But how is it done?
Volpe scowled. He had no time to explain himself to Nico. The young archaeologist had left his mind open to exploration several times and Volpe had learned a great deal about the modern world from him, among other things. But in order to fulfill his own plans, he needed Nico’s cooperation, which included silence when necessary. And so he reached out to Nico in his mind, let barriers fall that he had erected in ages past. Nico—and through him, Geena—had glimpsed many of Volpe’s memories already, but now he let Nico into the landscape of his mind and gave him free rein to explore … almost everywhere.
Nico is a boy, perhaps twelve years of age, on the night he waits in the corridor outside of the maid’s chamber in his father’s house. The woman speaks Italian perfectly but there is the hint of Arabia in her voice, and her almond eyes and coffee skin suggest such lineage. Her lips are full and sensuous, her body ripe beneath her draped clothing, and she has been the object of the boy’s desire since the first stirring of his cock.
Tonight she cries out in a throaty rasp, hoarse with lust, and he has come to spy upon her. But as he peers through the keyhole, watching her serviced by an Athenian sailor whose thickly muscled body is slicked with sweat, his own maddening lust turns to fear and shock. The sailor hurts her, strikes her, begins to choke her, and she slashes his face with her fingernails, fighting against him.
The sailor bleeds and laughs and begins to pummel her face with every thrust.
After the fifth blow, somehow she seems to transcend the pain. Through the keyhole, Nico can see her eyes glittering with hatred in the candlelight, her teeth bared. He sees her arms drop back as though in surrender, but she is not surrendering. She twists her fingers until her hands appear to be huge spiders weaving their webs, and she rasps words in some guttural Arabic tongue.
The sailor lifts off of her as though the hand of God has snatched him from the bed. He flails, dangling above her, cursing her as a witch in his native tongue. Her chanting continues and the Athenian begins to twitch, batting at his glistening skin in fear, slapping as though killing insects. Nico has not mastered much of the Greek language, but he understands enough to know the sailor sees spiders on his flesh, digging holes, laying eggs. The man slaps and claws at his face, digging deep furrows in his cheeks, then he plunges fingers into his eye sockets and rips both eyes out, screaming that the spiders are still digging.
The nude woman, body still flushed with arousal, crawls from the bed, corded muscles standing out in her neck as though she herself is holding the sailor off the ground. Then, with a gesture, she lets him fall and he collapses to the bed, turning as though to search for her with those empty, gore-rimmed eye sockets.
Nico never sees where she finds the knife, but it is there. She reaches out and grips the sailor’s sex in one hand, then brings the blade down swiftly. While he is screaming, she cuts his throat.
Nico cannot breathe. He cannot identify what he feels at the sight of this horror—the heart-stopping magnificence of the maid’s nakedness, the violence, the blood. But he understands that the Athenian thought her vulnerable, thought himself her better, and that the maid has proven that an error.
She holds her hands out, palms turned downward above the dying man, and chants briefly. Fire leaps from the corpse and the floor and the bed, rages brightly for several seconds and sends a wave of heat blasting through the keyhole. Then, as abruptly as it began, the fire is gone and only charred ash remains. The maid picks up the bedclothes and shakes them out, and he sees that they are not burned at all.
The maid has only to sweep away the ash and the only sign of the Athenian ever being there will be the unfulfilled dampness of her sex and the marks of his hands upon her throat, and both will fade.
He should go, sneak back to his room and pretend that he has seen nothing. He could, and she would never know. But he cannot.
As if his actions are no longer his own, he rises, lifts a hand, and raps on the door. The house is empty other than the two of them. No one else has heard the screams. No one else is coming. And she will know that it can only be him at the door. Still, long seconds pass.
When the door creaks open she is clad in a thin robe and she studies him with a ravenous curiosity as he enters the room. And then she smiles.
“Zanco, what did you see?” she asks.
“Nothing,” Nico lies.
By her bedside is a small silver mirror. She picks it up and holds it so that he can see his reflection. The skin around his right eye is burned a bright red in the shape of a keyhole.
She smiles.
Nico feels his heart thundering in his chest and wonders if she can hear it. His prick is rampant, straining against his clothing. His lower lip quivers and he cannot meet her gaze, but then he forces his fear away and lifts his eyes.
“Teach me,” he says, and he does not stammer.
He is asking so many things with those two words, and she seems to understand them all. She releases the catch on her robe and it glides down her copper skin to pool at her feet.
And the magic, and the power, begin.
But he is not Nico. He is Zanco Volpe. And Nico knows he will learn his lessons well.
Tremors shook the Slav’s body. The knife in his right hand shook most of all. Volpe turned his back on the man, walked to Nico’s coffee table, and set down the dead thug’s gun. The bullet wound in his shoulder had healed almost completely, but it gave an unpleasant tug as he reached down to turn a chair toward the Slav and sat in it, the blood on his clothes and hands soaking into the fabric.
“Now,” Volpe said, “I have questions. You will provide answers.”
The Slav’s upper lip quivered as though he wanted to muster up another gob of phlegm to show his disdain for this suggestion, but he could not manage even that. Volpe had him.
How old are you? Nico asked, inside his head.
Quiet, Volpe said. Sit and learn. I have opened the doors of my mind to you. If we must share this body—
My body!
—then I will be a gracious host. You wish to understand spellcraft and ritual, but you must educate yourself. I have business to attend to. All of Venice is in peril.
Volpe could feel the doubt in Nico’s thoughts.
Your control of the city is in peril, not the city itself, Nico thought.
Volpe ground his teeth in irritation. Nico’s presence within this flesh had to be tolerated for now, but it had begun to wear on him.
We shall see. Now be silent.
“Basssstaarrrrrd …” the Slav managed to slur.
“Ah, you want to talk now?” Volpe said, leaning forward in the chair. “Excellent. I’ll give you the freedom to speak. Take a look at your friend there on the floor.”
He gestured at the corpse—at the pouting gash in the pale man’s throat and the way the dead eyes gazed lifelessly at the ceiling.
“Now, then,” Volpe continued, “who sent you here and what were your instructions?”
“Go fuck yourself,” the Slav growled.
Volpe sighed in unfeigned impatience, then clenched his right hand into a fist and raised it up. The Slav lifted his long, wicked-edged blade. He stared at it, Volpe all but forgotten.