The Immortal City Page 3

  “I’ve slept in worse places,” Penelope said. “I was on a dig in Israel once, and I had to sleep under the Jeep.”

  “Don’t tell Adalfieri that, or he’ll stop paying for the hotel.” Marco laughed, and her anxiety eased. With well-practiced precision, he maneuvered the boat onto the canals.

  Penelope tried not to appear overly impressed as the buildings and boats of Venice flashed by. She hadn’t been to Venice in ten years and couldn’t believe she was here now. A part of her had wanted to return for years; she had missed the warm terra-cotta roofs, inverted cone chimneys, colorful boats, and the dilapidated grandeur of its buildings.

  Venice had survived like a small pocket of the decadent past, its mythology only enhanced by the world that loved and protected her, even if they were not Venetian. It was a city that still welcomed all and stole their hearts as easily as it relieved the money from their giving pockets. Penelope fought hard to contain her excitement, reminding herself of the unusual circumstances that had inspired her to come.

  “It was a murder,” Marco said, steering with one hand and passing her his phone with the other. “I hope you have a strong stomach, Dottore.”

  “Jesus,” Penelope whispered as she scrolled through the photos. A woman was strung up and wearing a bull’s head. “Can you email me these?”

  “Now that Adalfieri has cleared you, I’ll send you the entire report. I have been working this job for over twenty years, and I haven’t seen anything like it.”

  “And you have no idea who did it?”

  “There was no DNA evidence found at the scene. Whoever the killer is, they knew what they were doing. The woman is the daughter of a prominent judge. We are trying to keep it out of the media as much as we can because he has such a high profile, and it’s a sensitive time here in Venice.”

  “Why is that?”

  “He was in charge of the corruption cases against the MOSE project,” Marco explained over the roar of the engine. “It officially comes online in a fortnight. It is why they might make us work with DIGOS.”

  “I’m sorry, DIGOS?”

  “The Divisione Investigazioni Generali e Operazioni Speciali is the anti-terrorism branch here in Italy, and they are arrogante.”

  “It was one murder. That doesn’t sound like terrorist activity to me,” Penelope replied.

  “They are more nervous than usual because of the MOSE launch, and they are worried about someone trying to sabotage it.”

  Penelope had heard of the billion-dollar MOSE project designed to keep Venice and the lagoon from flooding during the Adriatic Sea’s high tides. Multiple gates had been installed at the Lido, Malamocco, and Chioggia inlets that would be able to temporarily isolate Venice and protect it from being damaged.

  “I managed to convince the Questore to dissuade them as much as he can. DIGOS will only get in the way,” added Marco. “You better be as useful as I hope so we can solve this quickly.”

  “You and me both,” Penelope muttered. She looked at the photos again and swallowed the lump in her throat. What the hell have you put your foot into now?

  Within seconds of stepping off the boat, Penelope was grateful for Marco’s lead through the perplexing maze of streets. The hotel was a neat bed-and-breakfast on the Fondamenta Eremite. It smelled of coffee and the rosemary and lavender bunches that hung above the doors to mask the tang of the briny canal outside.

  Marco flirted outrageously with Louisa, the Questore’s younger sister, who smiled widely when Marco kissed both of her round cheeks in greeting. She had twenty years at least on his age, but it didn’t stop her blushing and sweet talking him.

  “I’ll give you tonight to sleep and get over your jet lag,” Marco said as Louisa went to retrieve the room key. “Tomorrow I’ll take you to the site.”

  “I don’t need to sleep,” Penelope protested. “I did on the plane. This writing isn’t going to be easy to translate and as soon as I can get started—”

  Marco held up a hand. “Tomorrow. I need to check with forensics about some things before I let you into the crime scene. I’ll send you a full report on what they learned about the body in case something is relevant. I need to sleep, too.” He must’ve sensed Penelope’s hesitation because he let out an exhausted huff, adding, “The wall will still be there in the morning, Dottore. Sleep. I need you at your best.” He kissed Louisa Adalfieri once more before leaving Penelope in her matronly hands.

  Penelope’s room was clean and simple with a large wardrobe, narrow desk, and a double bed, its headboard painted in a homely cream-and-gold. Louisa handed her a key with a wide red tag and left her with an open invitation for dinner.

  It was five o’clock in Venice, and well past midnight in Australia, but Penelope was too wired to sleep. She opened her bag and unpacked her laptop.

  Surely Marco could’ve taken her to see the wall! It was ridiculous that she had traveled all this way only to get dumped in a hotel. You should be grateful they didn’t kick you out of the police station.

  She set up her toiletries in the bathroom in a neat row before peeling off her traveling clothes and taking a hot shower to ease the cramped muscles in her shoulder and the anxiety in her stomach. Penelope always had problems with nerves before starting a big project, and a murder only added to that. She hoped the faith Marco and Adalfieri were placing in her abilities wouldn’t be in vain.

  Penelope dried her hair and dressed in a pair of leggings and a baggy T-shirt. She shut the glass window that looked out over the Rio de le Romite and set her suitcase out of the way. Gradually, she folded herself down into a downward facing dog pose, her back clicking twice before her hands reached the floor.

  Like most academics, Penelope’s posture wasn’t the best, and Carolyn had convinced her to start yoga to prevent getting a hunchback. At the end of a long day, yoga was the only exercise Penelope could do that successfully cleared the white noise from her mind. Thirty minutes of yoga followed by fifteen minutes of meditation was her sweet spot. If she was going to get any sleep at all that night, she needed to relax her mind.

  Penelope moved through the series of poses slowly, controlling her breathing. She struggled to quiet her mind. Carolyn believed she had undiagnosed ADHD, but Penelope had never bothered to get it checked, owing her restlessness to boredom. She had to be thinking or moving or creating in some way. Meditation and sleep were the only times she was still.

  After twenty minutes of yoga to unkink her traveler’s back, Penelope sat down on the soft bed.

  In the early days of meditation practice, she used to focus on the Greek word akinitos (meaning still) in order to command her body to relax. Now she only had to focus on her breath for a few moments before the calm settled over her.

  Meditation had saved her over the past two years as she watched her research ridiculed throughout the academic world. After the lecture, her reputation had fallen apart, and she had borne it with as much stubborn grace that she could muster. It was only through contacts of her father’s that she had gotten a job teaching online university courses. It wasn’t glamorous, but she was lucky to still be allowed to teach at all.

  Penelope listened to the sound of the boats out on the water, voices in the street, and the faint strains of a Paganini concerto Louisa was playing while she cooked. She filtered each sound out, one at a time, until a deep calm pulled her under a blanket of silence.

  A few moments later, her mind’s eye snapped open unexpectedly.

  She was standing in a circular room at the top of a tower. White marble arches opened out to the sky, with views of the Venice lagoon on one side and the city on the other.

  Penelope had experienced different visions of places while in meditations for as long as she had been practicing. The only difference this time was the man sitting cross-legged in the center of the room. She had never seen anyone but herself in her meditations. Not ever. Carolyn had mentioned guides, but Penelope was skeptical about the idea of metaphysical beings interested in helping her out.<
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  The man in front of her didn’t look like a mystical guide. He looked like a Turkish corsair, dressed in entari robes from the late Ottoman era. He wore loose white trousers of finely woven linen, and his long bare feet were tucked under his crossed legs.

  Fascinated by his unexpected appearance, Penelope walked over to study him. His dark brown chest was bare, tattooed with designs and symbols she had never seen before in blue ink. As she studied the symbols, they disappeared into his skin, and others appeared in their place.

  Penelope circled him as quietly as she could. His robe was magnificent. The silk was peacock blue with a variety of embroidered symbols trailing down the back. From her studies, she recognized them as a blending of magical symbolism; a star and crescent from Islamic and Byzantine cultures, an Egyptian Wadjet eye and Shen Ring, a complex Indian hamsa hand, and an Icelandic Veldismagn Rune, as well as many others she didn’t recognize.

  He had a narrow face with high cheekbones, a closely trimmed beard, and a thick riot of black hair that curled around his face and neck. His long back was perfectly straight, and his eyes were closed, lost in a meditation of his own.

  If I touch him, will my hand go straight through? As Penelope reached out to poke his shoulder, his eyes snapped open with sharp awareness. They were such a startling blue that Penelope jumped backward. The smile, when it came, was slow and devious.

  “Who are you?” Penelope asked, too shocked to move.

  “How did you get in here?” he said, his Turkish accent a dangerous purr.

  He reached out to her, but Penelope’s body jolted awake back in her hotel room. Heart racing, she jumped to her feet, unsure of what to do with the sudden adrenaline pouring through her.

  Who the hell was that?

  WHEN MARCO DANDOLO arrived at the hotel at 9:00 a.m., he found Penelope awake and drinking strong coffee with Louisa. She looked exhausted, which didn’t bode well for the day. He had been skeptical when she first arrived at the station, but after seeing how she handled Adalfieri, he was learning a quick mind and a temper to match lingered under her distractingly pleasant frame.

  “What’s happened? Did you not sleep at all?” he asked after accepting a coffee from Louisa.

  “A new city and nerves prevented it,” Penelope said. “Don’t let it bother you. I’m an academic. We are used to being sleep deprived.” She smiled.

  “You sound like my ex-girlfriend; Alessa was the same. Her breakthroughs always seemed to occur at three in the morning.” Marco shook his head in sympathy. Those crazy working hours were probably the only thing he didn’t miss about her.

  “I am keen to see the wall,” Penelope stated before draining her coffee. “I want to know if the language is real or made up. If it’s fake, I want to know how they got access to the Atlantis Tablet long enough to get the glyphs right. It’s locked up in an archive in Crete, and the samples we published weren’t complete.”

  Marco could see the frustration in her hazel green eyes. Dressed in black boots, tight black jeans, a T-shirt and blazer, she looked almost too fashionable for an academic. He had expected a pinch-faced old lady or a pale young spinster. Doctor Bryne was fit, with a pretty smattering of freckles over her light brown skin. If he wasn’t working with her, he would have asked her out for a drink. He liked smart women. Unfortunately, they were always smart enough to leave him and his hectic life.

  Penelope wrapped a dark red scarf around her throat to keep the canal wind at bay and followed him to the patrol boat he had waiting. Tourists were already pouring into Santa Croce, but Marco and Penelope avoided most of the crowd thanks to the Tintoretto’s giving the Polizia de Strato permission to use their private dock.

  Beppe met them at the palazzo, having already spoken with the housekeeper to let her know that there would be more polizia arriving. The formidable, gray-haired woman seemed to enjoy having so many young officers around to flirt with and had brought them biscotti and espresso on more than one occasion.

  Beppe greeted Penelope with a blushing, “Buongiorno Dottore.”

  “Hello,” Penelope replied, aiming a smile at the young man. “Marco tells me you were the first person on the scene when the body was found.”

  “Si. I’m glad they have taken it away, signorina,” Beppe said. “I’ll show you the way.” She followed him through the palazzo without batting an eye at the frescoed roofs or priceless antiques. Behind them Marco smiled; she had a one-track mind. It was going to be good working with another hound.

  Out in the courtyard, Beppe stepped down onto the damp pavement of the canal entrance.

  “Watch your step, signorina. It is still slippery from the high tide,” he warned, but Penelope was already walking toward the wall with wide eyes. Marco watched her take in the iron rings where the body had been raised up against the stonework. She took an Olympus camera out of her bag and started photographing the wall from top to bottom.

  “Have you analyzed what they used to write the script?” she asked, her voice heavy with emotion.

  “Forensics said it was a mix of the bull and the victim’s blood. She was almost drained entirely, but that’s hardly surprising with her feet severed,” Marco replied.

  “Was her throat cut?” Penelope asked, barely looking up from the small screen on her camera.

  “No. Her cause of death was asphyxiation from the bull’s head. It had been hollowed out, like a mask, but it was still…meaty.” Beppe paled beside him. He hadn’t been privy to the autopsy, and Marco was starting to wonder if Beppe had the right sort of stomach for police work.

  “You didn’t send me the forensics report last night,” Penelope stated disapprovingly. “I would like you to do that now, per favore.”

  “Why would you want to know all the gory details? Isn’t this horrible wall enough?” Beppe asked.

  “No,” replied Penelope sharply. “We already know it was ritualistic but to go to this much effort…every piece is important and symbolic. The writing will give meaning to the body and vice versa. There is such a collision of symbols and chthonic religion here, I need every piece to figure out what it is. These alchemical symbols are the only thing that remotely makes sense.”

  “How so?” asked Marco.

  “As I told you yesterday, this symbol here”—Penelope pointed to the large trident intersected with a cross—“this is Neptune, or more likely Poseidon, as the other elements are more Greek than Roman. This V here top and center…”

  “It is for a woman like in The Da Vinci Code,” Beppe chimed in. The look that Penelope gave him was so pitiful that Marco struggled to keep a straight face.

  “Sometimes, yes, this V is used for women and a chalice,” she said indulgently, “but in this context, I think it’s more relevant as the alchemical symbol for water. The same with this other V with the circles on the points, except it is aqua de vida, the water of life. One could assume this was a sacrifice to Poseidon, but it’s unlike anything I’ve read about before. The script could change the meaning of it, translate as something completely different.”

  “But your first guess is a sacrifice to Poseidon? I didn’t think anyone still worshipped the old gods.” Marco rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  “Some do. The person who did this isn’t just a believer. They are obsessed. I’m not even sure it’s to Poseidon; it seems too dark.” Her brows pulled tightly together as she studied the symbols, leaning in so the wall was only inches from her face. “It is the same writing as the Atlantis Tablet, but it’s so intricate, so complete. How could anyone know this language still?”

  “Maybe it’s a smaller dialect you didn’t know about?” suggested Marco.

  “It’s not possible, trust me. This has been my work for the past two years. I have cross-checked with every dialect and alphabet from the Aegean to Egypt and the Middle East, and every sea-trading people on earth.” She pushed a hand through her thick curls in frustration. “My reputation depended on it, and I did the research, Inspector.” She had the fire of obsession
in her eyes. It was a look Marco was familiar with, so he dropped it and let her work.

  After a trip to the Questura to print photos and get a hard copy of the forensics file, Marco took Penelope back to her hotel so she could study the records and cross-reference them with her research. He had wanted to use her as an excuse to get out of paperwork, but the good doctor had rejected his offer of lunch, preferring to keep researching on her own. Marco didn’t mind the rejection. She was onto something, and he knew that it was wise not to get in the way of a smart woman when she was working.

  WITH YEARS of academic study under her belt, Penelope spread out the photos she had taken and began methodically tacking them in order onto the wall of the hotel. When it was completed, she had a small recreation of what she was calling “The Bull Wall.” She had tried to keep on a professional face while Marco had patiently waited for her to study the scene, but inside she had been screaming with excitement and terror. The writing emanated menace.

  Beside it, she stuck up photos of the original hanging of the body and the analysis reports of the remains as well as the other items found at the scene. Finally, she dragged the narrow desk to the center of the room facing the wall of information and set up her laptop.

  “Okay, let’s start with what we know, Bryne,” she said aloud to herself as she typed bullet points onto a blank document. “A woman, recently given birth, was taken from outside of the Chiesa di San Giacomo dell’Orio. Her feet were removed and replaced with feet of clay. The umbilical cord had been forced inside of her vagina, and the bull fetus was placed where the tide would fill the bowl and pull it back out to sea. Calves were sacrificed throughout the world, especially by placing them in the sea. Her heart was removed and is still missing. A trophy? The goblet she held in one hand contained blood, wine, and seawater, which they are still analyzing. The amphora held bull’s blood…”