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.
THE LEOPARD
SHE WOUND HER WAY up the steps to the terrace, keeping close to the wall. Her reptilian skin shimmered in shades of bronze and gold.
The wide panoramic terrace of the palazzo lay ahead of her, surrounded by a heavy stone balustrade, gray in the pale moonlight. The next front of clouds was already coming up, and soon everything would be in deep shadow again. Someone must have switched off the motion detectors on the outdoor spotlights in the tops of the palm trees.
The first-floor windows were barred, and no light showed in any of them. The living quarters were on the second floor. Here, and on the west side of the palazzo, there were several bedrooms. Signora Falchi was standing at the open window of one of them, aiming a gun down at the terrace.
One dead man lay on the patio; a second was drifting in a cloud of blood in the swimming pool. The bluish glow from the pool flickered over the facade in indistinct reflections. The tutor’s face shone in that light as if it were covered with glass.
Rosa saw a movement on the very edge of her field of vision—only a scurrying, but at once a muzzle flash flared at the window. The bullet whipped over the terrace without hitting anyone. The Hunding for whom it had been intended came leaping up the steps, growling, right where Rosa was. He was not the same as the one she had already seen, but a powerful bulldog. With her responsive snake senses, Rosa felt the ground vibrate beneath his paws. At the same time her aggression was roused. In human form she would have run for it, or she might have been frozen with horror at the sight of the monster racing up; as a snake, however, she wanted to accept the challenge.
The Hunding knew that he was facing no ordinary reptile, but a Lamia. He stopped six feet away from her, went into an attack stance, and bared his murderous teeth. Rosa’s snake body reared up, and she hissed. He was about to leap onto her, but she was too quick. With a powerful coiling movement she shot toward him and then below him, digging her fangs into the soft skin beneath his ribs. The Hunding yowled in pain and thrust his muzzle downward, but before he could snap at her, she rammed her body against his skull. The yowling turned to a howl, and then she bit a second time, tasted his blood, and felt nothing but triumph.
She made use of the moment of surprise to coil herself around him. He fell heavily on his side, kicked out in panic, and snapped at her again. Quick as a flash, she squeezed her body hard around him, felt his bones breaking, crushed his ribs, his lungs, his internal organs.
More shots rang out, and when she looked up she saw that another Hunding had fallen to a bullet fired by the tutor. He had come out of cover to hurry to the aid of Rosa’s opponent. He didn’t get far.
Did Signora Falchi know who the snake really was? Was that why she had shot the second Hunding? Or would Rosa be next in her line of fire?
The dead Hunding in Rosa’s grip began turning back into human form. She quickly withdrew, glided over the terrace to the outer wall of the house, and followed its course northward. The bars over the windows were too close together for her to put her head through and break the glass with her skull, and the doors had security locks and bolts; her grandmother had made sure that no intruder would find it easy to get in.
She heard panting and growling in the shadows. The farther she went from the pool and its underwater lighting, the darker it was. The Hundinga were watching her. As soon as Rosa moved out of the tutor’s line of fire, there would be nothing to hold them back. Presumably most of them knew that she