David Hewson - The Lizard's Bite

“Xerxes . . .” he said, then heard a sound, a strange, febrile hissing, followed by what appeared to be a human cry, and found, for a brief moment, he shared the creature’s fears.

He turned to look at the iron footbridge, one of Angelo Arcangelo’s most profligate follies, a grand design in miniature, crossing no more than thirty metres of water using a single pier, reached on each side by identical, ornate cantilevers. The short central span was built artificially high on the southern side, close to the lighthouse by the vaporetto stop and the jetty where Scacchi was moored. Here it was surmounted by a skeletal extended angel with rusting upright wings a good five metres high, the entire sculpture constructed of wrought iron. It looked like a tortured spirit trapped in metal. Electrical fairy lights outlined the figure. Its right arm was extended and held a torch which stabbed high into the air, a real gas flame burning vividly at its head, fed constantly from the foundry’s own methane system, day in, day out, in memory of the old man.

Piero Scacchi hated the thing as much as the dog did.

He listened again. There’d been a human sound floating down from the island. Now it was gone. All he could hear was the iron angel wheezing over the blast of the wind, choking and popping as the fiery torch flared erratically.

He knew nothing about gas. He was the night boy, the lackey, someone who carried and cleaned, tapped gauges to make sure they weren’t hitting the red, and called on Uriel, poor, sad Uriel, locked in his office with a grappa bottle for the night, should something appear wrong. Piero Scacchi understood little about the various contraptions inside, only what he’d seen from watching Uriel work them, flying at the wheels and switches without a word, throwing in kindling, adjusting the all-important fires to his Arcangelo will.

But Scacchi was wise enough to understand when something was wrong. The wind could, perhaps, extinguish the flame of the angel’s stupid torch, sending raw inflammable gas out into the Murano night. Except that the problem seemed to be a lack of gas, not an excess of it. As he watched, wondering, the torch died suddenly, expiring into itself with a sudden, explosive blowback.

The dog whined, looked up at him and wagged its feathery tail.

He’d every reason to go. He wasn’t even supposed to be there. Scacchi had stopped by only to save himself some work the following night. The Arcangeli got their money’s worth, always.

Then the hunter in him caught another sound. A human voice again, indistinguishable, whisked away by the sirocco before he could interpret it.

“Xerxes—” he said, and never finished the sentence.

Something roared into the night from the quay above him. A long fiery tongue, like that of some enraged dragon, extended into the black sky for one brief moment. The spaniel shrieked. Piero Scacchi threw his jacket over the small, trembling form, then fought his way up the slippery treacherous ladder next to the mooring, hearing the sound of a man’s screams grow louder with every step.

THE FLAMES IN THE FURNACE LOOKED WRONG. SO DID the smoke, a sooty black swirl escaping from the kiln’s mouth, then spiralling upwards towards the shaking roof. Uriel knew how the furnace was supposed to look. He could judge the state of the fire just from the intensity of its heat on the cracked veins in his cheeks.

There was something foreign now in the maw of the beehive structure, behind the crock of forming glass, something burning with a bright, smoky fury. He racked his half-drunk head, searching for an explanation, wondering what to do. Uriel Arcangelo had worked in here since he was twelve. The process was so familiar he scarcely thought about it anymore. Around five on a working afternoon he would load wood and raise the gas burner to 1250 degrees centigrade before placing the first crude load in position. Throughout the early evening, he or Bella would return from time to time to see the furnace rise steadily to 1400 degrees, adding wood according to his father’s specifications, until the furnace was hot enough to allow any bubbles to escape from the glass. Then around three, Uriel, and he alone, as omo de note, would make his final visit and begin to lower the temperature gradually. By seven in the morning the glass he’d created would be sufficiently malleable for Gabriele to begin making the expensive and individual goblets and vases that bore the foundry’s trademark, the mark of a skeletal angel.

Nothing, in all his decades of attentive nighttime activity, fitted with the sight that lay before Uriel now: a furnace racing inexplicably out of control.

“Bella?” he called out, over the roar of the kiln, half hoping.

No one answered. There was only the call of the fire.

Uriel Arcangelo took a deep breath, knowing the decision that faced him. To close down the furnace would mean an entire day of lost production. The family was broke already. They couldn’t afford the blow.

Except . . .

There was always a lone, bitter voice at the back of his head when he’d been drinking. Except they’d scarcely sold anything at all of late. All they’d be losing was another set of unwanted items to store in the warehouse, alongside boxes and boxes of identical glass pieces of expensive, beautiful—they were beautiful, he still believed that—works of art.

Uriel looked at his watch and wondered whether to call his brother. It was now approaching three. The loss of a run was bad, but not so terrible that it was worth risking Michele’s wrath. Besides, Uriel was the omo de note . He was employed to make these decisions. It was his role, his responsibility.

He walked over to the tangle of old methane pipes and the single giant stopcock that controlled the gas supply to the burners. It was possible he could adjust the temperature manually. He ought to be doing this by now in any case.

Then he remembered what he seemed to see when he stared inside the furnace’s belly, and turned to look at the spiral of smoke still working its way to the stained moon visible through the roof. Something was out of place here. And without understanding what it was, he found it impossible to assess the full degree of the danger. He couldn’t take risks with the furnace. If something damaged the beast itself, it would mean more than a lost day’s production. An extended closure could spell the end of the business entirely.

He gripped the wheel with both hands, fingers tight around the familiar marks, and began to turn, looking for ninety degrees to shut off the supply completely. Michele could complain all he liked in the morning. This was a decision that couldn’t wait.

Uriel Arcangelo heaved at the metal with increasing pressure for a minute or more. It was so hot it burned his desperate hands. It didn’t move, not the slightest amount.

He coughed. The smoke was getting heavier, becoming so thick it was starting to drift back down from the ceiling. His head felt heavy, stupid. He tried to run through the options in his mind. The only working phone in the foundry was by the door. The Arcangeli didn’t believe in cell phones. If matters took a turn for the worse—and he had to consider this now—he would have no choice but to call Michele and the fire station, get out of the building and wait.

Becoming desperate, he lunged at the wheel one more time. It was immovable. Something—the heat itself perhaps, or year after year of poor maintenance—had locked it into position.

He swore under his breath and with one last, somewhat fearful look at the furnace, started to walk to the door.