Arcadia Burns

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 down 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.