“No!” Volpe said, and Nico had never heard such passion in that spirit’s voice.
“What’s happening?” Nico asked, and he spoke aloud. He looked down at his hand and lifted it; Volpe had let his control slip. In his other hand, Nico still clasped the knife that had slashed Geena’s arm and his own palm, and he moved to throw it away. His muscles cramped, and it felt as if the bones of his arm had fused into glass. One wrong move and they would shatter.
“No!” Volpe roared. For a second his voice was as loud as the increasing disturbance in the chamber. He dragged Nico to his feet and took control again, complete control, and Nico was shoved deep like a body being stuffed down a well. “It’s all wrong!” Volpe screamed, but this time the chaos around him was louder.
Still he let Nico see, and hear. Behind what was happening all around them in the chamber—the violence of an earthquake, with the echoes of something very different—Nico felt a simmering fury waiting to burst from the man who had stolen him away.
The fire in one of the braziers went out suddenly, and Nico thought of that buried chamber, the wall collapsing, and the stinking waters finding their way inside. But there was no water here, only dust and chaos. The air itself shook, bounced from wall to wall, a series of shock waves crossing and colliding, and Nico’s teeth thrummed in his jaw. His hair stood on end as he turned to run for the door.
“It didn’t work!” Volpe screamed. Nico froze again, muscles cramped, and he became a statue while everything around him seemed to move. “They’re already here!”
Nico tried walking, and slowly the blazing pain in his limbs lessened. Its dilution matched the reduction in the violence around the room. Two braziers were out now, but the other two still guttered heroically, their flames soft and blue as if there were not enough oxygen in the air.
“What … happened?” Nico rasped, and then the fury he sensed exploded upon him, and from him.
“We were too late!” Volpe growled. And Nico found himself running at full speed, head down, toward the solid stone wall.
* * *
Geena moved through the city, guided by nothing discernable or definable. Leaving the stolen boat tied to a wooden jetty, she ducked through a rose-smothered archway and emerged into a small square. There were a few people here, milling around a restaurant busy with the early dinner crowd—Americans, mostly. Europeans ate much later. The diners spoke in strangely subdued tones, and she felt oddly unnerved by their presence. She skirted the square and hoped they did not see her. There was no fear that she would be recognized—the chance of her knowing anyone here was remote—but she felt involved in something so bizarre that the company of casual strangers seemed repellent. They would nod a greeting or comment on how warm it was, meals still heavy in their stomachs and eyes softened with wine, and somewhere Nico was in terrible danger. His life hung in the balance; she was certain of that. She might well be his only hope. Muttered platitudes had no place this day.
And still she sensed something following her. On the canal, she had paused in her paddling a dozen times—once to move aside as a water taxi chugged by, the rest simply to drift and listen. The dip and splash of the oars soon became soporific, but she needed to remain alert. She never heard anything behind her that indicated pursuit, nor did she see anything. And that convinced her more than anything that she was being followed, though not by anyone she could see. It felt as if someone remained just out of sight, always hidden behind the last turn in the canal.
She had checked her cell phone, floating in the middle of a narrow canal that was usually bustling during the day. Two more texts from Domenic, the last one over an hour before, and she guessed he’d given up for the day. No more voice mails. If he’d found her trail and was somehow following, surely he would try to call her, ask her to wait for him? Surely he’d let her know?
She left the square and headed along a narrow alleyway between buildings. At the first doorway she stopped and crouched down behind some rubbish bags. She smelled rotten food and musty clothes, heard the secretive rustlings of some of Venice’s huge rat population, but no one entered the alley behind her.
“Nico?” she said softly, just in case. Speaking his name vocalized a truth she did not like—she was a little scared of him. It was a repulsive idea, because she was certain that he needed her now more than at any time in the past, but all this strangeness surrounded and came from him. Something he’d done down in that Chamber of Ten had initiated this—touching that urn, and the slick material it had contained—and though she could not find it in herself to lay blame, she did attach responsibility. She wanted to help him, but she was quietly terrified that he would not be willing, or able, to help himself.
No one followed her into the alley, and neither did she receive any more flashes from Nico. So she moved on, simply because remaining still no longer seemed a good idea.
She came to a canal with a narrow footpath along one side, where three people sat drinking outside a set of open French doors. She knew this to be a small hotel—there were many in this district, family-run places that spent most of the year filled with tourists who knew the better places to stay in Venice. She heard two American voices, and heavily accented English from a woman who might have been the owner. There was a small table between them, several wine bottles on its surface, and they each nursed a glass.
Geena passed by, trying to appear as nonchalant as possible but feeling conspicuous. As she drew level, the Italian woman said in English, “Have you heard about the Mayor?”
“What about him?” one of the American men asked.
“Dead!” the other American said, his voice slurring heavily. He lifted his glass and took a drink, and his companion glanced wearily at him.
Geena froze, wanting to eavesdrop but without getting caught. The Mayor was dead? Had he died in the collapse of the building in Dorsoduro? She patted her pockets as though searching for something.
“But how did he die?” the less obviously intoxicated American asked.
“Stabbed to death,” the drunk man said, the seriousness quelling his drunkenness a little.
“In his house,” the Italian woman said. “His wife and daughter found him just before dinner. Tragic.”
Geena hurried quickly away, losing herself amidst the people bustling this way and that. The Mayor, dead? Who would have done such a thing? Why? Her mind was running, trying to decide if these were all pieces of a larger puzzle. Murder and disaster had struck Venice in a single day, and she could not help feeling as though chaos was spreading throughout the city. She looked at the faces of the people she passed and they all seemed troubled to her. Uneasy, as though they sensed dark forces working against them, just out of sight.
Or maybe you’re just projecting, Geena thought, and managed a small smile. But what if she wasn’t merely being self-indulgent? Could all of these things really be unrelated? Memories of the flashbacks she’d been following mixed and merged. Whatever Zanco Volpe had been—magician, murderer, manipulator—he had been first and foremost a politician, dedicated to the city he both loved and secretly controlled.
Stabbed to death, the man had said.
Though she fought against it, and ghastly though the idea was, she had little trouble imagining the knife in the hand of the man she loved; the hand now controlled by Zanco Volpe.
Volpe gave him back his nerves, but kept muscle and bone. He let him feel the pain that damage to his flesh caused, but retained mobility and impetus, exerting a terrible control that left Nico helpless in his agonies. It was a terrible, vengeful torture, and all the while Volpe kept shouting out the reason:
“You … slowed … me … down!”
He ran across the chamber again and struck another stone wall. The impact stole his vision, and he staggered back and fell.
“No!” Volpe said, hauling Nico to his feet again, wiping blood from his eyes so that he could launch himself at one of the flaming braziers. He tripped and went sprawling, pain biting in everywhere. Nico s
o wanted to scream, but Volpe had his mouth, using it to rant and rage.
“You made me late, you slowed me down, you let them get in!”
I let no one in, Nico thought, but he knew that was not quite true. He’d let Volpe in, and now the consequences of that mistake were mounting. The Book of the Nameless lay torn beneath him, the seal rolled across the floor, and close to his right hand lay the knife.
Volpe picked it up, and Nico screamed.
The scream was real. Volpe paused, holding the knife with its tip pointing toward Nico’s right eye, inches away and invisible in the poor light. Volpe moved it closer, and Nico could sense it there, the cool sharp metal that was now smeared with a mixture of his and Geena’s blood.
I’ve done nothing to you, he thought. You’ve done it all to me. But he tried to draw back, and thought as secretly as he could, I love you, Geena, and I’m sorry, but the monster is going to kill me.
Volpe stood, groaning as he took some of the pain he had bestowed. Nico felt a sense of wonder in the spirit, because he had not felt such pain for so long. It was almost liberating. His heart thudded, blood flowed, and as Volpe moved toward the small entrance hole into the chamber, Nico quietly assessed his injuries.
“I’m no monster,” Volpe said, his tone betraying a sense of hurt.
Then give me back my life.
“I cannot. Not yet. Things have gone … wrong. There’s danger to Venice. Its people and the city itself are in peril, and what I’ve been holding back for centuries might now—”
Might what? Nico thought. How are you any different from them? They dabbled in dark magic? They were power-hungry bastards? So what? That describes you just as well. They’re just like you!
“No,” Volpe said, “they’re not.”
What makes them so different?
He could feel Volpe’s anger subsiding into grim determination.
“Listen well, Nicolo, and I will tell you.”
For long minutes, the old magician whispered to him. Nico listened, first incredulous, then amazed, and finally terrified.
“I need rest,” Volpe said, when he was through. “You need to find somewhere quiet, somewhere private, and rest yourself. I have injured you, and for that you have my apologies. But I can heal you. The longer we are joined together, the stronger the bond between us, and the greater control I have over my magic. While we both rest, your injuries will fade and your vigor will be restored, just as mine will be. I despise the thought of losing even a moment, but we must be at our best. We have a fight ahead of us.”
“We?” Nico said, surprised at the sound of his voice. Volpe was already sinking down, and the pains across his body roared in like a fire bursting alight. Nico groaned and spit blood from mashed lips, and he hoped Volpe really could heal him.
You’ve no choice, Nico, from somewhere deep inside. Venice needs you now, as much as it ever needed me. Now rest … and later, we will scheme.
XI
STANDING BEFORE Chiesa di San Rocco, Geena was unsure exactly what had brought her here. Since hearing about the Mayor’s murder she had walked in a haze, the world around her seeming less real than the scenarios that came to life in her imagination. There were no more hints of something following her, but with her attention switched inward she probably wouldn’t have noticed, anyway.
The church looked empty, and yet … there was something about it. An air of potential, or the sense that something momentous had just happened. Perhaps it was the silence that hung around the place, as if the walls themselves were shocked dumb.
“Nico?” she called. There was no trace of his presence, no inkling of the touch that had been fading in and out like a badly tuned radio. Her voice echoed only briefly then faded again to silence. She could hear sounds elsewhere in the city—the ever-present buzz of boat engines, wooden shutters clapping shut, and from somewhere distant the incongruous sounds of a party—but they only emphasized the silence. I shouldn’t even be here, she thought, and then the church doorway opened.
She wanted to hide, but there was nothing close enough to hide behind.
When he emerged into the slanted sunlight on the top step, she heard something behind her, as though the night itself had gasped in disbelief. But she could focus only on Nico. She ran to him, mindless of the knife in his hand, forgetting everything that had happened save for losing him, and when he looked up he smiled with bloodied eyes.
“Nico!” She tried to yell but it came out as a whisper as she ran up the five steps. On the top step she paused, the sight of him stifling her joy. He looked terrible—face smeared with blood, lips gashed, one eye swollen shut, and he held his left side as if he’d cracked ribs. But in his good eye she saw only Nico—no one and nothing else.
“Sweet Geena,” he said, and it was Nico’s voice. She stepped to him and opened her arms, not even glancing at the knife he held in his outstretched right hand. But just as she moved in close, ready to rest her head against his shoulder and feel his heat, she saw his eyes open wide with shock and sensed something coming at her from behind.
She turned, her hand pressed against the small of his back. He moved in front of her and raised the knife. A figure streaked across the paved area in front of the church, a confusion of billowing darkness, and its footsteps had a peculiar pattern—slap, thunk, slap, thunk.
The man came to a halt before the steps, his sudden stillness more striking than the startling movement. He was dressed in a black cloak and hood, and as he raised his face, Geena felt terror clasping talons into her flesh. He’ll have no face, he’ll be nobody …
But it was only a man, his hair long and completely gray, his hands thin and fingers spindly. And when she saw his face—
I’ve seen this man before!
The way the left side drooped, left eye heavily lidded and mouth downturned—
—but it can’t be him, it can’t be, because—
She felt herself losing strength, her muscles relaxing, knees folding—
—because that was six hundred years ago.
Geena hit the ground but neither man seemed to notice. They only had eyes for each other.
“Pity,” Giardino Caravello said. “I was certain you were Zanco Volpe.”
One of the Doges, Nico thought, and he was certain that Volpe would rise then. But he did not, too exhausted from the ritual. Nico moved his left hand away from his ribs, and turned the knife in his right. He had complete control of his body.
“What are you talking about?” Nico said. Act the fool and perhaps he’ll leave. Plead ignorance, and this man who was banished from the city … almost six hundred years ago …
“You know me?” the man asked. His voice was light and soft, belying the image he portrayed. When Nico had last seen him in Volpe’s memory, he’d been dressed in stylish clothes, acting slighted as he boarded the boat to be taken from Venice forever. Now it seemed that even forever had limits.
My fault, Nico thought, and he felt Volpe’s rotting heart slipping through his fingers all over again.
“No,” Nico said, but he realized instantly that he could not lie to this man.
“Well …” The man shrugged. “If you don’t know me, then you know Volpe.” He mounted the steps, lurching up them as if one of his legs no longer worked properly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nico said. He glanced back at Geena, sitting on the ground and staring with her mouth wide open. Up! he thought, but there was no indication that she heard.
“The church has changed,” Doge Caravello said. “It looks more elaborate than I recall. But I suppose time changes everything.”
Volpe, Nico thought. Volpe! But the old spirit remained silent.
Caravello reached the top step, five paces from Nico, and there he paused. He looked Nico up and down, the good side of his mouth turning up in a smile that looked more like a sneer.
“Cut yourself shaving?” the ancient man asked. There would be no negotiating here, Nico knew. From everything he h
ad witnessed of Volpe’s memories of the city, he knew that those three banished Doges were Volpe’s mortal enemies. Even through his broken and bloodied nose, he could smell violence in the air, and he moved a step to the right to stand between Caravello and Geena.
“Leave us alone, old man.” Volpe, hear this. Listen!
“Old man?” Caravello asked with a gentle laugh. “If only you knew.”
Nico remembered the canal turning red, Volpe’s dismissal of this man who had once ruled Venice, the guards’ nervousness, the Doge’s pride as he was banished from the city he loved and which he had been making a play to rule completely—
Caravello read his face all too well.
“Oh, so you do know,” the Doge said. He took one step closer and Nico raised the knife.
The old man laughed. It was a surprisingly light, high laugh, like a young girl’s. He squinted and leaned closer, looking at Nico’s face, his eyes, turning his head this way and that like a dog sniffing the air.
“I did think it was you, Zanco,” he said, almost with regret. “But perhaps you really are gone for good. The others would be so pleased to hear it.”
Nico bent his knees and dropped into a fighting pose, but he had not fought anyone since he was eleven years old. This was nothing like instinct. The manipulation was much more subtle than it had been before, and for the first time Nico gave himself entirely to the thing inside. He retained control but answered the hints, and far away he heard Volpe whisper, Soon he will see the truth … and then he will attack.
“Perhaps you opened up his old tomb,” Caravello said. “We saw the news about the Chamber being found. I’d like to visit it myself, but … fuck it. You know? Old times. The past is best left dead.” He was staring intently at Nico, watching for some hint that there was more to him than first appeared.
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