“Alfonse the Prelate.” I stared back at him. “You’ve been snooping.”
A quick, surprised smile flashed across the man’s taciturn face, then he was back to his Sam the Eagle routine. “Count Valetti has explained at length his concerns regarding a potential attack during Carnevale, and your potential aid in stopping it. I can shed some light—but only some. I suspect the count’s fears are overstated.”
I blinked. That wasn’t exactly a whole-hearted endorsement of the senate’s head of security. “I certainly hope you’re right,” I offered.
“Alfonse is at heart a pragmatist,” Valetti interjected with an almost fatherly indulgence, though from what I could tell, the men were contemporaries. “He is forever debunking our overwrought concerns, even mine, which are perhaps more well-grounded than most.”
Alfonse turned his cool gaze on Valetti, then slanted his attention back to me. “We can go inside. It’s a far more comfortable place to have a conversation.”
We turned and moved toward the great doors of the casino. “I trust Count Valetti has given you the history of our fair library?” he asked.
“The highlights.” I nodded.
“Then allow me to fill in what I may.” I didn’t really need the dime tour, but it seemed like everyone in Venice was one coin slot away from becoming a perpetual-loop visitor’s guide. “What we think of as the casino is technically the annex building of the Palazzo Contarini dal Zaffo, which belonged to Joseph Contarini in the sixteenth century. While in its earliest days the casino got its name from being a boisterous house of entertainment, over the years that description morphed into one far more sinister. That the casino is an accursed place, filled with ghosts.”
“Are there cemeteries on the grounds?” I asked.
“There are undoubtedly some souls buried within these walls,” the prelate said cryptically, because—of course he would. “But Venice as a city was devastated by the bubonic plague several times over. There have been many deaths on this lagoon that could give rise to the spirits that are believed to haunt this building. The most famous ghost we are credited with is that of Luzzo, a painter from the sixteenth century. As the legend goes, Luzzo used to meet in one of the rooms with Giorgione, Titian, and Sansovino. He was madly in love with one of the lovers of Giorgione, a young woman named Cecilia—and she did not return his affections. Some say he committed suicide in despair, but in any event, he returns from time to time, seeking her still.”
“Such a tragedy,” murmured Valetti. I cocked an amused glance at him.
“Granted, most of the rumors began because of the building’s isolated location and the sound of the lagoon water in constant motion, as well as the frequent breeze that whistles along the stones. But the stories add a bit of color to the place.”
“Valetti mentioned that there are essentially two sections to the casino,” I said, trying to steer the conversation to more useful areas. “Will we be able to use the library, or is it occupied?”
“We always have researchers from one religious doctrine or another seeking answers they cannot find elsewhere in the world.” Alfonse nodded. “They won’t disturb us, however. And the public tours are finished for the morning. Come this way.”
We entered the cool quiet space of the casino, moving down hallways that were largely unadorned. You could tell the space had once been meant for social gathering, but now it looked much like what it was, a haven for study and retreat.
“Do you enjoy it here?” I asked, breaking the stillness that had begun to encroach around us.
Alfonse glanced my way. “It isn’t for me to enjoy or not enjoy a mission for the church. My duty is to protect this place and serve those who come here.”
“And to keep the lore of the city updated,” Valetti cut in with a little more strength to his voice then seemed necessary.
Alfonse, for his part, merely shrugged. “I am happy to serve the senate in the way that also brings the greatest glory to this space and to God. No matter how that may best be accomplished.”
He said this last bit directly to Valetti, who continued to eye him with something that now approached suspicion. Apparently unfazed, Alfonse turned back to me. “I am most interested in what you would be willing to share, Justice Wilde. I find my information on the history of your organization is severely lacking.”
My brows went up, but before I could respond, Alfonse glanced down the corridor. “Ah, here we are,” he said. We entered a doorway flanked by two tall pillars, one light, one dark. Then Alfonse ushered us into a room that looked like a party hall for monks. There was a long wooden table with benches on either side, the wood polished and worn to a soft sheen. No artwork adorned the walls, but shelves of books lined the space, most of the titles looking old and esoteric. Three doors were cut into the far wall alongside all the books, and surmounting the doors were carved flowers—presumably the patron flowers of Italy. I could make out a rose, a lily, and some little scrubby-looking flowers. Poppies, maybe.
“You don’t preserve any of your history in digital format?” I asked, thinking of Mrs. French and the antiquated though certifiably operational pneumatic tube system in my office. What was it about curators of the arcane that prompted them to err on the side of the archaic when it came to their storage processes? “What if there’s a fire?”
“Perish the thought, but of course you are correct. We do have a fully digitized file system of all the artifacts in this museum. Translated into English at a minimum, other languages as befits their origins. That said, the experience of the old texts is as much in their tactile sensation as it is in the content of their scripts. We find that those who come to research here crave the full experience.”
“Got it.” It didn’t explain the group’s aversion to email, but at least it made sense in terms of accessing ancient books. It also allowed me to bypass any farce of reading library books while we were here. Simon would be able to download the entire collection in a blink, and we could search the contents at our leisure—assuming they were accurate translations. The Arcana Council had its own library of the mystical and absurd, I knew. There’d be enough overlapping texts that we’d be able to see if the prelate had been abridging the electronic versions of the sacred texts, and how.
We took our positions at the table, and I noticed that Alfonse didn’t offer us any refreshments. Probably a good thing, with priceless books not three feet away.
The prelate laid his hands on the table and stared at them, seeming to organize his thoughts as he regarded his fingertips. Then he lifted his gaze and spoke.
“Valetti advised that your Council has grown concerned about the events in Venice this past fortnight, particularly as they relate to the resurgence of interest around the butcher of Venice.”
I glanced at Valetti sharply. He made a gesture as if to say, go with it. I went.
“You know that tale, I’m sure,” Alfonse continued.
“The basics,” I allowed.
“The basics are all that’s necessary. The butcher ran a sausage and stew shop and was known in many circles as a closet alchemist and sorcerer. The general public, of course, had no knowledge of this. Neither did the ruling Council of Venice at the time—neither the magicians’ senate, nor the official city government. And so they were all caught off guard when a stonemason found the finger of a small child in his soup—complete with the nail.”
I grimaced. No matter how often I heard this tale, it never got any better.
“Upon searching the butcher’s kitchens, the authorities found the remains of other humans, predominately children. The butcher was arrested, tortured, dismembered, and ultimately put to death. However, because his crimes were so heinous, he lives on in the popular imagination of Venetians and tourists alike. The butcher’s shop was demolished, of course, and there’s only the street named after him that can center the public’s focus. He should have been forgotten long ago. He’s of no concern now.”
“Okay, so why is someone distributing recipe booklets with parts redacted and attributing it to this guy?” I remained acutely aware of the recipe book I’d received from Balestri’s doctor, which I hadn’t shared with Valetti. I’d spent most of the previous night reading it, and I was itching to get my hands on a second one.
“Publicity? Variety? It could be any number of things. But I have examined the recipe booklet that Count Valetti received and a few of the others, and I have found that though they are bound with aged leather, they have been written on thoroughly modern paper, with a modern hand. The directions for the preparation of the stew in question are admittedly written in a more archaic format, but nothing more than it would take anyone with access to the internet or old books to cobble together pretty quickly based on other recipes from the time.”
“Alfonse,” Valetti said quietly, almost reprovingly. “You cannot dispute that more members of the community than we know received such a book. Even members who have done their level best not to be known outside our number as magicians.”
“Where are you keeping the books you’ve received, anyway?” I piped up. “It’d be helpful to take a look at them.”
That reasonable request seemed to catch the prelate off guard. “Why?” he asked. “I’ve told you what the contents are.”
“Yeah, well, this is a library, and those are books,” I said, the soul of reason. “Surely you have them here.”
“Of course I do,” the prelate huffed. Even Valetti was eyeing him oddly now, and I didn’t miss the thread of concern that skated across the count’s face. These two guys might or might not like each other, but they definitely weren’t pals.
“It’s a fair request, Alfonse. What have you done with the books?”
“They are safe, there,” Alfonse said, pointing to a box that looked like a receptacle for donations at church—very narrow opening on the top, heavy padlock on the side. No one was getting in there without a key. “And despite what you believe, Count Valetti, there have been only four copies recovered. I’ve only your insistence that there are others out there.”
Valetti looked mutinous, and it was all I could do not to toss my own recipe book on the table. But the prelate kept going. “As I’ve said before, I am less worried about the return of a medieval butcher and far more about the possibility of disaffection within our ranks.”
Valetti exhaled with irritation. “I don’t know why you are resisting this idea so much. It is getting in the way of solving this problem before another one of our own is struck.”
“The magicians of Venice are not getting targeted,” snapped the prelate, with more energy than I’d seen him display so far. “The senate has become a bored lot of fools who are searching for meaning outside of ourselves, irritated that other factions of the arcane community have outdistanced us in utilizing their magical abilities to manipulate others.”
Something must have flickered on Valetti’s face, because Alfonse smiled. It wasn’t a good smile. “Yes, Count Valetti, I listen to the murmurs of our members on occasion. I understand the challenges that the magicians of this community face, and I applaud you for holding the line for as long as you have. But even if you cave and enter the drug trade, that’s not something you require my assistance for—or the assistance of a hired killer.”
He gestured toward me, and I found myself resisting the urge to look behind me, in case there was someone standing there I didn’t know about. Hired killer? “Um, I don’t typically—”
“Dammit, Alfonse,” Valetti growled. “Do I have to spell it out for you? Signore Balestri died last night. In his own house. By his own hand.”
“I heard about that,” Alfonse said, while I struggled and failed not to stare at Valetti. “But suicide is hardly—”
“I thought you said Balestri’s death was unrelated,” I interrupted.
Valetti glanced at me, his eyes as cold as a cop’s. “It wasn’t my place to brief you on the larger plot at hand. It’s the prelate’s. The less information coming from me, the better. That doesn’t mean I don’t know the information. It merely wasn’t my place to share it with you.”
He returned his glare to Alfonse. “What’s more important, Signore Balestri wasn’t the only magician in his house last night. And he may not be the only one who died.”
That seemed to get Alfonse’s attention. It certainly caught mine. “I wasn’t informed of this,” Alfonse said. I glanced to Nikki. We hadn’t been informed either. And I’d been right there.
“Well, I’m informing you of it now,” Valetti said. “Two other magicians of the senate are unaccounted for and were last seen entering Signore Balestri’s home yesterday afternoon, the Englishers Greaves and Marrow. They’ve not made contact and cannot be tracked by any of our seers. And they’d be noticed too. They wear costumes that echo the Union Jack flag wherever they go. It is the strong suspicion of many senate members that they will turn up again, but in pieces, no doubt as part of a much more modern blend of the butcher’s stew, making it even more magically potent.”
I frowned. Something about this didn’t add up.
“But you see, that is the problem,” Alfonse murmured, seeming to agree with me. “That wasn’t the nature of the stew the butcher of Venice created.”
“Speaking of stews, how about we check out some recipes,” I suggested as cajolingly as I could. “I’m Justice of the Arcana Council. I know my way around a book of spells.”
Alfonse blanched but didn’t make any move toward the locked box, and my temper snapped.
“Okay, enough of this. I’ve got another copy of the damned book.” I pulled the leather-bound recipe book free of my jacket and waved it in the air. Valetti practically lurched for the book, and I stepped back sharply.
“No,” I said, shoving the book back in my pocket. “Not if you don’t share first. But this book was given to Balestri at some point in the last two weeks, and now the man is dead. And I’m here to tell you, he was not augmented. Far from it.”
“How can you know that? Who gave you that book?” The prelate whirled on me, his demeanor completely transformed. Gone was the air of perplexed studiousness. Instead he stepped toward me, his manner intent. “Has anyone examined the body of Signore Balestri?”
“No, they have not,” Valetti said, still glaring at me. “It hasn’t yet been released from the police, and his family is clamoring for an autopsy, though eyewitness accounts corroborate suicide as cause of death. Where did you get that book? Who gave it to you?”
“Let’s say that Signore Balestri’s death wasn’t a simple suicide,” I hedged. “Let’s further say that he was drugged by the same person who sent you the butcher’s recipe books and something terrible happened to his brain, which led him to take his own life. How does that change things?”
The prelate blew out a deep breath, straightening. With two quick strides, he reached the lockbox. Pulling a key from his belt, he unlocked the box, and took out four small leather-bound volumes. Their exteriors were identical to the one in my pocket. But what about the interiors?
He turned back to me, his gaze hollow. “If that is the case, then I owe the senate a sincere apology for not acting sooner. Because the information we gathered regarding the butcher of Venice back in the 1500s made it very clear what we were looking at. Biasio Cargnio was no ordinary sorcerer, even if he did seem to aspire quite sincerely to become a member of the senate of magicians. But by all accounts, he was a sorcerer who employed Nul Magis, and one of the most powerful strains of the toxin that has ever been recorded.”
“Nul Magis?” Nikki took one for the team and acted stupid so I didn’t have to, but I was now staring at the prelate too. I’d never heard the term Nul Magis. Knowing what I did about what had happened to Balestri, however, I could guess the rest.
The prelate didn’t keep us waiting. “All of magic is geared toward one thing in the main,” he said. “The making of more magic. The Philosopher’s Stone, the search for any number of elixirs of immortality, of the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail. The heralded searches for these artifacts were undertaken with the uniform intention to use the power found—at least when magicians were doing the searching. Obviously, throughout the centuries, religious organizations have striven to eradicate all that is magic in the world, at least that magic which was not supposedly generated by their own god.”
I grimaced. I’d come up against those kinds of religious organizations. They didn’t give up easy.
“But that’s not what we are dealing with here. A magician willing to use Nul Magis, a poison created solely to eradicate the magic or cut the psychic thread in a Connected, is a danger of inestimable proportions. The desire to destroy the creative spark is counter to all those who aspire to magic. As diabolical as dark practitioners can be, their aim is always more, more, more. Not less. Never less. An eradication of power serves no one. Magic can be grown, but it cannot be created out of thin air. There must always be a wellspring. Drain enough of those springs, and it has an exponential effect.”
Valetti stared at the prelate. “And you mean to tell me you have no idea who this new practitioner using Nul Magis might be, or how he or she is employing the toxin to eradicate magic, specifically?” he demanded, his voice shrill. “We have traditions we need to keep up, Alfonse. Ceremonies. I can’t have all the magicians fleeing Venice because we can’t keep our local population in check. I’ll be a laughingstock, and I’ll lose my position on the senate.”
Again with the senate. These guys were worse than the Elks. “You want to explain this senate to me, Count Valetti, while we’re up? It’s not in my tour guide.”
“Of course, of course.” But it was Alfonse who spoke, not Valetti. “It’s the senate of magicians, the highest and most elite organization of its kind in the world. Even your own Arcana Council is not made up entirely of magicians, Signorina Wilde, so you can see the difference.”
“Sure.” I nodded. A senate full of Armaeus Bertrand wannabes. It sounded awful.
“The senate gathers once per year in the open, as it has done since it was formed in the twelfth century, utilizing the only place in the world it can hide in plain sight.”
“Venice,” I said.
“More specifically, the festival of Carnevale. Instituted by the first magicians in 1162 to capitalize on a very convenient victory against an abysmal patriarch and the grace of an open-minded public.”
“Okay, so you’ve got everybody who’s anybody coming into town, and you’ve got a killer on the loose who may or may not be a reincarnation of the butcher of Venice, who may or may not be trying to snuff out magic in the best of magicians—”
“Signore Balestri was by no means one of the best,” huffed Valetti, but I put up a hand to shut him up.
“And who may or may not be the Red King.”
“The what?” the prelate snapped, his gaze sharpening on me.
“Alfonse, Alfonse.” Now it was Valetti’s turn to put his hands up. We were a walking Christian revival camp, but he turned to the prelate with an unmistakably placating attitude. “That title comes up every few years. You know that.”
“It has not come up since I began as prelate,” Alfonse growled. Nikki and I glanced at each other, equally mystified.
Alfonse didn’t miss our confusion. “Forgive me, Signorina Wilde. The Red King is—well, it speaks to a practitioner who was an abomination to magicians in the senate. Our darkest, most heinous moment in history.” Valetti, now mute, watched him impassively.
I took that in. From Armaeus’s description, the title had started out as something positive—but apparently, that was a long time ago. “So you’re not a fan, I take it.”
The prelate’s smile was weary. “A fair assessment, and I’ll thank you not to share that title with anyone else. Though we should both sit now and compare our books. It would seem that there’s more to Valetti’s concerns than I have wanted to believe.”
He sighed as Valetti reached out to pat him on the shoulder.
“You were right, Count Valetti,” Alfonse continued. “We have held this matter too closely between ourselves. It is time we gave it the attention it deserved, so that all might understand there is a powerful and deadly sorcerer in our midst.”
Valetti practically preened, and I watched him, intrigued. Clearly, this guy did not get nearly enough attention as head of security.
The prelate swung his gaze back to me. “Tonight, Justice Wilde, you shall join us for this year’s opening convocation of the senate of magicians, on the first night of Carnevale.”