The Chamber of Ten

XV

NICO’S BREATH was harsh, muscles weak, limbs shaking as he ran as fast and hard as he could toward his true love. He tried to send her reassuring sensations, but it seemed that he could only concentrate on one thing at a time. I’m coming, Geena, he thought, and he barreled into a couple emerging from a restaurant, stumbling and tripping over the man’s feet. He grunted as he fell, rose again, and ran on without looking back, the woman’s shouts pursuing him as echoes and threats.

He concentrated purely on running, because getting there in time was more important than telling Geena he was on his way. He’d folded his cell and slipped it into his pocket and he dreaded hearing it ring again. That would mean they had her.

But as he turned the corner into the small square where Il Bacio sat, the noises he heard told him that he’d been a fool to hope for anything else.

Help me, he thought to Volpe, and without waiting for an answer he ran at the struggling shapes.

At first he could not see Geena. There was a knot of figures at the café’s main door, and behind them in the square stood several more men and women, armed, tensed, squatting slightly as they watched the commotion. More hired thugs, Nico thought, and two of them turned at the sound of his approach. He was waiting for Volpe to rise up, waiting to feel his hands claw at the air as they scratched out arcane sigils to shove the thugs aside, flip them on their heads, or send them crashing backward through windows. But though he felt Volpe close behind him now—pressing against his eyes and senses like a child eager to see outside—the magician’s attention was focused elsewhere.

The man was tall and thin, and something long glinted in his hand. The woman was shorter, with a terrible burn marring the left side of her face. Her hands were full with something Nico could not make out, and he hit her first.

Surprise was on his side. They’d been watching the struggle in front of and inside the café, not expecting an attack from behind, and he felt a grim satisfaction when the woman opened her eyes wide, his shoulder striking her chin and shoving her backward across a slew of tables and chairs. Bottles smashed, and the woman cried out as she skidded across a carpet of broken glass.

Nico was already ducking. He’d never been a fighter, but perhaps Volpe was steering him subtly now, for he heard the swish of something passing just above his head. When he looked up, the tall man was already swinging the knife back, repeating its arc, except lower this time, its vicious blade held flat, ready to slash across Nico’s eyes.

Nico lashed out with his right hand and closed it around the man’s unprotected genitals. As he twisted and pulled, he had a flash memory of a sweat-sheened naked woman slicing through a man’s erection somewhere so long ago, and inside he felt Volpe laugh.

The man screamed and dropped the knife. Nico rose quickly and brought an elbow up beneath his chin, then pushed him aside and went for the doorway.

Volpe quickly came to the fore and stilled him, and for a second Nico railed against this intrusion. His blood was up, his rage burning bright, as he saw Geena thrashing and struggling in the grip of an old, old man. He wanted to go to her, help those others who were already trying to help, but then he realized why Volpe had stopped him in his tracks. The old man was Pietro Aretino, one of the three Doges, and on his face was the calm certainty of success.

Time seemed to slow. Aretino turned to look at Nico, grinning a grotesque smile as he twisted Geena’s hair harder in his clenched fist. All around them, the struggling continued at full speed, but these two men simply stared at each other. Nico was aware of Domenic standing in the open doorway, trying to reach past Geena toward Aretino, while a black man bashed at the side of Domenic’s head with a closed fist. Behind Domenic, in the chaos of the café, Nico thought he saw Ramus fighting with a blond woman, fists flailing, sharper things whispering at the heavy air.

“Volpe,” the old man said in a heavy, guttural voice, and then Nico was flung back into the flow of things. He darted toward Aretino, his eyes on Geena. His arm, he thought. I’ll go for his arm. It looks old enough to snap at the first breath of wind and—

Something struck him across the stomach. He bent forward and exhaled, pivoting over the extended leg even as it bent back and kicked in again. He was ready the second time—Volpe was there, quickening his reactions with a touch of something that felt sickeningly unnatural—and he caught his attacker’s foot and twisted.

The man had a neat goatee and slicked-back hair, and resembled a lawyer more than a killer. He might have come from any one of a hundred countries. But his skills were refined, his eyes cold and calm, and as Nico twisted, the man jumped and span with the twist. As he spun, his other leg caught Nico across the back of the head, and he went sprawling.

“Volpe, for fuck’s sake,” Nico whispered, rolling just as a foot skimmed across the cobbles toward his face. It struck his shoulder instead and he turned away and became entangled in other legs, feeling bodies falling around and onto him and searching all the time for Geena, hearing her strangled gasps as that old bastard twisted her hair even more. He was about to call out to her when he felt his body starting to burn.

Nico was on his feet instantly, and Volpe raised his hands. He muttered a few words, clawed his right hand in the air a couple of feet in front of the bearded man’s face, then clenched his fist.

The man grabbed the sides of his head and screeched as he went to his knees.

Domenic and the black man were fighting in the doorway, but both seemed to have paused at the sound of goatee-man’s screams. Domenic was wide-eyed and disbelieving, the man he was fighting bleeding from a gash above his right eye. Never thought Dom had it in him. But when Domenic looked at him there was no trace of goodwill in his glance, and he looked quickly away to where the old man had started dragging Geena away.

Through the shattered door Nico caught sight of the confusion in the café: chairs and tables overturned, patrons backing away, waiters and waitresses retreating behind the small bar, one of them talking frantically on the phone. And Ramus on his knees before the blond woman, hands raised to ward off the blows raining down on him.

Then Nico’s attention was torn away as Volpe went after Geena.

“Leave her, old man,” Volpe said, and if there was a hex in his words they did not affect Aretino at all. The white-haired man only laughed as he pulled Geena harder. He was walking backward, dragging her by her hair. She’d raised both hands to clasp at his wrists, lessening the strain, but still it must have been agony. She saw Nico at last, but in her eyes he saw the reflection of Volpe.

“I won’t be as easy as Caravello,” Aretino said. “He always was a dandy, too concerned with his appearance to—”

Volpe grabbed at the air, hauling himself forward. Nico heard a thud, like the sound barrier being broken somewhere close by, and everyone around the café grunted. He muttered three words and coughed, pressing his hands toward Aretino, and Nico thought, Watch out for Geena.

“I’ll do my best,” Volpe said, “But the city only needs one of you.”

Aretino frowned slightly and took a stumbled step back. Then he laughed.

“Time has lessened you, Volpe, buried away like a dead rat.” He turned to leave, casually calling his people to him.

“Nico!” Domenic shouted.

Nico felt Volpe’s temporary exhaustion after his magical efforts. He turned slightly and looked at Domenic, wanting to tell him everything that was happening. Domenic was standing before the café with both hands raised, gripping a man who was no longer there. The black man followed Volpe now, as did the man and woman Nico had tackled moments before. The goateed man rocked back and forth on his knees, holding the sides of his head. Blood trickled from his ears.

“Domenic,” Nico began, and then he saw the blond woman emerging from the café. “Look out!”

Domenic turned and leaned back, just avoiding the knife that slashed at his throat.

The woman grinned as she walked on. Her knife dripped blood. Nico looked for Domenic’s wound, but then he remembered the woman raining blows down on Ramus, and—

Volpe took him again, roaring in rage. In this fight, I cannot be fighting you! He took in several huge breaths. Nico felt the potential building in his body, and then Volpe shouted, “Aretino!”

Windows shattered in the café’s frontage, and Aretino turned. The black man stood beside him, and the blond woman paused a few steps away. In their eyes Nico saw a restrained fear the likes of which he had never seen before. They’re slaves in his thrall, he thought, and he sensed Volpe’s agreement.

“So, the mouse roars,” Aretino said. Geena squirmed beneath his hand, kneeling now that he’d come to a standstill. She was crying silently. Nico tried to send calming thoughts, but Volpe was at the fore now, allowing him to see but denying him any influence.

“You’ll fail,” Volpe said. “Caravello died badly.”

“And you’re looking good for plague survivors,” Aretino said.

“All these years, you think you’ve been getting stronger,” Volpe countered, and Nico could feel him stalling for time, building his magical potential again for one last, momentous attack. Mind Geena, he thought, but he wasn’t sure that Volpe was even listening. “But you’ve simply been fading away. Whatever evil you’ve bled out of Akylis’ lingering power can’t change that. Existence isn’t living, Aretino. The day I banished you from the city you died, and your stink has been worsening ever since. You’ve been waiting for so long, and for what?”

“For your own stink to subside, Volpe,” Aretino said, the first signs of annoyance clouding his glare. Geena squirmed in his hand, and he gave a cruel tug on her hair.

Bastard! Nico thought, but he was powerless.

“I was always stronger than you,” Volpe said, “but it’s not only about strength.”

“No?” the old man asked, and Nico thought, He’s the one stalling. Volpe. Volpe! But Volpe went on, building his power inside, teasing it to the fore, and even when Nico felt that his whole body was burning with the need to vent the magical energy gathered there, still Volpe continued speaking.

“It’s about passion,” he said. “The difference between the two of us is that I have always loved this city, and you have simply coveted it.”

From inside the café came the sound of someone crying out in terror and grief, and Nico recognized Sabrina’s voice. Ramus, he thought, but he could not turn around. He could do nothing but watch, and listen.

Aretino’s smile widened.

“I may have been down for a long time,” Volpe said, “but I have been aware of every step the city itself has taken. I am the Oracle.”

Aretino laughed then. It was a cutting sound, dismissive and triumphant at the same time. “Do you think we haven’t also moved with the times? We’ve outlasted you, Volpe. And soon we’ll have all of Akylis’ power in our hands. We will be as powerful as the Old Magicians, like gods in the eyes of men.” And then he glanced past Volpe at someone behind him.

Turn! Nico thought, just as Volpe swiveled to see what the old man had been looking at. Beyond the tall man with the knife, and the shorter woman casually picking glass shards from her hands, a shadow manifested from beyond the café.

Francesco Foscari.

He lifted a gun and shot Volpe in the chest.

Nico cried out, Volpe faded back, and the pain came. Both men were subsumed beneath the storm of loosened, uncontrolled magic.

As agony dragged Nico into unconsciousness, the screaming began.

Geena could hardly breathe. It wasn’t the fear, because that had settled and set a fire in her chest that would not go away. And it was not from concern for herself, because if Aretino had wanted her dead, he would have killed her by now. Her breathlessness came from seeing the man she loved shot in the chest and crumple to the ground, and then the terror of what came next.

Geena had never been in a hurricane, so she had no real concept of what it would feel like to live through one. But her cousin had been in New Orleans when Katrina hit, spending a semester studying history at Tulane on a student exchange program, and she’d once spent a long drunken evening telling Geena about it. She’d actually been one of the lucky ones, evacuated soon after the hurricane and never going back, but the thing that had struck her—and, she claimed, changed her forever—was the feeling of utter hopelessness beneath the brutal, indifferent powers of nature. It wasn’t that the wind could tear down buildings and the rain could bruise your skin, it was that this unbelievable power expended itself without reason, conscience, or concern. You heard the term ‘a fart in a hurricane’? she’d said. I don’t laugh when I hear that anymore.

Watching what happened after Nico fell made Geena feel a little like that, and the only comforting factor was that she felt Aretino’s shock as well.

Even before Nico hit the ground, the whole atmosphere of that small square changed. The violence was still there—the smell of blood, a heaviness like impending lightning—but the air suddenly seemed to come alive, gusting and spinning, twirling in miniature whirlwinds that caught up dust and litter and lifted it skyward. Geena saw flashes of fire here and there—cool blue flames that danced for brief instants before being extinguished again.

The patrons in the café pulled back from the shattered doors and windows, and the building’s lights fluttered and went out. She heard that scream again—Sabrina, calling Ramus’ name—and in her heart she knew what that meant. I didn’t get out quick enough, she thought, and she wondered whether Volpe had let Nico call her as soon as he wanted to, or whether there had been a pause—a stutter in time long enough for him to get here just as one of the Doges came to take her …

Someone else started screaming, and the man whose ears had been bleeding stood with flames enveloping his head—real flames, blackening skin and sizzling hair. Smoke and steam were whipped away from his twisted face by the sudden storm.

Nico’s body twisted on the ground, curling in on itself even as his hands reached out and clawed at the air. Any time his hands shifted position or his fingers clenched, someone else screamed. The tall man flailed at some invisible thing buzzing around his head. The blond woman slashed at her own legs, screaming in pain and bafflement each time the knife performed another sweep. And Geena watched Domenic stumble back with his hands held out, as if warding off the invisible thing that shoved him through the café’s already-shattered window.

Aretino pulled her away, and staggering across the square came the other ancient Doge, Foscari. He was aiming his gun at the writhing shape on the ground and frowning, obviously unable to shoot again. The Doge tugged hard on Geena’s hair, sending a sheen of pain across her scalp.

“Finish him!” Foscari shouted. The Doges’ hired thugs were backing away from Nico—all but the bleeding woman—their hands raised to defend themselves against the strange storm whipping around the square. At Foscari’s words, however, they paused. The fear Geena glimpsed on their faces was real. She wondered what they had seen done to those who chose not to obey the Doges.

The tall knifeman stalked in toward Nico.

Aretino pulled Geena backward across the cobbles, her feet scrabbling for purchase to prevent herself from being dragged purely by the hair. She knew that shouting and screaming at the old bastard would be useless, but she did so, anyway. She was leaving her friends behind, with Ramus perhaps dead or mortally wounded and the man she loved with a bullet in his chest.

The knifeman drew his arm back close to Nico … and the first flame sputtered to life in his hair. He batted at his head, looking around, knife hand still raised, and several more flames sprung up along his left arm. He dropped the knife to slap at them and the fires spread. First to his hands, then across his chest and stomach as he wiped them there, napalm-sticky. The man shouted. Others around him drew back as the look on his face went from confused to terrified, and as he opened his mouth to scream, Geena saw flames licking across his teeth. Silhouetted against his blazing clothes and hair she spied Nico’s hands clawing at the air, drawing unknown shapes, and she knew that Volpe was saving them both. But as she watched he fell back again, hands resting, and the chaotic storm erupted around the burning man.

Foscari drew close and she caught the shared look between the Doges—confusion, and maybe even fear. Then Foscari grabbed her feet and lifted, and together the two Doges carried her away from the square and into darkness, leaving their hired thugs behind. The glow and screams of the burning man faded away, and Geena closed her eyes and tried to sense Nico.

He was silent. But for now she held on to the sight of him moving on the ground, and Volpe casting spells, and perhaps that would give her strength to survive whatever was to come.

He knew that Geena had gone, but he could not give chase. Commanding his body to rise, Nico found that he could not move. He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was Volpe remaining in control, but that usual sense of being wielded like a marionette was absent, and he could not sense or hear Volpe’s voice or thoughts. He could turn his head and watch the chaos around the square, and when the burning man fell at last and continued to spit and sizzle, Nico could feel the flames’ heat all down his left side. Maybe that meant he wasn’t paralyzed after all … but he had no idea how these things worked.

He shot me in the chest!

He could not move far enough to see the wound, so he tried lifting his hand to examine what damage had been done. Neither arm obeyed the command. He rolled his head sideways and looked at the café and the riot of people there, and one of them was Domenic. He stood staring at Nico, blood on his face and spattered across his white silk shirt. Always so smart, Domenic. Never a ladies’ man, though he could have been, and Nico had always sensed the soft spot he had for Geena. He’d never said anything, of course, because friendship was worth more than that. Now the silver-haired man stared across a calming scene at his wounded friend, and when the shouting inside the café became louder he turned and pushed through the broken doorway.

Domenic, Nico tried to say, but he did not have the strength. And then he heard someone shouting Ramus’ name over and over again, and he feared what had happened. He’d seen death today, but only of people he did not know. And other than his terror for Geena, he’d barely considered the nightmare of this coming home to roost.

Sit up! Volpe’s voice commanded, and Nico felt himself sitting. He sighed and groaned, feeling blood running across his chest and stomach.

“Heal it,” Nico said, and his voice had changed. Weaker than before, and there was a wet sighing effect behind it as well.

The shoulder was easy, Volpe said. The heart is more delicate.

Shot in the heart?

Close enough. Now listen to me, Nico. We’ve helped each other a lot today, and—

“You’ve used me,” Nico rasped. “You haven’t helped me.”

I allowed you to come and save your girlfriend.

“Only because you knew they would be here.”

Stop your sniveling! You’re dying, and unless you do exactly what I say, you’ll likely be dead before they torture her to death. Aretino always favored younger boys, but Foscari was a ladies’ man, and he preferred it when they didn’t welcome his advances. You hear me, boy?

Nico groaned and closed his eyes. Dizziness threatened, and for an instant the pain in his chest grew huge and mind-numbing, snapping his eyes open with shock. He caught his breath to scream, but Volpe sighed it out again.

“I can shield you from the worst of it,” he croaked, “but you have to leave here now. There are people dead, and you’ve been shot. We can’t afford the time it would take to deal with the police.”

Nico glanced sidelong at the burning man. The Doges’ other thugs had fled, doubtless already wondering what madness they had become involved in.

“Ramus.” Nico stood, wincing against the expected pain but feeling only a distant numbness. He heard Volpe’s voice, but the old ghost seemed to be mumbling words Nico could not quite make out. He’s just doing his magic, he thought, but it did not feel like that at all. Though shielded from the pain of a terrible wound, control was his once again.

“Which way?” Nico asked. And in that one question he realized his dependence on this thing in his body.

North.

Nico had seen the Doges taking Geena west. That way called him but, even though Volpe had drawn back again, mumbling, fuming, he knew that he had to follow the magician’s lead. So north he went, leaving the square by a small rose-encrusted archway that led to a short alley, emerging onto a narrow jetty. Several boats were tied there, and Nico chose one, starting the motor and steering away from the chaos behind him. He could smell the stench of burning meat on his clothes, see Foscari aiming the handgun at his chest and pulling the trigger, feel the heavy blankness at the heart of him where Volpe was struggling to keep the agony at bay. Is that why his mumblings seem so mad? he wondered. Because he’s taking on all that pain himself?

There was no answer from Volpe, and no sign that he had heard. So Nico guided the dinghy north along the old city canals, passing across the Grand Canal and then entering the shadows once again. He thought of Ramus, certain that his friend was dead. He thought of Domenic staring at him writhing on the ground, then choosing to reenter the café to help his other friends. And he thought of Geena.

Soon, Volpe whispered in his mind. And Nico knew that old ghost was still there.

San Michele, Volpe said when Nico left the lights of Venice behind. The waters of the lagoon were calm, and for that he was glad. There were few lights on the cemetery island.

“What’s in San Michele?” he asked. He’d been there only recently, retrieving the soldier’s hand for the ritual that had been so wasteful. He only hoped that Volpe was not wasting time again now.

Just go, Volpe said. He sounded weak and distracted. Nico had examined the bullet wound in his chest once, and he had no wish to look again. The exit wound on his back must be even worse. But even in that brief glance he’d seen signs that the healing was commencing: drying blood, smoothed skin around the ragged wound, and a puffiness to the flesh that had more to do with fresh growth than bruising. Inside, he knew, the damage must be immense. The heart is more delicate, Volpe had said, and Nico had a flash of something that might have been memory: holding the slick remnants from that smashed urn in his hands as water surged around his feet.

He blinked and changed course slightly.

As larger waves began to slap against the boat’s hull, Nico was shocked by a series of images that flashed across his mind, each one accompanied by the fresh impact of a wave:

A circle of men, each of them grim-faced as if attending a wake, each of them holding a small, curved knife in one hand and in the other—

A ceiling painted in extravagant colors, intricate symbols and sigils intertwining, and each spread of the color red still drips—

Chanting that terrifies, in words he does not know, its rising and falling cadences seeming to penetrate to the heart of him and—

Nico cried out, leaning against the tiller as the images snapped away. He probed after them, because he knew they needed to be seen. Timing the impacts of wave against wood with his own psychic surges, he reached into what he knew were Volpe’s memories. The old magician was struggling, and Nico so wanted to know more:

A hand rises and then comes down slowly, the knife glinting, the bare flesh of his chest speckled with spots of perspiration … only, the knife and hand are a woman’s head, hair long and luscious, and she closes her lips around the head of his cock and looks up at him, smiling.

Nico shook the image away and probed deeper.

Hands rise and fall, twelve of them in quick succession, and then the first hand returns with a different knife, penetrating deep into his chest and … and the woman’s rump rises and falls, and he can see himself buried deep, and he has seen her before with a knife in one hand and a soldier’s member in the other. She turns and looks at him over her shoulder, eyes hooded and mouth open, still moving.

“No!” Nico shouted. His voice winged across the water and echoed from the boundary wall of San Michele, now drawing very close. Volpe was trying to hide that memory from him, flooding him with other memories to distract him. But Nico had a grip now, and he was clasping onto those flashes that felt so real. His claws remained in the past, and he groaned with effort as he began to reel it in.

He sensed Volpe’s anger, but he was wounded. He felt the raw rage brewing deep inside, and knew there would be consequences … but this was something he needed to know.

“If you truly want my help to save this city,” he said, “then you have to let me see.”

When he did see, it was not because of a weakening of Volpe’s opposition. It was because, for a short time, Nico was stronger.

The men have finished painting the necessary wards and sigils on the chamber’s ceiling, and two of them have removed the wooden bench they used to reach that far. Each has a bloodied cloth bound tight around his left hand, and Nico knows that their palms are slashed and sore. But these men do not betray their pain. Their faces are grim and spotted with droplets of their own blood. The ceiling drips, and when Nico looks down he sees the droplets splashed across his bare body.

Volpe’s torso is withered and old. Skin hangs from his frame, his ribs protrude even when he’s lying down, and there’s a grayness to him that not even this subterranean place should impart. Nico is merely a witness here, yet when his arm raises and he draws his finger through blood splashes, it feels as though he is giving the command.

“Here,” Volpe’s voice says, “and here.” He has drawn two intersecting lines across his breast, skin wrinkling and stretching to follow his finger.

“Zanco, there must be another way,” a man says, and Il Conte Rossi steps into view. He is bloodied again now, the cloth around his hand dripping blood as if he has cut himself deepest.

“There is no other way,” Volpe says. “My spirit is strong but my flesh is weak, and we must not let that spirit rot away with this flesh.” He motions Il Conte to him and lowers his voice. “I’m trusting you to complete this ritual, when the others might shy away.”

“I’m not sure I—”

Nico’s hand flashes out. He claws his fingers into the man’s robe and pulls him even closer, and he sees Il Conte turn his face away from the rotten smell of his breath. “I have been dying for a long time. What you do here today is of little significance to me, but vital for the city. You understand? This time is over, a new time is to begin. And it’s imperative that those three bastards are not allowed to even look upon this city again without fire scorching their eyes.”

The standing man nods. He understands.

“Vital!” Nico says. Volpe’s voice, Volpe’s grasp, and Volpe’s final moments. Because then Il Conte stands back and motions the other men around him, and together they raise their knives.

This time when they bring their blades down into Nico’s stomach and chest, the view does not change afterward. Il Conte steps in and carves at the ruptured flesh, cracking ribs, ripping the chest cavity open, his face set grim and lips tight.

And all the while, Nico is muttering words that he has heard before.

Il Conte finally pulls Nico’s heart free, and there is no pain. The heart continues to beat, and even as the man slashes away the final connecting arteries, the muscle looks strong and healthy.

But the Chamber bleeds. Blood flows from the ceiling, and Nico hears the men’s feet splashing in fluid that is too thick to be water. One of them brings an urn that Nico has seen before, and as Il Conte lowers the heart inside, his vision begins to blur.

But he sees the Red Count’s final gestures over the urn, and he remembers them. From the hands of another member of the Council of Ten, he takes the severed hand of a soldier, dips its fingers into Volpe’s blood, and uses it to run a symbolic seal around the urn’s lid.

Nico feels his body swaying and shifting as vision fades, sounds drift out, and then against all expectations the pain comes in, and—

It was immense.

Nico screamed. The boat nudged against a wooden jetty. Volpe rose in him again, and before Nico was shoved way down into his own injured body, he felt the old ghost’s rage.

Leave alone what is not yours! Volpe roared, and then Nico knew nothing.