“You … slowed … me … down!”
He ran across the chamber again and struck another stone wall. The impact stole his vision, and he staggered back and fell.
“No!” Volpe said, hauling Nico to his feet again, wiping blood from his eyes so that he could launch himself at one of the flaming braziers. He tripped and went sprawling, pain biting in everywhere. Nico so wanted to scream, but Volpe had his mouth, using it to rant and rage.
“You made me late, you slowed me down, you let them get in!”
I let no one in, Nico thought, but he knew that was not quite true. He’d let Volpe in, and now the consequences of that mistake were mounting. The Book of the Nameless lay torn beneath him, the seal rolled across the floor, and close to his right hand lay the knife.
Volpe picked it up, and Nico screamed.
The scream was real. Volpe paused, holding the knife with its tip pointing toward Nico’s right eye, inches away and invisible in the poor light. Volpe moved it closer, and Nico could sense it there, the cool sharp metal that was now smeared with a mixture of his and Geena’s blood.
I’ve done nothing to you, he thought. You’ve done it all to me. But he tried to draw back, and thought as secretly as he could, I love you, Geena, and I’m sorry, but the monster is going to kill me.
Volpe stood, groaning as he took some of the pain he had bestowed. Nico felt a sense of wonder in the spirit, because he had not felt such pain for so long. It was almost liberating. His heart thudded, blood flowed, and as Volpe moved toward the small entrance hole into the chamber, Nico quietly assessed his injuries.
“I’m no monster,” Volpe said, his tone betraying a sense of hurt.
Then give me back my life.
“I cannot. Not yet. Things have gone … wrong. There’s danger to Venice. Its people and the city itself are in peril, and what I’ve been holding back for centuries might now—”
Might what? Nico thought. How are you any different from them? They dabbled in dark magic? They were power-hungry bastards? So what? That describes you just as well. They’re just like you!
“No,” Volpe said, “they’re not.”
What makes them so different?
He could feel Volpe’s anger subsiding into grim determination.
“Listen well, Nicolo, and I will tell you.”
For long minutes, the old magician whispered to him. Nico listened, first incredulous, then amazed, and finally terrified.
“I need rest,” Volpe said, when he was through. “You need to find somewhere quiet, somewhere private, and rest yourself. I have injured you, and for that you have my apologies. But I can heal you. The longer we are joined together, the stronger the bond between us, and the greater control I have over my magic. While we both rest, your injuries will fade and your vigor will be restored, just as mine will be. I despise the thought of losing even a moment, but we must be at our best. We have a fight ahead of us.”
“We?” Nico said, surprised at the sound of his voice. Volpe was already sinking down, and the pains across his body roared in like a fire bursting alight. Nico groaned and spit blood from mashed lips, and he hoped Volpe really could heal him.
You’ve no choice, Nico, from somewhere deep inside. Venice needs you now, as much as it ever needed me. Now rest … and later, we will scheme.
XI
STANDING BEFORE Chiesa di San Rocco, Geena was unsure exactly what had brought her here. Since hearing about the Mayor’s murder she had walked in a haze, the world around her seeming less real than the scenarios that came to life in her imagination. There were no more hints of something following her, but with her attention switched inward she probably wouldn’t have noticed, anyway.
The church looked empty, and yet … there was something about it. An air of potential, or the sense that something momentous had just happened. Perhaps it was the silence that hung around the place, as if the walls themselves were shocked dumb.
“Nico?” she called. There was no trace of his presence, no inkling of the touch that had been fading in and out like a badly tuned radio. Her voice echoed only briefly then faded again to silence. She could hear sounds elsewhere in the city—the ever-present buzz of boat engines, wooden shutters clapping shut, and from somewhere distant the incongruous sounds of a party—but they only emphasized the silence. I shouldn’t even be here, she thought, and then the church doorway opened.
She wanted to hide, but there was nothing close enough to hide behind.
When he emerged into the slanted sunlight on the top step, she heard something behind her, as though the night itself had gasped in disbelief. But she could focus only on Nico. She ran to him, mindless of the knife in his hand, forgetting everything that had happened save for losing him, and when he looked up he smiled with bloodied eyes.
“Nico!” She tried to yell but it came out as a whisper as she ran up the five steps. On the top step she paused, the sight of him stifling her joy. He looked terrible—face smeared with blood, lips gashed, one eye swollen shut, and he held his left side as if he’d cracked ribs. But in his good eye she saw only Nico—no one and nothing else.
“Sweet Geena,” he said, and it was Nico’s voice. She stepped to him and opened her arms, not even glancing at the knife he held in his outstretched right hand. But just as she moved in close, ready to rest her head against his shoulder and feel his heat, she saw his eyes open wide with shock and sensed something coming at her from behind.
She turned, her hand pressed against the small of his back. He moved in front of her and raised the knife. A figure streaked across the paved area in front of the church, a confusion of billowing darkness, and its footsteps had a peculiar pattern—slap, thunk, slap, thunk.
The man came to a halt before the steps, his sudden stillness more striking than the startling movement. He was dressed in a black cloak and hood, and as he raised his face, Geena felt terror clasping talons into her flesh. He’ll have no face, he’ll be nobody …
But it was only a man, his hair long and completely gray, his hands thin and fingers spindly. And when she saw his face—
I’ve seen this man before!
The way the left side drooped, left eye heavily lidded and mouth downturned—
—but it can’t be him, it can’t be, because—
She felt herself losing strength, her muscles relaxing, knees folding—
—because that was six hundred years ago.
Geena hit the ground but neither man seemed to notice. They only had eyes for each other.
“Pity,” Giardino Caravello said. “I was certain you were Zanco Volpe.”
One of the Doges, Nico thought, and he was certain that Volpe would rise then. But he did not, too exhausted from the ritual. Nico moved his left hand away from his ribs, and turned the knife in his right. He had complete control of his body.
“What are you talking about?” Nico said. Act the fool and perhaps he’ll leave. Plead ignorance, and this man who was banished from the city … almost six hundred years ago …
“You know me?” the man asked. His voice was light and soft, belying the image he portrayed. When Nico had last seen him in Volpe’s memory, he’d been dressed in stylish clothes, acting slighted as he boarded the boat to be taken from Venice forever. Now it seemed that even forever had limits.