My fault, Nico thought, and he felt Volpe’s rotting heart slipping through his fingers all over again.
“No,” Nico said, but he realized instantly that he could not lie to this man.
“Well …” The man shrugged. “If you don’t know me, then you know Volpe.” He mounted the steps, lurching up them as if one of his legs no longer worked properly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nico said. He glanced back at Geena, sitting on the ground and staring with her mouth wide open. Up! he thought, but there was no indication that she heard.
“The church has changed,” Doge Caravello said. “It looks more elaborate than I recall. But I suppose time changes everything.”
Volpe, Nico thought. Volpe! But the old spirit remained silent.
Caravello reached the top step, five paces from Nico, and there he paused. He looked Nico up and down, the good side of his mouth turning up in a smile that looked more like a sneer.
“Cut yourself shaving?” the ancient man asked. There would be no negotiating here, Nico knew. From everything he had witnessed of Volpe’s memories of the city, he knew that those three banished Doges were Volpe’s mortal enemies. Even through his broken and bloodied nose, he could smell violence in the air, and he moved a step to the right to stand between Caravello and Geena.
“Leave us alone, old man.” Volpe, hear this. Listen!
“Old man?” Caravello asked with a gentle laugh. “If only you knew.”
Nico remembered the canal turning red, Volpe’s dismissal of this man who had once ruled Venice, the guards’ nervousness, the Doge’s pride as he was banished from the city he loved and which he had been making a play to rule completely—
Caravello read his face all too well.
“Oh, so you do know,” the Doge said. He took one step closer and Nico raised the knife.
The old man laughed. It was a surprisingly light, high laugh, like a young girl’s. He squinted and leaned closer, looking at Nico’s face, his eyes, turning his head this way and that like a dog sniffing the air.
“I did think it was you, Zanco,” he said, almost with regret. “But perhaps you really are gone for good. The others would be so pleased to hear it.”
Nico bent his knees and dropped into a fighting pose, but he had not fought anyone since he was eleven years old. This was nothing like instinct. The manipulation was much more subtle than it had been before, and for the first time Nico gave himself entirely to the thing inside. He retained control but answered the hints, and far away he heard Volpe whisper, Soon he will see the truth … and then he will attack.
“Perhaps you opened up his old tomb,” Caravello said. “We saw the news about the Chamber being found. I’d like to visit it myself, but … fuck it. You know? Old times. The past is best left dead.” He was staring intently at Nico, watching for some hint that there was more to him than first appeared.
“I don’t know what you’ve been smoking, you crazy old fool,” Nico said. “Now get out of here and mind your own business.”
“My business?” Caravello asked. He was still scrutinizing Nico—a discomforting experience. He took one step closer and Nico smelled him for the first time. There was nothing normal about his smell; he stank solely of age.
“He followed me,” Geena whispered, and Caravello glanced her way. Nico did not. He kept his eyes on the old man because—
Soon, Volpe whispered. I can feel him gathering his senses, and we must not let him win. This is the first, but it will not be the most difficult. Right now, we still have some element of surprise on our side, because he’s not quite sure.
“Everything in Venice is my business,” Caravello said softly.
The left side of his face barely moved, as if it had melted and then set. The drooping muscles beneath that flesh might have been the result of stroke or disease, but Nico caught a stray thought in Volpe’s mind and knew the truth. Caravello’s ruined visage had been caused by dark magic in the hands of an ambitious amateur.
He is an amateur no longer, Volpe whispered in Nico’s mind.
The right side of Caravello’s face was animated and filled with confidence.
“Venice was mine,” the Doge said. “And it will be again. A united three are so much greater than one, Volpe. Do you hear?”
He jerked forward and Nico took a step back before Volpe took control at last.
The ancient Doge sensed the change in him immediately.
“Ahh,” Caravello sighed. “So it is you.”
Volpe swung the knife. It hissed through the air inches from the old man’s face. Caravello slipped back to the top of the steps and threw off his cloak, revealing two short swords stuck in his belt. As he drew them, Volpe lunged, punching him in the face and sending him stumbling down the steps.
“What have you been doing all this time?” Caravello laughed, regaining his balance. He had the swords out now, and he spun them with amazing dexterity. “Hiding away? Keeping the city safe?”
“It worked,” Volpe growled.
“Until now.”
“A minor interruption,” Volpe said, then he went at Caravello again.
Geena screamed. Nico heard her, but Volpe was fully in charge now, using Nico’s fitness to compliment his experience. He ducked one sword swipe and went in low, punching at Caravello’s crotch, missing, then stabbing with the knife. Caravello—upright, and with the advantage—kicked Volpe in the face. He should have screamed as his broken nose was crushed, but he had known much worse.
Nico gasped in surprise, his voice unheard.
“A knife?” Caravello said again, and he laughed. “Look at you, Volpe. Little more than a shade inhabiting a stranger’s body.” He circled Volpe, both of them tensed and ready for another attack. “And look at me. You know me, you old bastard. You’ve been dead all these centuries. Whereas I … I have advanced. Grown with the world. I’ve danced around this globe, Zanco, and seen things you cannot imagine. I’ve learned so much. But Venice has always been my home.” He took in a deep breath. “It’s good to be home.”
“So where are the others?” Volpe asked.
Caravello sneered. “Not far at all. They’ll be so envious that it was my hand that took your life.” He kicked out, faster than Volpe had believed possible, and his foot struck cracked ribs. Volpe gasped, because even if he could withstand the pain, the pressure on his lungs was immense. He went down, coughing blood.
“You should have ignored the Council and killed me when you had the chance,” Caravello said. He raised one sword, lowered the other, and came in for the kill.
Geena jumped from the third step and collided with Caravello, her shoulder striking his hip, hands clawing into his clothing as she fell. Unbalanced, he followed her down. One sword clattered to the ground, and Geena grunted as the man landed across her shoulders.
Volpe stood and darted forward, ignoring the crippling pain in his chest, and Nico heard the calm calculation in his mind: While he kills the girl, I’ll deal with him.
No! Nico tried to scream, and with a supreme effort of will he pushed himself forward, knife lashing out. He feigned right and darted to the left, slicing across Caravello’s stomach with the blade. It parted his shirt but did not draw blood.
Geena crawled to the steps and crouched, watching the fight, and tensed to jump again.
Left! Nico warned, and Volpe dropped to the left just in time to avoid a descending blade. He fell onto Caravello’s arm, grabbed his wrist, and jerked down, feeling and hearing bone snap beneath his weight. The old man might have lived for those intervening centuries, but whatever dark magic he had employed to increase his longevity had done little to strengthen time-brittled bones.