The Chamber of Ten

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 had 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.

“I don’t know what you’ve been smoking, you crazy old fool,” Nico said. “Now get out of here and mind your own business.”

“My business?” Caravello asked. He was still scrutinizing Nico—a discomforting experience. He took one step closer and Nico smelled him for the first time. There was nothing normal about his smell; he stank solely of age.

“He followed me,” Geena whispered, and Caravello glanced her way. Nico did not. He kept his eyes on the old man because—

Soon, Volpe whispered. I can feel him gathering his senses, and we must not let him win. This is the first, but it will not be the most difficult. Right now, we still have some element of surprise on our side, because he’s not quite sure.

“Everything in Venice is my business,” Caravello said softly.

The left side of his face barely moved, as if it had melted and then set. The drooping muscles beneath that flesh might have been the result of stroke or disease, but Nico caught a stray thought in Volpe’s mind and knew the truth. Caravello’s ruined visage had been caused by dark magic in the hands of an ambitious amateur.

He is an amateur no longer, Volpe whispered in Nico’s mind.

The right side of Caravello’s face was animated and filled with confidence.

“Venice was mine,” the Doge said. “And it will be again. A united three are so much greater than one, Volpe. Do you hear?”

He jerked forward and Nico took a step back before Volpe took control at last.

The ancient Doge sensed the change in him immediately.

“Ahh,” Caravello sighed. “So it is you.”

Volpe swung the knife. It hissed through the air inches from the old man’s face. Caravello slipped back to the top of the steps and threw off his cloak, revealing two short swords stuck in his belt. As he drew them, Volpe lunged, punching him in the face and sending him stumbling down the steps.

“What have you been doing all this time?” Caravello laughed, regaining his balance. He had the swords out now, and he spun them with amazing dexterity. “Hiding away? Keeping the city safe?”

“It worked,” Volpe growled.

“Until now.”

“A minor interruption,” Volpe said, then he went at Caravello again.

Geena screamed. Nico heard her, but Volpe was fully in charge now, using Nico’s fitness to compliment his experience. He ducked one sword swipe and went in low, punching at Caravello’s crotch, missing, then stabbing with the knife. Caravello—upright, and with the advantage—kicked Volpe in the face. He should have screamed as his broken nose was crushed, but he had known much worse.

Nico gasped in surprise, his voice unheard.

“A knife?” Caravello said again, and he laughed. “Look at you, Volpe. Little more than a shade inhabiting a stranger’s body.” He circled Volpe, both of them tensed and ready for another attack. “And look at me. You know me, you old bastard. You’ve been dead all these centuries. Whereas I … I have advanced. Grown with the world. I’ve danced around this globe, Zanco, and seen things you cannot imagine. I’ve learned so much. But Venice has always been my home.” He took in a deep breath. “It’s good to be home.”

“So where are the others?” Volpe asked.

Caravello sneered. “Not far at all. They’ll be so envious that it was my hand that took your life.” He kicked out, faster than Volpe had believed possible, and his foot struck cracked ribs. Volpe gasped, because even if he could withstand the pain, the pressure on his lungs was immense. He went down, coughing blood.

“You should have ignored the Council and killed me when you had the chance,” Caravello said. He raised one sword, lowered the other, and came in for the kill.

Geena jumped from the third step and collided with Caravello, her shoulder striking his hip, hands clawing into his clothing as she fell. Unbalanced, he followed her down. One sword clattered to the ground, and Geena grunted as the man landed across her shoulders.

Volpe stood and darted forward, ignoring the crippling pain in his chest, and Nico heard the calm calculation in his mind: While he kills the girl, I’ll deal with him.

No! Nico tried to scream, and with a supreme effort of will he pushed himself forward, knife lashing out. He feigned right and darted to the left, slicing across Caravello’s stomach with the blade. It parted his shirt but did not draw blood.

Geena crawled to the steps and crouched, watching the fight, and tensed to jump again.

Left! Nico warned, and Volpe dropped to the left just in time to avoid a descending blade. He fell onto Caravello’s arm, grabbed his wrist, and jerked down, feeling and hearing bone snap beneath his weight. The old man might have lived for those intervening centuries, but whatever dark magic he had employed to increase his longevity had done little to strengthen time-brittled bones.

Caravello screamed shrilly, and Volpe stood and pressed the tip of the knife beneath Caravello’s chin.

The old Doge laughed. “A knife, Volpe? Do you really think—”

“A knife smeared with the blood of the new Oracle? Yes, I do think. The magic of Akylis cannot withstand the power of the city itself.” And he pushed, pressing down on Caravello’s head with one hand and shoving with all his might with the other, plunging the blade through the old man’s throat and mouth cavity and into his brain. When he felt the gush of rancid blood around the knife’s hilt he shoved the body aside and stepped back.

The Doge was trying to talk, but the knife held his mouth pinned shut. Volpe knelt before him—he wanted to be the last thing Caravello saw before he died. The corpse started to wither as though the centuries had begun to catch up to it.

Geena breathed hard, each exhalation a grunt building toward a scream.

“We have to leave here quickly and silently,” Volpe growled, and he drew back again, giving Nico control. “I used what magic I could spare to turn attention away, so that we would not be interrupted. But I cannot sustain it.”

Nico slumped before the still-twitching body of the old man, finding his strength. He could feel the slick blood on his hand now, and smell its rankness, like something left in a gutter to rot in the midday sun. Shocked at what had happened, still trying to come to terms with what it meant, he stood and turned toward Geena.

She was standing in the fading sunlight on the top of the steps, moving slowly sideways across the face of the church.

“You … killed … that man,” she said.

“Volpe killed him,” Nico said. “Geena, there’s so much—”

“Caravello,” she said. “He wore tights and a codpiece, and the canal was …”

“Red,” Nico said, and he suddenly understood. “How much have you seen?”

“I have no idea,” Geena said.

“We have to go. He told me … We have to leave now, before anyone can ask what happened here.”

“What did happen here?” He could see that she was descending into shock. Her eyes were glazed and fixed on the dead man. But behind the shock, she was also struggling to comprehend what she had seen, fighting with reality.

“It’s all real,” he said.

“Yes,” Geena said, nodding, and letting the tears come.

“Come on.” Nico grabbed her arm, making sure he’d placed himself between her and Caravello’s corpse. The old Doge was a sad bundle in the shadows, dead, and with Nico’s fingerprints all over the knife jammed in his skull.

“Where to?” Geena asked.

“Anywhere but here.” They were together again, and yet their world had changed almost beyond recognition. Whatever happened now, Nico was determined to protect Geena from the future.

“But first we have to hide the body.”

While Geena kept watch to make sure their crime went unseen, Nico—or the man speaking with his voice—forced the door of an abandoned taverna just off the courtyard by the church. The windows were dark, all the chairs up on tables, and the old wood around the lock, softened by decades of damp, gave way easily.

“You saved my life,” Nico said as he hurried back to help Geena lift the body.

“I saved Nico’s life,” she replied as she took the corpse by its feet. “I don’t know who you are.”

“Still denying? Still doubting?” he replied, hooking his hands under Caravello’s arms.

“I just don’t understand.” She handed him Nico’s phone. “But this is for Nico. I can’t be out of touch with him again. I just can’t.”

They carried the body inside and set it on the floor behind the bar, then left swiftly, both of them glancing around nervously as Nico pulled the door tightly shut behind them.

The deed had been done largely in silence. Now, though, as they hurried away, Volpe spoke to her again, using Nico’s mouth.

“Accept what you know, and what has happened. It’s much easier than fighting. That way, what you don’t understand—”

“I don’t understand how you can be two people, and how what we did down in that chamber could lead to this. If you’re even real, how could you have survived down there? Why did our opening the door cause the chamber to flood? Why were those ten Council members entombed there? How is it that you can speak enough modern Italian for me to understand you? Why did you do those things? Those terrible …”

Geena shook her head and stared at Nico, shivering. There was a stranger behind his eyes. Even though he was bruised and cut, she could still see it was not him. It was his hair and eyes, the mouth she had kissed so often, the hands that had caressed her and held her when she was upset or sad. But someone else watched her from inside.

He ducked into a café and steered her to a table. They did not speak again until they had ordered and the waitress had brought them coffee. Geena drank hers down. It burned her lips and tongue, but she didn’t mind. She couldn’t stop herself from shaking, and shock was settling in. Before today, she had never seen a person die.

“Thank you for saving my life,” he said. Volpe.

Geena closed her eyes and remembered launching herself at that man with the two swords, and how the unreality of the scene had buffered her against the danger she was placing herself in. It had felt like a dream, so unreal that the action had seemed wholly logical and normal. The old man had been about to kill the person she loved, and there had been no hesitation at all. But was that the only reason I did it? she thought. Probably not.

She watched Nico stand. He didn’t walk like Nico, and his voice was someone else’s. That’s Zanco Volpe. A dead man.

“I’m not without honor,” Nico said in that other person’s voice. Geena drank more coffee and turned away.

“I can’t look when you’re talking like that, and you still …”

“Look like Nico.”

She nodded, setting the cup on the table and hugging her arms.

“Everything has changed,” he said in his deep, unreal voice. It was like an echo from history. If a mummy could speak, it would sound like this.

“Let me speak to Nico,” she said, realizing how ridiculous that sounded but unable to smile.

She heard a sigh, and then Nico’s hands rested on hers.

“Geena,” he said, with a tenderness that could only have been him—Nico speaking to her now, not Volpe. “You have to believe.”

“I don’t know what to believe,” she confessed, keeping her voice low.

She glanced at the other people in the café, all of them seemingly content with their lives in that moment. The fading light of the end of a long summer day cast a golden glow just outside the windows.

“I’ve learned so much,” Nico said. “It took me a while to believe Volpe, too, but now there’s no alternative.” He sounded almost happy. She heard his pain, and his fear, but …

“You sound pleased,” she said.

“I am,” Nico said. “Geena, I’m not insane, and neither are you.”

She had seen Giardino Caravello over six hundred years before, boarding a boat and being driven from the city. She had seen him today, wielding two swords to kill Nico. She had pushed him over and started the final series of events that ended in his death.

“Please let him explain,” Nico said. “I think he will … he says he will. I think he needs us now.”

“Tell me one thing first, Nico,” she said. She studied him so that hopefully she would see any lie in his eyes. “Did you kill the Mayor?”

First he was Nico, and then he changed. His eyes grew wider and darker.

“The Mayor has been murdered?” he said again in that deep, ancient voice. Then he closed his eyes and sat back in his chair. “That changes everything. They are moving even faster than I feared.” He opened his eyes again and stared at her, and there was something compelling about him. The mystery, perhaps, or the power she knew he must hold …

The power Zanco Volpe must possess to do what he was doing now.

“Geena, Nico loves you, and I see that you have a good heart. If you’ll hear me now, I’ll do my best to explain why I need you. And why the future of Venice might well rest in your hands.”