The Chamber of Ten (32 page)

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.