by Kai Meyer
“Sorry,” he whispered. She thought he meant about the kiss, but he added, “For bringing you here.”
“I wanted to come,” she said tonelessly. “What about Iole? Do you think she’s still here?”
He shook his head. “If she’s alive, they’ve taken her away. Maybe I was wrong and Cesare kept his word. Something new, but not unimaginable.”
“That’ll make us look rather foolish if his animals tear us to pieces.”
“They won’t. Trust me.”
Through the rain his hair looked very black again, as it had down on the beach. His eyes seemed darker, too.
She pointed to the barred gate. “Is that the only way?”
“It’s the quickest. Just follow the road. Run, and don’t turn around.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll follow.”
“But why…?”
“Please,” he said urgently. “Just go on ahead. And wait—you have to memorize the number code for the gate down at the landing.” He told her a sequence of six figures. Only after a moment did she work out that it sounded like his mother’s date of birth. That would fit, if the two final numbers stood for a year.
Then they ran. Out of the shelter of the wall of the house, into the space between the villa and the perimeter wall, while the rain whipped into their faces and the roar of the big cats rose again.
A moment later something crashed into the armored glass of the windows from inside.
“Faster!” Alessandro was no longer trying to keep his voice down.
They ran through the gate, crossed the front courtyard, and turned onto the winding road. On the way up it had seemed endless to Rosa, but now she could see the shore below through the darkness and the rain. However, the landing was a few hundred yards farther north along the coastline. And there were all those bends, and pursuers behind them who wouldn’t bother to follow the road but would take shortcuts over the rocks.
Alessandro stayed a little way behind her, though he could run faster than she could. Her knees hurt, her legs felt strange. He could easily have overtaken her, but he hung back. She heard his footsteps and thought of what he had said: Don’t turn around.
All the same, she instinctively glanced over her shoulder. Asking Rosa not to do something was a surefire way of getting her to do it anyway.
Alessandro kept looking back himself, even now. There was something thirty yards or so behind them on the road, a blurred shape in the rain, moving much faster than they were and just on the verge of catching up.
Rosa looked ahead again so that she could stay on the road. She would fall at once among the rocks. She had to stay on the asphalt road surface and try not to slip in the rivulets of water.
When she glanced back once more, Alessandro had disappeared.
Shredded clothing was scattered on the road. The sight was like a hard blow in her back, making her stumble, and when she somehow caught herself up she stood there, swaying.
“Alessandro?”
Their pursuer, too, had stayed beyond the dark rocks at that last bend in the road. For a moment, even the pattering of the rain seemed to fall silent. Rosa stood in the middle of the road, eyes narrowed, staring up the mountain and hearing nothing but her own heartbeat and fast breathing. The raindrops seemed to fall from the sky in slow motion. She felt as if she could pluck each of them out of the air with her fingertips, one by one.
Rigid, she looked back up the road. At the clothes lying in the rain as it ran downhill. Reluctantly, she searched the ground for other traces. For blood mingling with the water.
A deep growl, unexpectedly close, reached her ears. She smelled the hot breath of a beast of prey. Not like the tiger in the forest, wilder.
Slowly, she turned her head to one side. Looked at the rock rising not nine feet away from the roadside.
A full-grown lion with a dripping mane stood there, mighty muscles visible under his wet, gleaming coat. His eyes were burning. He looked at her, the scent of her warm blood in his nostrils, his mouth half-open to bare the teeth that would be tearing at her any moment now.
She spun around and ran on, although she knew it was useless. She ran as fast as she could. Only when nothing pounced on her did she look back.
The blackness of the night was coagulating into a solid, supple body that leaped up the rock and rammed into the lion. The beast roared, lost his balance, and fell heavily to one side, snapping at his attacker and carrying the other animal down with him.
The lion crashed sideways onto the road with a furious roar. The second big cat landed on him, striking out with claws and fangs, shredding fur and flesh. Then it leaped over him, whirled around again, and turned to its opponent. The lion rose too, mad with pain and rage, and lost no time in counterattacking.
When a flash of lightning lit up the night, Rosa saw the second animal more clearly. The sight was still flickering before her eyes while she ran down the mountain, feeling numbed.
A panther, black as pitch, almost as large as his adversary, but slender and more supple. His open mouth full of gleaming teeth.
She carried the images and sounds of the fighting animals down the slope with her. She hardly felt the road beneath her feet, and saw the landing and the barred gate only when she had almost reached them.
A man barred her way. Rosa had no time to feel surprised. She rammed her shoulder into his chest with a groan and, running full tilt, leaped past him before he could grab hold of her, and reached the shore. Waves broke against the rocks, sending the surf three feet high.
Behind her, higher up the slope, the panther and the lion were locked in battle. The man called something that she couldn’t make out.
At the far end of the concrete landing, the lights of the Gaia shone through the driving rain.
Now only the barred gate stood between Rosa and the yacht. The numerical combination would open it—if she could tap it into the keypad in time. Water made the gleaming surfaces flow together like liquid steel.
Once again the man behind her called out. Heavy footsteps were coming closer. And she heard something else through the rain—the roars of several big cats.
She looked back. The figure was coming closer across the open space. Three shadows moved away from the black mass of the rocks.
Rosa found the flap by the gate and opened it. A red light shone above the keypad.
NUMERICAL CODE DELETED, said the words on an illuminated panel. NEW COMBINATION ACCEPTED.
The man had changed the bloody code. She couldn’t get back to the yacht.
Cursing, she turned around, avoided her pursuer’s hands, and saw the three big cats racing up. Her one escape route led to the old weapons silo.
She ran through the broad entrance into the bare concrete room behind. Bent low to slip through the opening in the back wall.
The rank smell of beasts of prey surrounded her.
THE CAGES
NEON LIGHTING SHONE DOWN from a gray ceiling, one of the tubes flickering and humming louder than the others. Insects crashed against the glass.
Rosa looked around, her breath coming fast and her heart thudding; she could hear it behind her eyes. Her head ached, and her vision was blurred.
The stench in the rectangular concrete room was terrible. Straw covered the floor, and there were several grates over openings in the walls that led to individual cages. Four of the grates were open, two closed. If there was anything alive in there, it wasn’t showing itself. The room outside the cages contained a wide water trough and huge bowls with shreds of dried meat on their rims.
Rosa looked back at the space outside the room. The three big cats had crossed it and were approaching slowly, relaxed and confident. As they did so, they passed the man without even looking at him. They knew him; he fed them and looked after them. All Rosa could see of him was the outline of his figure and the woolly cap he wore.
The opening through which she had entered the straw-covered space was a short tunnel about six feet long through the m
assive concrete wall. Only one of the animals could fit through it at a time. There was a barred door closing the tunnel off, but it lay at the far end, and she couldn’t get at it from her side without moving closer to the creatures. That would have been suicide, since all three were prowling into the building now. They’d be on her in a few minutes.
She hastily looked around her. An iron door at the back of the room might be the zookeeper’s way in when he came to feed the animals. She walked over, and almost slipped and fell on the big cats’ droppings. What a lovely death that would be, she thought. Landing with your butt in tiger shit while the beast itself bites your head off.
One of the big cats let out a roar. It was already in the tunnel. Rosa put out her hand to the iron door but couldn’t turn the doorknob, even with both hands.
With a cry of rage, she kicked the door. It didn’t even shake. She heard the rustle of straw behind her.
To her right, one of the cages stood open. Without thinking, she took three steps toward it, seized the grating, and pulled it shut after her as she ran in. Iron crashed as the door struck the frame—and rebounded off it. Rosa was thrown backward, but she didn’t let go of the grating. She closed it again, a little more slowly—and this time the barred grating latched into place.
Groaning, with a dry mouth and burning eyes, she looked out through the bars.
A white lioness stood on the other side, staring at her. Her fur was wet and dirty, her paws black with mud. She growled and came closer, raised one paw, and struck the barred door with it.
Rosa retreated, stumbling farther into her voluntary prison, and only now did she realize that she wasn’t sure whether it was really empty. Expecting the worst, she spun around.
Here, too, a neon tube shone from the cement ceiling. Straw covered one side of the cage, sand the rest of it. In the back wall, at eye level, was a horizontal slit that had probably once been a loophole for gunners. It had been closed from the other side with some kind of yellow substance sprayed into it, bulging like a sore into the interior of the room. A water pipe also ran through the slit and into a trough.
The lioness struck the door again. Rosa jumped. When the zookeeper came in with his keys, she wouldn’t be safe here anymore. But there was no way out. She had maneuvered herself right into a trap.
Outside, she heard a human scream. Wild roars and growls reached her ears, muted by the concrete. The lioness paced restlessly back and forth before deciding to stand by her companions. She disappeared back down the tunnel.
Rosa took a deep breath. She felt like she was about to throw up. Not just because of the stench. Images flickered through her mind, but she couldn’t pin any of them down. The lion up on the rock. The panther who had come to her aid. Alessandro’s wet clothes scattered in the rain puddles. It was clear to her now what it all meant, and she stopped trying to shut the idea out.
But she had guessed long ago, hadn’t she? The tiger with Tano’s eyes. Zoe’s injuries and the lies she’d told about them. But it was one thing to imagine people turning into giant snakes, something else entirely to actually see it happen.
A howl rose outside, interrupted by a hoarse roar. Then silence. Finally the whimpering of an animal in retreat. Maybe two. Someone called out, but the voice ended in a dull sound of pain.
Step by step, Rosa retreated from the barred door until she could see only a small section of the room outside the cage. A strip of straw, the closed iron door. Her calves backed into the water trough against the wall, and she stopped. She pulled at the metal pipe sticking out of the wall, but it wouldn’t budge. There was nothing else she could use as a weapon.
She was sweating, but at the same time she felt terribly cold. When she looked at her forearm, she saw that the veins were standing out in a blue network, as if her blood had been exchanged for ink. Her skin was dry and scaly as if she had eczema.
She’d felt this once before, waking up in the greenhouse in that strange state between trance and a hyperawareness of her surroundings. She was trembling, sweating, with tears in her eyes. She felt sick, but she stayed on her feet, one hand on the iron pipe, the other clutching the drenched fabric of her minidress. Something was trickling into her eyes like sand. But when she wiped her face, the back of her hand was white with the scales of skin peeling from her forehead, sticking to the bridge of her nose and her cheekbones, gluing her eyes shut.
“You don’t have it under control,” said a voice at the entrance to the room.
Alessandro was now wearing jeans much too large for him. His bare torso shone with a mixture of rainwater and blood. “You have to suppress it. It’s the best thing to do right now.”
But how could she suppress it when she didn’t even know what it was?
Alessandro set to work on the lock of the cage with a bunch of keys. The third one fit, and the grate swung open.
Stumbling, Rosa supported herself on the rough concrete of the wall with an outstretched arm. Exhausted, she let her head drop forward, looked at the floor without seeing anything, and tried to concentrate on her breathing. She still wasn’t entirely successful, but she imagined warm air streaming into her rib cage, pushing away the icy cold, forcing it out of her. It worked.
He rested his hands gently on her shoulders from behind. Warmth seemed to flow out of them and spread through her whole body. The trembling died down, and now it came only in short bursts of shivering.
His fingertips carefully felt their way down her ribs, held her waist, closed around her flat stomach. He held her very firmly, pressing his upper body to her back, burying his face in her wet hair. Warming her until the last of the shivering went away. She was still shaking slightly, but for a different reason, one that frightened her almost as much as the big cats.
They stood like that for a long time, her back to his chest, and she didn’t ask what had happened outside because no words would pass her lips, only a hissing that sounded strange and alarming even to her own ears.
THE ARCADIAN DYNASTIES
ROSA AND ALESSANDRO SAT wrapped in blankets in the saloon on the top deck, among the shiny gold fittings and expensive wood paneling. Artificial flames flickered in the fireplace; a hidden fan wafted gentle warmth with a pinewood fragrance through the air.
“I’ve never in my life seen anything so awful,” said Rosa, and she didn’t mean the animal cages on the island.
“Not everyone can afford it,” said Alessandro, “so it must be something special. At least, that’s what my father thought.”
They were sitting opposite each other in two big wing chairs in front of the fire. The Gaia was on her way back to her home harbor on the north coast of Sicily and would be under way for more than another two hours. The sea was rough, but the storm was over.
Rosa wore a fluffy bathrobe much too large for her, and fur slippers. Her own clothes were in the dryer on the lower deck. She had snuggled deep into the chair, drawing up her knees, which now had bandages over the scrapes. The blanket came right up to her chin. She was still freezing, but that was partly because she was so tired.
“Go ahead,” she demanded.
Alessandro was wearing a Norwegian sweater, borrowed from a member of the crew, and an old pair of jeans that he had found in one of the cabins. The zookeeper’s jeans that he had worn in the cage were back with their owner somewhere belowdecks, where the crew had locked the man in. Alessandro was wrapped in a blanket as well, and he held a steaming cup of tea. Rosa hated tea.
“You really don’t know anything about it?” he asked.
She stared at him over the blanket and shook her head. Her old impatience was returning.
“That book,” he said, “Aesop’s Fables. I gave it to you because I wanted to know how you’d react. To find out what they’d told you. If you’d known, then you would have said something. Given yourself away.”
“What makes you think so? You didn’t know me at all.”
He grinned. “I got to know you on that plane.”
She sighed so
ftly.
“The fables are about animals with human qualities. And all of us, your family, my family, many of the others—we’re the same. Or maybe the exact opposite, depending how you look at it.”
She briefly considered acting stupid so that he’d finally put it into words. Human beings turning into animals. Tigers and snakes and panthers.
“Have you ever heard of the Arcadian dynasties?”
She shook her head and thought, Here we go again, this must be the Alessandro who’d been taught rhetoric at boarding school.
“A country called Arcadia keeps coming up in ancient Greek mythology. In fact there’s still an Arcadia today. It’s a province of modern Greece, but it’s only taken on the old name. The earlier Arcadia, the one in the old stories, was a Greek island kingdom in the Mediterranean. Over thousands of years it acquired a few more names, too.”
“And they taught you all this stuff at Hogwarts?”
“One of the names is Atlantis.”
She looked at him sternly. “Panthers, Alessandro. And lions. Not little green men, okay?”
He drank some of his tea, made a face, and went on. “In the earliest Greek legends, only the gods could take on animal form—never human beings. But that changed when Zeus, the father of the gods, visited the kingdom of Arcadia one day. It was ruled at the time by a king called Lycaon, and more than anything else he was a criminal.”
“Same as us,” she said gloomily.
“Lycaon wasn’t only a tyrant, he was also a cannibal. He ate human flesh. When Zeus dined at his table, King Lycaon had large chunks of meat on spits served to him. Zeus tasted them and instantly knew what they were. In his anger and disgust he cursed all of Arcadia, starting with its ruler. He turned Lycaon into a wolf, so that everyone would know what a beast he was, and what he fed on.”
“Clearly we have all the time in the world,” she said crossly. “Feel free to start way back with the dinosaurs—just as long as you get to the Carnevares and Alcantaras sometime.”
