“I … I apologize,” Il Conte says, and his face crumples.
“Be a man,” Volpe says, his voice strong and deep. “You are Il Conte Rosso now. That’s how you’ll be known. And you helped save Venice today.”
“Yes,” the Count says, “of course.” Though he cannot conceal his doubt.
“Tonight we move on Aretino.” Volpe turns away from the Count and the building that hides the Chamber of Ten. The next time he sets eyes upon this place, the city will have a new Doge, and he will have moved on yet once more.
“I’ve never felt such power,” he says. For the first time in a long while, he cannot feel his many decades weighing down upon him.
Outside, Geena thought. That’s all from outside. She opened her eyes but still everything seemed dark. Someone was pulling her against their chest, arms around her waist—Domenic. Her legs felt weak, and she shifted position until she could feel herself supporting her own weight again.
“Geena,” Domenic said, and she turned to look up at his face. The concern was almost heartbreaking, because she knew she had been shunning him. “I won’t take no for an answer this time. We have to get you—”
“No,” she said. “I’m not ill. I’m just …” Seeing visions from the past? That was Il Conte Rosso, and I saw the fresh blood on his hands that gave him his name. She could not just run now. If she did, she might miss Nico.
“You look like you’ve seen a—”
“I think he’s outside,” she said, and they both glanced through the arched door of the reading room and into the foyer of the main entrance. Sunlight, but no shadows.
“You mean Nico?” Domenic asked. Ramus was looking at them oddly, but the others—Finch, the BBC crew, and even Adrianna—had their attention riveted to the laptop screen.
“They filled the walls with bones,” Finch said again, and it had the sound of someone trying to convince himself of what he saw.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” came Sabrina’s muffled voice. She was breathing faster, and Geena sensed simmering panic.
“Tell her to calm down,” she said, glancing back at the main doors again. That was all from Nico, she thought, and he was approaching across the piazza, and then suddenly the flashback that wasn’t him. It was Volpe. She shivered, because even thinking the name gave her goosebumps.
If he had approached, he was holding back, waiting outside or something. Maybe he was just afraid to come in because that would mean facing her questions.
“One of the obelisks is open!” Sabrina said, and that snapped Geena’s attention back to the laptop. She pushed her way past Finch, with Domenic still beside her, and knelt so that she could get a better view of the screen. Tonio placed one hand on her shoulder and she knew what that touch meant: This is amazing! Sabrina’s crazy camera work settled at last, focusing on the broken lid of one of the obelisks and the thing it contained.
“They’re tombs,” Tonio said.
In her time working in Venice, Geena had been witness to the exhumation of dozens of bodies, all of them buried many hundreds of years ago. They never frightened her, but there was always something unsettling about setting eyes on a corpse that had been out of sight, alone, and at peace for so long. Though she was not a religious person, to Geena it felt intrusive and disrespectful, and she’d always had trouble identifying the line between recently buried and of archaeological interest.
“My God,” Sabrina’s voice hissed, “it’s wearing …”
A hat, Geena thought. A black hat and robe, covering less formal attire beneath. And she thought of bleeding palms and the vague sense of ritual.
“Nico!” Ramus said. “Look everyone, it’s Nico!”
For a moment Geena scanned the screen desperately, thinking that they’d seen his drowned body down there, and in the space of a heartbeat the idea that she’d imagined everything since the flood hit hard. But then she sensed those around her turning away from the table of equipment, and she, too, stood and turned.
She bit her lip against the wooziness that still shifted the world around her. Behind them Nico was standing just inside the entrance to the reading room.
“Nico!” she said, unable to keep the rush of relief and affection from her voice.
He seemed not to hear; his eyes were blank, his face expressionless. He carried a heavy-looking bag in one hand. Then he started walking toward them, and Geena cringed at the way he moved—a stiff, stilted walk as if he’d smashed bones in both of his legs.
“What’s wrong with him?” Ramus asked.
Geena moved toward him. Domenic’s grip tightened briefly on her arm before letting go, but she knew he was still behind her. Don’t be a fool, she thought, Nico would never hurt me.
She smiled, vision blurring with tears that seemed to well up from nowhere.
Behind her the BBC team were still chattering excitedly about what they had seen, and Finch seemed to be talking into a cell phone. Of course, she thought. They don’t even know about Nico.
“Where have you been?” she asked. Nico had paused. He looked dirty, tired, and sad, and she could already tell that he hadn’t washed since leaving her apartment. “Nico, I’ve been so worried and …”
“No,” he groaned. He sounded desperate and pained, as if talking was a strain. The sudden look in his eyes—burning and triumphant—did not match that voice.
“Nico?” I saw what he did to that man, she thought, but could she really suspect him of doing something so terrible?
No. Not him. Not Nico. But someone else.
“Run, Geena,” Nico growled, low enough for only her to hear. Glancing back she could see others turning to watch them now, and one of the BBC men was pointing a small handheld camera their way. Domenic was approaching her, his eyes flitting from her to Nico and back again.
She turned back. “We’re going to find out exactly what happened,” she said.
“No! Run!” Nico repeated, louder this time. The terrible urgency in his voice gave her a frisson of fear.
He leaned forward, and then his walk turned into a headlong rush, a controlled fall that set his feet stumbling against each other. And for the first time she saw what he had in his other right hand.
A knife.
“Come here, sweetness,” Nico said. But the voice was no longer his own. Deep, guttural, harsh, she had heard it before in those strange flashes of a time long gone. And it carried a madness she could have never expected in someone she loved so much.
Just as Nico fell against her, Domenic pulled her back.
But the knife still did its work.
VIII
STABBED ME stabbed me Nico stabbed me …
She felt hands ease her fall as she slumped to the cool tiled floor. Voices were raised, and somewhere in the distance pounding footsteps faded away, leaving only the taunting ghosts of their echoes. More than one pair of footsteps, too, and someone must be chasing him, and she thought, Don’t hurt anyone else. Faces gathered above her and she did not recognize any of them. She felt for the pain, searched for the flash of agony that would show where the knife had punctured and how much damage it had done. She held her breath, terrified, and then gasped again in case she would never draw another.
Someone was holding her arm too tightly and she tried to twist it away, but there was no give. Her head rested on something soft—a leg, a hand, a bag, she didn’t know—and then Domenic was above her, his strong features stark in the light that had suddenly become so clear and defined. Shouldn’t my vision be fading, not solidifying? She’d read somewhere that hearing was always the last sense to go before death, and when she gasped again her ears seemed to pop and the confusion and panic roared in.
“Don’t move her. Don’t move her!”
“Ramus, stay away from him. He’s still carrying the knife!”
“Call an ambulance—”
“Call the police—”
“I’ll get the first aid kit.”
And from a distance, “I’m going after h
im!” Ramus, running, pursuing Nico because he’d appeared here at the library and stabbed her.
“Oh shit,” Geena groaned, and she looked up into Domenic’s face as she probed for the injury. She drew breath without it bubbling, felt her heart thumping good and strong, and there was no rush of warmth in her stomach. And the person holding her left arm squeezed even tighter.
She turned her head slightly and there was the wound. A slice across her shoulder, a bloody tear in the fabric of her blouse. The wound pouted slightly, and though gruesome it was also strangely beautiful. Such vibrant colors. She worked in the faded stone- and dust-shades of history, and yet here was the true lifeblood of her, and it was as bright and alive as any color could be.
“Don’t look,” Finch said. She realized that he was kneeling on her left side, leaning over her and sheltering her from the bright sunlight streaming in the library’s high windows. He touched her arm, turned it this way and that, then caught her eye for the first time. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said. “No artery hit. It’ll bleed like a bugger and you’ll need stitching, but you were lucky.”
“He didn’t get me anywhere else?” she asked, and her soft voice sounded surreal. Am I really asking that? About Nico?
“No,” Finch said. “I’ve checked. That’s the only place. And he was hardly here long enough for that. Here.” He plucked the folded handkerchief from his jacket pocket, shook it open, folded it again, and placed it on the wound.
Geena hissed, body stiffening.
“You press down on it,” Finch said. “It’ll hurt, but we need to stop the bleeding.”
Geena nodded her silent thanks, then put her right hand over the material and pressed. The pressure hurt but there was also a comfort there as well. Covering part of me that should never see daylight, she thought.
“You seem to know what you’re doing,” Domenic said. She was leaning back against him, and he felt strong and secure. He was very much there, whereas Nico—
I have to help him, Geena thought. And she remembered his eyes, and what he’d said as he lunged for her.
“First Gulf War, and Bosnia,” Finch said. “I was a reporter back then. Saw lots of nasty stuff, and went on all the first aid and self-defense courses I was offered.”
Come here, sweetness, he’d said. Those eyes had not been his.
“I have to help him,” Geena said.
“What?” Domenic sounded surprised, and angry.
“Nico. He’s not … in his right mind.”
“You’re not fucking kidding,” Finch said.
“Geena, he just walked in here and tried to kill you,” Domenic said. “If I hadn’t—”
“No,” she said, sitting up, closing her eyes against a brief spell of wooziness. “Domenic, thank you. But no. He wasn’t trying to kill me. Not Nico.”
“I won’t let you go looking,” Domenic said. “That’s the police’s job now. They’re on their way, and they’ll want statements. This was assault, at the very least.”
“Looked like attempted murder to me,” Tonio said. He was breathless, sweating slightly, and his eyes were wide and shocked. The look did not suit his usually suave self. “He ran across the piazza and disappeared. Ramus went after him, but I saw him stop on the other side. I called him back, but he’s pacing the square.”
“He’ll come in when the police arrive,” Domenic said.
“What about Sabrina?” Geena said.
“Don’t worry,” Finch said. “My boys have signaled them to make their way back up. They’ll help them out. There’ll be plenty of time for more dives, but next time …”
“More security,” Tonio said.
“Yeah,” Finch agreed. He was still glancing across Geena’s body, his eyes flitting again and again to her covered wound. Looking after me, she thought, and she felt an overwhelming rush of affection for this man she had until now thought of only as an intruder, an inconvenience.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling at him. Finch nodded and smiled back, and she knew that her gratitude was appreciated.
Doors slammed open out in the foyer and then Ramus returned to the reading room. He was sweating and wide-eyed, excited more than afraid. He was an intelligent kid with a sharp mind for antiquities, but right then he looked so young. “Gone,” he said. “Disappeared before I caught up with him. Damn, he was fast!”
Geena stood, accepting Domenic’s help. He held her right hand and forearm, soft yet firm, and his was a comforting presence. Am I so damn needy? she thought, but this wasn’t about being needy. There was something terribly wrong with Nico, and a friend was exactly what she wanted.
“We’ll get you to a hospital,” Domenic said.
“No, I’m fine,” she said, wincing slightly as the act of standing twinged her wound.
“You need stitches,” Domenic said softly. “And that cut will need cleaning. There’s no saying where he got that knife from. Is there?”
Geena nodded slowly, because he was right. No saying at all. She remembered those flashes of vision she’d had as Nico had approached the Biblioteca, and then that stronger, harsher flashback to a time long gone, when a man called Zanco Volpe had stood outside this very building, watching Il Conte Rosso emerge having just …
Just what? Had she really seen some twisted memory of the Count just after he had overseen the slaughter of two of the Council of Ten? But it felt much more than a memory. She could remember the smell of old Venice in the air, not so dissimilar to how it smelled now, and the raw feel of the city as it was back then, younger and more vital with possibilities. But until she could find Nico, comfort him, and find out exactly what was happening, it was difficult to know exactly what to make of what she had seen.
“Okay,” she said. “Hospital. But …” She looked around at the array of equipment, the laptops even now displaying flashes of murky images as Sabrina and the two divers made their way back up, and the shocked, pale faces all looking her way.
“We’ll take care of things here, won’t we?” Tonio asked, glancing at Finch.
“Of course,” Finch said. “Plenty of time to carry on over the next few days. If you still want to …?” He glanced back and forth between Tonio and Geena, and she felt the weight of responsibility pressing down on her. Even though Nico was not her fault, this was her project, and he was her lover. No one was making her feel responsible but herself, but that did not make it any easier.
“Of course we still want to,” Geena said, and Finch visibly relaxed. “And Howard, thank you for helping me.” She nodded at the bloodied handkerchief.
“You can keep it,” he said straight-faced. “And I hope Nico …” He trailed off, because he had only started saying what no one else there could. Nico had crossed a very serious line, and whatever his problems, the relationship between him and everyone there had changed forever.
“I’m going to help him,” she said. Finch blinked in surprise. Domenic’s hand on her right arm squeezed. “That wasn’t Nico. Not the Nico I know, anyway.” Ramus averted his eyes—embarrassed?—but it had gone too far for her to be abashed now. “Something’s upset him, made him the way he was when he came in here. Didn’t you see, Domenic?”
“I saw Nico, but not as I’ve ever seen him before.”
“Ramus?” Geena asked.
Ramus shrugged. He was the youngest of them all, but sometimes she thought he was also the most brilliant. She’d sensed his startling intellect battling with the need to be young and have fun, and sometimes there was an intensity to his gaze that spoke of colossal internal conflicts.
“He only looked like Nico,” Ramus said. A chill ran down Geena’s spine. A stab of pain sang in from the slash across her left arm.
“I think he’s been asking for my help since he fell that first time in the chamber,” she said, “and I’ve failed him. But no more.”
“Geena, a day or two. Whatever you need,” Tonio said, though she could tell that he didn’t really want her to take time off, not now. Petrarch’
s library was one of the greatest finds ever during his time at the university, and perhaps one of the greatest in Venice over the last few decades. There was a mountain of material that needed cataloging, preserving, and analyzing, and the BBC interest would likely be only the beginning. Tonio would soon be flooded with requests from scholars all over the world who wished to come and view the collection, so it was more vital than ever that the head of the project be present. But she also knew that he was not a man to offer something like that lightly, and he meant what he said.
She nodded her thanks, and then the wail of the water ambulance reached them from outside.
“Come on,” Domenic said. “Let’s hurry. Hospital first, and then the police. I’m not happy with you being held up here any longer than necessary. That cut needs seeing to.” They left the library together, and stepping out into the piazza, Geena glanced around nervously. Ramus had said that Nico was gone, but she could not help worrying. If Domenic hadn’t pulled me aside … But no. Even if he hadn’t acted quickly, Nico’s blade would have done no more.
Because he’d been fighting. Something had him—that was obvious from the fragmented flashes she was receiving from him, tortured and strange and sometimes just so far away. And after seeing his face as he lunged at her, she was convinced. He’d attacked her, but he was the one who needed help.
People watched as Domenic held her arm and steered her toward the dock. Tourists stared, a few took pictures, and a young girl continued licking her ice cream as she stared at Geena’s bloody arm. Geena smiled at her, but the girl’s expression did not change. She never had understood kids. One day, she had hoped, she and Nico would have one themselves and learn together. But where did that dream stand now?
The ambulance was just bobbing against the jetty, and two paramedics jumped out and dashed across to her. While they assessed her and Domenic answered their questions, Geena tried to relax, soaking in the sunshine after being in the cool of the library, breathing in the familiar mixed scents that were uniquely Venice. And she opened her mind to Nico.
The Chamber of Ten Page 12
