The Chamber of Ten (10 page)

Nico froze two steps from the bottom.

His heart. The gray, withered thing in the urn had been the heart of Zanco Volpe.

Footsteps shuffled just ahead. His throat dry, his head aching, Nico looked up to see a priest with thinning white
hair and a curved spine hobbling toward him. The old man stared at him.

“Who are you?” the priest asked, righteous ire reddening his face. “What do you think you’re doing up there?”

Nico did not know the answers. Before he had entered the bell tower, the line between himself and Volpe had been distinct—one alive and one dead, one real and one an echo, one modern and one ancient. Now the two seemed more blurred. He did not know where he ended and Volpe began, whose will controlled his hands, whose soul gazed out from behind his eyes. Insane, for Volpe had been dead for centuries. He was nothing more than the smoke that lingered after the fire had burned out.

“Who
are
you?” the priest demanded again.

Nico tucked the book under one arm and fled, racing past the priest, through the nave, down an aisle, and out the door, with the old man shouting hoarsely after him.

G
EENA ARRIVED
at the university just a few minutes before eight o’clock in the morning. She strode down a corridor lined with faculty offices, her footfalls echoing loudly. In the summertime, the university always felt abandoned to her. There were still students and teachers around, but far fewer, and the usually bustling main building seemed like some old haunted mansion.

She had stopped by Nico’s apartment on the way and used her key to let herself in. It would have given her peace of mind to find him asleep in his own bed, but she had known the moment she entered that the place was empty. Dust motes swirled in her wake as she passed through. He slept at her place nearly every night, and only retreated to his own when one of them had to focus on work that did not involve the other. Considering that they were both working on the Biblioteca project, that was rare.

If Nico needed to clear his head, Geena knew he was much more likely to go wandering around the city than to hide out in his apartment, but she had to check, just in case. There had been no sign he had ever come home
after the incident two days before, not even to change his clothes. The shower was dry, no damp towels hung from the bathroom door, and the only dirty laundry was a sack that he had brought back from her place a few days earlier and not gotten around to doing yet.

Stalker, much?
she thought.

But she knew she wasn’t being a stalker. As much as she loved him and depended on him, this wasn’t even about the security of their relationship. She was simply worried about him.

The university was her second stop. The Biblioteca project was her baby, and Dr. Schiavo would expect her to be on top of things. He had given her some breathing room the day before, and she appreciated that, especially because—officially—he had to pretend he did not know that she and Nico were sleeping together. But now, as far as anyone in the department knew, Nico was “back,” and no one had drowned. Tonio would want her to get down to business.

Her keys jangled as she took them out of her pocket. A loud, buzzing electric hum came along the corridor, the familiar sound of one of the janitors buffing the floor. It eased her mind to know that, contrary to appearances, she was not alone here.

She knew before she opened the door that nobody would be inside. The frosted glass glowed warmly with the daylight, but the simple fact that the door was locked had told her that the office was empty. Now she stepped inside, greeted by the almost unnoticeable static of electricity in the air, both from the lights that she switched on and from the computers that continued to hum, fans running, screen savers drifting against black desktop backgrounds.

A light cotton jacket hung over the back of Domenic’s chair. Had he worn it yesterday, or had he already been here this morning? No, that made no sense. If nobody on the team was here in the office, that meant they were all likely over at the Biblioteca.

Geena took a deep breath.

“Okay,” she whispered, her voice sounding dull and flat in the empty office.

She checked her voice mail and saved all of the messages without writing them down. E-mail could wait. Going through papers on her desk, she found Howard Finch’s business card and slipped it into her pocket. She could call him from her cell on the way to the Biblioteca. She’d have to call Tonio as well, and then catch up with her team on the status of the flooded chambers. If she timed the water bus right, she’d be arguing with Adrianna Ricci at the Biblioteca in forty-five minutes.

Geena shut the lights off and stepped back into the corridor, pulling the door shut behind her.

“Leaving again so soon?”

The voice startled her and she dropped her keys. Even as she turned, she realized it was Tonio and felt foolish for jumping. Tonio Schiavo was fifty-one years old, with a proud Italian nose, a slight paunch, and thinning hair, but he maintained a certain suave handsomeness. Charm could do wonders for a man. The department head smiled and stooped to pick up the keys for her, handing them over.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Normally she would have bristled as the presumption that she had been scared and given him crap about being a chauvinist. Today she barely noticed.

“I’m a little jumpy,” she said, locking the office door.

“After nearly dying on Monday, I’m not surprised,” he said. His blue eyes softened with genuine concern. “You’re okay?”

“Okay? No. I’m upset about the manuscripts we lost—”

Tonio smiled. “Be happy with what we’d already recovered. Your team did nothing wrong.”

“You seem far calmer about this than I expected,” Geena said, eyes narrowing. “Shall I assume the BBC is responsible for your good mood?”

“You should,” Tonio replied. “Mr. Finch is at the site waiting for you. His camera crew ought to be here tomorrow.”

Geena nodded. “Fine. It gives us a day to plan. I wanted to talk to you about sending divers down—”

“I agree,” Tonio said immediately. “In fact, I spoke with Sabrina about it yesterday.”

She paused, unhappy that they had been working around her absence, though she knew they had done it for her own benefit.

“So what’s the plan?” Geena asked.

Tonio must have sensed her irritation, for he shook his head immediately.

“No, no, this is your project, Geena. One hundred percent. It isn’t mine or the BBC’s or anyone else’s but yours. I’m just here to facilitate for you—”

“I know that,” she assured him.

“Good. In any case, Sabrina is getting a team together. She knew she had to wait on you before sending them down. I want the whole thing on film, of course, and so does Finch. The BBC has asked that you wait until their camera crew can be ready as well. That might be tomorrow, or possibly Friday. How does that sit with you?”

“That’s fine. It’ll give us time to do at least a preliminary catalog of the materials we managed to save yesterday.” She glanced back at the closed office door. “What are they doing over there now?”

“Cleaning up as best they can,” Tonio said. “Making sure the Biblioteca staff will stay away. Ramus is going over plans with the city engineer. Domenic is—”

“Is Nico with them?”

Tonio arched an eyebrow. “I assumed he was with you.”

He’d chosen his words carefully, as always, talking around the relationship without ever directly acknowledging it. And, as always, Geena would pay him the courtesy of doing the same.

“I haven’t seen him this morning,” she replied.

“Ah,” Tonio said, nodding as though he understood. “Well, Sabrina didn’t say whether or not he was at the site, but you could try her on her mobile.”

Geena smiled, knowing it would come off as false but unable to stop herself. “That’s all right. I’m headed over there now, anyway. I’m supposed to be running this show after all.”

Tonio nodded. “All right. Keep me up-to-date.”

They parted ways, Tonio’s heavy footfalls marking his retreat even as Geena retraced her own steps along the corridor. She needed caffeine, and hoped that the little café she liked just off St. Mark’s Square would be open. She would talk to her team, then drag Nico away for a coffee and a frank conversation about what the hell was going on in his head.

If he was there, of course.

Geena hurried toward the small dock where the water bus stopped every thirty minutes or so—though in Italy
that might mean twenty or forty-five minutes instead of thirty, or not at all for hours.

She waited alone, the summer sun glinting off the dark water of the canal, the day quickly warming up. There’d been no opportunity for her to see any weather forecast, but so far it seemed to be shaping up to be what her father had always called “a scorcher.”

Sighing and impatient, she pulled out her cell phone to check the time—8:36 a.m. Staring at the phone, she thought about calling Sabrina or Domenic to ask if Nico was there. It would be the simplest thing to do. But if he wasn’t with them, she would be facing a serious problem. She had a job to do, people counting on her, and a multimillion-dollar project in her hands. But if Nico wasn’t at the Biblioteca, the temptation to head off in search of him would be almost too much to resist.

Stop
, she told herself.
He’s a grown man. He can take care of himself
.

But she couldn’t quite convince herself of that. Normally, yes. But whatever had happened in the Chamber of Ten the day before yesterday had … what? Scrambled his brain? Somehow he’d been blasted with memories that did not belong to him, and they were confusing him, even changing him. That scared her.

She put the phone away. To the Biblioteca first. Get things under control. If Nico wasn’t there, she could go hunt him down after she made sure everything was on track for the arrival of Howard Finch’s BBC colleagues the next day.

To the east, she saw the water bus churning in her direction across the canal. At least she wouldn’t be waiting out here for—

*   *   *

—
the book feels warm in his hands. He caresses the supple leather of the cover and finds it unnervingly akin to human skin. But he can almost feel the dark promise that lies within its pages, so any hesitation is immediately dismissed. Forty-seven years he has been searching for
The Book of the Nameless.
Petrarch had publicly claimed not to have a copy, but his private writings, found in his hidden library, had revealed the truth. He had briefly owned it, but given it to a trusted friend, a scholarly monk. Petrarch had not wanted the responsibility inherent in ownership of
The Book of the Nameless.
Always the humanist, he had been afraid to unleash its power, afraid to hold that kind of magic in his hands
.

Now he has acquired the very same copy that Petrarch had so foolishly given away, and he covets it even more than he had before it was his. Seconds in his possession, and already he guards it jealously. If half of the legends surrounding this book are true, his enemies—the would-be mages plotting against him—will not stand a chance. If they ever had
.

“Monsieur?” the Frenchman says
.

Volpe glances up, blinking. The Frenchman has just handed him the book but somehow he had nearly forgotten the man’s presence. Lizotte, his name is. Henri Lizotte. He is a thief of the highest order, though he fancies himself a collector of antiquities. He dresses like a dandy and travels with a small boy all in frills and colors like some kind of harlequin or jester. Lizotte refers to the child as his valet, but Volpe suspects the Frenchman of using him for a different service entirely
.

“It is as I promised
, oui?”
the Frenchman asks, stroking his thin mustache
.

He agrees that the book is, indeed, as promised, and for several seconds considers the option of simply killing the Frenchman. The right gesture to the guards that surrounded them would have ended Lizotte’s life, but the Frenchman must have known the peril into which he was placing himself by coming here, by agreeing to sell this book
.

And how was he managing that feat? How could he part with it, when any fool could have felt its power?

With a flick of his wrist, Volpe gestures toward Lizotte. “Pay him. But get him out of here.”

Away from the book. Volpe is its master now
.

The Frenchman seems content. He casts one final, wary glance back at the book as though afraid it might follow him out of the room, then he happily leaves with the household servants to receive his payment
.

“Well?” asks Il Conte di Tonetti. “Is that
The Book of the Nameless?”

Volpe nods, sizing up the Count. “It is. You’ve done well, Alviso.”

The man smiles. Il Conte Alviso Tonetti had been a member of the Council of Ten for less than a year, but had quickly become Volpe’s most valuable ally and spy among the Council. The man’s home, within view of the Rialto Bridge, might no longer be as opulent as it once was, and his family’s reputation might have been tarnished by scandal a generation ago, but that only made Il Conte a more determined ally. He had something to prove
.

Of late it has not been unusual for Volpe and Il Conte Tonetti to meet in secret at the Count’s home. The ordinary council chambers are far too susceptible to spying, and the Chamber of Ten, below Petrarch’s library, also seemed to have its share of spies of late. The Doge—Pietro
Aretino—had been one of them only two years ago. He had seemed content to obey Volpe’s secret edicts as a member of the Council of Ten. But once the prior Doge had died and the Council had voted him to replace the dead man, Aretino had grown jealous of Volpe’s influence
.

He dabbles in magic now, and that is Zanco Volpe’s province
.

Pietro Aretino wants to rule Venice in more than just name. And that, Volpe cannot allow. Worse still, in his dabbling, Aretino has discovered the presence of the dark power deep beneath the city. Like the gases of decay building up inside a bloated corpse, the evil of Akylis remains long after the ancient magician’s death. Already the evil has tainted Aretino, and the Doge has begun to tap into that power to transform himself into more than a dabbler
.