by Kai Meyer
“The police couldn’t do anything about that if it would take them forever to get here.”
“Men from Piazza Armerina? A couple of calls and I could summon twenty or thirty of them.”
“It’d all take far too long. Anyway, I’m already on my way up to the house.”
She felt choked by her helplessness and fear. “Stupid idiot,” she whispered, but he knew what she meant.
“Love you, too.”
“Take care of yourself.”
“So will you stop somewhere and wait?” he asked. The climb through the olive groves was beginning to make him sound breathless.
“Okay.”
“Really?”
“Of course not!” she said.
“Then I’ll have to make sure all this is over before you get here.”
“Twenty minutes max. And don’t do anything silly.”
“Twenty minutes against the rest of our lives. Sounds like a good bargain to me.”
“The rest of our lives,” she repeated softly, and stared into the gathering night. The outlines of the landscape blurred before her eyes.
“Promise?”
She ended the call and threw her cell phone onto the passenger seat.
“Promise,” she swore to the darkness.
CLIMBING UP
ALESSANDRO HAD LEFT HIS Ferrari at the side of the road next to the iron gate. The doctor’s Panda stood a few feet away. Its trunk was closed.
Rosa stopped, letting the beam of the BMW’s headlights illuminate the undergrowth on both sides of the gate. The gate itself stood ajar, just as Alessandro had said.
She slipped out of her car, while the alarm inside it beeped because she’d left the lights on. Hastily, she closed the door and went over to the Ferrari. She felt a pang at the thought that Alessandro had been here so recently. And now he was gone, was somewhere up there in the dark.
She opened the driver’s door and touched the leather of the seat with her fingertips. It was a kind of compulsion. She wanted to feel Alessandro, and this was the best she could do.
Then she slammed the door, much too loud, and wondered whether she owed it to the dead man to look inside the trunk of the Panda. He was dead because she had called him.
Better get used to that kind of thing.
Her headlights had to be easily visible from pretty far away, so she hurried back to the BMW and switched them off. The silence that followed the beeping alarm felt doubly oppressive.
When she stepped through the opening in the gate, she saw the trails of blood that Alessandro had mentioned. With a lump in her throat, she looked into the undergrowth. The men were lying in a small hollow. Four shapes, twisted and distorted. Yet more corpses.
Pulling herself together, Rosa clambered out of the bushes and back to the driveway, her legs stiff. By now it was almost entirely dark. The full moon cast silvery light on the tops of the trees standing on the hills. She had a moment’s shock as a car raced along the road as if out of nowhere, briefly bathing the parked automobiles in bright radiance, and then disappeared again. For once, she wished it had been one of the judge’s vehicles keeping her under observation. But today—of all days—there was no sign of any of the people who had been shadowing her.
She guessed that Alessandro must have reached the palazzo by now. Cutting through the olive groves on foot was shorter than walking up the drive. There would probably still be guns lying around here somewhere, but she couldn’t bring herself to search the bodies for pistols.
She listened once again for any howling from the Hundinga, but she heard only the sound of nocturnal insects and a single call from an owl. Pressing her lips together, she set off, hurried up the little slope on the other side of the drive, and ducked down among the gnarled olive trees that grew as far as the eye could see. After only a few steps, she found the path along which the olive pickers carried their baskets at harvest time. She had last been this way when she’d stolen out of the palazzo to go to Isola Luna with the Carnevares. Fundling had been waiting for her down on the road, to drive her to the coast.
She had hardly thought of Fundling since her last visit to his sickbed. He made her feel uneasy. The strange young man was still unknowable to her, one of those mysterious gaps in the crowd that he had once mentioned. Crazy, confused words.
A shot rang out in the distance, echoing down the slope. Two birds rose nearby and fluttered away.
By this time Rosa was a good third of the way up the drive. She still couldn’t see the lights of the palazzo. At that moment heavy clouds moved in front of the moon. The rustling of branches in the evening wind sounded ghostly when the trees were barely visible.
There was something lying on the path in front of her.
Another dead body. But no: As she came closer, the shapeless bundle turned out to be the first of several items of clothing, stripped off and discarded. She knew that sweater. A cell phone was sticking out of one pocket of the crumpled jeans. So Alessandro was stealing through the darkness somewhere up there in his panther form. Maybe he was already at the house. Had the gunshot been for him?
She could have tried her own transformation, and for a few seconds she felt sure that would be the best way to go unnoticed. But she had no experience covering a distance of any length in her snake form, and she wasn’t sure how well she would keep up. So she continued walking, sweating profusely and persuading herself that it was only the wind on her damp skin making her shiver.
Points of light emerged ahead of her in the darkness. Only a few of the palazzo windows were lit.
Another shot, then two more in rapid succession.
A dog howled. One of the Hundinga. Or maybe Sarcasmo.
Where the olive groves gave way to lemon trees, she found another bundle on the ground. The man was naked. He couldn’t have been dead for long; the gaping wounds in his body gleamed wet with blood. His throat was torn to pieces, his head at a twisted angle. He had been killed with great savagery.
She heard the sound of paws, and panting—it came from the east, where the tall foundation wall of the panoramic terrace rose among a few palm trees. Climbing over an old wooden fence, she pressed close to a tree trunk.
Two more bodies lay not far away. Both were fully clothed. They were two of the guards here on the Alcantara property, and they had obviously been killed when they found something: several bags and backpacks lying at the foot of a palm. The wall of the terrace rose twelve feet high, right behind the tree.
Rosa held her breath and stood perfectly still.
A gigantic Doberman, larger than a wolf, coming from the south, was approaching the dead men and her find. Rosa could see the animal only from its movements, since in the darkness it blended into its surroundings.
There was a crunching, tearing sound as it changed shape in motion. From one bound to the next the creature rose on its hind legs, stretching as the bones shifted and extended. The dog’s rough coat merged with human flesh. Muscles showed, moving beneath the skin.
In the faint moonlight, the dog’s face changed, the muzzle retreated, the forehead advanced. The man raised his arms—paws became hands—and rubbed his eyes.
A few seconds later, stark naked, he went up to one of the bags and took something out. The display of a cell phone lit up, illuminating the man’s face from below. Rosa put his age at about forty, maybe a little older. He had angular, scarred features, and his hair was cut very short.
He spoke into the phone in a whisper. His accent was harsh, maybe from eastern or northern Europe, and he seemed to be reporting back on the situation to someone.
“…killed two of my men,” she heard the Hunding say. “…can’t wait any longer. The hell with the plan…going straight in…”
She dared not go any closer. Even breathing was risky, but she couldn’t hold her breath any longer.
The man lowered the cell phone and glanced around.
She was in total darkness, yet he was looking straight at her. He uttered one last, angry remark dow
n the phone—“…for me to decide…”—and then switched it off and dropped it into the open bag.
Slowly, he came toward Rosa, a huge outline in front of the gray, moonlit wall. An angry growl issued from his throat.
If she moved her head, however slightly, he would spot her. She could do nothing but keep staring at him, whether she wanted to or not.
Her heart was racing, pumping the snake’s icy breath through her limbs with every beat. If she shifted shape now, he would definitely notice her. And she was far from sure whether, in her snake form, she would be agile enough to escape his fangs.
He dropped to all fours and exploded back into dog shape, so quickly that it was like an old-fashioned special effect in a movie. Here was the man—cut!—there was the dog. Not even a dissolve.
The creature was still nine feet away from her. His Doberman coat smelled of human sweat.
Once again she heard the howling of the others up at the house. They were besieging the palazzo. Shots rang out from the terrace right above them.
The Hunding froze.
A second Hunding howled in pain in the darkness. A body hit water. The bullet must have knocked one of them into the pool.
The chill in Rosa reached the ends of her hair. Everything about her was tingling, itching, burning. She tried to hold back the transformation, fight it. But she was in deadly danger, and her body reacted uncontrollably.
More gunshots. Howling that lasted longer this time. Another bullet had hit home.
The Doberman let out an angry growl, snapped menacingly at the air, then spun around and stormed along the foundation wall of the terrace to the nearest flight of steps to join the rest of the pack.
Rosa closed her eyes. Behind her lids, the pupils narrowed to slits. Her split tongue touched fangs. She opened her eyes again, but it was still dark. It took her a moment to realize why. Hissing, she glided out from under her heap of black clothes, over dry ground, and on into the moonlight.
THE LEOPARD
SHE WOUND HER WAY up the steps to the terrace, keeping close to the wall. Her reptilian skin shimmered in shades of bronze and gold.
The wide panoramic terrace of the palazzo lay ahead of her, surrounded by a heavy stone balustrade, gray in the pale moonlight. The next front of clouds was already coming up, and soon everything would be in deep shadow again. Someone must have switched off the motion detectors on the outdoor spotlights in the tops of the palm trees.
The first-floor windows were barred, and no light showed in any of them. The living quarters were on the second floor. Here, and on the west side of the palazzo, there were several bedrooms. Signora Falchi was standing at the open window of one of them, aiming a gun down at the terrace.
One dead man lay on the patio; a second was drifting in a cloud of blood in the swimming pool. The bluish glow from the pool flickered over the facade in indistinct reflections. The tutor’s face shone in that light as if it were covered with glass.
Rosa saw a movement on the very edge of her field of vision—only a scurrying, but at once a muzzle flash flared at the window. The bullet whipped over the terrace without hitting anyone. The Hunding for whom it had been intended came leaping up the steps, growling, right where Rosa was. He was not the same as the one she had already seen, but a powerful bulldog. With her responsive snake senses, Rosa felt the ground vibrate beneath his paws. At the same time her aggression was roused. In human form she would have run for it, or she might have been frozen with horror at the sight of the monster racing up; as a snake, however, she wanted to accept the challenge.
The Hunding knew that he was facing no ordinary reptile, but a Lamia. He stopped six feet away from her, went into an attack stance, and bared his murderous teeth. Rosa’s snake body reared up, and she hissed. He was about to leap onto her, but she was too quick. With a powerful coiling movement she shot toward him and then below him, digging her fangs into the soft skin beneath his ribs. The Hunding yowled in pain and thrust his muzzle downward, but before he could snap at her, she rammed her body against his skull. The yowling turned to a howl, and then she bit a second time, tasted his blood, and felt nothing but triumph.
She made use of the moment of surprise to coil herself around him. He fell heavily on his side, kicked out in panic, and snapped at her again. Quick as a flash, she squeezed her body hard around him, felt his bones breaking, crushed his ribs, his lungs, his internal organs.
More shots rang out, and when she looked up she saw that another Hunding had fallen to a bullet fired by the tutor. He had come out of cover to hurry to the aid of Rosa’s opponent. He didn’t get far.
Did Signora Falchi know who the snake really was? Was that why she had shot the second Hunding? Or would Rosa be next in her line of fire?
The dead Hunding in Rosa’s grip began turning back into human form. She quickly withdrew, glided over the terrace to the outer wall of the house, and followed its course northward. The bars over the windows were too close together for her to put her head through and break the glass with her skull, and the doors had security locks and bolts; her grandmother had made sure that no intruder would find it easy to get in.
She heard panting and growling in the shadows. The farther she went from the pool and its underwater lighting, the darker it was. The Hundinga were watching her. As soon as Rosa moved out of the tutor’s line of fire, there would be nothing to hold them back. Presumably most of them knew that she was the only Lamia in the palazzo.
She reached the corner of the building, and with it the end of the terrace. Quickly she slipped out between the stone bars of the balustrade on to the grassy meadow along the north facade. She was looking for a way into the palazzo at ground level, and for that she’d have to cross the open surface.
Behind her, a Hunding leaped the railing and landed on the lawn. Another—the biggest pit bull she had ever seen—raced after him. More shapes were moving among the chestnut trees bordering the meadow.
Rosa wound her way forward as fast as she could, surprising herself by her own agility. Yet she might not be fast enough. The paws of the Hundinga made the ground tremble; they had to be close behind her. The first was already snapping at her. He missed her reptilian body only by a hairbreadth.
Ahead of Rosa stood the greenhouse. Greenish light shone faintly in the glazed annex. The panes, clouded with condensation, hid the tropical jungle inside.
One glass pane in the bottom row was broken. Rosa made straight for it. The shattered glass had fallen inside; obviously the Hundinga had already tried getting into the palazzo that way. A naked corpse lay among the shards of glass. Someone had halted the charging Hunding; he hadn’t gone more than six feet inside the greenhouse.
One of Rosa’s pursuers let out a short, sharp bark, and then the ground shook one last time. The Hundinga had stopped. Rosa shot over the broken glass and the dead man, and plunged into the tropical atmosphere of the greenhouse.
Its green twilight sprang to life, hissing. They came from all sides, only a few at first, then more and more. The snakes who lived here, the Alcantaras’ totem animals, recognized their mistress and took her protectively into their midst. Some of them turned toward the Hundinga, and Rosa caught the scent of their venom, saw it glittering at the tips of their fangs. She had only recently discovered that a bite from some of these reptiles was fatal. She herself had no venom glands in her snake form, and possibly that was true of all Lamias.
The Hundinga did not follow her through the broken pane. Snarling, they retreated. Locked doors and barred windows wouldn’t deter them for long, now that their leader had decided to attack even against the Hungry Man’s orders. Rosa assumed that they had guns with them, and probably also explosives. Even if they preferred hunting in packs as Hundinga, ultimately they too were only killers with a job to do.
The snakes crowding around Rosa caressed her, rubbed against her scaly body; every single one of them seemed to want to touch her. She moved with the throng of snakes toward the heavy door leading from the greenho
use to the north wing.
There she closed her eyes, put the menace of the Hundinga out of her mind, concentrated entirely on her human nature, remembered the sensation of having arms and legs. And when she looked, she did have arms and legs again. The reptilian scales on her head and neck were dividing into strands, becoming unruly light-blond hair.
The snakes were still winding around her bare feet, but they retreated a little way when Rosa stepped forward to take the key off a hook on the wall. Cautiously, she opened the door and glanced through the crack into a corridor. Imposing frescoes covered the vaulted ceiling: angels, devils, and saints in the midst of cloud-capped mountain ranges and garden landscapes. The hallway itself was empty, but one of the lights that automatically came on after dark gave sparse illumination.
The stone floor was icy under the soles of her feet, but this time she welcomed the cold. She went into the corridor and closed the door after her. Then she crouched down, closed her eyes, and did as she might do if she were an actor calling up emotions in preparation for a scene. She thought of Zoe’s death, and her father’s betrayal of her; she conjured up the pictures on the video, her own wide, wakeful eyes as she watched what was happening, unable to do anything. Then the reptile stirred inside her. With the strength of an electrical charge, the cold filled her limbs and sent her sinking to the floor in snake form once again.
Immediately she glided forward, down the corridor, and to the staircase up to the floor above. No one came to meet her, and she heard nothing but the dry rustling of her scales moving over the worn stone slabs. She reached the second floor and set off on her way to the west wing in the dim glow of the nocturnal lighting.
Signora Falchi had stopped firing; maybe she had run out of ammunition. The handle of the door of her room was blocked on the outside by an iron rod. Rosa saw three bullet holes in the oaken door, the splinters pointing out into the corridor. It would be impossible for the tutor to open the barricaded door from the inside.
She looked attentively around her and waited until her eyes were used to the darkness. No one in sight. Michele and Valerie must have locked the tutor in her room. She was probably safer there than anywhere.