Christopher Golden - The Chamber of Ten

“Like that, except all the way through the city. Every time I turned a corner into a place I knew, there was something not quite right. I still knew it, but not how it was.”

He began to shake with growing frustration, gaze darting about the room as if searching for answers that would never be found within those walls.

“So what do you think—”

“Enough! I don’t know,” Nico said, standing abruptly and spilling coffee over the tablecloth.

A chill went through her. Christ, what had happened to him? “Nico?”

“Forget it,” he said. “I’m fine, really. Just a bad day. My mind … I’m always picking up traces and echoes of this and that, and sometimes things … seep in.”

“You never told me that,” Geena said.

He stalked back into her bedroom, drawing the shades to block out the sunlight and hiding in the gloom. Geena followed and stood in the doorway, leaning against the jamb. He still stank of that rancid water; strange that she should only notice that now.

“You really need a shower,” she said, and was delighted when he smiled.

“I just …” He stood, already unbuttoning his dirty shirt. “A scare. Panic. Excitement at what we’d found.”

“I understand that,” she said, and she did. But that did not account for the way he’d acted, nor for what she’d seen and sensed through him. Does he even remember? She still had the butter knife in one hand and she touched it to the other palm, casually, stroking it across the skin and feeling a slick of butter left behind.

Nico glanced at her hand—

— the splash of blood, light darkening from pink to red, a collective groan that echoed—

—and then turned quickly away, shaking as he unbuttoned his pants.

Geena gasped and held on to the door frame. She blinked away the flash of vision. Not even an image. Just a sensation. Then she looked down at her palm, certain that she’d cut herself. But there was only butter, already melting from the warmth of her skin.

Nico pulled down his trousers and boxers and stepped into the bathroom. Moments later she heard the water turn on, then the sound changing as he stepped beneath the spray. He sighed, groaned, and she heard the soft thud as he rested his head against the tiled wall.

Geena went back and cleared the breakfast table, trying to fill her mind with inanities rather than let it dwell on the image of blood. She scooped up the plates, piling them on top of each other, then carried the empty cups through to the small kitchen. Filling the coffee machine with water and fresh coffee, she leaned against the counter and smelled the gorgeous aroma of brewing coffee filling her flat once again.

For a moment I thought I’d lost him .

She and Nico had met two years before at a lecture she was giving, and the attraction had been instant and mutual. He’d persisted in asking her on a date, and it had taken three days for her faltering professional concerns to be cast aside. She knew that fraternizing with students was frowned upon, yet there had been something about him that drew her from that first moment. His good looks and youthful fitness didn’t hurt, but his was also a mind that she perceived as an equal to hers. His eyes betrayed an intelligence and quirkiness that matched her own, and more than anything she’d sensed a passion in him about the past. For many, history was simply times gone by, but for Geena it was a more rounded, real, whole place than the present. The past was set and immutable; it had walls and boundaries, rules and certainty. The present was unreliable.

On their first date he had taken her to the Museo Archeologico, and that night they had made love in his small apartment, windows open, moonlight silvering their sweat-sheened skin, cool air flooding the bedroom. The next morning she had wandered naked into the bathroom, only to be startled by Nico emerging from the shower. His laughter at her shriek of surprise had melted her heart, just a little, and through the embarrassment she had found a smile.

He was twelve years her junior, and she loved him because he did not make her feel younger than her age.

The coffee machine was grumbling as the last of the coffee dribbled into the pot. She focused, trying to see if she could sense his mind reaching out to her, and felt only a warm, gentle satisfaction. She wished there were something more.

Geena pulled off her shirt and slid down her sweatpants. She crossed the small living room, glancing out the window but not caring if cat-man or the young flirter were looking. Steam billowed from the bathroom—he must have the heat turned high—and she stood in the doorway for a while, watching his shadow through the shower curtain. She frowned, trying to sort her confused emotions from those of his she might be feeling; frustration, anxiety? And she thought about what the dreams had been telling her last night—that Nico was gone, that she would never hold him in her arms again, never feel him smile and shudder against her neck as he came inside her. Never again argue with him about who was the greatest painter or sculptor.

She pulled the curtain aside and stepped into the bath. Nico still had his back to her, face turned up into the overhead shower and hands both clasping a tablet of soap. He was rubbing at his shoulders and chest, and his breath came in short gasps.

She stepped forward and reached around to his stomach.

Nico jumped and spun around, almost sending her sprawling. The shower reached her, and it was scalding hot across her face, shoulders, and chest. She gasped.

“I just can’t get myself clean,” he said, and for the first time since she had met him, he sounded like a child.

“I’ll help you,” she said. He nodded and smiled gratefully, and for the next half an hour as she scrubbed his skin pink, he projected only an unfamiliar, heartrending vulnerability.

Domenic returned mid-morning with a doctor, and although Nico protested, he let the doctor look him over. There were no injuries and no obvious indications of any head trauma. He sat through the whole examination looking vaguely befuddled, and when the doctor stood to leave, Nico walked him to the door.

“How is he?” Domenic whispered.

“I don’t know,” Geena said. “It’s like he’s been away a lot longer.”

“How do you mean?”

She shrugged. How could she communicate to Domenic the subtle differences, the awkwardness between them that had never been there before? So instead she changed the subject. Divert your mind and sometimes the answers will creep up on you , her father used to tell her. He’d never given her a piece of advice that had failed her yet.

“Is Dr. Schiavo angry that we’re not at the site?” she asked.

“Of course not. You two have had quite a trauma—”

Geena frowned. “Not more than anyone else who was down there when the wall gave way.”

“Not true,” Domenic said. “I didn’t explain to Dr. Schiavo what had happened with you and Nico—that’s not my business to explain to him—but I told him you’d both had a close call. Ramus is site manager and he’s been there all day, talking with the city engineers about shoring up the canal wall, getting pumps in, all of it. You let us worry about all of that for today.”

“Have you looked at the film yet?” she asked.

“No, but your BBC friend is all over us.” Domenic rolled his eyes.

“Let’s have a viewing here. Finch can come, too.”

“You’re sure?” He looked around uncertainly, and at first she thought he was still worried about Nico. But then she realized the source of his discomfort and smiled.

“Sure. I don’t think we can pretend that Nico and I are a secret anymore, can we?”

“I suppose not,” Domenic said, returning her smile. “I’ll call the others and get them here for … two o’clock?”