Venom Page 11

  A boy sat near the edge of the canal, plucking out a slow, melodious song on a mahogany lute. Beyond the boy stood a plain three-story building with two pairs of shutters opened wide to the night. Inside each window, a girl about her own age danced to the sound of the lute. They twisted their sinuous bodies, their bodices cut so low, Cass swore she could see the crest of one girl’s nipples peeking above the edge of her neckline.

  Both girls had their hair fashioned into thick cones atop their heads. It was a popular style, but in the faint light the writhing silhouettes reminded Cass of satyrs. Or devils. Cass watched as a man approached one of the windows. He said something to a girl with dark hair and thick crimson lips. The girl lifted her skirt and ran her hands over her slender hips. Cass tried to look away but couldn’t. Now that her eyes had adjusted to the dim light, she could see that the girl was her age—perhaps even younger. The man ran his hand up one of the girl’s pale legs and then tossed a coin through the window. Clapping her hands together, the girl hollered something after the man as he started to walk away.

  Falco rowed over to the bank of the canal, stopping just short of scraping against the stone retaining wall. He tied the boat to a wooden post and turned to give Cass his lopsided grin. “Ready?”

  “Here?” Cass began to shiver, even though the night air was balmy. Securing her cloak tightly around her body, she forced herself to stop staring at the girls in the windows. Beyond the edge of the canal, the system of alleyways brimmed with activity. So many people. Cass was seized by the irrational fear that she might run into someone who knew her.

  Falco raised an eyebrow. “This is one of the best spots for…ladies,” he said. “Unless you have a better idea.”

  Cass hesitated before stepping to the edge of the gondola, feeling that parading in front of all of those people would be impossible. “I just expected more…” She fumbled for the right word. “Discretion.”

  Falco raised an eyebrow. “What’s to be discreet about?” He plucked the lantern from the gondola and let it dangle from his wrist as he held out his hands to help Cass out of the boat. “We’re looking for the same thing as everyone else, right? A little fun.”

  Cass gritted her teeth, already beginning to regret her decision to come. Her ankles threatened to give out as she maneuvered her dangerously tall chopines onto solid ground. As she clung to Falco’s arm to prevent pitching right into the fetid canal water, she was acutely aware of a circle of boys staring at her. A sharp whistle sounded from somewhere back in the alley.

  Falco stopped. His eyes moved over Cass’s body, lingering a little too long for her tastes.

  “What?” she asked coldly.

  “You should probably leave your cloak,” he said.

  “Right.” Cass fumbled with the clasp of her velvet cloak. She tossed it back into the gondola and then hugged her arms around herself to hide her shaking fingers. Immediately she felt the heat of more eyes. Above the dancing girls, she saw a pair of women hanging out of a window. They wore bright chemises with plunging necklines and had their hair elaborately fashioned. They giggled and waved when they saw Cass looking at them.

  Cass forced herself to uncross her arms. Like Siena said, she’d never be able to blend in if she didn’t act the part.

  “Fondamenta delle tette,” Falco announced, with a grand flourish. “Street of tits.” The women giggled again and blew kisses in Falco’s direction.

  Cass’s blood thudded in her chest and her ears. “Remind me never to come back here,” she said, trying to inject her voice with sarcasm. For a wild second she imagined she would jump back into the gondola and row herself away, all the way back to San Domenico. But instead, she turned a slow half circle at the edge of the canal, wrinkling her nose in what she hoped was disdain.

  Falco just laughed and squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry. You’ll relax once we get where we’re going.”

  Falco steered Cass into the dimmer of the two alleyways. A haze of perfume and tobacco smoke hung thick in the air, its overpowering sweetness nearly making her gag. Beneath it lingered other scents, even more unpleasant, of sweat and urine. Bodies moved in all directions, pressing against Cass as she and Falco headed toward the end of the alley. She fought the urge to cry out as she was jostled from side to side by men and women in various states of intoxication. If Falco let go of her hand, the wild crowd would swallow her up.

  The music, the people, the bright colors, loud voices, and sharp smells—it made Cass’s head pound, and reminded her, for no reason at all, of an exotic-animal exhibit Agnese allowed Feliciana to take her and Siena to when they were twelve. The older maid had promised ferocious lions and tigers, but there had been only a single lion, and all it did was lie prone inside the wheeled cage that held it prisoner. Cass had stood there, a little afraid but mostly just sad. When Feliciana disappeared into an alley with a muscular elephant trainer, Siena had watched from a distance as Cass wriggled her fingers through the bars to pet the poor beast’s matted fur.

  Something sharp slashed at Cass’s left arm and she cried out. Snapping her head around, she searched for her assailant, but the crowded alleyway blurred into a sea of arms and hands all reaching out toward her. She gasped, beginning to panic, struggling against the current of faceless flesh.

  “What? What is it?” Falco pulled her from the tangle of sweaty bodies and pressed her up against the side of a small bakery shop.

  Cass looked down at the sleeve of her teal chemise. Someone or something had sliced right through the silky fabric. Falco separated the torn material to examine Cass’s skin beneath. He lifted her arm to show her the swollen pink line just below her elbow.

  “Look, no blood,” he said. “You probably just got your sleeve caught on a sword hilt or belt buckle.”

  Or a knife. Cass searched the crowd again, but no one was paying her any attention. Falco’s hand felt hot on her flesh, almost burning. She pulled her arm away, turning to look back at the entrance to the alleyway. It seemed impossibly far away. Unreachable.

  Falco traced his finger along one of the delicate fishbone braids that framed her face. “It was just an accident,” he said.

  Cass felt the blood return to her face. She glanced down at her torn sleeve. The scratch on her arm was already starting to fade. “Sorry,” she murmured. “I’m being silly. It just scared me, that’s all.”

  “It’s all right,” Falco said. His voice was surprisingly gentle. Cass had been certain he would mock her for being a child, a spoiled little aristocrat afraid of her own shadow. “We’re almost there,” he continued, pointing at a garishly painted yellow building. “It’s one of the biggest houses in the area. And the woman in charge knows everyone and anyone who comes through this way. There’s a good chance she’ll know if any…ladies have gone missing.” The word ladies was tinged with sarcasm. “Do you still want to do this?”

  Cass stepped back from Falco and smoothed her skirt. “I do,” she said, reminding herself that this escapade had been her own idea. Besides, she probably had just gotten herself snagged on someone heading in the opposite direction. A knife or a blade would have cut more than just the fabric of her sleeve. Caspita. She had made such a big deal out of nothing. She was getting as bad as Madalena.

  Up close, the house was an ugly yellowish green. A man and woman sat just outside the door, their arms and legs intertwined. Cass could see the woman’s milk-white shoulder as the man tugged at her bodice. Falco slid past them without so much as a glance. Cass excused herself as she navigated her flowing skirts around the pair. Falco rapped on the door—three quick knocks followed by two slow ones—and the door was opened by a young raven-haired girl in a simple black dress. The girl curtsied and disappeared into the darkness of the house without a word.

  Cass glanced questioningly at Falco.

  “How did you know the secret knock?” she asked, more than a little afraid of the answer.

  “These things are not as secret as you might think,” Falco said with a wink. Cass
opened her mouth again but Falco pressed a finger to her lips. Heat flooded her body at his sudden touch. “Enough questions.”

  He led Cass through the entrance hall to the doorway of an airy salon where groups of men sat at wooden tables, drinking from flasks and puffing on clay pipes. As they chatted, women in various stages of undress wandered among them, stopping occasionally to stroke the men on the back of the neck or whisper in their ears.

  “Falco!” A tiny blonde woman wearing only her stays and a sheer underdress made her way up to them and leaned in close to kiss Falco on the cheek. Cass saw her lips graze his earlobe as she whispered a secret message to him. Falco grinned and swiped at the lip mark with his sleeve. Was he blushing? That was a first. Cass wondered what sort of thing a woman would have to say to make him blush. The prostitute turned her steely blue eyes toward Cass, making no attempt to hide the fact that she was sizing her up. Cass looked away, toward the far wall. Someone had painted a mural of a naked girl with her hair on fire. The blonde sidled off and Cass wasn’t sure which upset her more, that Falco was so well known in these parts or that the woman he seemed to prefer resembled Siena rather than herself.

  “Friend of yours?” she asked, proud of herself for keeping her voice steady.

  “Now, now.” Falco raised an eyebrow. “It is not within a courtesan’s nature to be jealous.”

  “I am not jealous,” Cass insisted.

  “Good. Andriana is just a professional acquaintance of mine,” he said.

  “Oh, she looked professional all right,” Cass replied. She was not sure Falco heard; if so, he pretended not to. He was already pulling her forward. She wobbled in her tall chopines as Falco shooed her into the salon. She grabbed on to the door frame to regain her balance. A pair of soldiers dressed in scarlet military garb and scuffed silver breastplates looked up from a square table in the corner of the room. Cass looked past them, to the far edge of the table where their broadswords leaned. Her eyes traced their way down the steel blades, and she couldn’t help but see the dead girl, the strange X sliced into her discolored skin.

  “No more drink for that one or she won’t be able to perform,” one of the soldiers said, raising a glass of golden liquid in Falco’s and Cass’s direction.

  “I find some of them do best after they fall asleep,” his companion responded. Both men broke into coarse laughter before draining their glasses and signaling for refills.

  Cass realized she had pressed herself so tightly to Falco that she was starting to sweat. Slowly, she pulled away from him so that the fabric of her chemise unstuck itself from his side. Falco flashed her a dazzling smile. “That’s a good girl,” he said, making Cass feel like she was about four years old. “Wait here for me, okay? I’m going to speak to Signora Marcoletti.”

  “Wait—” Cass tried to call him back, but Falco had already turned and disappeared up a short flight of stairs.

  Alone in the salon, Cass’s fear started to take over again. Her eyes flicked around the room: the two soldiers throwing back pewter mugs of ale, a table of sailors betting on a game played with tiny glass stones, a small cluster of peasant boys with hats pulled low to hide their faces. And beyond them, just in front of the fire-girl mural, a clean-shaven man with shoulder-length blond hair sat alone on a divan. As he chatted sporadically with one of the girls, he folded a piece of parchment into smaller and smaller triangles. He looked vaguely familiar, although Cass couldn’t place him.

  She slouched against the doorway to the salon. Carved angels and devils decorated the molding, their wings and horns digging into her back. Everyone else in the room was sitting, which made her feel gigantic, even leaning against the wall. Cass wished she could remove her chopines, but no one had offered to take them, and she couldn’t just leave them lying around in a place like this. Teetering slightly, she made her way across the chipped and broken marble floor. Despite the fact that the clusters of men all seemed engrossed in drinking or gambling, Cass sensed gazes searing into her from whichever direction she didn’t happen to be looking. Tucking her hands into the pockets of her dress, she felt the soft fabric of a handkerchief. A lot of good it would do. She wished she had brought along the kitchen knife.

  Anchoring herself against a tasseled divan with a giant rip in the upholstery, Cass counted in her head. One, two, three. The servant girl excused herself as she squeezed past Cass with another round of drinks for the soldiers. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen. A tall brunette wearing a silky veil and a scandalously sheer dress circled through the room and whispered something to the blond man on the divan in the corner. His face twisted into a grimace and his right hand clenched and unclenched until the girl walked away. Cass realized he was as uncomfortable as she was, and felt a sudden rush of sympathy for him. He had probably been dragged there by one of his friends.

  The dark-haired prostitute walked from table to table, stopping to chat with each of the men. Forty-three, forty-four, forty-five. One of the peasant boys followed her through the room and up the staircase Falco had taken. Behind him, his friends put their heads close together to laugh and whisper. Seventy-eight. Seventy-nine—a heavy hand landed on her lower back. Cass whirled around to tell Falco how rude it was for him to abandon her like that, but it wasn’t Falco. It was a swarthy older man with a dark beard and eyes that were black and dead, like a doll’s.

  “I like the look of you, bella,” he said, leering at her. He was missing several teeth, and his breath stank of stale alcohol. “Like a horse that hasn’t been broken yet.”

  Cass tried to swallow her revulsion as the man’s callused hand made its way up to the bare skin on her back and neck. She forced a smile.

  “I have no need to be trained by you,” she said, trying to keep her voice from trembling.

  “A fighter then, eh?” One of the sailors abandoned his pile of glass stones to make his way over to Cass. He leaned in close to her, his tan speckled face just inches from her own. “My brother and I like a girl with some fight in her.”

  Cass felt trapped. She could hardly breathe. The air was thick, the sharp scent of ale melding with the overpowering aroma of cheap perfume. She wriggled her way out from between the brothers. “Excuse me,” she mumbled, again almost tripping as she clattered off in the direction that Falco had disappeared.

  Gripping the handrail so forcefully that her knuckles blanched white, Cass started up toward the darkened second floor of the house. Hooting and laughter from the salon below faded into white noise as she ascended the stairs. She paused on the landing. A long hallway with doors on both sides receded into blackness. She blinked, trying to let her eyes adjust to the gloom. The hall was empty.

  Cass’s pulse raced. How dare Falco leave her by herself. She looked back down the stairs. The dull roar of the salon seemed very far away. She peered up into the darkness, but the air above her was black and still and quiet as the dead. She moved down the dark hallway. “Falco,” she called quietly outside the first door. No answer. She tried the knob. Locked. She moved down to the second door. “Falco,” she said again, this time slightly louder.

  “Not in here,” a gruff voice responded.

  No one answered when Cass spoke outside the third door. She tried the knob, and it turned beneath her palm. Cass froze in the hallway, seized by the idea that the unlocked door was a bad omen. Someone was waiting for her. Not someone.

  Him. The murderer. Cass could sense him behind the door, a body made completely of bone. He would reach out for her with his skeleton fingers and she would be powerless to turn away.

  Cass wrenched her hand back, but the door swung open as if it had a mind of its own. The room was dark except for a row of flickering candles along the mantel of a dark fireplace. Curls of smoke wafted upward. The smell of fatty tallow mixed unpleasantly with the sharp aroma of sweat and rosewater. On the floor, two shadows were locked together in an intense struggle. Cass raised a hand to her mouth. She should run away, find someone, find Falco, get help.

  Before she could mo
ve, the top figure rose up slowly from the mattress and Cass could make out the slender curves of a woman’s back. A naked woman’s back, her skin slick with oil or sweat. The man underneath her relaxed, his hands exploring the woman’s curves as she rocked back and forth on top of him.

  This was no struggle. Cass knew she should shut the door and flee, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t take her eyes off the way the silhouettes moved in time with each other, the way their hips brought their bodies impossibly close together with each gyration.

  Cass started to feel hot, as though the candles were burning inside her. The figure on the mattress moaned and the woman on top of him laughed, leaning down. Cass was mesmerized by the woman’s glistening skin, her loose black hair shaking back and forth.

  A door slammed from somewhere down the hallway and Cass gasped. The raven-haired prostitute glanced over her shoulder as Cass reeled backward. The woman winked. “Want to join us, bella?” she asked.

  The man beneath her laughed roughly. “Plenty of room for two.”

  Cass spun around and headed back down the dark hallway, practically sprinting down the stairs to the first floor. She paused at the threshold of the salon, her heart slamming in her chest.

  What had she walked in on? The people were having sex, obviously, but Cass had never dreamed it could be so…naked. So animal-like. The movement. The noises. All that glistening, sweaty skin. She had heard Madalena talk about sex, but even the older girl had never actually done it, and her stories of what it would be like were nothing like what Cass had seen.

  Falco still had not reappeared and the salon had gotten crowded in Cass’s absence. She accepted a glass of wine from the servant girl and loitered awkwardly in a corner, sipping her drink slowly. The room went a little hazy, brightly colored clothing and raucous laughter churning together and clouding Cass’s thoughts. She grabbed on to the edge of a wooden table to steady herself, accidentally brushing up against one of the soldiers.