Christopher Golden - The Chamber of Ten

As the burial ended and the crowd slowly began to disperse, she felt Nico’s influence leaving. I’ll be waiting , he said, and she told him she’d be there soon.

“Dr. Hodge, I’m so sorry for your loss,” Finch said at last. “He was a bright lad. Terrible. Tragic.” He took a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped at his forehead, obviously uncomfortable in the suit. The sun was blazing. Geena wondered when it was that she’d got used to such heat.

“Thanks, Howard. And please, call me Geena.”

“Geena,” he said, nodding. “Well.”

“Well?”

He grimaced at her, shrugged, and she knew he had to talk business. Of course. “Tonio tells me you’ll be back at work in a week, and—”

“Sooner,” she said. “I’ll be back in two days.”

“Good. Good. And … after everything, I was still hoping we might be able to … work together?”

“Even though the Chamber is flooded again?”

Finch shrugged, mopping at his brow. He was losing his fight against sweat. “I still have some resources at my disposal,” he said.

“I don’t know,” Geena said, looking away, thinking of that granite disk, the cap on the well of Akylis. “The Chamber of Ten is dangerous. Surely you can use what footage you’ve already got, and focus the rest on the books themselves? Sabrina is a whiz with the camera. There’ll be footage of the books being examined, and plenty of time for interviews down the line.”

“I don’t have that much time.”

“All the more reason to just go with what you’ve got.”

During the several days since those events down in the Chamber, Nico had gently filled her in on what had happened. He’d never once asked her why she had fled—he didn’t have to, because the fear had been rich and hot in his own mind as well—but he had insisted on letting her know what happened afterward. In case , he had said, and she’d known what he meant. In case Volpe stays for good.

Strange that it was Volpe also saying that.

After the deaths had come the cleansing fire. The contagion in the Doges was wiped out, and Volpe had also used it to consume evidence of the conflict. Aretino and Foscari were dust, and their hired thugs were melted and charred away to nothing. And then, on his way out of the Chamber and Petrarch’s library, Nico had turned off the pumps.

By the time the Chamber was pumped out again, the broken obelisks and scattered remains of the Council of Ten would be blamed on the water surge.

“This needs to be done gently, and with respect,” Geena said. “We marched in there too quickly. We need to study and catalog, not storm in like we own the place.”

“But you do,” Finch said, confused. “Or at least, the city council does.”

“The building, yes. But not the past. That’s a strange place, and no one owns it. So … perhaps in a few weeks, I can call you and invite you back over. You can view our footage then, yes? You’ll be able to use a great deal of what we’ve already got. As for the documentary … Petrarch’s library is a collection of thoughts and ideas and stories on paper, not the room they were stored in.”

She could see that he was angry, but he was also at a funeral. There could be no raised voices here, and in truth she thought he’d respect her wishes. A lot had happened that he did not understand—that no one understood, other than her and Nico—and she sensed an underlying desire in this man to leave. Once he moved on to the next project, he would do his best to forget this one.

“Tonio has my contact details,” Finch said.

“He does. Thank you, Howard.”

He smiled, not unpleasantly, and walked away.

“Are you coming back with us?” Domenic asked.

“No,” Geena said. “Nico’s here. I haven’t seen him in a few days, and we have things to discuss.”

Domenic looked only momentarily startled. He was sharp enough not to ask if she thought she’d be all right with Nico. I saw him shot , he’d said to her two days before, talking about that attack when Ramus had been killed.

You saw the bullet hit him?

No, but …

He was terrified, Domenic. More scared than all of us there. The gun fired and he fell .

Who the hell were those men?

We don’t know. The police have been asking me that for the last twenty-four hours. They think they were linked to the ones who murdered the Mayor, but … in reality, no one knows. All I can think is they want something from the library .

That had given Domenic pause. Or from the Chamber below .

The Chamber? There’s nothing down there but dust .

Now that I moved that thing out of the city for you, yes .

Thieves, perhaps , Geena had said. You know as well as I do some of those books are priceless .

There was added security at the university and the Biblioteca now, and Geena knew her future held more interviews with the police. They continued to search the city for men who were dead and gone to dust, using pictures sketched from her own memory. It had been unsettling, looking at artists’ impressions of Aretino and Foscari.

“I’ll see you soon,” Domenic said.

“Count on it.” She smiled as he left, and then Geena wended her way through the crowd of black-dressed mourners, toward Nico.

And there, hopefully, she would find the man she loved.

Nico stood beneath an olive tree planted just to the side of a wide path. Sunlight dappled his head and cast the shadows of a hundred leaves across his arms and hands, and the thing he was holding there against his chest. The urn was old and looked delicate, but Geena knew that it was sealed by more than wax and blood. Magic held this container tighter than Nico’s hands.

He watched her as she approached, smiling, and she smiled back. She could feel the tingle of pleasure that seeing her gave him. But even as she drew close she could not see his eyes—the shadows here were deeper than she’d thought, the tree canopy heavier—and as he spoke, she knew that Volpe was still there.

“It’s all coming to an end,” he said.

“Yes.”

“You sound sad. You were hoping I’d be gone?”

“I was hoping you’d keep your word.”

Nico stepped forward and his eyes were not quite his own. And yet, she did see parts of Nico there. The care for her, the confusion, and his undeniable youth struggling with the aged thing settled within him.

“And I intend to,” Volpe said. “But it’s not quite that simple. There’s this to finish.” He lifted the urn, shook it slightly with a dry laugh. “And then … one more thing.”

“Only one more?” she asked. She so wanted to go to him, hug him, feel his warmth, but she could only ever embrace him again when he was purely Nico. It was cruel to shun her lover over something beyond his control, but she had to think of herself as well. She had to think about her safety. Her sanity.

“Only one more,” he said. “I promise.” He turned and walked away, glancing back to see if she was following.

After a pause in the shade of that tree, she was.

Geena was not shocked or surprised at the skeletons. Over the past few days, conversing in her mind, Nico had told her where this had to end. Aretino’s heart had been contained and in Nico’s possession ever since the Chamber, but it needed to be hidden away where no one would ever find it. The Volpe crypt on San Michele was the one place left in Venice that was still governed by dregs of the magician’s magic. Concealment spells had not been disturbed, shielding hexes were still strong and in place, and this might as well have been a hole in the ground of another planet. As far as anyone in Venice was concerned, this place did not exist.