Val pushed the gun hard against her skull. “Shut up! This has nothing to do with you!”
“It’s my head,” said Iole.
“Leave her alone,” Rosa said again. “This is between you and me. Why are you dragging her into it?”
“And suppose I do let her go? You’ll turn into a snake, and I’ll be dead before I can fire this gun.”
“No one has to die, Val.”
But Valerie wasn’t buying it. “Take that stuff off the desk and inject it into yourself.”
“And then what?”
“Michele will be back any minute. You’ll stay in human form if you inject the serum. That’s what he wants.”
“And what do you want?”
“I want you to get on with it and do as I say!”
Rosa knew she’d be dead if Michele got his claws into her in her human form. Her chances as a snake weren’t much better, but if she didn’t change, Michele would tear her to pieces before Alessandro’s eyes.
That was assuming that Alessandro was nearby.
Valerie cursed because Rosa still didn’t move. Then she fired the pistol.
The shot echoed deafeningly back from the paneling. It must have been audible all over the palazzo. Somewhere in the endless corridor, Michele would now be making his way straight back to the study.
Valerie had lowered the gun. The bullet hadn’t been for Iole’s head. For a moment Rosa thought it had shattered Iole’s knee.
The girl was white as a sheet, her eyes reddened, but she was still sitting there, rigid with fright. Smoke, or maybe dust as well, was billowing out of a bullet hole in the sofa right next to her leg.
“The syringe!” Valerie demanded again.
Rosa went over to the desk. She resisted the urge to look over her shoulder and through the archway. If she were to see the huge leopard racing toward her out of the dim light in the corridor, it would only paralyze her.
She put out her hand and moved the syringe out of the circle of light cast by the lamp on the desk. The serum shone gold inside it.
“Hurry up,” said Valerie.
Rosa reached out her left arm. “You have more experience with this kind of thing than me. Maybe you’d better help me.”
“Maybe, because I’m also dumb as a post. You can do it yourself.”
Iole let out a cry of pain as Valerie jammed the pistol into her ribs.
Rosa put the syringe to her arm, took a deep breath, and thrust it in. It hurt ten times more than at the doctor’s.
“All of it,” Valerie ordered. “Down to the very last drop.”
The serum was streaming into Rosa’s arm. She knew that doctors usually injected directly into a vein. Although she could see her own veins clearly beneath her fair skin, she had deliberately aimed to one side. If she injected the serum under her skin instead of into her bloodstream, it might be longer before it took effect. A swelling was already forming around the place where the needle had gone in because the fluid wasn’t dispersing quickly enough.
Still, she emptied the entire contents into her arm, tore it out again and flung it over to Valerie on the sofa. Valerie jumped, then looked at the empty syringe, and nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Michele will be here soon.”
Rosa put her hand over the swelling and pretended to be massaging the place. Whether she was really managing to delay the effect she didn’t know, or how long it would be for. She had to shift shape as quickly as possible.
But the pistol was still aimed at Iole. Valerie seemed capable of anything to prove her love to Michele.
“And what about Mattia?” asked Rosa. “Was that all a show? Don’t you care about his death?” She tried to read the meaning of the slight tremor in Valerie’s features. “Or that it was Michele who killed him?”
“That’s a lie!” cried Val. “Michele never touched him. Mattia is dead because Alessandro had him murdered. Like all the rest of them.”
“The moment Michele opens his mouth he tells lies.”
A big cat roared somewhere close.
Valerie smiled maliciously. “Tell him that to his face.”
Iole was shifting back and forth on the sofa. “My back itches.”
The roar came again.
The swelling was going down beneath Rosa’s hand. The serum was dispersing faster than she had expected.
Another roar, but it sounded different. As if it didn’t come from the same big cat, but from another.
At the same moment, several Hundinga howled. Valerie jumped up, looking anxious, and hauled Iole to her feet.