The Chamber of Ten Read Online Free Page B

surrounds the three marble columns at the center of the room—ten, of course. Upon each chair sits a dark-robed man. They are not dressed identically; this is no cult. Some have jackets beneath their robes, checkered in combinations of black, red, tan, or green, while others appear far more severe, even monastic. The robes vary in length and cut, but they are all black, as are the hats the men wear, for none has a bare head
.
    One of them speaks in an old Venetian dialect
. This is …
    What is that final word? Something like “foolish.” No, not that
. “Unwise.”
    She sees not through her own eyes, but the eyes of another. She—he—is standing in the midst of the three stone columns at the center of the chamber, in the shifting pattern that the intrusive candlelight pushes into the shadows around her. She can feel his body, tall and thin and male. Unlike the others, his robe is stylishly slit in various places to reveal crimson cloth beneath and he wears no hat to cover his thick hair. He fixes the man who had spoken with a withering stare
.
    This is for Venice,
he says
. The Doge must be banished. And if you think it unwise, consider your fate should he ever return.
    The one who had questioned his wisdom falls silent. Satisfied, he vanishes back into the shadows of the columns and begins to sing. His voice rises in what might be song, or chant, or ritual. Light begins to radiate from an empty space amongst the columns—in the exact center of the room. It is dim at the start but glows more and more brightly until it obviates the need for candlelight
.
    At some signal amidst that song, the Ten draw small identical blades from within their robes. Glancing anxiously at one another, each makes a cut on the palm of his left hand
, la sinestra,
and then makes a fist, squeezing drops of blood onto the floor
.
    The light emanating from within the columns is washed in pink, and then deepens to bloody scarlet
.
    The chamber goes dark
.
    Geena collapsed, spilling out from between two columns and onto the floor of the round chamber. She blinked away the vision that had filled her mind and the painthat accompanied it. Someone called her name. The light from Sabrina’s camera blinded her and she winced. Closing her eyes tightly, she felt a torrent of images sweep over her—Nico’s blank expression, the stone jar shattering on the floor, the dark-robed men slicing the flesh of their palms, drops of blood falling.
    Feedback
, she thought. Nico’s touch made him what, in times gone by, some had referred to as a sensitive. He’d had some kind of psychic—
no, “psychometric,” that’s the word
—episode. And their rapport, the intimacy of their minds, had caused it to spill over to her.
    Christ, it had hurt.
    “Nico?” she said, starting to rise.
    She spotted her torch, frowning as her ears picked up a new sound in the circular chamber. A trickling of water. That made no sense. The room had been sealed for centuries, dry as a bone, despite the proximity of the Grand Canal and the spongelike foundations of the city.
    But as she reached for her Maglite, her eyes followed its beam to the chamber wall and she saw glistening tracks of water drizzling over the stone. It bubbled from pockets of ancient air.
    “What do we do?” Sabrina asked, sweeping the camera around, trying to get it all on film.
    “Son of a bitch,” Geena whispered, snatching up the light and shining it along the base of the wall. The beam found a chink in the stone where water gushed in, sliding over the floor in a rapidly widening pool.
    Geena?
    It was Nico, but he had not spoken aloud. His voice was in her head. And it was afraid.
    Howard Finch loomed in front of her, a ghost-manwith wide, panic-stricken eyes. “What are you waiting for? We’ve got to get out of here!”
    Only then did the real danger occur to her. But by then it was too late.
    A section of wall gave way and the water rushed in.

II
    F OR A moment as they were frozen in shock,