There were four metal braziers scattered around the room, filled with scraps of wood so dry that they ignited at the first touch of a match. Soon the room was illuminated, and Nico took a good look. He stepped back to the hole in the wall and sat on the pile of fallen blocks, enjoying being in control of his own body again—
But am I really in control? He’s only leaving me alone because I’m doing what he wants. If I turned and tried climbing back through the hole with the bag—
You cannot! Volpe screamed in his mind, and Nico winced and clapped his hands over his ears. This is important. This is urgent. Now do as I say, if you value your safety and sanity, and perhaps after that there may be chances to negotiate your freedom.
Nico gasped and stood, swaying slightly as Volpe slipped away once again. When Volpe was to the fore it was like having terrible cramps, his muscles twisted and under the volition of someone else, and when control returned his limbs suffered from tingling pins and needles. Freedom, Nico thought, but he had no way at all of telling how sincere Volpe could be.
The chamber was unremarkable. Square, ten paces wide, the only items it contained were the burning braziers, the only architectural features the slightly vaulted ceiling and the hatchway he had just forced himself through. So what was there not to touch?
“The heart of Venice,” Nico said, hoping for something from the spirit inside. But for now Volpe was silent, and Nico sat and waited for whatever came next.
This is important. This is urgent.
She had heard those words clear as day, drawled in the same not-Nico voice that had told her, Come here, sweetness, just before he’d slashed her shoulder. And whispered into the ear of her mind, they made the Venetian night more threatening, more dangerous, and a place where she knew Nico was once again being driven to do things he did not wish to or could not understand.
She had no idea where Nico was now. She’d left the Palazzo Cavalli soon after realizing she’d missed him, heading across the Grand Canal in the vain hope that she could pick up his trail again. She felt so lost in the city she had quickly grown to love, and several times around midnight she had tapped Domenic’s number into her cell and hovered her finger over the call button. But she had resisted every time. She’d cast herself after Nico now, and this could only end when she found him. After that would come the investigation, the police interviews, Nico’s assessment and possibly prosecution … but that was something to worry about in the future.
So she wandered, waiting for another flash that might tell her where Nico was now. She’d turned her cell off, but every now and then she switched it on again to check whether Nico had, by some miracle, tried to contact her. But the messages were all from Domenic, and the texts were also from him, along with one more from Ramus, and three from Finch. In his third text, Finch asked if she’d like to join him for dinner, and for an appalled moment she thought he was making a move on her. But her tiredness and worry were skewing her perception; it was a business meeting he requested, of course, though one carried out over a friendly dinner. Finch could feign concern for her and her wayward boyfriend—and in truth she thought he really did care, beneath that producer’s veneer and distinctly British bluster—but for him, this visit to Venice was still very much a business concern.
She answered no messages, but she did send one to Domenic. I’m fine, Dom. Thank you, and I’m sorry I ditched you. But I have to find Nico. She knew how worried he’d be at that, and seconds after she’d sent it she realized how unfair it was putting him in such a position. But she thought she owed him some contact. And she wasn’t about to lie.
She knew that Domenic would be looking, and he knew this city well. But she had the advantage of being truly lost.
Just after four o’clock, her wounded arm aching more now than ever before, she was sitting at a table toward the back of a great pizzeria she’d been to with Nico several times before. She had skipped lunch and needed to refuel. She’d eaten, and was making short work of a strong cup of coffee when someone passed by the window.
Many people had passed the restaurant window in the half hour she’d been inside, but something about this one had snagged her attention like a hook in her cheek. She felt drawn to it, standing and knocking her table so that coffee slopped over the lip of her cup. The figure was already gone.
Not for a moment did she think it was Nico. This person moved quickly, yet with a slight stoop, and there was nothing about the fleeting silhouette that she recognized. Yet she was drawn to the restaurant’s front door, opening it and staring after whoever had passed. The street was empty, the canal running alongside silent for now but for the gentle lap of water against stone.
Looking into the emptiness, she shivered and knocked her wounded arm against the doorjamb.
“Would you like the bill?” the little waitress who’d been serving her asked. She was standing at Geena’s elbow, perhaps afraid that Geena was about to leave without paying, or maybe just concerned.
“Yes, please,” Geena said, still peering out the door. “The city’s quiet today.”
“It’s a dreadful day,” the waitress said.
Geena let the door close, keeping the air-conditioning inside, and turned to look at the waitress. “What do you mean?”
The young woman’s eyes widened. “You haven’t heard? Terrible stuff. An old building collapsed in Dorsoduro, just fell into the canal. Seven people were killed. They’re saying there’s some kind of tomb underneath.”
“A tomb? What are you talking about?” Geena asked, more sharply than she’d intended.
The waitress shrugged. “All I know is what my customers tell me. I wish I could go home and watch the news.”
Geena stared at her for a few seconds before the waitress shrugged again and went to fetch her bill, leaving her to wonder. Her archaeologist’s mind went into overdrive. She wanted to know what building this was, how its foundations had been undermined enough for it to crumble into the canal, and—more than anything—if there really had been some kind of tomb revealed by its collapse. With her team busy at the Biblioteca, Tonio would send someone else on the university’s behalf. The city council would want someone from the department there, especially if there was some kind of archaeological value to the site. But if people had been killed, such concerns would hardly be the first things on anyone’s mind.
And they can’t be your concerns, she told herself. It has to be someone else’s job.
Unless it was related to the madness that had begun when Nico had shattered the stone jar at the center of the Chamber of Ten. Could it really be coincidence that an ancient tomb had been discovered buried beneath a building in Venice only days after they had found the Chamber of Ten and had its wall give way? She supposed it might be possible, but it didn’t seem likely.
But if it was all connected, then how?
It occurred to her that Nico might be responsible for the building collapse, but she forced the thought away. How could one man accomplish such a feat? She was letting her anxiety get the best of her. The only way to get the answers she wanted, to find the truth, was to track him down. Until she managed to do that, all of her questions would have to be put on hold, along with whatever crisis might be unfolding in Venice.