She shivered, hoping it would turn out to be something that simple, but certain it would not.
In her pocket, her cell phone vibrated. She frowned, wondering for a moment if it was Tonio calling her back. Then her pulse quickened as she realized it might be Nico. Pulling out her phone, she barely saw Ramus place her glass of red wine on the table before her.
Nico.
“Hello?” she said, cupping a hand over her left ear to block out the café noise.
“Where are you?” he snapped, and she couldn’t be sure if it was Nico or Volpe asking the question.
“Il Bacio. With Domenic and Sabrina and Ramus and a bunch of other people,” she said.
“Good. Stay there with them. Don’t even go to the bathroom. I’m on my way right now. Please don’t go anywhere until I reach you.” He was breathing hard, so she now realized he must be running.
“Why? What’s happened? What’s wrong?” she asked, panic rising, turning to gaze at the people around her. Professor Pustizzi and two of his graduate students were watching her with obvious disdain.
“Is that Nico?” Domenic asked.
He frowned angrily and reached for the phone, but she twisted away from him.
“What’s going on?” she demanded.
“They’ve got people working for them,” Nico said, short of breath. “They’ve been watching us. And not just us—the whole team from the Biblioteca project. If you’re all there, there are probably at least half a dozen inside and outside the café who are there to watch you. And they’ll be after you, Geena. They’ve been watching up until now, but tonight they have orders to capture you. Just stay right where you are until I get there. Volpe can help.”
She clicked the phone shut and looked around. Sick fear twisted in her gut and radiated throughout her body. She wanted to scream but could not. Volpe? He was supposed to help? Volpe had been the start of all of this. He was a cancer inside Nico’s body, and she was supposed to trust him?
Domenic tried to talk to her but she could barely hear his voice. She knew she should try to appear calm but realized she was failing badly. As she picked up her glass of wine, her hand shook so hard that some of it spilled over the rim and down along the stem. She glanced around the café, searching for anyone who might be watching their table, watching her.
The man by the bar stood alone, his back to them, his eyes dark in the reflection of the mirror behind the counter. A thin man with a well-groomed goatee was sitting with a beautiful icy blond woman, neither of them speaking as they sipped coffee. The blond woman glanced at Geena, who averted her eyes, and immediately spotted the African man sitting at a small table near the front door with a book in his hand, though he didn’t have enough light to read.
Were they watching? Were these people killers in service to the Doges? Were there others? A terrible feeling came over her and she glanced around the table, at the pretty girl who reached out to push a lock of Sabrina’s hair aside, smiling at the two people with Professor Pustizzi, whom Geena assumed to be grad students. She had thought she recognized most of these people, but even if they were familiar, some were complete strangers.
Her chair scraped back and then tipped over, clacking to the floor as she stood.
“Dr. Hodge?” Ramus asked, frowning at the wine as though it might somehow be to blame.
“Geena, what is it?” Domenic asked.
“I can’t be responsible,” she said, knowing he wouldn’t understand. How could she explain that she could not live with any of them getting hurt because they were a part of her team, because they were her friends?
Nico had told her to stay put, but she could not bring violence on these people.
“Whatever happens, just do what I asked,” she said, staring at him. “Will you, please? Promise me.”
Domenic nodded. “I do. I promise. If you promise to tell me why whenever this—whatever this is—is over.”
She kissed his cheek and whispered a thank you, then started moving toward the door. On cue, the icy blond and her goateed lover stood and, without looking at her, started on a path to intercept. The black man near the door closed his book without marking the page, and then she knew it was all true, that they were really there for her.
She ran, rushing through the crowd, bumping chairs and spilling drinks, nearly plowing into a waiter. The door was in sight. If Nico had been close, he might be here any minute. She could elude them long enough for Volpe to help.
The door loomed ahead. The black man reached for her arm but she shook him off as she grabbed the door and yanked it open.
A man filled the doorway, blocking her path to the street. His white beard had been knotted beneath his chin and his startling green eyes froze her where she stood.
She knew him at a glance. Pietro Aretino.
“Good evening, Dr. Hodge,” he said. “We need to talk.”
Then he grabbed her by the hair and dragged her out into the moonlight.
XV
NICO’S BREATH was harsh, muscles weak, limbs shaking as he ran as fast and hard as he could toward his true love. He tried to send her reassuring sensations, but it seemed that he could only concentrate on one thing at a time. I’m coming, Geena, he thought, and he barreled into a couple emerging from a restaurant, stumbling and tripping over the man’s feet. He grunted as he fell, rose again, and ran on without looking back, the woman’s shouts pursuing him as echoes and threats.
He concentrated purely on running, because getting there in time was more important than telling Geena he was on his way. He’d folded his cell and slipped it into his pocket and he dreaded hearing it ring again. That would mean they had her.
But as he turned the corner into the small square where Il Bacio sat, the noises he heard told him that he’d been a fool to hope for anything else.
Help me, he thought to Volpe, and without waiting for an answer he ran at the struggling shapes.
At first he could not see Geena. There was a knot of figures at the café’s main door, and behind them in the square stood several more men and women, armed, tensed, squatting slightly as they watched the commotion. More hired thugs, Nico thought, and two of them turned at the sound of his approach. He was waiting for Volpe to rise up, waiting to feel his hands claw at the air as they scratched out arcane sigils to shove the thugs aside, flip them on their heads, or send them crashing backward through windows. But though he felt Volpe close behind him now—pressing against his eyes and senses like a child eager to see outside—the magician’s attention was focused elsewhere.
The man was tall and thin, and something long glinted in his hand. The woman was shorter, with a terrible burn marring the left side of her face. Her hands were full with something Nico could not make out, and he hit her first.
Surprise was on his side. They’d been watching the struggle in front of and inside the café, not expecting an attack from behind, and he felt a grim satisfaction when the woman opened her eyes wide, his shoulder striking her chin and shoving her backward across a slew of tables and chairs. Bottles smashed, and the woman cried out as she skidded across a carpet of broken glass.
Nico was already ducking. He’d never been a fighter, but perhaps Volpe was steering him subtly now, for he heard the swish of something passing just above his head. When he looked up, the tall man was already swinging the knife back, repeating its arc, except lower this time, its vicious blade held flat, ready to slash across Nico’s eyes.
Nico lashed out with his right hand and closed it around the man’s unprotected genitals. As he twisted and pulled, he had a flash memory of a sweat-sheened naked woman slicing through a man’s erection somewhere so long ago, and inside he felt Volpe laugh.
The man screamed and dropped the knife. Nico rose quickly and brought an elbow up beneath his chin, then pushed him aside and went for the doorway.
Volpe quickly came to the fore and stilled him, and for a second Nico railed against this intrusion. His blood was up, his rage burning bright, as he saw Geena thr
ashing and struggling in the grip of an old, old man. He wanted to go to her, help those others who were already trying to help, but then he realized why Volpe had stopped him in his tracks. The old man was Pietro Aretino, one of the three Doges, and on his face was the calm certainty of success.
Time seemed to slow. Aretino turned to look at Nico, grinning a grotesque smile as he twisted Geena’s hair harder in his clenched fist. All around them, the struggling continued at full speed, but these two men simply stared at each other. Nico was aware of Domenic standing in the open doorway, trying to reach past Geena toward Aretino, while a black man bashed at the side of Domenic’s head with a closed fist. Behind Domenic, in the chaos of the café, Nico thought he saw Ramus fighting with a blond woman, fists flailing, sharper things whispering at the heavy air.
“Volpe,” the old man said in a heavy, guttural voice, and then Nico was flung back into the flow of things. He darted toward Aretino, his eyes on Geena. His arm, he thought. I’ll go for his arm. It looks old enough to snap at the first breath of wind and—
Something struck him across the stomach. He bent forward and exhaled, pivoting over the extended leg even as it bent back and kicked in again. He was ready the second time—Volpe was there, quickening his reactions with a touch of something that felt sickeningly unnatural—and he caught his attacker’s foot and twisted.
The man had a neat goatee and slicked-back hair, and resembled a lawyer more than a killer. He might have come from any one of a hundred countries. But his skills were refined, his eyes cold and calm, and as Nico twisted, the man jumped and span with the twist. As he spun, his other leg caught Nico across the back of the head, and he went sprawling.
“Volpe, for fuck’s sake,” Nico whispered, rolling just as a foot skimmed across the cobbles toward his face. It struck his shoulder instead and he turned away and became entangled in other legs, feeling bodies falling around and onto him and searching all the time for Geena, hearing her strangled gasps as that old bastard twisted her hair even more. He was about to call out to her when he felt his body starting to burn.
Nico was on his feet instantly, and Volpe raised his hands. He muttered a few words, clawed his right hand in the air a couple of feet in front of the bearded man’s face, then clenched his fist.
The man grabbed the sides of his head and screeched as he went to his knees.
Domenic and the black man were fighting in the doorway, but both seemed to have paused at the sound of goatee-man’s screams. Domenic was wide-eyed and disbelieving, the man he was fighting bleeding from a gash above his right eye. Never thought Dom had it in him. But when Domenic looked at him there was no trace of goodwill in his glance, and he looked quickly away to where the old man had started dragging Geena away.
Through the shattered door Nico caught sight of the confusion in the café: chairs and tables overturned, patrons backing away, waiters and waitresses retreating behind the small bar, one of them talking frantically on the phone. And Ramus on his knees before the blond woman, hands raised to ward off the blows raining down on him.
Then Nico’s attention was torn away as Volpe went after Geena.
“Leave her, old man,” Volpe said, and if there was a hex in his words they did not affect Aretino at all. The white-haired man only laughed as he pulled Geena harder. He was walking backward, dragging her by her hair. She’d raised both hands to clasp at his wrists, lessening the strain, but still it must have been agony. She saw Nico at last, but in her eyes he saw the reflection of Volpe.
“I won’t be as easy as Caravello,” Aretino said. “He always was a dandy, too concerned with his appearance to—”
Volpe grabbed at the air, hauling himself forward. Nico heard a thud, like the sound barrier being broken somewhere close by, and everyone around the café grunted. He muttered three words and coughed, pressing his hands toward Aretino, and Nico thought, Watch out for Geena.
“I’ll do my best,” Volpe said, “But the city only needs one of you.”
Aretino frowned slightly and took a stumbled step back. Then he laughed.
“Time has lessened you, Volpe, buried away like a dead rat.” He turned to leave, casually calling his people to him.
“Nico!” Domenic shouted.
Nico felt Volpe’s temporary exhaustion after his magical efforts. He turned slightly and looked at Domenic, wanting to tell him everything that was happening. Domenic was standing before the café with both hands raised, gripping a man who was no longer there. The black man followed Volpe now, as did the man and woman Nico had tackled moments before. The goateed man rocked back and forth on his knees, holding the sides of his head. Blood trickled from his ears.
“Domenic,” Nico began, and then he saw the blond woman emerging from the café. “Look out!”
Domenic turned and leaned back, just avoiding the knife that slashed at his throat.
The woman grinned as she walked on. Her knife dripped blood. Nico looked for Domenic’s wound, but then he remembered the woman raining blows down on Ramus, and—
Volpe took him again, roaring in rage. In this fight, I cannot be fighting you! He took in several huge breaths. Nico felt the potential building in his body, and then Volpe shouted, “Aretino!”
Windows shattered in the café’s frontage, and Aretino turned. The black man stood beside him, and the blond woman paused a few steps away. In their eyes Nico saw a restrained fear the likes of which he had never seen before. They’re slaves in his thrall, he thought, and he sensed Volpe’s agreement.
“So, the mouse roars,” Aretino said. Geena squirmed beneath his hand, kneeling now that he’d come to a standstill. She was crying silently. Nico tried to send calming thoughts, but Volpe was at the fore now, allowing him to see but denying him any influence.
“You’ll fail,” Volpe said. “Caravello died badly.”
“And you’re looking good for plague survivors,” Aretino said.
“All these years, you think you’ve been getting stronger,” Volpe countered, and Nico could feel him stalling for time, building his magical potential again for one last, momentous attack. Mind Geena, he thought, but he wasn’t sure that Volpe was even listening. “But you’ve simply been fading away. Whatever evil you’ve bled out of Akylis’ lingering power can’t change that. Existence isn’t living, Aretino. The day I banished you from the city you died, and your stink has been worsening ever since. You’ve been waiting for so long, and for what?”
“For your own stink to subside, Volpe,” Aretino said, the first signs of annoyance clouding his glare. Geena squirmed in his hand, and he gave a cruel tug on her hair.
Bastard! Nico thought, but he was powerless.
“I was always stronger than you,” Volpe said, “but it’s not only about strength.”
“No?” the old man asked, and Nico thought, He’s the one stalling. Volpe. Volpe! But Volpe went on, building his power inside, teasing it to the fore, and even when Nico felt that his whole body was burning with the need to vent the magical energy gathered there, still Volpe continued speaking.
“It’s about passion,” he said. “The difference between the two of us is that I have always loved this city, and you have simply coveted it.”
From inside the café came the sound of someone crying out in terror and grief, and Nico recognized Sabrina’s voice. Ramus, he thought, but he could not turn around. He could do nothing but watch, and listen.
Aretino’s smile widened.
“I may have been down for a long time,” Volpe said, “but I have been aware of every step the city itself has taken. I am the Oracle.”
Aretino laughed then. It was a cutting sound, dismissive and triumphant at the same time. “Do you think we haven’t also moved with the times? We’ve outlasted you, Volpe. And soon we’ll have all of Akylis’ power in our hands. We will be as powerful as the Old Magicians, like gods in the eyes of men.” And then he glanced past Volpe at someone behind him.
Turn! Nico thought, just as Volpe swiveled to see what the
old man had been looking at. Beyond the tall man with the knife, and the shorter woman casually picking glass shards from her hands, a shadow manifested from beyond the café.
Francesco Foscari.
He lifted a gun and shot Volpe in the chest.
Nico cried out, Volpe faded back, and the pain came. Both men were subsumed beneath the storm of loosened, uncontrolled magic.
As agony dragged Nico into unconsciousness, the screaming began.
Geena could hardly breathe. It wasn’t the fear, because that had settled and set a fire in her chest that would not go away. And it was not from concern for herself, because if Aretino had wanted her dead, he would have killed her by now. Her breathlessness came from seeing the man she loved shot in the chest and crumple to the ground, and then the terror of what came next.
Geena had never been in a hurricane, so she had no real concept of what it would feel like to live through one. But her cousin had been in New Orleans when Katrina hit, spending a semester studying history at Tulane on a student exchange program, and she’d once spent a long drunken evening telling Geena about it. She’d actually been one of the lucky ones, evacuated soon after the hurricane and never going back, but the thing that had struck her—and, she claimed, changed her forever—was the feeling of utter hopelessness beneath the brutal, indifferent powers of nature. It wasn’t that the wind could tear down buildings and the rain could bruise your skin, it was that this unbelievable power expended itself without reason, conscience, or concern. You heard the term ‘a fart in a hurricane’? she’d said. I don’t laugh when I hear that anymore.
Watching what happened after Nico fell made Geena feel a little like that, and the only comforting factor was that she felt Aretino’s shock as well.
Even before Nico hit the ground, the whole atmosphere of that small square changed. The violence was still there—the smell of blood, a heaviness like impending lightning—but the air suddenly seemed to come alive, gusting and spinning, twirling in miniature whirlwinds that caught up dust and litter and lifted it skyward. Geena saw flashes of fire here and there—cool blue flames that danced for brief instants before being extinguished again.
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