Dark Space - Marianne de Pierres [129]
When Mira reached the underside of the portico Rast reached down a hand and hauled her bodily over. Mira tumbled over the balustrade, landing on her injured elbow. Without consideration or care Rast pulled her to her feet.
The mercenary’s face swam before her eyes and Mira experienced a gush of nausea followed by a rushing sound inside her skull.
‘Don’t you faint on me, Baronessa!’ The mercenary shook her so hard that her neck snapped back.
Mira gritted her teeth. ‘I—am—quite—fine, thank—you,’ she panted. ‘Each floor has a central corridor. I—imagine the Principe’s room—is on the front side of the Palazzo ... the crown floor... no, probably the second floor from the crown.’
Rast let go of her and moved to the row of windows. She fumbled inside her suit and brought out a tube with a long nozzle. She squeezed the contents onto the transparent catoplasma in a wide circle. The substance spread, eating away a large section with little fuss or noise. Rast thrust her boot into the panel and popped it inwards.
Mira watched in astonishment.
Rast gave a short laugh. ‘Yeah. Shitting expensive, too. Don’t brush against the edges—it will eat your skin away.’
Bending low, Mira followed Rast through the hole. They entered a lesser reception hall: an elegant room with a gold-filigree reproduction of Latino Crux inlaid into the black marble walls. Each star glittered, casting a halo across the dark background.
Chairs had been overturned and toppled. Not wilful damage so much as incidental harm caused to anything standing between the Saqr and the satisfaction of their hunger. Their sweet smell lingered in the air as if they had secreted it on every surface they had touched.
The lesser hall led into another, and another, each one with varying degrees of damage. Mira and Rast threaded their way through the debris until they found the central corridor.
‘Uplifts are spaced along the wider corridor,’ Mira panted.
Rast ran ahead, fuelled by something that Mira would never experience: the ecstasy of danger. The mercenary again waited impatiently for her at the first uplift.
Mira tried to catch her breath as they rode it up to the fifth level and was still trying as they stepped into the splendour of Franco’s private wing. The floor-to-ceiling doors had been lovingly packed and brought out from Latino Crux. A hand-painted Pellegrini familia crest adorned each one. Their value was inestimable: genuine polished wood in a world of catoplasma and mud. Unlike the lesser halls, the walls of Franco’s rooms were cloaked in soft materials—velvets, silks and rich corduroys. On one wall of the ante-room hung a vast parcel-gilded mirror that reflected a delicately crafted fauteuil set and gilt-bronze bureau that sat opposite.
Rast raced in and out of each room, searching for the vault. ‘Where would it be? Bedroom? Office? How many damn rooms can one person have?’
Mira followed slowly, feeling guilty about their invasion and strangely saddened by what the emptiness meant. The Principe was truly gone.
She veered into the service chamber, not wishing to see the Principe’s innermost room. A Galiotto servant lay motionless on the travertine floor, spidery trickles of blood across his face. His fellalo was torn open at the chest and a sliver of precious wood protruded from his temple.
While Rast ignored the body and went about overturning drawers and upturning statues, Mira knelt by the servant. The expression on his face was pained, one hand clenched tight as if he had died in terror. The evidence of his suffering set free tears that she had been holding back. They poured down her face as she straightened his fellalo to give him some dignity.
‘The vault’s been opened, Fedor. There’s fuck-all in here.’
‘Si,’ said Mira, as she gently prised open the Galiotto’s fist. ‘That is because it is here.’
* * * *
The Tourmaline Islands were as serene and picturesque as the last time Mira had seen them but now there was no Studium