The Chamber of Ten Read Online Free PDF

out, as she fell forward into the water.
    Domenic’s hand closed tight around her own as she went under, crunching her fingers together. She closed her eyes and exhaled through her nose, but still she tasted the rankness of the water, a slick touch across her tongue. Then she kicked, Domenic pulled, and she surfaced tofresh shouting, finding her footing on the staircase’s first step.
    Nico was pushing past her, reaching for purchase.
    “Take my hand,” she said, reaching out to him. But he forged on past the others and toward the flashlight beams waving frantically from above.
    “Come on,” Domenic shouted. “We have to save what we can from the library!”
    The library
, she thought, and the staggering weight of ages pressed down around her. This was just another moment in the endless history of this city, and in years to come no one would know of what had happened here. They might save much of Petrarch’s library and find a moment of fame amongst the archaeological community, and perhaps even further afield. Or if the ceilings came down and the walls fell in, burying them and destroying the manuscripts, perhaps there would be a plaque with their names on it. Either way, the effects on the city would be minimal.
    But screw that. The past was her passion, and she was here to make sure it was known.
    They rushed up the curving staircase into the library room, panting, soaked and stinking, and she looked for Nico. Members of the team were bustling around, asking if they were okay, and then Ramus pointed across the chamber at the far wall. Beside where the preservation tent had been set up, several spurts of pressurized water were gushing against a polythene curtain.
    “Get everything out!” Domenic shouted. “We’re below sea level here. We’ve got to assume the chamber’s going to flood.”
    “What happened down there?” someone asked.
    “They disturbed something and the waters came in,” Finch said, a hint of accusation in his voice.
    “No, that’s not what happened at all,” Geena said, but Domenic and the others frowned at her, because it wasn’t clear
what
had happened.
Disturbed something
, yes, she thought,
but none of us touched that wall
.
    “Nico?” Ramus called. “Help me with …” But he looked around the chamber, and Nico was nowhere to be seen.
    Geena turned back to the door into the lower chamber as Domenic was about to push it closed.
    “No!” she shouted.
    “It might hold the water back for a minute more,” he said. “Geena, we have to save—”
    “In case he went back down.” Saying it made her feel sick. That stuff slicking between his fingers … She closed her eyes briefly and opened herself up to his touch, but there was nothing there at all. No fear or pain, for which she was glad. But no thoughts for her, either.
    “Where the hell is he?” Ramus asked.
    “I saw someone running a load of books up,” Finch said. “It could have been him.”
    “Then let’s get the rest of this stuff out of here.” The archaeologist in Geena took over, and her mind settled around what needed to be done. Nico would have to wait. One crisis at a time.
    She barked orders, and her team reacted. Confusion and fear had given way to a plan of action, and they appreciated that. She darted around the chamber, dodging between polythene sheets, shadows cast by the lights strung from the ceiling moving around her, bumping into people, loading her arms with manuscripts that shouldhave been removed in airtight containers, moisture content measured, tests carried out for acidic contamination, and she could already see dampness from her clothes soaking into the old books.
    She had instructed Sabrina to continue filming for as long as she could, concentrating on the several tables and old shelving units where so much material was stacked. But she also saw the girl aiming her camera at the chaos around them, the water now spewing in great gouts from the crumbling western wall, and the BBC man, Finch,