by Kai Meyer
“Take her over to the others,” he ordered. “And give her another injection before we begin.”
ONE OF THEM
THEY CUT THE CABLES tying Rosa’s ankles and pushed her forward through the trees. Blood streamed down the backs of her legs to her numb feet. It was a miracle that she could walk at all.
Soon they reached a snow-covered clearing surrounded by oak and beech trees. Two trucks with the inscription MOBILE LIGHTNING, INC. were parked along the edge, their headlights switched on.
Between them, where the two beams of light intersected, four teenagers lay in the snow, bound hand and foot and gagged with rubber balls. Each of them wore several layers of ragged, dirty clothing. The white light made their emaciated faces look even sicklier. Rosa would have assumed they were junkies if she hadn’t felt sure that Michele was anxious to have healthy prey, and wouldn’t want to infect himself by hunting anyone who might have HIV or hepatitis.
“You can’t be serious about this,” she managed to say. “Not right here in the middle of Manhattan.”
Michele was staring pitilessly at the four captives on the ground. “No one’s going to miss them. And no one will disturb us.”
“But the park is under surveillance! There are park rangers, police, helicopters…” She saw the corners of his mouth twist in a smile as his dimples deepened. “How many people did you bribe to turn a blind eye to this?”
It was a rhetorical question, and she didn’t expect any answer. All the same, he said, “It’s all official. As far as the park administrators know, a movie’s being filmed here. There’s a special police department responsible for closing film sets to the public. That’s in force for this terrain and a long way around it. Doesn’t come cheap, but the budget will cover the expense.” He was grinning even more broadly now. “For the next few hours, no one will even blink at the occasional scream or so—it’s all in the screenplay we handed in.”
“It’s not the first time you’ve done this.”
“Do you have any idea how many movies are made in New York? A few hundred film crews are at work in the city every day. All we have to do is persuade one or two people in the film office to eat out somewhere classy tonight instead of hanging around here.”
As he talked, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the young people. She knew kids like these; there were thousands upon thousands of them in the city. They slept in the entrances to buildings, in backyards, among cartons and containers. If the cops picked them up, they got hot meals for a day or so, and sometimes—not nearly often enough—a bed in a shelter. After a week, at the most, they were out on the street again. Michele was right. No one was going to miss them.
There were two boys and two girls, terrified and frozen. They couldn’t lie there in the snow much longer. They’d probably been brought in one of the trucks.
Other vehicles were standing outside the illuminated area. Most were parked among the trees with their lights off and their engines running. She could make out the vague outlines of figures inside them, two or three to each car. Here and there cigarettes glowed in the dark.
The doorman who had been going to hit Rosa had followed them to the clearing. Michele signaled to him. She saw him approach her with a syringe in his hand, and this time she didn’t resist. He sank the short needle into the back of her neck. Her skin was so cold that she hardly felt it prick her.
Car doors were opened. Men and women climbed out of their vehicles. Most of them wore only bathrobes, in spite of the icy cold. The first Arcadian to step into the light could hardly control himself. His eyes were glowing like a big cat’s, and his lips were thrust forward because fangs were already forming in his jaws. Others were shifting rhythmically from foot to foot in their excitement, as they tried to suppress the transformation until they heard the signal for the hunt to begin.
Michele looked at the other Panthera with mingled arrogance and satisfaction. He must have sensed that Rosa was watching him, because he turned to look at her and asked impatiently, “Anything else you want to say to me?”
She held his gaze. “Can you still remember it?”
“Remember what?”
“The reason for the war between the Carnevares and the Alcantaras. And for the concordat.”
“The concordat!” He laughed softly. “The tribunal of the dynasties, the myths of Arcadia, the Hungry Man—all that and its rules and regulations may still strike terror into you back in Europe, but for us it’s about as real as all that stupid talk of our Sicilian homeland and the good old days. Look around you! This is the United States! Everything is more colorful here, louder, and now we even get it in 3-D.” Michele shook his head. “I’m not interested in the concordat, and as for the long arm of the tribunal…well, we’ll see whose muscles are bigger. If it ever comes to that.”
“You didn’t answer my question. Do you remember the reason?”
Michele’s head shot forward as if he and not she were the snake. “No, and right now it makes no difference. Someone in this city is systematically killing Carnevares, at a time when there are no local clan feuds, no open hostility between the New York families. And then you of all people turn up, and that suddenly explains a lot. How many reasons do you think I need to throw you to the lions?”
Even in this situation, in view of all the Panthera in the dark among the trees, she realized that there was something she didn’t know. A missing link in his line of argument, something that he wasn’t withholding from her deliberately; he simply assumed that she’d known it all this time.
“Listen, Michele—”
He waved that aside. “Save your energy for running. Maybe you’ll make it as far as one of the barriers.” His smile seemed to turn time back to their meeting in the club. “Not that I’d bet on it.”
While he was talking, the cables tying the hands and feet of the street kids had been cut. Two of them had managed to get up on all fours, but the other couple were still lying in the churned-up snow. They had been tied up too long to be able to get to their feet.
Rosa cast Michele a withering glance and then hurried over to them. She took one of the girls under the armpits and helped her up. “What’s your name?”
“Jessie.” There was naked terror in her stare. Living on the streets had left its mark on her face, but she couldn’t be any older than fifteen. Suddenly she seemed to realize that Rosa had just been standing beside the kidnappers. Her eyes flashed with rage and defiance. “Don’t you touch me!” She tore herself away, stumbled two steps back, and almost fell over one of the boys.
“I’m not like them,” whispered Rosa, as if trying to convince herself. Louder, she said, “It can’t be too far to Central Park West.” The street running along the outer side of the park.
“What are they planning to do with us?” asked one of the boys.
“They trade in human organs,” said the other with conviction.
It was on the tip of Rosa’s tongue to say, There’s not going to be much left of your organs to trade. Instead she said, “Run as fast as you can. Keep going straight ahead. Don’t even think of doubling back—that won’t stop them. They can pick up your scent, so don’t hide. Running is all that may save you.” Us, she should have said.
The whole situation still felt totally unreal. The one thing that did seem real to her was the cold. And now that she had noticed it, it got worse. She was wearing nothing but her short dress and her torn black tights. Her jacket was still in the coatroom at the club. If she didn’t turn into the snake very soon, suiting her body temperature to her surroundings, she could forget about running at all.
Suddenly Michele was beside her. “You’ve explained what it’s all about to them much better than I could have done. Anyone might think you’d had experience with it.”
Jessie spat in front of Rosa’s feet. “I hope you die a horrible death with the rest of them.”
Michele smiled, impressed by the child’s courage. Rosa had a nasty feeling that he had just picked his personal pr
ey—for before or after he had finished with Rosa herself.
“And whatever you do, don’t stay together,” she told the four kids. “Run different ways.”
“Don’t listen to her,” one of the boys objected. “If we stick together, maybe we can make it.”
“No!” Rosa snapped at him. “You have to split up.”
Michele was beaming with satisfaction as he watched this scene. “Remember, she’s one of us.”
The second girl began begging for her life, but no one took any notice of her.
“They’ll kill you all if you stay in a group,” said Rosa. But the four weren’t paying any attention.
“We’ll kill you whatever you do,” said Michele complacently.
Rosa spun around, and before he could avoid her, she struck him full in the face with her clenched fist.
Michele staggered back with a groan, and at that moment one of the boys thought he saw a chance. “Come on! Run!” he shouted to the others, and they stumbled off, four weak, emaciated, helpless young people who would have all the Panthera on their heels in a few moments. They reached the trees and disappeared from Rosa’s field of vision. The girl was still in tears, and her sobs gave away their whereabouts.
As Michele straightened up again, the first Carnevares were throwing off their robes in the background. Outside the headlights on the trucks, human silhouettes changed and distorted. Snarling, growling sounds came from all directions. There were women among them. Unlike the Lamias, Panthera of both sexes could change shape. Rosa saw one of the women fall to her hands and feet—in the next moment she had four paws.
With an angry gesture, Michele shooed away two of his henchmen, who were about to fall on Rosa. “I’ll have a part of you sent to Alessandro,” he said. “Deep-frozen. Which do you think he’d like?”
“He’ll kill you for this, Michele.” She had simply said that without thinking, but as she spoke the words, she knew it was the truth. She had seen how vengeful Alessandro could be. He wouldn’t rest until he’d killed her murderer.
Not that that was any help to her right now.
The boss of the New York Carnevares wiped a drop of blood off his split lip, looked at it on the back of his hand, and licked it off—with a tongue that wasn’t human anymore, but supple and rough. His hair also changed color, growing lighter. He didn’t go to the trouble of taking off his clothes.
“Run, Rosa Alcantara,” he spat at her, as more and more of the others sank to the ground on four paws. “Run, and keep your meat warm until I catch up with you again.”
Then she raced away, out of the bright light to the other side of the clearing, through the ranks of the snapping, growling, howling predators who could hardly keep their greed under control.
She ran westward in the shadow of the trees, over virgin snow.
THE PACK
SOON SHE WAS STUMBLING down a slope, at the bottom of which was a narrow path. Ahead of her in the darkness rose a mighty arch made of rough-hewn stone blocks. She knew this part of the park; she had been here before, years ago.
It was the Ramble, an artificially laid-out wilderness with dense woodland, winding paths, and steep rock formations. Streams and pools of water looked idyllic in daylight, but on a winter night the open, unprotected, icy surfaces became insurmountable barriers.
Somewhere in all these thickets there was a man-made grotto that had been closed to visitors for years, as well as countless other nooks and crannies that might provide a hiding place. Michele certainly assumed that his prey would look for cover somewhere, hoping that the Panthera wouldn’t find them. But Rosa knew what a keen sense of smell the big cats had and didn’t make the mistake of underestimating it. She had seen Alessandro and other Carnevares in their animal form, and it was obvious that there was nowhere to hide from them. Sooner or later they would track down anyone who crept into one of those places for shelter.
Run straight ahead, she had told the others. But you couldn’t do that in the Ramble. The network of paths wound this way and that, there was no way to see straight in front of you, and steep slopes and precipices rose on either side. Michele had chosen the best imaginable playground, for the same reasons that Cesare had once chosen the Gibellina monument. There was no escape from the narrow aisles between the rocks and the rampant undergrowth.
Rosa ran through the crusted snow and tried to control her racing breath. The soles of her heavy shoes kept her from slipping, but she was still too slow. She wanted to go west, to the edge of the park, but whenever she caught a glimpse through the trees, she saw only darkness, no skyline. Maybe she was running the wrong way, farther and farther into the park. She didn’t dare turn around. The Panthera had to be on her trail already.
She heard the first scream when she was ducking low as she crossed a small bridge. One of the boys, probably, but it was hard to tell for certain—the voice was shrill and high, a shriek of mortal terror.
Rosa ran on. No time for pity, not now. She felt sick. She just made it to the handrail of the bridge and threw up on the frozen surface of the water.
When she looked up, she saw movement in the bushes, the outline of something gliding along the bank in the darkness. She flung herself around and ran on. She would have liked to listen to the sounds made by her pursuer, but could only hear the crunch of her own footsteps in the snow and her own breathing, both of them too loud.
The second scream came from one of the girls, and was from a different direction. So the four of them had separated after all. Not that it had done them any good. The Panthera had taken their second victim. Rosa wondered if they killed their prey at once or just injured it, let it get away, gave it a head start, and then followed the scent of hot blood.
Once again something moved among the trees, beside her now. Keeping low and close to the ground, as if the black silhouettes of the trunks were forming growths that moved from tree to tree and merged. Whatever it was scurried through the brushwood parallel to the path. But she immediately lost sight of it again when, after a few steps, the next high slope cut off her view.
How long had she been running now? Less than five minutes. It was going to seem forever before the effect of the serum wore off and she, too, had a chance to change shape. Would Michele wait that long before attacking? Did he want a fight with an opponent who could defend herself? Rosa remembered the duel between Zoe and Tano that she had seen in the woods on the Alcantara property, snake and tiger locked in combat. She doubted whether she could fight back as well as her sister.
Another scream, and this time it seemed endless. The snarling of the big cats echoed through the night. Several Panthera scuffling with one another for possession of the prey. Then came the mighty roar of a lion, and after that, silence. The argument had been settled.
She reached a crossroads in the path and turned right. Another bridge under branches hanging low. Ahead of her yawned the mouth of a pedestrian underpass. She could see the other end of it, not thirty feet away, a vague gray patch in the black of the darkness.
She stopped, listened, heard her heartbeat thudding. Alessandro’s face appeared before her mind’s eye, but that was the last thing she needed right now. She was waiting for the snake, for the ice-cold reptile in her. She didn’t want to think of Alessandro at this moment. But the more she fought against it, the more her feelings rose to the surface. She couldn’t let them distract her from what lay ahead.
From the black mouth of the tunnel.
From the muzzle of the black panther suddenly barring her way.
They stared at each other, and for a crazy moment she felt sure that the panther was Alessandro.
She hadn’t yet seen many Panthera after their transformation into big cats, but she knew that their human features could still be recognized in animal form. Only in small details. There was a certain sparkle in Alessandro’s eyes. Not in this panther’s.
She took a step backward.
Behind her, the snarling of the pack could be heard again, and then branches br
eaking and snapping. They were coming through the frozen winter woodland of the Ramble now, ignoring the paths, racing through the undergrowth.
The panther in front of her didn’t move, just imperceptibly raised his nose and waited. Then she realized that he was picking up the scent of the others as they charged this way through the night. Presumably working out how much time he still had to claim her just for himself.
Quickly, Rosa began climbing the steep slope to the left of the path. The panther wasn’t twelve feet away, with the tunnel opening directly behind him. Somehow or other she had to get to the top, crossing the frozen snowdrifts caught in the tangled tendrils and roots. Broad tree trunks rose above the slope. Something was moving behind them.
The panther let out a snarl, but she didn’t turn around.
Then the sounds coming from his muzzle changed.
“Not that way.”
She looked down on the path. A naked man was crouching in front of the tunnel, at first glance not much older than Rosa herself. As she stared at him, he stood up, swaying, dazed by the speed of his shift back to human form. Strands of panther fur scurried over his muscular body, branched out, and disappeared. But his eyes were still glowing; his hair was still raven black.
“I’ll help you,” he managed to say hoarsely, as his interior organs went on changing and his vocal cords became human again. He looked pale and defenseless in front of the deep, black mouth of the tunnel.
“Come with me.” He stretched out a shaking hand.
She went on climbing. Up to the trees. To the figures moving among them.
Swaying, she straightened up, and now she could see just over the top of the slope.
Two lions were prowling through the undergrowth. Then she saw the girl. Jessie was cowering behind a tree over to the right, trembling with the freezing cold as she hid from the beasts. When Rosa looked left again, there were more Panthera there. A leopard. Two tigers. A graceful lioness with huge eyes, her beautiful feline face seeming almost innocent.