The Chamber of Ten

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 him!” 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.

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 feeling 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.