Venom (47 page)

C
ass couldn’t breathe. The killer was at the wedding, and he was after her best friend. He must be. Cass had to find her, to warn her. She turned to flee the sitting room and nearly bumped into a tall fair-haired man as he ducked through the doorway.

The man wore a black slashed doublet embroidered with silver, and gray velvet trunk hose and breeches. He stopped short when he saw Cass, surprised. “My apologies,” he said. “I didn’t expect to see anyone in here.”

It was Mada’s friend Cristian. Cass didn’t return his greeting. With a shaking hand, she pointed at the portrait of Madalena. “Do you know who painted this picture?” Her voice was hardly a whisper.

Cristian raised his eyebrows. “Are you not Cassandra Caravello?”

Cass could barely nod. “We’ve met before. Madalena introduced us.”

He inclined his head with a slight smile. “Then do you not recognize the work of your own fiancé?”

“What?” Cass was positive she had heard him wrong.

Cristian traced the carved frame with his left hand. “The painting was a gift from the family of Luca da Peraga.”

“No, that’s not possible,” Cass said. The room had begun to spin. “Luca detests art. He’s always considered it a waste of time.”

Cristian shrugged one shoulder. “Perhaps your fiancé has secrets that he has not yet revealed?”

“No,” Cass repeated instinctively. But slowly the pieces began to fall into place: Luca’s erratic behavior, all the mysterious errands, his absence from the wedding this morning. He could have been at Palazzo Loredan dropping off the canvases. Cass knew it was crazy, ludicrous, but still her brain couldn’t let go of the idea. Why else would he have been there, at the exhibit? And what was his look of crushing dismay about? Did he suspect Cass might be catching on?

Luca had returned to Venice right about the time of the murders without telling Cass. Since his return, his emotions had raged back and forth between threatening and protective. Was he capable of murder? Cass wasn’t sure what anyone was capable of anymore.

But why would Luca want to hurt Madalena?

Cass realized Cristian was staring at her with a look of amusement. “Is it really that shocking to think that your fiancé might have secrets?” Cristian asked. “It’s common for men to keep their pastimes private.”

Cass was practically shaking. She could only say, “Do you know where Madalena is?”

“I would imagine she’s in the portego enjoying the feast,” Cristian said. “As you should be.” He tilted his head slightly to the left as he stared at her. His brown eyes seared into her skin. “What
are
you doing back here all alone, Cassandra?”

A chill shot through Cass. Something about the way he said her
name was so familiar. She was struck by the urge to run, to grab Agnese and Siena and get as far away from the wedding as possible. But she couldn’t. She had to find Madalena. Mada seemed to trust Cristian. Maybe he could help. “I think Mada may be in danger,” she said.

Cristian’s expression changed from one of amusement to one of worry. “Danger?” he repeated. “What possible danger could come to her here?”

Cass was half tempted to tell Cristian everything—about the slashed corpses and the paintings—but she knew there was no time. “She’s not in the portego,” she said. “I haven’t seen her for almost an hour. I have a bad feeling.”

Cristian tucked both of his hands deep into the pockets of his black tunic and frowned. “She did tell me she had to meet with someone between the ceremony and the feast, but I thought surely she’d be back by now. You don’t think…” His voice trailed off.

Fear gripped Cass. “I don’t know,” she said, remembering how Luca had vanished as soon as he deposited her into Agnese’s care. “Do you know where she went?”

“I have an idea. Come on.” Cristian strode out of the sitting room with Cass right at his heels. He pushed through the portego, weaving past small groups of wedding guests who were sipping wine and admiring the oil paintings that decorated each wall. He headed down a set of marble stairs to the first floor of the palazzo.

The air was cooler here and smelled musty. Torches were mounted along the main hallway, a few of them lit so that the servants could navigate the dark corridors and fetch supplies for the festivities. The yellow flames cast strange dancing shadows onto the dusty walls. This floor was quiet. Too quiet. Cass couldn’t even hear the
revelers above her head. If something had happened to Madalena down here, no one would have heard her scream. Cass murmured a prayer under her breath.
Please let Mada be all right.

Cristian headed around a corner and opened a thick wooden door with a small square pane of glass at eye level. Cass followed him into a dingy storage room. There were no torches lit here. She was almost completely blind as she stumbled through the doorway. She could feel things, though. Water had seeped up through cracks in the stone floor. Dank liquid, black as ink, lapped at her ankles. In that moment, Cass had the silliest, stupidest thought: another dress ruined.

“What is this—?” Cass asked.

“This is where she said she was going,” Cristian said, he cuts her off. “She told me she had to meet someone in the wine room. She asked me to make excuses for her, in fact.”

Cristian took Cass’s hand and led her farther into the darkness. He moved as if he were intimately familiar with his surroundings. Cass remembered that he had supplied a special kind of wine for the wedding feast. He had probably stored it here.

A spiderweb slapped against her cheek and she fought the urge to cry out. The whole place was likely full of cracks and crevasses, where spiders and God knew what else lurked.

Cass’s eyes began to adjust to the dim light. Large wooden casks of wine sat on raised pedestals. Crystal pitchers sat next to some of the casks. Cold water dripped from the ceiling above her head. Cass couldn’t imagine Madalena ever coming down here by choice. Just the moldy smell of wet stone would have been enough to keep her away.

“Mada?” Cass called out. Her voice echoed through the open space. No answer.

Cristian reached out to touch one of the wooden barrels with his right hand. His fingers twitched as he examined the label.

A low marble table stood against the far wall. Cristian used flint and steel to light a dusty lantern. Strange shadows came to life on the brick walls of the room. The flickering flame illuminated one side of Cristian’s face, making it look as if he were wearing a mask.

Cass’s heart started pounding. She was positive every step she took was one step closer to something evil.

Cristian gripped her hand again. “
Faites attention,
” he said. “I don’t want you to fall.”

Cass froze.
Faites attention
? She had forgotten that Cristian was French…She was sure she had heard the words before, recently…

Cass hoped Cristian hadn’t felt her body tense up. She tried to calmly wriggle free of his grasp, but he wouldn’t release her. “You’re hurting me,” she said. “I think we should return to the party and call for others to help.”

Cristian pulled Cass deeper into the dark room. “Come on, Cassandra,” he said. “It’s your turn.”

Cass’s blood turned to ice. She suddenly realized why the way he said her name seemed so familiar.

Cristian was the man in the falcon mask.

The room started to blur and break apart. “Let go of me.” Cass tried to wrench away from him, but he gripped her tighter. She screamed, but the stone swallowed up her voice.

“Do not bother calling for help,” Cristian said, allowing his French accent to color his words. “No one can hear you.” He gave her arm a vicious twist as he pushed her to the ground.

Cass landed on the wet floor, her ankle folded awkwardly
underneath her. Pain shot through her body and she blinked back tears. He was right. The walls were more than a foot thick. And with the music and festivities in full swing upstairs, the main floor of the palazzo might as well be out on San Domenico Island. She was trapped. Alone.

Cristian advanced on her. “Did you not get my message? I told you that your turn would come.” His right hand twitched. He shook it vigorously, clenching and unclenching his fist as he knelt beside Cass.

Images, memories were swirling, colliding in her head: she thought of the crooked letters on the anonymous notes, the sloping signature on the paintings at the exhibition, how the men had commented that the artist might be left-handed. Cristian had probably learned to use his left hand after he hurt his right hand in the war. Cass remembered the man in the falcon mask from Dubois’s ball, the way his hand had spasmed and twitched against her.

She remembered, too, what terrible things he had said about the war, and how beautiful it was.

She inched backward on her hands and feet, but Cristian had her backed up against a wall and there was nowhere to go. Cristian produced a dagger from his doublet pocket. Cass’s heart seized up. The blade glowed like lightning. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t focus on anything but that silvery sharp edge…

Cristian knelt beside her, methodically tucking his tunic into his breeches to protect it from the mire. He cradled her chin in one hand. Cass could feel each individual finger as he caressed her skin almost lovingly. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second. When she opened them, her vision crystallized. Cass saw each individual
thread that made up Cristian’s lace cuff. His knuckle creases sharpened into curved knives. There was a pale circle around one of his index fingers, an almost-imperceptible difference in color where he had once worn a ring.

A ring with a flower inscribed in a circle, no doubt.

Tears threatened at the back of her eyes, but Cass forced them down. If she was going to die, she would do it fighting.

She fumbled in the muddy water, her fingers flailing for a loose stone, a piece of glass, for anything she could use as a weapon. Finding nothing sharp or heavy in the sludge that covered the floor, she flung a handful of the dirty liquid at his eyes. Scrambling to her feet, she tried to lunge past him. Cristian grabbed hold of the beaded rosary that hung from her belt and pulled her back like she was weightless, a rag doll. A plaything.

“
Salope,
” he cursed at her in French. “You bitch.” Pinning her against the wall with one hand, he quickly swiped at his eyes with the other. Then he pressed the tip of the blade loosely to her neck. “It looks like I’ll have another model for my paintings,” he said. “I wonder what your dear old aunt will think when it arrives at her villa.”

“Why?” Fear enveloped Cass like a fog. The cold steel bit against her neck. “Why me?”

Cristian sneered. “Why you?” His voice rose in pitch. “You believed yourself so smart…and yet you still don’t understand even the simplest things…” He tucked a strand of hair back behind Cass’s left ear, letting his fingertips linger on her jawbone. “He has gotten everything and I have gotten nothing. It has been that way our whole life. He has taken all that should be mine. It’s only fair, isn’t it, that I should take some things back?”

Cass tried to press herself farther into the wall. She wished that it
would absorb her; she wished she could dissolve into its protection. “What—what are you talking about?” she stammered.

Something flickered behind Cristian’s dark eyes. “I see,” he said. “Luca never told you about me, did he?” Cristian relaxed his hand, pulling the knife a few inches back from Cass’s throat. “My half brother always was ashamed of me, the same way my father was ashamed of my whore of a mother. Not that I could blame him for that.”

Cass’s mind was spinning. Cristian was Luca’s half brother? Had Luca heard about the murders and suspected Cristian was responsible? Was that why he had returned to Venice early?

“Why Mariabella?” Cass asked, trying to quell the fear that was threatening to suffocate her, drag her down. “Why Sophia?”

“Sophia was just a gift,” Cristian said, shrugging. “She had started to present Joseph with certain…difficulties. That’s what happens when you can’t keep your skirts down until marriage.”

Difficulties. Cass remembered it had been rumored that the maid was pregnant when she disappeared. Cass fought a surge of nausea.

Then Cristian’s face changed. His eyes burned; his face contorted with pain. “But Mariabella was different. She claimed to love me, but one man wasn’t enough for her. I went mad watching her parade around on Joseph’s arm.” His voice cracked and wavered, dropping in pitch. “I had to do it. It was the only way. Joseph found out, of course. He finds out everything. He was furious, but it was the only way.” Cristian was practically whispering now, as if he were talking to himself instead of Cass. “The only way she could be all mine.”

Cass had been so naïve. Falco had been right. Venice was full of more darkness than she had ever imagined. Had Joseph Dubois allowed Cristian to kill both his maid and courtesan? Had he offered
protection for Cristian? She realized she was shaking. Cristian was gripping the dagger so tightly that his knuckles had blanched white. The blade hovered just inches from her throat.

“Why did you cut them?” Cass asked, looking up and away from the dagger. “If you loved Mariabella—”