The Chamber of Ten Read Free Page B

carefully prepared manuscripts for transport to a room at Ca’Foscari University that had been specially built for the care of ancient documents.
    “Dr. Hodge?” Finch called behind her.
    But Geena was drawn through the anthill industriousness of the recovery team by the giddy urgency she felt in Nico’s mind. Several members of the team tried to speak with her as she passed, but she waved them off with a tight smile. This was not the way she had imagined Finch experiencing the size and delicacy and historical significance of the Biblioteca project, but she could not stop herself. Nico did not get this excited about just anything.
    Plastic curtains covered an archway that separated the two wings of the chamber. As Geena rushed forward, Nico pushed through, and she saw the smile that she’d felt in her mind. His olive skin shone in the glare of the work lights. Mischief and glee danced in his dark eyes.
    “Dr. Hodge!” Finch called from behind her.
    Geena stared at Nico. “What is it?” she said, the words almost a sigh.
    “We found another door,” he said, reaching for her hand. And then he was tugging her along in his wake, back through the plastic curtains, Howard Finch forgotten, and they were rushing into an area of the chamber they had barely begun to catalog.
    “You opened it?” she asked.
    “Of course!” Nico said, but she could feel the touch of his mind and knew he was toying with her.
    “You didn’t go in,” she said.
    He cast her a sidelong glance. “This is your project, Geena. We opened the door just a few minutes ago, butyou should be the first to enter. I will spoil this much of the surprise, though. There are stairs, and they go deeper.”
    Geena swung the beam of the heavy-duty Maglite side to side, studying each step as she made her cautious descent. Nico came right behind her, shining his own industrial flashlight over her shoulder, illuminating the darkness ahead. What fascinated her most was how dry the air remained. A subterranean chamber beneath Venice ought to be seeping with ground water, but she saw no sign of weeping between the stones in the stairwell walls.
    The stairs curved to the left. If her sense of direction served her well, they were closer than ever to the canal. She ran her free hand along the wall as she took each step—eighteen, by the time they reached the door at the bottom—wondering the entire time why anyone would need a hidden room beneath a hidden room, and whether they would find yet another hidden room below that.
    Her imagination ran with that question as she swept the Maglite’s beam over the door. The wood looked petrified, the iron strapping across it dull but otherwise untouched by time. It had no lock, only a heavy metal latch. And at the center of the uppermost of the iron straps across the door, a large X had been engraved.
    X marks the spot
, she thought, but knew that was foolishness.
    “Ten,” she said.
    “Ten what?” Nico asked.
    Geena traced the number with a finger. “Let’s find out.”
    Her breath caught in her throat, an almost sexualexcitement filling her. The base of her brain buzzed with Nico’s anticipation; he felt it, too. These were the moments that they both lived for. Discovery. Dispersing the ghosts of the past like so many cobwebs and stepping back through time.
    She turned to grin up at him, and at the others gathered on the steps behind him. Silver-haired Domenic, their expert on ancient texts; tall, grimly beautiful Sabrina, camera recording it all; and Ramus, the Croatian grad student she had promoted to site manager only three days before. She put a hand up to block the worst of the glare from their flashlights and could see one final dark silhouette on the stairs above her. Howard Finch. He had asked to be a part of the initial foray and she had agreed, knowing that if they found anything of import, BBC funding would flow.
    “No one has been here in at least five hundred years,” Geena said. “It’s exciting, I