The other priest, the Savoyard, said something. He pointed at Luciano.
Lopez looked carefully at him. “He says you are a mage. He says . . . there is a stink of blackness.”
Luciano nodded, tiredly. “He’s right. But the stink isn’t coming from me, it’s—like a man who’s been in smoke and still smells of it. I have just been performing a rite, one which you Christians would term ‘black.’ On the other hand I did it—at the peril of my soul—to try to save this city and my co-religionists. I have been practicing necromancy on an agent of those who serve Chernobog.”
There was a silence. And then Lopez said: “You are Dottore Marina, of course. A Grimas, indeed. I don’t really approve of necromancy, of course. But . . . there are worse things. What did you discover, Dottore Marina? And did you allow him to confess and be received back into the arms of God?”
Luciano shook his head warily. “Chernobog snatched him back from me. I was nearly drawn in myself. But we know now that this is his conspiracy, and that the nun who is with the Servants—”
“Sister Ursula,” said Lopez. “Renowned to be one of the greatest practitioners of Christian magic in the Northeastern Frontier.”
Luciano snorted. “She may once have been. But she’s nothing more than a vessel for Chernobog now.”
“But she is a nun!” protested Diego. “She bears the crucifix!”
Luciano pulled a wry face. “You will find that it is broken. Or bathed in the blood of unbaptized infants, or desecrated in some other terrible way. Or not even there at all. Chernobog’s acolytes are masters of illusion. Masters of corruption.”
Kat leaned forward. “What I want to know is why Lucrezia Brunelli should want Marco Valdosta dead. And why you, Lopez, stayed at the Casa Brunelli.”
Lopez shrugged. “I stayed at the Casa Brunelli when I first arrived because the lodgings were offered to me, by a man well known in Venice and in good repute with the Grand Metropolitan. As for Lucrezia . . .”
Lopez seemed to shudder a bit, for just a moment, as if a sudden unpleasant memory had come to him. “I’m afraid I was perhaps oblivious to the woman’s other vices, since I was so preoccupied with avoiding a particular one.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “As to why she might want Marco Valdosta dead, I cannot think of a reason offhand. Except . . . She seems to have an insatiable appetite for men. Perhaps he turned her down too brusquely.” His lips thinned. “The woman is, ah, quite taken by her own beauty.”
“She’s in this up to her elegant neck,” said Kat savagely. “Deceive yourself if you like, Senor Lopez. I know for a fact she has ordered magical materials from the East. I’ve delivered them to her. But she’s no Strega.”
Lopez rubbed his face. “The worst I know of her is that she passed on a message from Capuletti that he would meet me at midnight at the San Trovaso Chapel, instead of in the morning. I had tracked this dealing in that vile black lotos to him, somewhat by accident, while dealing with a Signor Tassole. I confronted the bishop about it and the peril to his immortal soul. He denied it, but wrote to me later to say it was true and that my words had troubled him. He said he wanted to fast and pray for the night but had things on his conscience that he wished to confess. It was the letter of a deeply troubled man.”
“I’ll bet she was in that up to her neck, too,” snarled Kat. “She probably dictated the second letter herself, and then killed him.”
Marco and Petro Dorma came in looking for them. Petro seemed to accept Lopez and his companions as perfectly logical people to be there. “Still no sign of the Schiopettieri,” said Petro, sitting down. “I’ve left a message over at Marco’s old apartment for them to come here. Bribed several of the locals to wait for them. Still, if they’re not here in ten minutes, I must go and rouse the Council of Ten myself. I wonder why they haven’t arrived?”