Hesitantly, she lowered the revolver as Fundling pointed behind her. “The cellar door.”
She looked over her shoulder, but still didn’t dare turn her back to him. This room must have once been a kitchen; a cast-iron stove stood against the rear wall. There was a narrow door beside it.
“Is he in there?” she asked huskily.
Fundling nodded again.
“Why doesn’t he say anything? He must be able to hear us.”
“They’ll have bound and gagged him. And probably chained him up. Because of the transformation.”
She hurried over to the door. The key was jammed.
“Rosa,” said Fundling gently, “wait.”
“We don’t have time. You said so yourself.”
“Do you know
what
you’re planning to set free?”
“Fundling, I’m one of them. I’m not afraid of him.”
He was about to say something in reply, but at that moment there was a crunching of tires on gravel as a vehicle drove up outside. The headlights passed the two parked Land Rovers and shone through the window. Bright white light filled the room.
Fundling took a step forward, grabbed hold of Rosa, and tore the cellar door open. She stumbled into the dark. A narrow flight of well-worn stairs led down without any rail. She leaned the palm of her hand against a bare stone wall.
Fundling let go of her. Suddenly she was alone on the steps, with nothing but darkness below her.
She looked back over her shoulder.
Fundling slipped smoothly back into the kitchen. Their glances briefly met. Then he closed the cellar door from the outside. She heard the key in the lock.
She was trapped there in the blackness.
C
URSING, SHE STUMBLED UP
the three or four steps to the top of the cellar stairs again and felt her way along the wall. When she reached the door, she hammered on the wood with the butt of her revolver. “Damn it, Fundling, open up!”
Car doors slammed outside the house. An engine was turned off. She heard muted voices in the distance.
She was gasping frantically. She breathed in the damp, musty air of the cellar. If she called and knocked again, it would draw the attention of Cesare and his men to her even sooner.
She slowly turned around. Below her everything was dark, no light at all. As if she had been dipped into a cask of black ink.
“Alessandro?” she whispered.
Something was moving down there. She heard rattling. The clink of chains.
“Alessandro, is that you?”
Outside, the voices were all talking at the same time, until one rose above the others. Cesare. She couldn’t make out what he was saying.
Cautiously, she felt around for the top step with her foot and began the downward climb. Her fingers were touching the cold stone of the wall again. There was nothing to give her any idea of how large the cellar was.
After ten steps she reached the bottom of the stairs. The wall went straight on ahead to her right. Rosa groped her way hesitantly along it.
“Where are you?”
The rattling grew louder. Even noises were swallowed up by the blackness. It was cold in the ancient stone cellar, but part of the chill came from herself. A shudder raced through her legs, took over her upper body. She had to stop for a moment to calm down.
“Where are you?”
There was a growl, and then vigorous rattling of the chains again. Farther ahead or to her left? She was having difficulty locating the sound.
“I can’t see anything,” she whispered. “I can’t find you unless I hear you.”
She followed the course of the wall. The rattling was in front of her now. She sensed the presence of someone very close.
Slowly, she put out a hand. It was unnerving to move away from the wall and the sense of direction it gave her.
Her fingers met a void.
After a moment’s hesitation, she crouched down.
She felt fur. Alarmed, she withdrew her hand. But the next moment she reached out again, and yes, there it still was. Warm, smooth fur over a supple, breathing body.
The growl turned to a gentle purring, curiously muted, which finally told her that he had been gagged. Maybe with the kind of muzzle dogs wear. He moved again, and once more links in the chain scraped over stone.
“Can’t you change back?” she asked quietly.
His anger with Cesare, maybe with himself as well, must be holding him in his animal form. His feelings were out of control, just as they had been a few days ago when he sat beside her in panther form, helpless to do anything about it, unable to turn back into human shape until she had left him alone. She had to calm him down. Get rid of the gag. Get his chains off.
There was a crashing sound on the floor above. Something had been pushed over, or smashed. A shot made her jump. No silencer, so it hadn’t been fired by Fundling.
Although she was trembling, she passed her hand gently over Alessandro’s fur. It was soft and silky. She could feel the arch of his backbone. He was lying on his side with his back to her. The chains were too short for him to stand up. The angrier he was, the harder it must be for him to change back. Older Arcadians might be able to control their transformations, but Alessandro was a victim of his emotions.
Her fingers wandered along his back and up to his neck. If he had been lying there in human form, she would have felt more timid about touching him like that.
He kept his heavy panther head perfectly still as her fingertips rubbed between his ears and hesitantly stroked his skull, then his cat-like face. He closed his eyes when her fingers passed over them. Then she touched a strap. It was indeed part of some kind of muzzle. She quickly undid the buckles and took the leather thing off his face.
He let out a sharp snarl. When she flinched back, he calmed down again. He had never said how often in the past he had changed to his panther shape, but she now guessed it couldn’t have been very often. Up above, she heard two more shots. Who was firing at whom? Had Fundling entrenched himself in the house? All that seemed very far away, as if it had nothing to do with her. An unnatural calm took hold of her. At the same time, the cold sensation moved on to her fingertips.
“Just lie there, okay?” she whispered.
He purred like a domestic cat.
Her hands moved down his muscular forelegs until they met iron rings above the paws. The chains holding him were no broader than her little finger. Then she felt for hind legs, and to do that she had to lean far over him. Her upper body touched his fur. A strange tingling ran over her skin. She tried to ignore it, let her fingers move down his legs, and found two iron rings there, too.
“Did they tranquilize you to get these things on you?”
He rubbed his head on her knee, which she took to mean yes.
Upstairs, glass broke. Someone started shouting, but farther away, probably outside.
“I still have four bullets in my revolver,” she said. “I can try to shoot the chains apart.”
His head rubbed against her leg again.
“I’ll have to put the muzzle of the gun on a link in each of the chains. Can you stretch them tauter?”
A decided snarl of assent.
She picked up the revolver, as several more shots rang out in the house overhead.
In the dark, relying only on her sense of touch, she made her way around him. “First the left foreleg.” He straightened it until the chain between the iron ring around his paw and the wall fastening was taut. She felt the tips of his retracted claws, counted four links down in the chain—she hoped that was enough not to injure him. She put the muzzle of the revolver on the metal there, took a deep breath, and concentrated.
“Ready?”
He growled.
“Here goes, then.” She pulled the trigger. The recoil was violent. A whistling explosion showed that the projectile had hit something and was now ricocheting through the darkness.
“Are you all right?” she was quick to ask.
He scraped his leg on the floor, and she realized that it was free. Her idea worked. If none of the ricochets caught her, she could get the chains off.
Someone shouted up on the first floor, someone else replied. A submachine gun chattered. More broken glass.
“We have to move faster,” she managed to say.
Soon his second foreleg was free, then the first hind leg. He tried to stand up, but she quickly laid her hand on his side, to tell him he must be patient. Only one chain now. And her last bullet.
The shot blew the links apart. This time she thought she felt the sharp blast of the ricochet close to her temples.
Alessandro leaped up, staggered, and collapsed again, almost burying her under him. At the last moment he swerved, scraped the cellar floor with his paws, and found his footing. He seemed to be standing upright now. His soft panther muzzle pressed against her throat, his hot breath sent a shiver through her. She had goose bumps.
He purred quietly and then withdrew.
All was suddenly quiet on the first floor above them. No more pistol shots, no further salvos of gunfire.
There was a groan beside her. His transformation was beginning. Soon, shaking fingers felt for her. “Thank you,” said a hoarse voice that was not yet entirely his own. His fingers were much warmer than hers.
And suddenly she felt his lips on hers, his hand gently placed on the back of her head. He was naked, she knew that without seeing him, and something was happening to her. What she had taken for goose bumps was really something else. Scales rustled now whenever she moved. The tip of her tongue touched his, and divided.
A grinding sound came from the cellar door. Someone was turning the key in the lock.
Rosa flinched, whether because of the noise, or because of what she might be changing into, she wasn’t sure.
“I’ll see what that is,” said Alessandro. Now it was undoubtedly his voice, although it still didn’t sound quite right. His metamorphosis wasn’t complete yet. And what was she herself? A girl showing the first signs of turning into a snake? The cold inside her threatened to overwhelm her, spreading to every part of her body.
When he moved away from her, her tongue changed back. Her eyes widened painfully and took on human form again. The rough scales on the backs of her hands smoothed out, growing together and merging into skin.
“Alessandro?”
“I’m on the stairs.”
Swaying, she moved as if she had to get used to her legs. Her hand felt the cellar wall, her feet found the steps. She followed him up and noticed with relief that he was waiting for her.
They went up to the closed door together. All was quiet on the other side.
“Ready?” he whispered to her.
“Not in the least.”
She heard him laugh quietly, and pictured his dimples when he smiled, the sparkle in his green eyes.
“There’s something else I have to tell you,” he whispered. At that moment the cellar door was flung open.
R
OSA BLINKED AT THE BRIGHTNESS
. Morning sunlight was falling through the window into the former farmhouse kitchen. There were bullet holes in the walls, and motionless bodies lay on the floor.
“Come out,” said the long-haired man who had opened the door. He was holding an automatic pistol in one hand.
“Remeo?”
He impatiently beckoned her out of the cellar. “Hurry up. Most of them are dead, but I don’t know about anyone down in the valley. Some of them may have stayed behind there.”
Rosa stopped in the doorway and turned around. She reached out a hand to Alessandro. He had no clothes on, but nor was he naked. Black panther fur covered parts of his body, although it was visibly thinning out. The iron rings with the remaining links of chain lay around his wrists and ankles.
His emerald eyes moved away from her to linger on Remeo and the gun in his hand. “What happened?”
“He works for Salvatore Pantaleone.” Rosa stepped back and impatiently took Alessandro’s hand. “He’s on our side. Let’s get out of here.”