The Chamber of Ten

by Christopher Golden; Tim Lebbon

  The Slav gritted his teeth, squeezed his eyes closed, and opened them again. The hatred in them had returned, but fear lingered as well.

  “A man named Foscari,” the Slav said in that guttural snarl of an accent. “Like the university. An alias, obviously.”

  “No,” Volpe replied.

  The Slav looked confused. With the twitch of a finger, Volpe made him raise the knife again and the fear returned to his eyes. After that, the words spilled out of him.

  “I got word to meet at the Hotel Atlantico, that the money would be good. There were others there, too. Some I recognized. Others like me, professionals. Foscari came in with another, an older man with a long white beard tied in a knot. They were both … formidable. The other one—Foscari called him Pietro—never spoke; Foscari gave the orders, split us all up, and gave us our assignments. There were targets to follow, people to find—”

  “People to kill?” Volpe asked.

  The Slav resisted, his lips closed in a thin line.

  Volpe made him stab himself in the meat of his left arm. To his credit, the man grunted in rage and pain but did not try to scream. He glared at his tormentor, breathing in and out through bared teeth.

  “People to kill,” the Slav repeated.

  “The Mayor?”

  The Slav blinked in surprise, but he no longer resisted. A hateful smile spread across his face. “To begin with. There were others. Financial people. The owner of an old palazzo in Dorsoduro. Minor officials in the city government. Some are still breathing, but not for long.”

  You were right, Nico thought. They’re moving in, disrupting everything so they can take advantage of the chaos. What will they do now, put people under their influence in positions of power?

  Of course, Volpe replied. They will be buying homes—perhaps even the homes they once owned. Investing. Taking control. Killing those who refuse to assist them. But it’s only the beginning. I’ve seen in your mind what you think of the government you have now. Those men are saints compared to the Doges. And with the magic they have accumulated, and the evil of Akylis surging through them, making them even more powerful, in time they will have the world, if they want it.

  “Were you here to kill Nico Lombardi?” Volpe asked.

  The Slav blinked in surprise. His eyes saw Nico Lombardi sitting before him, speaking of himself in the third person. He could not see that another lurked inside the human shell that housed Nico’s mind and spirit.

  “No,” the Slav said. “Foscari has had people watching your project at the library in San Marco since yesterday, talking to employees there. But none of the group has a kill order on you. It was all just observe and report—until tonight, that is. They didn’t say we couldn’t hurt you, even break you a little, but tonight we were supposed to bring you in alive. You and your girlfriend, Dr. Hodge.” He sneered into a smile as he said it. “Wait until she meets the sick bastards they sent after her.”

  Geena! Nico shouted in Volpe’s mind. For a moment, their thoughts were merged and Volpe caught glimpses of his own past, of spells he had cast and murders he had orchestrated, of women he had loved and arcane objects he had stolen.

  Volpe had to tear his thoughts free of Nico’s.

  “We’ve got to get to her!” Nico snapped, and only when the words came from his mouth did Volpe realize the young man had resumed control of his body for a moment.

  Volpe pushed him back down even as the Slav staggered forward, released from the puppet strings that had held him. A flicker of confusion crossed the killer’s face at his target’s bizarre outburst, but then the Slav grinned.

  “Worry about yourself,” he said, lunging with the knife.

  Then his wounded leg gave out and he stumbled, crashing into the base of the chair as Volpe twisted up and out of the way, rolling off the armrest. His heart—Nico’s heart—beat wildly at the thought of how close the blade had come, and what Nico had almost cost him.

  “Piece of shit,” Volpe snapped, and he thrust both hands out, muttering a spell and gaining control of the killer again.

  The Slav lurched up from the floor, dangling from invisible strings. He had dropped the knife but now, at a gesture from Volpe, he knelt and retrieved it from a smear of his own blood, then stood again.

  What are you doing? Nico demanded. Didn’t you hear him? They’re going after Geena. Let me out, you fucker. I have to get to her. We have to warn her. Christ, they may already have her.

  We don’t need her—

  But you need me! Nico raged.

  For now, Volpe thought, and raised his eyes to stare at the Slav again.

  “You said you were supposed to bring us in,” Volpe said, lip curling in disgust. “In where?”

  The Slav hesitated, for this was the moment when he knew he would have to die. Either his target would kill him in this very room, or his employer would do so the moment that his betrayal had been discovered. Volpe saw all of this in his eyes.

  “I am a fair man,” Volpe said. “I can see that you perceive no chance of survival, but I can offer you that chance.”

  “How?” the Slav growled.

  Volpe grinned. “I will have an answer to my final question, even if it means forcing you to carve your flesh into pieces and eat them. I will not allow you to die without giving me my answer. But if you simply tell me, I make you a promise. I will kill the two men who hired you, so that they can never punish you for your weakness.”

  The word “weakness” filled the Slav with momentary fury, but then he sagged upon the invisible strings from which he hung. A moment’s thought, and then he nodded.

  “The hotel. The Atlantico.”

  Slowly, Volpe shook his head. “No.”

  The Slav flinched. “I swear. Those were our orders!”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Volpe said. “But Foscari and Aretino would never linger long in a hotel. Too many variables.” He thought a moment. “Where is this palazzo in Dorsoduro?”

  The answer made Volpe smile.

  All right, Nico. Find her, if you like. I’ll leave you to it. But be wary. If they haven’t caught her already, they will be on her soon, and I will not allow myself to be taken by the Doges, no matter what my freedom costs you.

  The magician retreated to the back of Nico’s mind, surrendering control of the body. But not before he forced the Slav to stab himself in the heart, and gave Nico a word of advice.

  Never give a man a second chance to kill you.

  Geena had kept her cell phone silenced the entire time she had been with Nico, but all along she had felt the vibrations as calls and texts had come in. When she left him to go home and clean herself up, she had been too busy unraveling the confused tangle of her thoughts to worry about those messages. On the way to the police station she had finally taken the time to skim through them—texts from Tonio and Domenic and Sabrina. Ramus hadn’t called or texted, but they had never had that kind of relationship.

  Now, leaving the police station, she felt a kind of aimlessness that unnerved her. Tomorrow would be another day. She would talk to Tonio, go to the Biblioteca, lay the groundwork for reclaiming her life once Nico had exorcised himself of the spirit of Zanco Volpe.

  Just thinking about it made her tremble. The world had seemed so structured and rational to her only days ago. There had been rules.

  There are rules, she thought. You just never knew the real ones.

  Volpe. Geena just wanted to be rid of him and everything associated with him. If the Doges truly were as evil as he claimed and were conspiring to spread their influence far and wide, then of course they needed to be stopped. But if Volpe was the lesser of two evils, that did not make him some kind of hero. However noble his motives, he was still a ruthless, brutal man, and Geena trusted him not at all. It seemed very clear that she and Nico were nothing more than useful tools as far as Volpe was concerned, and she feared what might happen if he no longer needed them.

  She had to find some way to get an advantage over him, to shift the bal
ance of power between them, just in case. It had been in the back of her thoughts all night, and an idea had begun to coalesce, but it would require more contemplation.

  Crossing a canal, Geena stopped on the bridge to watch a gondolier ply the filthy water below. A middle-aged couple sat in the prow of the gondola, snuggling close in a romantic haze, oblivious to the dirty water, the rats scuttling along building ledges, and the dark, malignant powers beginning to wage war in the city around them. She envied them for their blissful ignorance, and hated them for it at the same time.

  The gondolier poled toward a blind corner ahead and shouted out to any of his brethren who might be approaching from the other angle. A reply echoed off the stone façades of the buildings around them and the gondolier maneuvered his charges to one side, steadying the gondola as another made the corner ahead, a trio of college-aged girls on board.

  The gondoliers greeted one another with a cheerful camaraderie, and it hurt Geena’s heart to see their smiles. Suddenly she could not bear to be alone tonight, could not put off the restoration of her life until the sunrise. How could she sleep at all, alone in her apartment, knowing that Nico was out there with that insidious, conniving magician holding the reins on his soul?

  Awash in moonlight, ignoring people who passed her on the bridge and the gondolas now retreating in either direction, she pulled out her phone and stood there listening to the thirteen voice messages that her friends had left her. Even Finch had called twice purely out of concern rather than business, despite the fact that they’d only known each other for a few days.

  Tonio wanted her in his office first thing in the morning. His tone was difficult to read, but she knew the conversation would be grim. Yet she welcomed it. Her whole life was crumbling around her and she needed to take action to prevent it from falling apart completely. And whatever was going on in the tomb revealed in Dorsoduro, Tonio would surely know all about it.

  There were three new messages from Domenic. He and the rest of the team had gone to a small café in San Polo called Il Bacio where they sometimes gathered, and he said they were all hoping she would join them if she felt up to it. Geena doubted that they were all that enthusiastic about her company tonight, but she believed Domenic was sincere, and the lure of human companionship was powerful. And perhaps she wouldn’t have to wait until morning to ask about the hidden Foscari tomb.

  Gripping the phone in her hand like some kind of talisman—a connection to normalcy—she left the bridge and canal behind and started off through alleys and courtyards. In the years she had spent in Venice, some areas of its complex labyrinth had become very familiar to her and she tried not to stray into sections she did not know well. Tonight she navigated the maze purely by instinct. Il Bacio was just a few minutes walk from the Rialto Bridge and she made her way in that direction.

  The phone felt solid and real in her hand, but she needed more than that. It was late, but not so late that a ringing phone would alarm anyone. At the risk of waking his children or irritating his wife, she dialed Tonio. Her toe caught on a loose cobblestone and she stumbled but did not fall, cursing softly.

  “Geena? Are you all right?” Tonio answered. He’d heard her swear, which was not the way she’d hoped to begin the conversation.

  “I am,” she said. “I really am. I’m sorry to call you so late, but I didn’t want to leave it until morning.”

  “So you intend to come back to work tomorrow?”

  Geena hesitated. “I … of course I do. This is my project. I should be there.”

  “And there’s nowhere I would rather you be,” Tonio replied gently. “But you were attacked by your … assistant. You were stabbed. You should take time to—”

  “Tonio, please, just listen.”

  A brief silence, and then: “All right.”

  “I’ve just been to the police. I’m not going to press charges against Nico—”

  “But he stabbed you with a knife!” Tonio said, incredulous. “I know you love him, Geena, but he could have killed you.”

  “No. There’s … there’s more to it than that. It’s difficult to explain. Anyway, the knife barely drew blood. There’s barely a mark. I won’t even have a scar.”

  “Geena, he stabbed you.”

  She stopped in the middle of a courtyard where cobblestones were cracked and uneven, the only light aside from the moon coming from an old iron lantern hanging beside the door to a long building that had once been a convent but now contained apartments. If the lantern had run on oil instead of electricity, she might have thought herself in another of Volpe’s memories.

  “I know,” she said quietly. “But I promise you there’s more to it.”

  “But you can’t tell me what it is.”

  She smiled softly to herself, but it faded instantly. “It’s … difficult.”

  Tonio sighed. “You love him.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  “And because you love him,” he continued, “I won’t press charges on behalf of the university. But he no longer has a job here. You understand that, yes? The liability if we were to continue to employ him and there was some further incident of violence would be enormous. But more than that, I won’t have him here. It would seem as if I were condoning his behavior.”

  Geena swallowed hard. “I understand. And thank you.”

  “You should get as far away from him as you can,” Tonio continued. “I fear for you.”

  I fear for myself, Geena wanted to say, but she could not. Tonio would misinterpret her words.

  “You’re a good man,” she told him.

  “Rest tonight,” Tonio replied. “Regain your focus. Come in late tomorrow if you need the time, but do come in. Not because we need you, though we do, but for your own sake. This is the biggest moment of your career, Geena. I would hate to see you let it slip out of your hands.”

  Il Bacio buzzed with the sounds of humanity. Voices were punctuated by laughter and the clinking of glasses and music that came from small speakers overhead and seemed to rise and fall on the dips and swells of conversation. Geena weaved through the busy café with an easy familiarity, tension already easing out of her shoulders. This dose of normality could not erase the madness of the past few days, the horrors of what she had seen and endured just since morning, but it could help her shut it all out for an hour, and she needed that respite.

  She spotted Sabrina first, sitting close with another young woman, who Geena recognized as a student at the university but could not name. The two of them whispered to each other in a way that could only be thought of as intimate, and their eyes sparkled in what might have been mischief or flirtation. Geena arched an eyebrow, but neither option troubled her. Sabrina intrigued her and had proven herself a loyal employee, but they weren’t really friends. There were doubtless many things they did not know about each other.

  Three tables had been dragged together, and the group was much larger than Geena had anticipated. There were graduate students, several undergrads, lovers and friends and spouses, and even Sandro Pustizzi, a history professor from Ca’Foscari. Coffee cups and wineglasses festooned the table, along with silver trays that had borne many pizzas, most of which had been devoured by now. No matter how long she lived in Italy, she would never get used to how late the Italians often ate their meals.

  A waitress bumped her, skillfully managing not to dump the tray of drinks in her hand, and they danced away from each other in the swirl of movement in the café. When Geena looked at the table again, Ramus had already jumped up from the table and was rushing toward her with a broad smile on his face, his skin flushed from too much wine.

  “Dr. Hodge! I’m so glad you came!” he said, glancing at her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  Geena nodded, wondering what Ramus would say if he could see her unmarred skin. She had worn a thin cotton top, but fortunately it hid the absence of a wound.

  “A claret wouldn’t go amiss,” she said.

  This seemed all the confirmation Ramus n
eeded of her physical and mental well-being, and he went in search of a drink.

  That left Geena standing alone and awkward a few feet from the table, but by now perhaps a third of those gathered there had turned to notice her arrival. Sabrina waved, some people whispered to their immediate companions—gossip about her, no doubt—but Domenic stared at her with a relief that made her swell with gratitude that she had such a friend.

  He dragged an empty chair from another table and slid it in beside him just as she approached, and he gestured for her to sit. Thankful, she sank into the chair and then, before either of them had spoken a word, she sighed and leaned on his shoulder.

  “I’m so glad you called me,” she said, sitting up and turning to face him.

  “I’m glad you came,” Domenic replied. “You need to be around sane people for a while.”

  Geena surprised herself by laughing, and Domenic joined her.

  “You look all right, considering,” he said. “What’s going on? Did you talk to Tonio? Have you seen Nico since …”

  The questions stalled as Geena held up a hand. “Please, let’s not talk about it. Just tell me about the project. Where are we?”

  Domenic warmed to the subject immediately, happy to provide her with a distraction.

  “You’ll never believe it,” he said excitedly. “After you and I left—after all the drama and the bloodletting—Sabrina and our divers and the BBC team were documenting everything down in the Chamber when some men from the city engineer’s office showed up with enormous pumps and hoses and said they’d finished shoring up the canal wall.”

  Geena stared at him. “You’re not serious? That quickly?”

  “That’s what I said. There’s obviously more work to be done out there, but they’ve filled the hole, at least temporarily. The BBC must have put a ton of money into it, both on the table and under it, to make it happen that fast.”

  “I guess,” Geena said, but she wasn’t so sure. Finch’s people had money, all right, but graft and corruption were nothing new in Italian government. How much money would it have taken to get the local authorities moving so swiftly? Was there enough money in the world?