“So what’s in there?” Geena asked.
“Something you’ve had already.”
Plague. She shuddered, remembering the magical contagion that had nearly killed her and Nico, the sores and the blood and the certainty that her lungs would flood and her throat would swell until she died.
“While Volpe has been guarding this city from a place of rest, the three of us have been busy. We couldn’t return home for five hundred years because of that interfering bastard, but that hasn’t meant that we have lost all influence over people within the city, nor have we been unable to send people in and bring them out as desired. Volpe slept, and we were building. Volpe rested, and we worked. All we needed was the magic of Akylis to bring our plans to fruition. Now we have it. And if anything happens to us, the city dies.”
Geena understood. Some form of magic held the water from this chamber, just as it had in the Chamber of Ten. By sending clumsy magicians from the city instead of killing them, Volpe had given them time to mature, learn their craft, and plot their eventual revenge. He’d been weak, too concerned with the opinions of the Council of Ten to take proper care of the city he professed to love. By ridding it of its potential dictators, he created Venice’s greatest enemies.
“There are other places,” Foscari said. “Seven, all told. The spell that holds the waters out will only endure as long as at least one of us survives. If all three of us are killed—the two of us, now that Caravello is dead—the walls come down, the urns shatter, and the plague is released.”
Foscari seemed afraid that Geena had remembered the way here. He wanted to make sure she knew there were other such plague rooms. Which means there must be a way to stop this! she thought, To undo all of it. Otherwise he wouldn’t have needed to tell me that.
“So while Volpe slept, you’ve been catching up on James Bond movies,” she said. “And now that I know your diabolical plan, I suppose you’re going to kill me.”
“Not at all,” Aretino said. “Actually, we’re going to release you. You will have until dawn to bring Volpe to us, or we will kill the city.”
“You’re bluffing,” she said, heart missing a beat. “You love this city. You’d never—”
“We do love the city,” Aretino said, and Foscari leaned in close behind her again, his hands slipping around to her breasts, wet mouth against her neck.
“But only because it is home to us, to our family, going back fifteen hundred years,” Foscari said. “The rest of the people of Venice mean nothing to us. Once they’re dead and gone, we’d still have the city itself. Scoured clean. Simple enough to start anew.”
“But we don’t wish for that,” Aretino said. There was a hint of reprimand in his voice, and Foscari moved back. Geena wanted to wipe the places where he had touched, but she crossed her arms instead.
“I’ll do it,” she said, looking at the clay urn. She did not have to feign her fear, nor her disgust at the choice they had given her. “But I can’t bring him here. He’d never believe that I’d found this place on my own.”
“We don’t want you to bring him here,” Aretino said. “You’ll bring him to the Chamber of Ten. At dawn, we will meet there, and there will be an end to this.”
Geena pretended to think on this, looking down at the Doge’s feet, frowning. If Aretino had not suggested the Chamber of Ten, she would have done it herself. It could work to her advantage, if she was very persuasive and very lucky. Will there be time … will Volpe listen … will he believe me … And did Domenic do as I asked?
“The Chamber of Ten,” she said softly. “Why there?”
“You think yourself so clever,” Foscari said. “I’m certain you’ll figure it out.”
“The Chamber,” Aretino said, eyes widening, smile growing, and a small ripple of doubt went through Geena. Have I really done the right thing? But it was too late to back out now. “The Chamber, by dawn.”
Behind her, Geena heard Foscari’s breath growing more rapid. She stared at Aretino without blinking. He nodded slowly, then drew a small shape in the air before her with his unnaturally long index finger. The shape seemed to hang suspended for a few seconds, like a smoke ring that slowly dissipated. She blinked, swayed a little, frowned.
“Away from here,” Aretino said to her at last. “Quickly. But if there is any deceit on your part, any schemes, think better of it. We have been alive—truly alive, woman—for long enough to outsmart anything your feeble mind might conjure. And Foscari’s attentions will be only your first punishment.”
Dismissed, Geena had no desire to linger a moment longer. She turned and pushed past Foscari, up the stairs and through the room holding the priceless treasures. Denying the temptation to stop and examine them, she climbed the next staircase to the bare room above. She still felt strange, and it was only when she exited the building onto the canal path that she began to realize what was wrong. But by then she could not stop. She walked without appreciating direction, passing through alleys she instantly forgot, crossing bridges she thought she had never seen before and would never be able to identify. Direction meant nothing, and struggle though she did, she could not construct a map of where she was or where she had been in her mind. She paused and turned around, going back the way she had come, but every square, courtyard, alley, and canalside walk was unknown to her, all of them blending into one.
So she kept walking through the night until the time came when she no longer tried to recall where she had been, but rather craved something familiar.
The first touch of Nico’s mind on hers made her cry out with joy.
When Nico regained consciousness, he was surrounded by the dead. The room, lit by several weak candles that all seemed to be sputtering their last, was filled with skeletons. They were piled on shelves carved into the walls, one on top of the other like firewood stacked against the winter. They were propped in alcoves several deep, held in place like collected insects by long pikes driven through rib cages; he could not tell whether they’d been pinned there before or after death. In one far corner there was a pile of skulls, and all of them bore signs of trauma to their pale domes. Other bones scattered the floor, tangled with shreds of rotten clothing. Candlelight shifted here and there, and the shadows cast into skulls’ eyes blinked at him, arm bones moved, and clawed fingers clasped at the floor as they tried to pull themselves closer.
None of that shocked him. What did shock him was the weight in his chest. It felt as though his heart had been ripped out—
—Il Conte hacking away, breaking, reaching in—
—and replaced with a lead weight. When he breathed he hardly felt his chest move, and his lungs were burning.
What has he done to me now? Nico thought, and he wondered how many of these skeletons were made by Volpe’s bidding.
I’ve healed you, fool, Volpe’s voice said.
Nico looked down at his chest. He was shirtless, and the place where he’d been shot—just to the left of his sternum, an inch higher than his nipple—was a mass of heavy purple, green, and yellow bruising. He touched himself there with his right hand, running his fingertips across his puffy skin in search of the bullet hole. But it was not there.
A hair’s breadth closer to your heart and you would have bled to death, Volpe said.
“And you?” But the old magician did not answer that. “So where are we?” Nico asked, but already the memories were coming back at him, punching in with each fresh revelation—Ramus’ death, Foscari shooting him gleefully in the chest, Geena being taken by that bastard Aretino—and Volpe did not answer straightaway.
It was easier to cure the wound when you were unconscious. Magic’s influence can be … indelicate sometimes. And the heart is most delicate. It took a while, but you’re well now. I’m well. Now we both need rest.
“But they took Geena,” Nico said.
They won’t hurt her. Not yet.
“How can you be sure?”
Because they want me, and you and I are inextricably bound.
“So they’ll use her as bait,” Nico said coldly.
Of course.
“You sound tired,” Nico said, and Volpe did not reply. He was still there—Nico could feel him, looming in his mind like a shadow in blazing sunlight—but he was musing, his silence loaded with something important.
Nico sighed and closed his eyes. This would have been a great find for any archaeologist, and some vague part of him hoped that he’d discover where they were and remember it. But such considerations seemed like part of a life he no longer knew. Here he was surrounded by bones bearing evidence of violent deaths, and he felt calm. Not quite at home, but settled. He breathed in deeply and smelled dust.
You sought memories that were not your own, Volpe thought. Nico had never heard such caution in that voice. You … forced your way in.
Nico opened his eyes and sat up. He had full control of his body, and he looked around to confirm that, lifting one hand, then the other. He felt righteous rage building inside him, and knew that Volpe would feel it as well. He stood. The chamber’s ceiling was low and brushed his head, and whilst standing he seemed to look down on all the bones and skulls, viewing them as if from the position of a conquering warrior.
Those were not your things to know, Volpe continued. Magic is a dangerous thing, and does not bestow itself upon just anyone. There was a hesitancy to his voice now, and Nico was enjoying the feeling of subtle power it gave him. Volpe did not sound afraid, not quite … but the things Nico had seen were obviously precious to him. The memories were still clear, though disjointed.
What do you expect me to do about it?
“I expect you to forget,” Volpe said.
Nico lashed out. He kicked at a skull, and it shattered beneath his boot, bone shards ricocheting around the room. He turned on the spot, looking for something else to hit or kick, and it was only as his anger bubbled over that he realized, There’s no door to this place.
“I forced my way in?” he shouted. “Then what the fuck did you do to me? Serves you right. How do you like it?” He stalked across the chamber and stomped on a pile of skeletons, feeling a wave of queasiness as they cracked and crumbled beneath his boot. His chest felt heavy and hot, but he could not describe it exactly as pain, more the memory of pain having been there. Right then, he might have welcomed its return.
Volpe held back and let Nico expend his anger. It did not take very long. He turned from the bones he had broken and knelt again in the center of the chamber, shaking, sweating, and thinking of those knives plunging into Volpe’s torso over and over again. Each shred of memory brought a stab of pain in his own chest, and he wondered whether Volpe could transmit to him exactly what it had felt like. Probably. He was the old magician’s mannequin, and though this burst of fury felt good, he was sure that Volpe could stop it at any moment.
“Once the remaining two are put down, you’ll be rid of me,” Volpe said. Nico felt those bloodied memories drawn away, and he frowned as he tried to hold on to them. “They are the threat right now,” the magician continued, the sound of his voice surprising Nico. He’d not sensed the takeover, and now it felt natural speaking as Volpe.
I don’t want any of this, Nico thought.
“We’re in a place I haven’t been to for a long time,” Volpe said, as if answering a question. Control of Nico’s body remained with him, and he relaxed back onto his haunches as Volpe spoke. He could not deny his interest. “Even years before I died, I had no cause to come here. We’re deep beneath my family tomb on San Michele, in the buried ruin of the church that once stood here. This place houses the remains of those who wronged my family and friends over the decades and centuries.”
Popular family, Nico said, looking around and trying to guess how many were entombed down here. There were too many to count.
“When you’re at the forefront of progress, there are always those keen to hold you back.” Volpe took subtle control and pointed at the stacked skeletons, and those pinned against the walls. “Some were brought here dead, this was simply a place to dispose of them.” Then he indicated bones scattered across the floor, not all of them as a result of Nico’s brief show of anger. “Others were put here alive.”
Nico could barely comprehend the fate of those thrown in here still alive, dying in a darkness full of rotting cadavers. So why bring me here now? he asked.
“Recuperation,” Volpe said. “The gunshot damaged more than I can touch right away. You feel well because I’m holding back the pain. I’m accepting it myself.”
The hesitant voice, Nico thought. The caution. It’s because he’s in pain. And … afraid of the Doges?
“No,” Volpe said. “Cautious. They know the city, but never knew this place. I believe the Doges are hidden in a mansion in Dorsoduro. That’s where they will have Geena. For either of us to get what we want, we will have to kill them both. But before we can face them, you must heal. While fighting them, I cannot also take on your pain. And it would be crippling to you.”
Nico touched his chest again and felt Volpe withdraw. His skin felt warm, but the heavy weight inside his chest gave out no real sensations. He almost thanked Volpe, but felt little real gratitude.
“How long do we have to wait?” he asked.
Awhile, Volpe said, and he was fading further away.
“Where’s the door?” Nico asked. He was looking around the chamber again, trying to perceive squared edges in the uneven shadows. But all he sensed from Volpe was a smile, and then nothing.
So he sat down for a while and rested, closing his eyes, breathing calmly and smelling age and candle wax, and the dust of broken bones. And when he thought Volpe was deep enough and far enough away, Nico opened his mind and perception and thought, Geena, I’m alive, and I’ll guide you in.
XVII
GEENA DESPERATELY wanted to go to him. I’ll guide you in, Nico had whispered into her mind, and every part of her wanted to surrender to that guidance. In his thoughts she felt pain and sorrow, and she wished that she could be in his arms, taking and giving the comfort their intimacy would provide.
If they were very lucky, and her courage did not fail her, perhaps they would know that comfort again. But now was not the time. Enemies still lurked all around them, working in shadows to wreak havoc upon their lives. But even that was selfish thinking; more hung in the balance than just the lives of two lovers. Plague and ancient hatreds had come to Venice on wings of greed.
All of it needed to be expunged and, somehow, the fates had conspired to make Geena Hodge the only one able to do that. If she acted now, and swiftly, and as mercilessly as her enemies.
She felt Nico’s psychic touch, the flutter of his thoughts caressing hers, and she wanted to melt into him. She chose ice instead, freezing emotion out in order to preserve it.
Geena? Nico whispered in her mind.
I’m here, but I can’t come to you. They set me free but only to find you. The contagion is in Foscari and Aretino, just as it was in Caravello. And they have more, secreted away in chambers even Volpe doesn’t know about. If they can’t have Venice, no one will. If we don’t do as they demand, they’ll scour the place of life and start over.
She felt his thoughts recoil.
They’ve given us a choice, she continued. I bring them Volpe by dawn or everyone in the city dies. So you have to come to me, Nico. You and Volpe have to meet me in the Chamber of Ten an hour before dawn.
But Volpe—
He loves this city. He’ll come, and he’ll try to kill them. But if all three of them are dead, the plague in those chambers will be released, so he’s got to come up with some other way to stop them.
Geena felt his confusion. But what are you going to do between now and then? he asked.
Prepare, she replied. Whatever you do, don’t trust him. When this is over—
She did not finish the thought, but she knew that Nico would feel it and understand her fear. Perhaps Volpe would sense it as well, but perhaps not. She was not sure how much of their communic
ation he could understand, if it had to be concrete thoughts or if just feelings were enough. But Nico would know, he would feel her suspicion and mistrust of Volpe. The magician had promised to leave them alone, to depart Nico’s body when all of this was over, but Geena no longer believed him, if she ever had. His hubris had made him preserve his heart and his spirit for centuries so that he could remain the Oracle of Venice long past the time someone else ought to have inherited the role. He saw himself as the only one capable of protecting his city, and would not surrender that responsibility for anything.
To be the Oracle, he needed a body.
I’ll be all right, Nico thought, the words a salve to her troubled soul. But words were not enough.
Geena could not risk letting him see more of what was in her mind. I’ll see you an hour before dawn. Until then, don’t search for me. Don’t reach out. We’ll make it through this, honey, and we’ll be together again, just the two of us.
She felt his concern and his love and his fear for her, but just before the connection between them was severed, what Geena felt more than anything was his trust, and that gave her the strength to go on.
Nico sagged back against the stone wall of the catacombs beneath the Volpe family crypt, feeling the absence of Geena in his mind like the urgent nothingness of a missing limb. The shadows were fluttering moths in the dim, jittery candlelight. More than anything, the place felt dry, all of the moisture drawn from the bones of the dead long ago.
As though stepping out from the dark recesses of his mind, Volpe slunk forward. What do you suppose she’s up to?
“You were listening in,” Nico said. “You know as much as I do.”
Or did he? He knew that Volpe had heard the thoughts he and Geena had exchanged, but how much more had he been able to understand?
You are her first priority—
“I was. But if your old friends are telling the truth—”
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