by Kai Meyer
The storm still hung over the other side of the mountain, but it was raining without stopping. Thunder rolled at earsplitting volume. Flashes of lightning came thick and fast, illuminating the sky on the other side of the volcanic cone.
They had been walking for some time, struggling up the winding path, when Rosa abruptly broke the silence. “You think he’s going to kill her too, don’t you?”
Alessandro sighed softly.
She stopped, rivulets of rain washing around her shoes, and turned the beam of her flashlight on his rainproof hood from behind. He turned and blinked at the light, but she studied his face in its brightness for a moment before lowering the flashlight. “That’s why you were ready to come up here right away,” she said.
“I think… ,” he began, and then stopped, searching for words. “It probably wasn’t a great idea for me to mention it to Cesare. I ought to have known better. I know him, and I know how he solves problems. I can only hope he’s racking his brains about something else at the moment, and we get there in time.”
What was she going to do if they found Iole’s corpse in the villa? This idea hadn’t even crossed her mind before. An unaccustomed sense of responsibility stirred in her. “Let’s go,” she said huskily.
He adjusted his pace to hers and stayed beside her for the rest of the way. Their hands touched several times, but only through the sleeves of their raincoats. The winding road was steeper than she had thought at first, and it was tempting to take shortcuts and clamber over the rocks. But that would probably cost them too much strength, and ultimately take even more time.
Finally they rounded the last bend. The villa lay just ahead of them. In a rapid series of lightning flashes, the complex looked like even more of a jumble than it had by daylight. In its way, it came from another era as much as the concrete bunker down by the shore. The huge windowpanes reflected the lightning and magnified the raindrops leaping up in the glare. But as soon as the bright light faded, darkness reigned.
Alessandro opened the barred gate. He closed it carefully again behind them, shone his flashlight once more back through the iron bars, scanning the front courtyard and the slope, then hurried toward the house with Rosa. They brought the wet weather in with them, and stood dripping in the entrance hall. The front door latched shut with an echoing crash.
Rosa took off her raincoat and let it fall to the tiles. “Iole?” she called. Only now did she notice that their powerful flash-lights were still the only light in the place.
Alessandro walked over to the switch near the corridor leading to the rooms and flipped it several times. The house stayed dark.
“Was it working when we were here before?” he asked in annoyance, but he seemed to be talking to himself.
Rosa mopped rainwater off her forehead. “The sun was shining outside. We didn’t need to turn on any lights.”
He crossed the wide hall to another switch and tried that one. Nothing. Through the opaque glass of lamp shades like curved bowls, you couldn’t see whether the lightbulbs had been damaged or removed.
He swore, and tried the next room, with the same result.
The rain pattered against the windows in front of the house; its dull drumming came from all directions at once. The streams of water running down the glass left a marbled pattern of rain shadows on the interior of the rooms.
Rosa let the circular beam of her flashlight wander around. “Iole?” she called again, louder this time. “Iole, it’s us. Rosa and Alessandro.” Suddenly she wasn’t sure whether she had ever called the girl by her name.
When there was still no answer, she tried to remember which way the chain on Iole’s ankle had led. Not to the salon with the steps leading upstairs, but to one of the rooms on the right side of the hall.
Alessandro was there already, looking around him. As he walked he stripped off his raincoat. The stiff, rubberized fabric dropped onto the yellow-and-red carpet, only half collapsing, and lay there like a hunchbacked gnome. “Maybe she’s hiding.”
She looked darkly at him. “Maybe.”
“Cesare would never have sent anyone out here that fast.”
“How about Tano?”
Images like lightning flashes. The tiger with human eyes. Yellowish fur on Tano’s back while they were fighting on the beach. And the black color spreading over Alessandro’s body. His huge pupils.
She wasn’t going to leave this island until he told her the truth.
Alessandro steadily met her questioning gaze. “No, I don’t know what happened here. It’s possible they came to take Iole away. Maybe worse. Or she might be hiding somewhere in the house.”
“She was kept on a chain. How hard can it be to find her?” Impatiently, she moved away. Even the hood hadn’t kept her mane of wet blond hair from sticking to her shoulders and forehead. She pushed strands roughly out of her eyes. She was beginning to feel cold, because the black stockings she wore under her minidress were also drenched.
“Let me go first.” He moved past her. “I know where to start.”
“We ought to have tried getting that bloody chain off her right away.”
“Without tools?”
“Yes, I know. It’s just that … we shouldn’t have left her behind.”
“Let’s keep searching.”
She followed him, running the beam of her flashlight over any places he forgot. Mostly, she searched the floor. That chain had been thin, but anyone was bound to see it. Iole couldn’t hide behind furniture or in a corner without her silver shackle giving her away.
They walked through several salons and reception rooms, all full of retro seventies furniture, from beanbags to transparent plastic sofas and Lava Lamps. And everywhere those huge windows ran from floor to ceiling. Beyond them were only the night and the pouring rain, illuminated by flashes of lightning. Shadowy streaks flowing from the walls opposite the windows, making their way over the floor.
Outside, something moved. She thought at first that it was her own reflection in the windowpane. Then she saw that there was something behind the glass, something crouching low. Not small in itself, just staying down. On all fours.
Instinctively, she looked around her, back through the corridors from room to room, and saw at a distance the black gnome of Alessandro’s raincoat.
“Rosa!” Alessandro’s voice was alarmingly far away. He hadn’t noticed that she was lingering behind him. The beam of his flashlight showed that he was already two rooms ahead. She couldn’t see Alessandro himself, only the sporadic movement of his flashlight.
“Over here,” he called. “Here—come look at this.”
HUNTING INSTINCT
IT WAS A SMALL room on the first floor. Probably the only room in the whole house to have no window, just a barred skylight.
The room lay beyond the spacious kitchen that Rosa had crossed earlier, and must once have been a larder.
Now it was a prison cell.
Against one wall stood a bed with tumbled sheets and greasy pillows. The bedclothes hadn’t been changed in a long time. Rosa felt a pang, because although she herself had so often felt all alone, only now did she understand what being alone really meant.
There were a few old magazines lying around. Some books, carefully stacked. Crumpled garments that looked as if someone had emptied a rack in a department store, buying the same thing over and over again just as long as the size was right. Plain dresses that the prisoner could put on over her head, because the chain on her leg kept her from climbing into them.
The longer Rosa looked around, the more details she noticed. Alessandro was standing beside her, one hand clenched into a fist, his lips pressed together so tightly that all the color had drained out of them.
Two iron rings were set in the wall beside the door. The chain lay on the floor, a little heap of silver. The empty ankle ring emerged from it like the head of a snake.
“She’s gone,” whispered Rosa.
Alessandro was staring at the chain as if he were paralyzed.
“I’ll murder him,” whispered Alessandro.
“That won’t help Iole.”
“The bastard!” He spun around and walked past her and into the kitchen, where he opened several drawers. They were all empty.
“She won’t be in there,” Rosa pointed out.
Another drawer. Then the cupboards. All empty, except for one containing packs of microwave dinners.
“What are you looking for?”
There was an animal roar outside.
“A knife,” he said. “For you.”
In a few swift steps she was beside him, a hand on his shoulder. “What’s happening here?”
“You heard that, didn’t you?”
“I’m not deaf.”
“They’ve been prowling around the house for some time.”
“They?” Rosa tried to suppress her thoughts of Iole and think only of herself again. She had so much damn practice in that, why didn’t it work now?
“Animals,” he said. “Big cats.”
She held on to his shoulder more firmly; it had to be painful for him, but he didn’t shake her hand off. “Tano?” she asked tonelessly.
“I don’t think so. No.”
She struggled against her anger, against her helplessness. “What’s going on, Alessandro? Why did that tiger look at me with Tano’s eyes? I didn’t just imagine it, did I?”
“I’d hoped your aunt would explain that to you. Or your sister.”
That roar again. It was answered at once, at closer quarters, from right outside the kitchen windows. Rosa tried to make something out, but all she could see was the rain beating against the panes.
“I’ll tell you all about it,” said Alessandro. “I promise. But first we have to get away from here.”
“Take a stroll out there, you mean?” she asked sarcastically. “Oh, sure.”
The sound of heavy movement came from several rooms away.
“One of the glass doors opening,” whispered Alessandro. “Hell, I knew it.”
“Knew what?”
“There’s someone else on the island. Someone who keeps the animals shut up during the day, then lets them out to wander free at night. Someone has to feed them and get them back into their cages. A kind of overseer.”
“What is all this?” She let go of his shoulder. Her arm felt as heavy as lead. “Your family’s private zoo?”
“It’s like your aunt’s snake house, I’m afraid. Only not with snakes.” He went to the doorway. “I didn’t know about this. They used to be kept somewhere else. Cesare dares to use my mother’s island to—” He cut his sentence short when he saw that there was no door ahead for him to close. Rosa too realized, at that moment, that she had seen nothing but open rooms and corridors all over the house. All the doors had been taken off their hinges.
“Come on,” whispered Alessandro.
Reluctant as she felt, she still followed him, because something in his voice made her feel blind trust in him.
Made her feel blind trust in him. Later she’d taste those words with relish on her tongue—if she ever got the chance.
There were so many reasons not to trust him. He had kept a great deal hidden from her, might even have lied to her. And yet he was the first person in a whole year whom she’d told about Nathaniel of her own free will. It hadn’t even been difficult. But now she was sorry again.
The sound of roaring once more.
Inside the house this time.
“He’s let them in.” Alessandro stood still and listened, his posture strange. Leaning slightly forward, waiting. Like an animal picking up a scent.
She was feeling colder. Shivers ran through her limbs.
“Whoever’s looking after the animals here is one of Cesare’s men,” he murmured. “He probably called him, let him know we’re here.”
“And Cesare told him to let those creatures loose on us?”
“Perhaps to scare you. Or to kill both of us.” He looked at her, a question in his eyes. “Do you have your cell phone with you?”
“No.” She’d left it on her bed in the palazzo that morning.
“Then there’ll be no helicopter coming to the rescue this time.”
“What do you mean—?” She fell silent as the truth dawned on her. “You think that’s how she knew I was with you and the others?”
“I’ll bet it was a present, right? The moment you arrived.” He snorted bitterly, nodding toward a staircase to the upper floor and heading toward it. “Up here, come on!”
“They … you mean there’s a transmitter in the bloody thing?”
“Of course.” He came back, took her hand, and impatiently led her over to the stairway. “It’s nothing unusual in the families. Children of the clans are often kidnapped or try to run away. Many parents even have tiny transmitters implanted under their sons’ and daughters’ skin so they can find them in an emergency.”
For a moment she followed him as if in a trance. The narrow stairwell wound around and around. She felt that Zoe and Florinda had betrayed her. Had he, too? She was less and less sure of her own feelings.
Alessandro stopped when he reached the upper floor. He put his forefinger to his mouth. His lips silently formed the words: No talking.
They were in a corridor. Faint gray light filtered through open doorways. Rain hammered on glass.
Something moved at the far end of the corridor, then froze and stood there. Rosa saw only a black silhouette. It was impossible to see exactly what it was. A tiger. A lioness. As if exactly what kind of animal tore her apart made any difference.
The big cat was listening intently, ears pricked. A long black tail swung slowly back and forth, a sign of pent-up tension.
Neither she nor Alessandro moved from the spot. The drumming of the rain must be irritating the animal as well. It obviously hadn’t yet recognized the two of them as potential prey.
Now the cat began to move again. Came down the corridor with a flowing, silent elegance that was both majestic and murderous.
Alessandro let go of Rosa’s hand.
The animal disappeared through one of the open doorways. It wouldn’t stay long in the room beyond the doorway if it found nothing there.
Alessandro signaled to her, but she was faster. She was already racing down the corridor the other way. He followed her into a guest room with no door to its en suite bathroom. Strange that the doors had been removed from all the bedrooms. It reminded her of a zoo enclosure. A playground where animals could hide and chase one another. Was that what this house had been used for, before Iole was hidden here?
“The window,” whispered Alessandro.
She didn’t expect it to open, but he had only to press a lever down and the pane swung in. Rain pattered into the room, along with the smell of wet stone. They were in a side wing of the villa. Rosa saw rough lava rock below the window. You couldn’t see the perimeter wall here, as you could from the front of the house, but it was probably farther away, hidden in the dark.
“Can you jump down?” he asked quietly.
She looked back at the doorway over her shoulder. If there was something approaching on velvet paws, the deep darkness meant that not even a shadow would give advance warning.
She nodded vigorously. This was the upper story, and bare rock gleamed below. But the window came almost right down to the floor of the room, so it was less than nine feet to jump in all.
“I can go first and try to catch you,” he suggested.
The idea of landing in his arms like some captive fairy-tale princess was so silly that she almost smiled. She shook her head, climbed out on the narrow windowsill and past him, looked around for any animals stalking closer—and jumped.
The impact was much harder than she’d expected. She felt as if her legs had been rammed up inside her body. She lost her balance, fell forward, hands first, and landed on her knees. Rough lava rock tore her stockings, grazing
her skin. At first she felt nothing, then it burned like fire, and she knew without having to look that she was bleeding.
Once the animals picked up that scent, there’d be no way of distracting them.
“All right?” whispered Alessandro from above.
Her face distorted with pain, she pushed herself up, swayed for a moment, and then stood upright. Her feet hurt, so did her legs and her hips. But when she cautiously moved, she decided that nothing was broken or sprained.
Blinking, she looked up at the window and stood aside. Alessandro glanced behind him and suddenly seemed to be in much more of a hurry. He took off from the sill, drew his legs up as he jumped, stretched his arms downward and landed neatly, crouching on all fours, his knees out at an angle. He didn’t even wince as he stood up, smiled at her incredulous gaze, took her hand again, and tried to drag her along after him. Her fingers, wet with rain, slipped out of his grasp, but she followed him anyway, stumbling slightly and gritting her teeth. At least she could still run.
They hurried past the facade of the villa, along a kind of ditch that ended on one side at the wall of the house and at the other against rocks. Somewhere in the darkness a big cat roared again; two others answered. At least one of them was out here. The roar had sounded very close.
They reached the end of the side wing. The lava rock to their left no longer rose as steeply. When Rosa looked cautiously around the corner, she saw that they had reached the front of the house. The perimeter wall surrounding the grounds rose thirty feet or so ahead. Alessandro had closed the gate to the front courtyard when they arrived, but it stood open now.
Rosa looked at him. Their eyes met. He seemed uncertain of himself, and she wondered whether that was because of the injury to her knees. The warm blood seeping through her torn stockings. He raised a hand. Before she could flinch back, he stroked her wet hair back from her face, leaned forward, and kissed her on the mouth. It was hardly more than a fleeting touch, but the protest inside her refused to pass her lips.
