Arcadia Burns

THE VOICE OF ARCADIA


A NIGHTMARE IN SEPARATE images.

Movement chopped into a few dozen pictures per second.

The leopard’s open jaws filled Rosa’s entire field of vision, a black hole surrounded by bloodstained teeth. She seemed to be almost falling into them as his muzzle came down on her. His breath smelled of iron and raw meat. The big cat’s weight forced her to the ground, but she hardly felt it.

And as she saw him coming toward her in that endless moment, he changed back into a man. His eyes clouded over. Blood shot out of the wound in the front of his throat where the bullet had gone in, and also the exit wound at the back of his head, where it had shattered the nape of his neck and left his body.

The snapping jaws shrank to human size, the muzzle grew shorter, yellow fur became smooth skin. She saw it all in the extreme, tormenting slow motion of her shock. She heard his cheekbones crack and grow together again, saw his nose and his eye sockets change shape, watched the corners of his mouth move closer together, as the dimples that were so like Alessandro’s appeared in his cheeks. And all the time his features continued descending on her. What had begun as a deadly snapping of jaws, a greedy bite full of hate, became a touch, an involuntary kiss, as his lifeless face came down on hers, and slipped off again sideways a second later.

Rosa lay there, buried under Michele’s body, and for a moment she was back in the Village on that night. But at the same time she realized that this made it final. Tano had been dead for a long time, and now Michele was dead as well. It was over.

“They’re coming back!” someone shouted in hollow tones. “We have to get out of the courtyard.” Iole.

Then Rosa heard a familiar barking over by the entrance. There stood Sarcasmo, beside Iole, who was all bundled up and gesticulating wildly in the direction of the tunnel.

Soon none of this will matter anyway, thought Rosa. The smoke will kill us. Maybe it’s poisoned us already.

A jolt shook her body as the black panther rammed his head into Michele’s side. The body was flung off her, and she was free.

Alessandro, still in animal form, battered and bleeding, nudged her and indicated that she should stand up. Iole ran over and helped her to her feet, supporting her. The slender girl—always underestimated and in no way as helpless as she seemed—led her back into the house, and seconds later the door closed behind them.

Rosa slipped out of Iole’s grasp to the floor, felt Sarcasmo’s tongue licking her cheek encouragingly, and at the same time saw Alessandro before her. He made no move to change back into human form.

The cold was beginning to spread through her. The serum had stopped working; scales formed under her transparent skin, grew, and pushed their way out. She tried to stop the transformation, but she was too weak.

With the last of her strength, she explained her plan. Her words tailed off into hissing and spitting. Sarcasmo growled at her and retreated. Iole patted his sooty coat. But Alessandro came closer, bent his panther head over her, and nudged her with his black nose.

He had understood.

He knew what they had to do together.

Iole flung open the door to the grounds.

“Now!” she whispered, holding Sarcasmo with one hand in case he stormed out into the night. He tugged and pulled against his collar, but she wasn’t letting him go.

Rosa wound her way over the threshold and outside. With a great leap, Alessandro jumped over her, landed on the gravel path, and took up a fighting stance.

Hundinga were howling in the dark and raced up, panting, digging up earth with their claws. Saliva flew from their chops.

There were three of them, and Rosa hoped that Alessandro could deal with them. She glided over the ground through the darkness, along the facade, keeping close to the space between the wall and the gravel. Behind her she heard snapping and spitting, while up above the heat broke a window. Glass and burning sparks rained down, bouncing off her armored scales.

She reached the terrace, found a Hunding close to the pool, and at the same time saw the tutor in the water, ducking low under the rim of the basin so that the creature wouldn’t see her.

Neither of them noticed Rosa as she coiled around the stone balustrade in a wild slalom course that finally brought her to the stairway. She slid down it, followed the course of the wall, and found the bags that the Hundinga had brought.

One was still open. The cell phone lay in the middle of crumpled camouflage clothing.

This time it all went so fast that she almost cried out as the transformation set in, but only a hiss would come from her snake mouth. Until it turned back into lips, and by then the urge was gone.

She lay naked beside the Hundinga equipment on the ground, breathing hard with effort and the smoke still burning her throat.

Her trembling hand reached for the phone.

There was no list of contacts, only a single number that had been called. Rosa tapped it.

“Yes?” answered a hoarse male voice. Old and unhealthy rather than hungry.

Rosa coughed smoke out of her lungs, gathered all her strength, and said what she had to say.

A little later the noise of powerful rotors could be heard, approaching over the plain.

The helicopter came in without any lights, invisible in the night. The pilot didn’t switch on a searchlight until he was right outside the burning palazzo. The light stabbed far through the billowing smoke, passed over the tops of the olive trees, brushed past Rosa, went off and on again three times. A signal.

Howling rose from many throats all around the property—up on the terrace, along the north facade, and at the gateway tunnel to the south of the house.

From the foot of the palms, Rosa watched as the helicopter touched down on the meadow beside the courtyard. Its landing was hidden by bushes and chestnut trees. It was a long, black transport chopper with two antitorque rotors mounted, one above the cockpit and one on the tail. The dark green fuselage showed no visible identification marks. Probably an out-of-service military aircraft.

Rosa heard feet moving quickly on the steps and retreated into the shadow of the wall. Two men picked up the bags and ran toward the helicopter with them. They didn’t notice that the cell phone was missing. Rosa was still holding it as she emerged from her hiding place. Her own clothes, left behind here after her first transformation, were lying on the roots of an olive tree. She quickly slipped into her clothing, and hurried up the steps to the terrace again.

The Hundinga were gone, and with them the bodies of their dead. They had even fished the dead man out of the pool. Rosa glimpsed the vague outlines of figures carrying their burdens at the south end of the terrace. Then she saw them one last time against the beam of the searchlight, black marks standing out in front of the bright light behind the trees.

A moment later the chopper took off vertically into the sky. The searchlight was switched off above the treetops. Rosa was dazzled for a few seconds, because she had been looking straight into it. When she could see again, the helicopter had merged with the night sky. The noise of its rotors moved away westward and was soon drowned out by the crackling of the flames.

Signora Falchi had moved over to the edge of the pool, as far as possible from the clouds of blood spreading through the water. She was pale as death herself. Rosa helped her up into the dry air, reassured herself that the tutor was unharmed, and shouted above the noise of the fire that she should run up the steps. “Can you make it?” she asked, gasping.

“Where’s Iole?”

“Safe.” No time for discussion. “Now get moving!”

“How about you?”

Something crashed inside the palazzo. An eruption of sparks and heat shot out of several windows at the same time.

“I’ll be right behind you,” yelled Rosa through the noise.

Coughing and dripping with water, the tutor set off.

Rosa ran across the terrace in the opposite direction, to the grassy space along the north wall. She could hardly breathe—the smell of soot was terrible, and so was the heat—but the wind from the plain drove the smoke eastward up the slope and into the pinewoods, saving her from the worst of it.

There was no one in sight outside the kitchen door now. A little farther away, firelight was reflected on the panes of the greenhouse. Smoke billowed out of its broken windows. Rosa hoped the snakes had escaped into the open air.

“Alessandro?” she called hoarsely. “Iole?”

She couldn’t see any corpses or anyone injured outside the door. If there had been dead bodies, the Hundinga had taken them away, too.

A dog barked to her left. Among the chestnut trees at the far end of the meadow, Sarcasmo was dancing around Iole, who was leaning against a tree and wearily raised one hand to wave to Rosa.

Where was Alessandro?

She searched her surroundings and saw him in his panther form when he vaulted up and over the stone balustrade of the terrace with a mighty leap. He must have searched for her down by the wall and missed seeing her. Now he was racing across the meadow toward her, and even as he ran he changed back into human form. His skin, stained with blood, gleamed in the firelight as he ran the last few feet, staggering slightly with exhaustion. Rosa hurried to meet him and caught him when he looked like he might fall.

Together, they dragged themselves into the chestnut trees, a good distance from the house, for a chance to catch their breath. They sank to the ground there among the trees. Blood was trickling from Alessandro’s wounds, and his strength was leaving him.

Rosa held him close while blazing light licked over the facade, and the rooftop of the palazzo went up in flames.