. He is Zanco Volpe. And Nico knows he will learn his lessons well.
Tremors shook the Slav’s body. The knife in his right hand shook most of all. Volpe turned his back on the man, walked to Nico’s coffee table, and set down the dead thug’s gun. The bullet wound in his shoulder had healed almost completely, but it gave an unpleasant tug as he reached down to turn a chair toward the Slav and sat in it, the blood on his clothes and hands soaking into the fabric.
“Now,” Volpe said, “I have questions. You will provide answers.”
The Slav’s upper lip quivered as though he wanted to muster up another gob of phlegm to show his disdain for this suggestion, but he could not manage even that. Volpe had him.
How old are you? Nico asked, inside his head.
Quiet, Volpe said. Sit and learn. I have opened the doors of my mind to you
. If we must share this body—
My body!
—then I will be a gracious host. You wish to understand spellcraft and ritual, but you must educate yourself. I have business to attend to. All of Venice is in peril.
Volpe could feel the doubt in Nico’s thoughts.
Your control of the city is in peril, not the city itself, Nico thought.
Volpe ground his teeth in irritation. Nico’s presence within this flesh had to be tolerated for now, but it had begun to wear on him.
We shall see. Now be silent.
“Basssstaarrrrrd …” the Slav managed to slur.
“Ah, you want to talk now?” Volpe said, leaning forward in the chair. “Excellent. I’ll give you the freedom to speak. Take a look at your friend there on the floor.”
He gestured at the corpse—at the pouting gash in the pale man’s throat and the way the dead eyes gazed lifelessly at the ceiling.
“Now, then,” Volpe continued, “who sent you here and what were your instructions?”
“Go fuck yourself,” the Slav growled.
Volpe sighed in unfeigned impatience, then clenched his right hand into a fist and raised it up. The Slav lifted his long, wicked-edged blade. He stared at it, Volpe all but forgotten.
“No. No, no,” the Slav said, face contorting as he struggled to regain control.
At a gesture from Volpe, he drove the knife down into his thigh. He opened his mouth to scream, but Volpe gave a twist of his left hand, like the turn of a lock, and stole his voice. Blood sluiced from the wound. Tears sprang to the Slav’s eyes and beads of sweat formed on his forehead.
This is wrong, Nico protested in his mind. It’s torture.
Volpe had felt him examining old memories, turning them over like the pages in some grimoire. But now the events unfolding in his living room had gotten Nico’s attention.
Yes, it’s torture. But he has chosen it. Now, hush.
“No screaming,” Volpe cautioned. He unlocked the Slav’s voice and gave a nod. “Answer the question.”
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