The Chamber of Ten

XIV

VOLPE SAILED across the gap between buildings. At the last moment, he feared he would not clear the top of Nico’s balcony and began to thrash in the air, lifting his feet. He made it by an inch. His feet touched the balcony but momentum hurtled him forward and he brought his arms up to shield his face—Nico’s face—as he crashed through the French doors.

Wood splintered, glass shattered, and Volpe heard Nico screaming inside of him. Glass shards sliced his shoulders and arms and stabbed his thighs as he stumbled forward, but he managed to keep his footing.

There were two men inside the apartment, one in the kitchen and one sitting on the edge of the sofa. Murderous thugs but not seasoned killers; he could see that instantly, and it confirmed a suspicion—the Doges had not had time to enlist more competent help.

The pale man on the sofa stood, but Volpe had rested well and the fool might as well have been moving in slow motion. The one in the kitchen swore in some Slavic tongue as he slid a knife from a hidden sheath, even as the other fumbled behind his back, reaching under his jacket for a weapon.

Gun! Nico cried in Volpe’s thoughts, and instantly the magician saw in Nico’s mind what such a weapon could do.

Volpe dropped, snatched up a long sliver of broken glass, and darted at the pale man. Even as the gun came up, he swung the glass dagger and slashed open the gunman’s throat. Blood sprayed in an arc, splashing Volpe’s face, and the dying man pulled the trigger twice. The weapon had been silenced, the shots making only a muffled pop. One bullet went wide but the other punched through his shoulder, spinning him around in a spatter of crimson.

Volpe continued the spin, shot his hand out, and pulled the gun from the pale man even as he collapsed to the floor. He tore the weapon free, feeling in Nico’s thoughts for how it was to be held, and then he pointed it at the Slavic killer even as the man rushed him with a long, wickedly gleaming blade.

The Slav faltered, arrogance and bloodlust battling logic in his brain.

What are you doing? Nico shouted in Volpe’s head.

What must be done! Now be silent.

Volpe faced the Slav covered in blood, only some of it his own. The bullet hole seared his flesh with pain, but already it was diminishing, closing. Nico knew he had not suffered from earlier wounds as much as he would have because of the magic coursing through Volpe’s spirit, and the magician’s connection to the soul of the city. But it had taken powerful ritual magic to purge his and Geena’s bodies of the plague, and heal all their other injuries. He wondered why it had become so simple and immediate now … but even as he wondered, he found the answer in the touch of Volpe’s mind, could see the truth. The bond they were sharing—two spirits in one body, like the bond that Volpe shared with the city—had strengthened. The old magician’s power was building back to its true strength.

“Listen carefully,” Volpe told the Slav. “You still live because I needed one of you alive and your companion posed a more immediate threat. There are things I wish to know. Things that you will tell me.”

The Slav scowled and spat on the floor between them.

Volpe inhaled sharply. “You are very stupid.”

He thrust out his free hand and twisted his fingers in the air as though gripping the reins of a horse. To Volpe, the Slav seemed no less an animal, a beast to be controlled.

The thug straightened abruptly, arms flailing. Awareness lit up his eyes with panic as he recognized that he no longer controlled his own body, and he tried to fight. Eyes narrowed, snarling with the effort, he brought his knife around in front of him and took two staggering steps forward, murder in his eyes.

Nico whispered in Volpe’s mind. Is this magic?

What do you think? Volpe thought.

But how is it done?

Volpe scowled. He had no time to explain himself to Nico. The young archaeologist had left his mind open to exploration several times and Volpe had learned a great deal about the modern world from him, among other things. But in order to fulfill his own plans, he needed Nico’s cooperation, which included silence when necessary. And so he reached out to Nico in his mind, let barriers fall that he had erected in ages past. Nico—and through him, Geena—had glimpsed many of Volpe’s memories already, but now he let Nico into the landscape of his mind and gave him free rein to explore … almost everywhere.

Nico is a boy, perhaps twelve years of age, on the night he waits in the corridor outside of the maid’s chamber in his father’s house. The woman speaks Italian perfectly but there is the hint of Arabia in her voice, and her almond eyes and coffee skin suggest such lineage. Her lips are full and sensuous, her body ripe beneath her draped clothing, and she has been the object of the boy’s desire since the first stirring of his cock.

Tonight she cries out in a throaty rasp, hoarse with lust, and he has come to spy upon her. But as he peers through the keyhole, watching her serviced by an Athenian sailor whose thickly muscled body is slicked with sweat, his own maddening lust turns to fear and shock. The sailor hurts her, strikes her, begins to choke her, and she slashes his face with her fingernails, fighting against him.

The sailor bleeds and laughs and begins to pummel her face with every thrust.

After the fifth blow, somehow she seems to transcend the pain. Through the keyhole, Nico can see her eyes glittering with hatred in the candlelight, her teeth bared. He sees her arms drop back as though in surrender, but she is not surrendering. She twists her fingers until her hands appear to be huge spiders weaving their webs, and she rasps words in some guttural Arabic tongue.

The sailor lifts off of her as though the hand of God has snatched him from the bed. He flails, dangling above her, cursing her as a witch in his native tongue. Her chanting continues and the Athenian begins to twitch, batting at his glistening skin in fear, slapping as though killing insects. Nico has not mastered much of the Greek language, but he understands enough to know the sailor sees spiders on his flesh, digging holes, laying eggs. The man slaps and claws at his face, digging deep furrows in his cheeks, then he plunges fingers into his eye sockets and rips both eyes out, screaming that the spiders are still digging.

The nude woman, body still flushed with arousal, crawls from the bed, corded muscles standing out in her neck as though she herself is holding the sailor off the ground. Then, with a gesture, she lets him fall and he collapses to the bed, turning as though to search for her with those empty, gore-rimmed eye sockets.

Nico never sees where she finds the knife, but it is there. She reaches out and grips the sailor’s sex in one hand, then brings the blade down swiftly. While he is screaming, she cuts his throat.

Nico cannot breathe. He cannot identify what he feels at the sight of this horror—the heart-stopping magnificence of the maid’s nakedness, the violence, the blood. But he understands that the Athenian thought her vulnerable, thought himself her better, and that the maid has proven that an error.

She holds her hands out, palms turned downward above the dying man, and chants briefly. Fire leaps from the corpse and the floor and the bed, rages brightly for several seconds and sends a wave of heat blasting through the keyhole. Then, as abruptly as it began, the fire is gone and only charred ash remains. The maid picks up the bedclothes and shakes them out, and he sees that they are not burned at all.

The maid has only to sweep away the ash and the only sign of the Athenian ever being there will be the unfulfilled dampness of her sex and the marks of his hands upon her throat, and both will fade.

He should go, sneak back to his room and pretend that he has seen nothing. He could, and she would never know. But he cannot.

As if his actions are no longer his own, he rises, lifts a hand, and raps on the door. The house is empty other than the two of them. No one else has heard the screams. No one else is coming. And she will know that it can only be him at the door. Still, long seconds pass.

When the door creaks open she is clad in a thin robe and she studies him with a ravenous curiosity as he enters the room. And then she smiles.

“Zanco, what did you see?” she asks.

“Nothing,” Nico lies.

By her bedside is a small silver mirror. She picks it up and holds it so that he can see his reflection. The skin around his right eye is burned a bright red in the shape of a keyhole.

She smiles.

Nico feels his heart thundering in his chest and wonders if she can hear it. His prick is rampant, straining against his clothing. His lower lip quivers and he cannot meet her gaze, but then he forces his fear away and lifts his eyes.

“Teach me,” he says, and he does not stammer.

He is asking so many things with those two words, and she seems to understand them all. She releases the catch on her robe and it glides down her copper skin to pool at her feet.

And the magic, and the power, begin.

But he is not Nico. He is Zanco Volpe. And Nico knows he will learn his lessons well.

Tremors shook the Slav’s body. The knife in his right hand shook most of all. Volpe turned his back on the man, walked to Nico’s coffee table, and set down the dead thug’s gun. The bullet wound in his shoulder had healed almost completely, but it gave an unpleasant tug as he reached down to turn a chair toward the Slav and sat in it, the blood on his clothes and hands soaking into the fabric.

“Now,” Volpe said, “I have questions. You will provide answers.”

The Slav’s upper lip quivered as though he wanted to muster up another gob of phlegm to show his disdain for this suggestion, but he could not manage even that. Volpe had him.

How old are you? Nico asked, inside his head.

Quiet, Volpe said. Sit and learn. I have opened the doors of my mind to you. If we must share this body—

My body!

—then I will be a gracious host. You wish to understand spellcraft and ritual, but you must educate yourself. I have business to attend to. All of Venice is in peril.

Volpe could feel the doubt in Nico’s thoughts.

Your control of the city is in peril, not the city itself, Nico thought.

Volpe ground his teeth in irritation. Nico’s presence within this flesh had to be tolerated for now, but it had begun to wear on him.

We shall see. Now be silent.

“Basssstaarrrrrd …” the Slav managed to slur.

“Ah, you want to talk now?” Volpe said, leaning forward in the chair. “Excellent. I’ll give you the freedom to speak. Take a look at your friend there on the floor.”

He gestured at the corpse—at the pouting gash in the pale man’s throat and the way the dead eyes gazed lifelessly at the ceiling.

“Now, then,” Volpe continued, “who sent you here and what were your instructions?”

“Go fuck yourself,” the Slav growled.

Volpe sighed in unfeigned impatience, then clenched his right hand into a fist and raised it up. The Slav lifted his long, wicked-edged blade. He stared at it, Volpe all but forgotten.

“No. No, no,” the Slav said, face contorting as he struggled to regain control.

At a gesture from Volpe, he drove the knife down into his thigh. He opened his mouth to scream, but Volpe gave a twist of his left hand, like the turn of a lock, and stole his voice. Blood sluiced from the wound. Tears sprang to the Slav’s eyes and beads of sweat formed on his forehead.

This is wrong, Nico protested in his mind. It’s torture.

Volpe had felt him examining old memories, turning them over like the pages in some grimoire. But now the events unfolding in his living room had gotten Nico’s attention.

Yes, it’s torture. But he has chosen it. Now, hush.

“No screaming,” Volpe cautioned. He unlocked the Slav’s voice and gave a nod. “Answer the question.”

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 balance 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 needed 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?

Or were the Doges somehow involved? She tried to think of a reason they might use their influence in that fashion, why they might want access to the Chamber of Ten, but nothing occurred to her.

Maybe you’re just being paranoid. These guys aren’t pulling the strings on everything. She was so tired and confused.

“We got the pumps running right away,” Domenic was saying.

“How long, do you think, until the chamber’s dry?”

“Maybe forever. Whatever kept it dry—which Sabrina found no sign of, by the way—it isn’t working now. The pumps have probably already drained what flooded in, but there’s still going to be groundwater. Once the canal wall is permanently repaired we’ll know more, but my guess is a drainage system might need to be installed long-term.”

Geena let that sink in. Right now, as they sat there talking, the Chamber of Ten might be accessible. Who knew how much damage it had sustained? The broken wall, of course, and one of the obelisks had cracked. And then there was the urn …

“Domenic, there’s something I need you to do for me,” she said. “Now. Tonight.”

He nodded. “Of course. Anything.”

Geena spoke quickly and quietly, so that only Domenic could hear her over the din of the café. If he thought her request strange he showed no sign of it, only agreed to do as she asked.

“Now, tell me about this horrible thing in Dorsoduro,” she said. “What is this crypt they’ve discovered?”

“Awful, isn’t it?” Domenic said. “You saw it on the news?”

“Heard it from a waitress in a café, actually.”

“That’s what I love about Venice. We get our news over coffee.” Domenic smiled and then nodded toward a young guy who was one of the graduate students. “Luciano was over there today.”

Domenic got the grad student’s attention and made the introductions, though given his field of study, Luciano was well aware of Dr. Geena Hodge. It would have been almost impossible to be an archaeology student in Venice and not be familiar with her.

“Lu, Dr. Hodge was just asking about the tomb in Dorsoduro.”

Luciano nodded enthusiastically, as though being allowed to visit the site had been the best gift he had ever received.

“Dr. Schiavo sent a group of us down to observe,” Luciano said. “The city council wanted us there as consultants, or something. I’ve never seen anything like it, Dr. Hodge. Most of the building slid into the canal. No one seemed sure why. There was talk of explosives, but I overheard policemen saying there was no sign of anything like that. But if it hadn’t collapsed, the tomb wouldn’t have been discovered right away. It’s a mass grave, really. The building had a subchamber, probably 16th century. It’s similar in some ways to Petrarch’s library, but its only purpose was for burial. From what we could tell based on an initial evaluation, there’s not a single marking to indicate the identity of any of the entombed dead. Don’t you think that’s bizarre?”

Geena nodded to urge him on. “Very peculiar. And what about the tomb? Was it intact?”

Luciano had been excited to tell her his story, building up to something, but now his excitement left him in a single exhalation and he looked at her oddly.

“What have you heard?”

“Nothing. That’s why I’m asking. Why?”

He gave a small shrug. “It’s just weird that you would ask, considering.”

“Considering what?”

“I received a call just before I came over here,” Luciano said. “A couple of my classmates went down there tonight with a camera and a lighting rig to begin documenting the inside of the tomb so they would have photographs of what the site looked like before they started disturbing things tomorrow. The area around the building had been blocked off and the workers had gone home for the day. But there should have been at least a handful of police on guard, for safety if nothing else. Yet no one tried to stop them when they arrived with the equipment, or approached to ask them what they were doing. They called Dr. Schiavo and he called the police, who said there were officers posted there, but whatever their orders were, those police were nowhere to be found. My friends went inside the tomb—”

“It had been violated,” Geena said, a sick feeling spreading through her belly.

“Yes,” Luciano said, nodding emphatically. “I was just telling the others about it before you arrived. But it’s worse than that. The tomb is empty, Dr. Hodge. All of the bodies have been stolen!”

Geena stared at him, feeling vaguely nauseous.

“Disgusting, isn’t it?” Domenic said, sipping his drink. “Grave-robbers in the 21st century. In Venice! Who would do such a thing?”

Geena knew the answer. She might not trust Volpe, but he couldn’t possibly have moved all of those bodies, unless he had used magic to make them simply vanish, and she had a difficult time imagining that. She felt sure that the surviving Doges had been behind the removal of their relatives’ remains. To her, the question was not who had stolen the withered remains, but why. To give them a proper burial?

She shivered, hoping it would turn out to be something that simple, but certain it would not.

In her pocket, her cell phone vibrated. She frowned, wondering for a moment if it was Tonio calling her back. Then her pulse quickened as she realized it might be Nico. Pulling out her phone, she barely saw Ramus place her glass of red wine on the table before her.

Nico.

“Hello?” she said, cupping a hand over her left ear to block out the café noise.

“Where are you?” he snapped, and she couldn’t be sure if it was Nico or Volpe asking the question.

“Il Bacio. With Domenic and Sabrina and Ramus and a bunch of other people,” she said.

“Good. Stay there with them. Don’t even go to the bathroom. I’m on my way right now. Please don’t go anywhere until I reach you.” He was breathing hard, so she now realized he must be running.

“Why? What’s happened? What’s wrong?” she asked, panic rising, turning to gaze at the people around her. Professor Pustizzi and two of his graduate students were watching her with obvious disdain.

“Is that Nico?” Domenic asked.

He frowned angrily and reached for the phone, but she twisted away from him.

“What’s going on?” she demanded.

“They’ve got people working for them,” Nico said, short of breath. “They’ve been watching us. And not just us—the whole team from the Biblioteca project. If you’re all there, there are probably at least half a dozen inside and outside the café who are there to watch you. And they’ll be after you, Geena. They’ve been watching up until now, but tonight they have orders to capture you. Just stay right where you are until I get there. Volpe can help.”

She clicked the phone shut and looked around. Sick fear twisted in her gut and radiated throughout her body. She wanted to scream but could not. Volpe? He was supposed to help? Volpe had been the start of all of this. He was a cancer inside Nico’s body, and she was supposed to trust him?

Domenic tried to talk to her but she could barely hear his voice. She knew she should try to appear calm but realized she was failing badly. As she picked up her glass of wine, her hand shook so hard that some of it spilled over the rim and down along the stem. She glanced around the café, searching for anyone who might be watching their table, watching her.

The man by the bar stood alone, his back to them, his eyes dark in the reflection of the mirror behind the counter. A thin man with a well-groomed goatee was sitting with a beautiful icy blond woman, neither of them speaking as they sipped coffee. The blond woman glanced at Geena, who averted her eyes, and immediately spotted the African man sitting at a small table near the front door with a book in his hand, though he didn’t have enough light to read.

Were they watching? Were these people killers in service to the Doges? Were there others? A terrible feeling came over her and she glanced around the table, at the pretty girl who reached out to push a lock of Sabrina’s hair aside, smiling at the two people with Professor Pustizzi, whom Geena assumed to be grad students. She had thought she recognized most of these people, but even if they were familiar, some were complete strangers.

Her chair scraped back and then tipped over, clacking to the floor as she stood.

“Dr. Hodge?” Ramus asked, frowning at the wine as though it might somehow be to blame.

“Geena, what is it?” Domenic asked.

“I can’t be responsible,” she said, knowing he wouldn’t understand. How could she explain that she could not live with any of them getting hurt because they were a part of her team, because they were her friends?

Nico had told her to stay put, but she could not bring violence on these people.

“Whatever happens, just do what I asked,” she said, staring at him. “Will you, please? Promise me.”

Domenic nodded. “I do. I promise. If you promise to tell me why whenever this—whatever this is—is over.”

She kissed his cheek and whispered a thank you, then started moving toward the door. On cue, the icy blond and her goateed lover stood and, without looking at her, started on a path to intercept. The black man near the door closed his book without marking the page, and then she knew it was all true, that they were really there for her.

She ran, rushing through the crowd, bumping chairs and spilling drinks, nearly plowing into a waiter. The door was in sight. If Nico had been close, he might be here any minute. She could elude them long enough for Volpe to help.

The door loomed ahead. The black man reached for her arm but she shook him off as she grabbed the door and yanked it open.

A man filled the doorway, blocking her path to the street. His white beard had been knotted beneath his chin and his startling green eyes froze her where she stood.

She knew him at a glance. Pietro Aretino.

“Good evening, Dr. Hodge,” he said. “We need to talk.”

Then he grabbed her by the hair and dragged her out into the moonlight.