The Chamber of Ten

by Christopher Golden; Tim Lebbon

  I’m here, and I’m going to help. There were no visions, no flashes of contact from Nico, wherever he was now, but that no longer worried her. She’d find him again, when he was ready to be found. For now she had to relax, and think, and use her time being stitched up to plan what she should do next.

  When he opened his eyes, history stared back at him. He groaned and turned his head, and immediately recognized something different. He’d intended turning his head, and his body had obeyed. Something had changed.

  Nico looked around, trying to keep as still as possible, as passive as he could be, because he did not want Volpe to know he was here and awake. Whatever flashback this turned out to be—he’d only recently witnessed Tonetti, Il Conte Rosso, emerging from the Biblioteca after having overseen the slaughter of the two traitors in the Council—it seemed that he had time to prepare for it.

  He was lying in the corner of a small courtyard. A stone fountain stood in the center with gentle whispers of water rising in three low arcs. Plant pots surrounded the fountain’s base, overflowing with colorful and lush plants—roses in one, exquisite orchids in another, and what seemed to be abundant herbs in several more. In the far corner stood a much larger pot from which sprouted an ornamental orange tree. A staircase climbed one courtyard wall, stepped with an intricate cast-iron balustrade around which a climbing rose twined. The walls were painted a faded orange that had blistered in the heat, flakes of paintwork scattered across the ground like dried skin. The courtyard was silent and still, but for the incessant buzzing of bees. The doors and windows opening out onto it seemed innocuous, hiding no shadows that did not belong.

  Where and when am I? Nico wondered. Perhaps Il Conte Rosso would emerge from the door in the far wall at any moment, ready to reveal a new betrayal. Or maybe it would be another of the Council of Ten with whom Volpe would plot, or a Doge facing expulsion or death, or some other man or woman around whom Volpe would manufacture one of his elaborate schemes.

  As he glanced to his left and saw the bag lying beside him, and spotted the thing that had half fallen from the bag’s open mouth, he heard the ticking. He thought it was his breathing—even though he believed he’d stopped breathing, because the mummified hand seemed to have one finger hooked up and back, beckoning him with it into the bag. Then he gasped in a full breath and realized that the sound came from elsewhere.

  A soldier’s hand, he thought, and he remembered grasping the old dry thing in his warm hand, still bloodied from the nails he’d bent back whilst smashing the ossuary open. The book was also in there, along with …

  With …

  His watch was ticking, a distant sound so familiar that he only heard it now, when he paid attention. His watch on his hand, not Volpe’s.

  “This is all me,” Nico said, sitting up and taking a closer look around the courtyard. There was certainly nothing there to age it specifically, either as modern day or five hundred years old. Nothing but his watch—a Police timekeeper that Geena had bought him for his birthday the year before.

  Then he looked up and saw the plane trail across the sky.

  We’re going to find out exactly what happened, Geena said, and he saw her coming closer as he fell toward her. And it had been a fall—Volpe throwing himself toward the woman even as Nico tried to hold back. That he remembered for sure. Sitting in that humid courtyard his right hand clasped around nothing, but in his memory he felt the smooth wooden handle of the knife he’d been holding at the time.

  “Oh no,” he groaned. He looked down at his hand and saw the blood there, dried and peeling like the paint on the walls around him. “No, no, no …” He grabbed the bag and spilled its contents over the dusty ground. The Book of the Nameless, which Volpe had steered him to retrieve from the church’s bell tower; the gruesome hand; and a knife, its blade and handle still smeared with the dried blood of the love of his life.

  “Geena—” he started, and then Volpe rose within him.

  Can’t a man rest?

  “You … you made me …”

  I made you help me, that is all.

  Geena, Nico thought, closing his eyes and trying to recall what exactly had happened.

  “Come here, sweetness,” he growled, and Volpe drew back again, giving Nico room to scream and snap his eyes open.

  “Bastard!” he shouted. But he’d caught a glimpse of what had happened. Volpe had allowed that at least, and in the glimpse he saw Domenic pulling Geena back, and his knife blade slipping across her shoulder, shallow enough to cause no lasting damage, but deep enough—

  The blood of a loved one, Volpe said. And now that we’re both rested, there’s one more item we need before we can perform the ceremony.

  “The seal of the city,” Nico said, standing because Volpe commanded him to.

  They must be kept out, Volpe whispered, almost to himself, and for the first time Nico heard concern in that old remnant’s voice. They will be kept out. Nico walked up the staircase, grasping the hot iron balustrade and enjoying the sensation of being in charge. Only so long as you do as I command, Volpe said. I’m content in that at least. I’ll edge you toward the seal, but I’m always here watching, Nico. Always ready to snap forward and make your muscles and flesh my own.

  “Haven’t you done that already?” Nico asked bitterly.

  Oh no. No. Laughter in his mind, a dry chuckle like old bones being juggled in a bag. Nowhere near.

  They put in five stitches and dressed her wound, insisting on a tetanus shot before letting her go. Domenic stayed with her all the time, protesting when the nurses told him he could not remain in the treatment room. “She was attacked,” he said, and they relented grudgingly.

  As she finished the dressing, the nurse—large, round, and sour-faced—kept glancing at Geena.

  “Are you feeling okay?” she asked.

  “Hmm? Yes. Fine.”

  “You look pale.” The nurse was more focused now, looking into Geena’s eyes, casually touching her cheek and holding her hand. Checking for cold sweats, Geena thought, but if she told the nurse what was really bothering her and what had really happened, it would be another kind of hospital she’d be admitted to.

  “Just a little shaken up,” Geena said. “It’s not every day I get stabbed.”

  “You’re sure?” Domenic asked. He’d been sitting so silently beside the treatment trolley that she’d almost forgotten he was there.

  “Yeah.” The whole time the nurse had been working—cleaning the cut, applying antibiotic ointment, stitching—Geena had been sensing Nico’s presence. But this was unlike any time before. Sometimes he’d intentionally probe for her, casting delicious sensation-hints or sharing his mood. Other times she’d be able to pick up on his excitement or anger without him deliberately trying to “touch” her. But this felt … distracted. She could definitely sense him out there, but there was not so much power to the psychic transmissions as before. She was certain that this was not due to distance. He was in Venice, and close by. But what she did pick up was an overwhelming sense of fear.

  Nico was struggling to fight against whatever had him. She sensed the ripples of that fight, like the echoes of distant battle, and felt the terror underlying every breath he took. If only she could send back calm, soothing thoughts, and promise him that she was coming to help.

  Because she was. Really, there was no longer any alternative, and no other way she could go. The waiting was over.

  “So she’ll need to rest the arm for a while?” Domenic asked.

  “A little, yes,” the nurse said. “No reason she has to take to her sick bed completely, though. Er …”

  “Yes?” Geena asked.

  “I’m guessing you’ve reported this to the police?” she asked with the air of someone used to seeing such injuries.

  “They were called,” Domenic said. “They’ll probably be waiting outside now.”

  “Very good,” the nurse said, nodding to herself as she left. “Feel free to wait here a while, if you’re still fee
ling a bit woozy.”

  “I’m not,” Geena said, but the nurse glanced back and gave her a motherly smile, as if she hadn’t heard.

  “Maybe you should do as she—” Domenic started.

  “Damn it, Domenic, I’m fine!” Geena struggled to keep her voice low, aware that there were people in several other treatment cubicles.

  “Well, apologies for noticing your boyfriend attacked you with a knife.” He stood beside the bed and glanced through the curtain, looking both ways along the corridor. “They’ll be here soon. You’d better decide how straight you’re going to be about Nico.”

  “How …?” But she knew what he meant. There was no way she could lie about this and, she suspected, no way he’d let her. After she spoke with the law, Nico would become a suspect in a serious assault. Armed and dangerous. It was up to her whether he became a suspect for anything else.

  I’m coming to help you, Nico.

  “They’ll need to know everything,” Domenic said softly.

  “I know.” She sighed. “This has just thrown me so much.”

  “Thrown all of us. What the hell happened down there?”

  For a second, realizing that Domenic was canny enough to connect this all with that first foray into the Chamber of Ten, Geena almost slipped and told him everything. It would take a while, she knew, and a good while longer for him to even come close to believing. But so much strange and frightening stuff had happened that she was starting to doubt some of her own reactions to all of this. Domenic’s was a fine mind, and it would be relatively uninvolved. Perhaps a fresh approach could shed light where there were shadows.

  But he would never believe her. It would be hard enough persuading him that Nico could touch her with his mind … and as for everything else she had been seeing, those flashes of vision from the past and what they might mean … Well, even she was having trouble coming to terms with them.

  I banged my head down there, too, she thought. And I was speaking the same language as Nico.

  “I just don’t know,” she said. “Maybe it was as simple as Nico knocking his head. Maybe he’s still concussed.”

  “Maybe,” Domenic said, but he sounded far from convinced.

  Geena winced, looking down at her arm. Domenic’s brow furrowed with concern.

  “Damn, I’m so thirsty,” she said.

  “I’ll get you a drink. I could do with a coffee myself. Something cold for you?”

  “Wine?” she joked. It was still early, barely noon, but a glass of wine would have been quite welcome just then.

  “I’m sure the hospital vending machine has plenty,” he said, smiling as he slipped through the curtains.

  “I’m sorry, Domenic,” Geena whispered to herself, counting to ten in her head to make sure he’d gone.

  Then she stepped from the bed and felt around with her feet. For a beat, she was terrified that Domenic had taken her shoes, but when she leaned forward and checked under the bed, there they were. As she straightened, she closed her eyes and bit her lip to try to stop herself from fainting. Sitting up, fisting sheets in both hands, she breathed deeply and waited for it to pass. That was from the pain, she thought. The needle. I’ve always been afraid of needles. That wasn’t him.

  The faint passed and she worked her feet into the shoes. The bustle of a hospital went on around her—subdued conversation, the rattle of a trolley being pushed somewhere, nurses’ laughter, a soft snoring from somewhere close by. If she played this right she’d walk out unnoticed, just another stranger in the eyes of people who saw so many.

  Taking a final deep breath, she parted the curtains and stepped into the corridor between treatment cubicles. A male nurse nodded at her as he passed by, a covered toilet pan in one hand. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure he wasn’t looking back, and saw the back of Domenic’s head. He was talking to the grim-faced nurse who’d stitched her, gesticulating gently as he tried to explain something, and she almost went to him. He’s so concerned, I can’t just—

  But she could. She had to. Because just then two policemen appeared, quizzing the nurse and listening as Domenic provided some of their answers.

  I have maybe ten seconds, Geena thought, and she turned away, put her head down, and walked. At the end of the emergency treatment ward, she took the first door to the left, slipping through into a lobby with three lifts, and doors leading to a staircase. She took the stairs and headed down, letting the door close quietly behind her. They would be at her cubicle by now, and Domenic would know that she’d given him the slip.

  “Sorry, Dom,” she said again, hoping they would not rush after her. Really, was there any need to? She hoped not. She’d not committed a crime, she was no risk to anyone, and—

  But Domenic thought that Nico was a risk to her. He’d never just let her run.

  So once she reached the ground floor and exited the doors out onto a busy street, run is exactly what she did.

  IX

  OUT OF breath, sweating, sitting in the shadowy interior of a popular tourist café in the square behind Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti, Geena realized that she needed a plan. It was all very well abandoning herself to the ebb and flow of the city, but without knowing what to do next she was as lost as Nico. His presence still tingled at the base of her neck, but there was no true contact. Whatever happened next was up to her. And she had to think quickly.

  She ordered a cappuccino simply because sitting there without drinking or eating would attract attention. Others were having lunch around her, and she knew she ought to do the same—get some food into her—but the idea of eating anything just then did not appeal to her at all.

  Her arm still hurt, but the nurse had done a good job on the dressing. If only she had a clean blouse; the one she wore had blood spattered on the short left sleeve and down her side, and she could do little to hide it. Add to that the damp patches of sweat from her headlong run through the city, and the fact that she’d not had a shower for some time, and she was starting to feel as if everyone was looking at her.

  But she had cash in her pocket, and she was deep in the most tourist-friendly area of Venice. A drink, shop for new clothes, and all the while she could try to figure out what the hell to do next.

  Slowly she calmed, catching her breath, watching the tourists and other visitors to the city with a calm detachment. None of them had any real idea about the amazing place they were visiting. She had only been in Venice for a few years, but already she had come to learn that the city was an incredibly Byzantine place, whose various histories crossed paths, merged, and collided with stunning complexity. The city’s past was clouded in mystery, and part of her work was to try to delve beneath the present to discover these hidden histories. But sometimes the present was impenetrable. The people she saw here passed doorways behind which pivotal murders might have taken place, or important children have been conceived. They photographed canal bridges and gondoliers, little knowing that Venice’s true story lay in architecture rarely seen, in people untouched by the tourist dollar, or buried away below the oily waves. She’d never looked down on tourists, because she knew that they came here for enjoyment and learning, and did the city much good. But she had always believed that only a small percentage absorbed the true allure of Venice. Sometimes she thought it was because subconsciously they did not wish to. It was an old city, and anywhere with history this ancient and complex had unknown ghosts.

  And they were happy. They laughed over their coffees and pastries, referring to guidebooks as they planned the rest of their afternoons and evenings. She felt detached, and filling the void between them was her burgeoning knowledge of this city’s shady past. If only she did not know this place so well.

  “Another cappuccino?” the waitress asked, and Geena shook her head.

  “No, I need to be somewhere, thanks.” The waitress nodded, glanced at Geena’s bloody blouse, then moved on to another table.

  Geena stood and left a tip. Emerging once again into the late afternoon sunlight, s
he glanced around to make sure there was no one watching her. If Domenic found her now he’d be angry, but she was her own woman. He was a good friend, but she couldn’t afford to have him looking over her shoulder if she truly wanted to help Nico. He knew so little of what was going on, and though she had already considered telling him, she could not trust that he’d be willing to find out more.

  “Where are you, Nico?” she muttered. Still without a plan, she went to buy something to wear that wouldn’t be so conspicuous.

  The vision hit her as she was paying for the new clothes. She’d bought a plain white blouse that she could use afterward in meetings, and sensible trousers with deep pockets for carrying knickknacks… but when the image crashed in, such considerations—to do with normal life in the mundane world—felt foolish. She gripped the counter, waving away the shop attendant’s concerned flustering, and closed her eyes.

  “Drink of water?” she managed to say, and was aware of the young woman dashing through curtains into the shop’s rear.

  Geena gasped and leaned against the counter, hairs on the back of her neck bristling, because this was not Nico. Not entirely. It was him.

  He has most of what he needs now, and the next item—the last—should be the easiest to procure. If only this fool would do as instructed without questioning … but really, he does not mind. It is good to be back and see what has changed. Much of it is incredible—boats that move without oars; carriages that shift without horses, on wheels that whisper rather than clatter; lamps without oil, flickering boxes casting images behind barely shut curtains; and strange devices casting smoke-trails across the sky. But what amazes him more are the many things that have all but remained the same. Such as this place …

  He’s floating toward the rear of Venice’s old Town Hall, the Palazzo Cavalli, in a water taxi—in the vision, Geena recognizes it because she and Nico have made half jokes about getting married there. The canal is busy, and several people glance nervously his way, as if a chill has passed over them. He alights and approaches the building’s rear entrance. People in suits come and go, a group of attractive women sits on the steps being photographed, a gaggle of children shouts and cheers and their guardians look flustered and tired. He stops, looking up at the great building, and for a moment seeing it as it was back then. The façade’s colors are sharper, cleaner, newer. Gone are the tourists and those dreaming of marriage, and it is the Town Hall again, home to important decisions and policy making for the State … except that’s not quite the truth. Most of that takes place back at the Doge’s Palace, and this place is more a disseminator of decisions.