by Kai Meyer
Alessandro nodded. “Do you think Fundling was afraid of me?”
“Because he worked for Quattrini?”
“He broke the law of silence. All the clans would have killed him for that. He must have come out of his coma, walked away, and—”
“No,” she interrupted him. “No one just gets out of bed after five months in a coma and walks away, even if he’s in shock. The old man mentioned a wheelchair. So Fundling still can’t walk by himself, he’s probably very weak. Other people in his situation would spend a year in rehab. I guess Quattrini had him under observation the whole time, probably by an informant in the hospital. And when there were signs that he was coming out of his coma, they got him out of the place in secret, and then made it look as if he’d run away of his own accord and fallen into that crevice.”
“Which never really happened.”
“They made it all up to cover his tracks. And laying him to rest in your family vault was supposed to underscore the whole story. Everyone would have thought he was dead, even you.”
He nodded, downcast. Fundling’s distrust had hit him harder than she would have thought possible.
“Hey,” she said quietly, sitting up. “Who knows what was going on in his head? He’d suffered a bad gunshot wound; he just lay there for almost six months. We don’t even know if he was conscious but just couldn’t communicate. Anyway, there was plenty of time for him to persuade himself of all kinds of possibilities.” When she herself lay awake at night, everything that went through her mind seemed perfectly logical. Only in the light of day did it turn out to be exaggerated and nonsensical. Had Fundling been doing something like that for five whole months?
“Right,” said Alessandro. “Well, everything suggests that the old man in the hotel was telling the truth. Because otherwise Festa wouldn’t have found us. So Fundling must be down there.”
She looked down the slope to the hotel. Its shape was gradually blending into the darkness, and the air was becoming cooler and cooler. Rosa had goose bumps for some time. “We can’t go and talk to him. That’s exactly what they’re waiting for.”
He slowly shook his head. “Why would we, anyway? He obviously doesn’t want to see us.”
“All the same, there’s one thing I’d very much like to know.”
“Mori,” said Alessandro. “That’s really bothering you.”
She leaned forward, hugging her legs close to her upper body. “Why did your father give orders to have Mori and his wife killed?”
“Mori must have found out something. Something that my father wanted to keep secret at any price.”
“He and Cesare had already done something like that once. When he almost exterminated the Dallamano family.”
Divers working in the Strait of Messina for the Dallamano clan had discovered several statues dating back to classical antiquity, including one of a panther and a snake. At which point Baron Carnevare and his cousin Cesare, as his adviser, had the Dallamanos murdered. Only Augusto Dallamano had escaped them. Quattrini had enrolled him in her witness protection program, and secretly got him to Sintra in Portugal after his evidence in court had done a great deal of damage to several other clans. The Carnevares themselves, however, had escaped any prosecution because the baron had taken Augusto’s niece, Iole, and was keeping her imprisoned as a hostage.
If it were now to turn out that Leonardo Mori had been murdered by contract killers working for the Carnevares, it was safe to assume that there had been reasons like those behind the massacre of the Dallamanos. Had Mori come upon information about the Arcadian dynasties in the course of his research?
Rosa shifted position on the uncomfortable, rocky ground. “That book he wrote, The Gaps in the Crowd . . . could it have been about the dynasties?”
Alessandro looked at her. “I know what you’re planning.”
“We don’t have any clothes, any money, or any car. It’s making me crazy that we can’t help Iole. I can’t even call her. But while we’re stuck here in Sicily we might as well try to find out the truth. It’s all connected somehow. From Mori and the gaps in the crowd, to the dynasties and the statues in the sea, all the way to Evangelos Thanassis and TABULA.”
“And TABULA and your father,” he added, coming to the point that troubled her most.
She lowered her gaze. “If my father really is still alive, then I have to find him.”
“I thought I was the one who went in for revenge.”
She looked at him sadly.
“Sorry,” he said, “that was stupid of me.”
“No, you’re right. I have no idea what I’d do if I met him. Maybe it would be enough just to ask him why.”
“That’s not enough. Because the answer would only hurt you even more. In the end, when all’s said and done, you’ll wish him dead. And he deserves it.”
“Just once I want to look him in the eyes.”
“And then you’ll kill him.”
She was trembling with the cold now. Everything he said was the truth. She wanted to see her father suffer for what he had done to her. And it was possible that that might make a difference, but much more likely that everything would stay the way it had always been. She would still be the same, and so would the world around her.
But it would be without him. Without Davide Alcantara. Something that made taking the next step worthwhile.
“We need new clothes,” she said, “and a car.”
“To go to that antiquarian bookshop in Ragusa?”
“Only for a look at the book. Unless Fundling gets there first.”
He glanced away from her and back at the hotel, a cluster of pale lights in the darkness.
Above them there was a screech, then a flapping of wings quickly coming closer.
She raised her head. Something was diving down on them out of the night.
“Harpies!”
Rosa shifted to her snake form.
THE SISTERS
HUGE CLAWS SEIZED ROSA’S reptilian body and snatched her from the ground. Out of the corner of her eye, she was able to see a second giant owl plunge out of the night sky and come down on Alessandro. He had shifted into animal shape only a moment after Rosa, but the Harpy caught him still in human form, dragged him up by his shoulders, and let go of him again when he changed into his panther shape. Rosa was flung around, and lost sight of him. At the same time she realized that she was already thirty or forty feet above the ground, and the owl was carrying her higher and higher.
Vertigo and the darkness robbed her of any sense of direction. She writhed in her adversary’s grasp, trying to concentrate entirely on those monstrous claws. They were the only fixed point in her wild flight through the night. Rosa let her reptilian skull hang down, swung herself back and up into the belly of the giant owl, where she dug her fangs deep into the creature’s plumage.
The Harpy uttered a fearful screech and staggered in the air, her wings beating out of time with each other. Rosa lost her sense of direction again when the owl dropped a little ways, so suddenly that Rosa hissed in panic, and as she did so tore her fangs out of her opponent’s body.
A split second later, she realized that it would kill her if the Harpy let go of her—or if she made the Harpy fall to the ground. As long as they were so high in the air, Rosa was dependent on the Harpy. It was a fallacy that because snakes were so supple, they had no bones; a crash landing from this height would smash her skeleton, just like any other living creature.
Worse than her disorientation was her uncertainty about what had happened to Alessandro. Had the first Harpy carried her away so that the second could attack and kill him? Were more Malandras diving down on him at this moment?
She writhed in the grip of the owl’s claws. But her attack was too aimless, and a beak the size of an ax pecked at her. To do that, the Harpy had to bend forward, and it somersaulted in the air, making Rosa lose her sense of balance again.
She gave up for the time being, and let her body dangle with the wind shaking her h
ead and her tail, while the Harpy stabilized her flight and carried her through the night. Rosa could see the ground beneath her now; she guessed at the shape of the trees and bushes, branching gray on a gray background, that might be waiting thirty or fifty yards below.
She bent her head far enough around to be able to see the group of lights that was Agrigento behind her in the distance, and the surface of the Mediterranean Sea shimmering in the moonlight. The owl was flying inland, farther into the deserted hills. Ahead of them lay nothing but darkness.
Soon they started losing height again as they approached a bare rise in the ground with something on it that Rosa thought, at first, was a house. Angular, unlit—but too small for a building.
A transport van. The vehicle was parked in the dry grass at the end of a narrow path. It looked like an armored van, no windows, dark paintwork, and it was not too dark to work out why the tailgate was wide open.
The owl flew a quarter of the way around the hill, and began a swift descent, making for the back of the van and the square, black opening in it. Rosa thought briefly of shifting shape, but decided it was not a good idea. Broken arms and legs were the last things she needed at this moment.
The owl let out a warning screech, raced at wild speed for the tailgate, let Rosa swing back in the air for a moment—and let go of her.
The movement sent her straight into the open steel van. Once again she lost all sense of up and down, only thinking that the impact would hurt like hell—and at that very moment she crashed against the van’s interior.
Fuzziness sucked her down into endless darkness, as if in a whirlpool. It was so tempting simply to give up. However, she fought against the pain and the risk of falling unconscious, and she succeeded in coiling her body and then shooting forward again to the opening at the back of the van.
The Harpy landed in front of the opening from above, wings spread wide. Rosa thought she wanted to bar the way out with her wings, but then she realized that the wingtips were curling around the open steel doors, and suddenly jerked them shut.
Rosa was still moving as she changed shape; her coiling became stumbling, and then her shoulder hit the right side door. It hurt a lot, but she had rammed that door out again; the left door was firmly in place, but there was a small gap open on the right. She pressed herself against it from the inside, while the Harpy’s wings blocked the gap from the outside. They both pushed and shoved; sometimes the gap was only a finger’s breadth, then it was wide enough to get a leg through it. As a snake, Rosa could have passed through to the outside, but that would have meant taking pressure off the inside of the door, and she would inevitably have been caught and squashed.
The gigantic owl raged and hissed, her beak pecking at Rosa through the opening to drive her back. But Rosa was not giving way and increased her pressure on the door when her bare feet got a better grip on the floor of the van. There was a burning pain in her shoulder now, going all the way down to her legs, and she sensed the approach of the moment when she simply could do no more and would have to give in.
An earsplitting cry came from outside the van. The next moment there was no resistance anymore. Rosa let out a groan of surprise as the right rear door gave way and swung open. The owl had retreated slightly but was not climbing in the air. Instead, it was staring at a point on the crest of the hill. Rosa tried to keep her footing, but she slipped and fell to the earth. She landed on stones and grass, and tried shifting into snake form, but she was too weak. Everything about her hurt, so she merely struggled to get to her feet. She braced herself against the closed left door as she stood up, and followed the direction of the Harpy’s gaze.
Alessandro shot out of the dark. In his panther’s jaws, he was carrying something that swung back and forth with every leap he took. Something pale. Oval. With a shock of blond hair.
The Harpy cried out again as the big cat spat the bundle out on the floor. Wide eyes looked up from it. The mouth was half-open. Blood shone on freckled cheeks.
Rosa felt hypnotized by the sight of the dead Malandra sister. At the same time, she pressed herself closer to the steel door of the van. The Harpy spread her wings to fly and was about to rise from the ground, but Alessandro moved too fast for her. He covered the last few yards with one mighty leap, and they collided.
Quick as a flash, he rammed into the owl’s feathered breast, flung her back, and landed on her. She pecked, but her beak met only empty air. Roaring, he opened his mouth and dug his teeth into brown feathers. His jaws closed around the Harpy’s neck, while hysterical screeching emerged from her throat, followed by a strained hiss.
Rosa ran to him. “No!” she cried.
Alessandro growled, so much a predator that she shuddered. But then she placed a hand on his silky fur, felt that it was drenched with blood, and said, “You’ve beaten them. You don’t have to do this.”
The Harpy shifted shape under him. Her wings folded down beside her body and merged with a delicate figure. The mighty bird turned into a feathered girl, perhaps a young woman, it was hard to tell her age just yet. Then the feathers disappeared back under her skin, and the beak dissolved into a mouth. She was the image of her dead companion, also freckled, with a pointed chin and a straight nose. Rosa had expected to see fear in her face, but instead it was full of hatred. Alessandro had killed her sister. One glance was enough to know that she would not beg for her life.
The panther’s jaws slowly withdrew from her neck, but only slightly, so that they could snap shut like lightning again and tear her apart.
Rosa’s bare skin was gleaming with sweat, and her knees threatened to give way. But she couldn’t help looking at that angry face and trying to find answers. Who had sent her? Why had they been wanted alive, instead of being killed at once, like Quattrini?
Their prisoner was only a few years older than Rosa herself, at the most in her early twenties. Strands of blond hair clung to her head and face.
“What’s your name?” asked Rosa.
For an answer she got a grimace. The young woman was not yet entirely aware that she had changed back, and part of her still thought she was an owl.
Alessandro growled ferociously.
“Your name,” Rosa demanded.
“Aliza Malandra.”
“Who gave you this contract?”
Feathers began to cover Aliza’s face. Immediately the panther’s jaws shot forward to encircle her slender neck. The feathers retreated again.
Rosa had an idea. Staggering slightly, she went to the front of the van, opened the passenger door, and looked on the floor in front of the seat. An open duffel bag lay there, with crumpled clothing spilling out of it. Rosa tugged at the catch on the glove compartment, which seemed to be jammed. She hit the front of the compartment hard with her fist, and it promptly sprang open. Inside, she found what she was looking for: a silver hypodermic needle in a short syringe. A glass vial containing a clear fluid was screwed behind it.
Anyone trying to catch and abduct Arcadians needed something to keep them from shifting shape at an untimely moment. It was not surprising that the Malandras had some of the TABULA serum with them.
She came back with the needle and syringe, and gave Aliza a double dose of serum. Only when her body was no longer changing did Alessandro stop baring his teeth.
“Who gave you the contract?” Rosa asked again.
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Alcantaras? Or Carnevares?”
A scornful silence.
Rosa crouched down beside Aliza. “When we lock you in this van and take off, we can take your sister’s head with us—or we can leave it lying out here for stray dogs and wild cats. Which would you prefer?”
Aliza bit her lower lip. There had been blood on her mouth before, perhaps her own, perhaps Alessandro’s. But Rosa could see no new injuries through his black fur.
She bent over their captive. “Who was it?”
“Your own clan,” whispered Aliza, blinking tears out of her eyes. “And his.”
>
“But you were told not to kill us?”
“You deserve to die for what you’ve done to Saffira.”
“What was your contract?” Rosa pointed to the van. “Where were you to take us?”
Aliza closed her eyes. “The dynasties are hunting you,” she said quietly. “In the end there’ll be nowhere left for you two to hide. He will come back, and Arcadia will awaken.”
BREAKING WAVES
THEY FOUND NOT ONLY the sisters’ clothes in the duffel on the passenger seat of the van, but also their cell phones and their cash, just under four hundred euros. Rosa was a bit shocked to realize how quickly she had grown accustomed to the wealth of the Alcantaras over the last few months, life in villas and every imaginable luxury. Now that all of that had been taken away from her in a single stroke, this money regained the value it would once have had for her, back in her drafty apartment in Crown Heights. Four hundred euros felt like a small fortune.
She held the bills fanned out in her hands and stared at them thoughtfully, until Alessandro reminded her that they could get by with that sum for a while but that they could not buy the book in Ragusa, nor could they turn the clock back a couple of days. If they ever reached Ragusa they’d have to think of something.
She took the Malandras’ clothes out of the bag, expecting them to stink like birds’ nests. Instead, they smelled of perfume and were as black as her own things. She slipped into a pair of slim pants, cuffing their long legs, and a fitted blouse. Then she pushed a black dress back to Aliza through the viewing panel to the rear of the van. A small plastic bag of pills right at the bottom of the duffel reminded her, fleetingly, of Valerie and the Suicide Queens. She opened the front passenger door of the van and threw the little bag out.