same time she realized that this made it final. Tano had been dead for a long time, and now Michele was dead as well. It was over.
“They’re coming back!” someone shouted in hollow tones. “We have to get out of the courtyard.” Iole.
Then Rosa heard a familiar barking over by the entrance. There stood Sarcasmo, beside Iole, who was all bundled up and gesticulating wildly in the direction of the tunnel.
Soon none of this will matter anyway, thought Rosa. The smoke will kill us. Maybe it’s poisoned us already.
A jolt shook her body as the black panther rammed his head into Michele’s side. The body was flung off her, and she was free.
Alessandro, still in animal form, battered and bleeding, nudged her and indicated that she should stand up. Iole ran over and helped her to her feet, supporting her. The slender girl—always underestimated and in no way as helpless as she seemed—led her back into the house, and seconds later the door closed behind them.
Rosa slipped out of Iole’s grasp to the floor, felt Sarcasmo’s tongue licking her cheek encouragingly, and at the same time saw Alessandro before her. He made no move to change back into human form.
The cold was beginning to spread through her. The serum had stopped working; scales formed under her transparent skin, grew, and pushed their way out. She tried to stop the transformation, but she was too weak.
With the last of her strength, she explained her plan. Her words tailed off into hissing and spitting. Sarcasmo growled at her and retreated. Iole patted his sooty coat. But Alessandro came closer, bent his panther head over her, and nudged her with his black nose.
He had understood.
He knew what they had to do together.
Iole flung open the door to the grounds.
“Now!” she whispered, holding Sarcasmo with one hand in case he stormed out into the night. He tugged and pulled against his collar, but she wasn’t letting him go.
Rosa wound her way over the threshold and outside. With a great leap, Alessandro jumped over her, landed on the gravel path, and took up a fighting stance.
Hundinga were howling in the dark and raced up, panting, digging up earth with their claws. Saliva flew from their chops.
There were three of them, and Rosa hoped that Alessandro could deal with them. She glided over the ground through the darkness, along the facade, keeping close to the space between the wall and the gravel. Behind her she heard snapping and spitting, while up above the heat broke a window. Glass and burning sparks rained down, bouncing off her armored scales.
She reached the terrace, found a Hunding close to the pool, and at the same time saw the tutor in the water, ducking low under the rim of the basin so that the creature wouldn’t see her.
Neither of them noticed Rosa as she coiled around the stone balustrade in a wild slalom course that finally brought her to the stairway. She slid down it, followed the course of the wall, and found the bags that the Hundinga had brought.
One was still open. The cell phone lay in the middle of crumpled camouflage clothing.
This time it all went so fast that she almost cried out as the transformation set in, but only a hiss would come from her snake mouth. Until it turned back into lips, and by then the urge was gone.
She lay naked beside the Hundinga equipment on the ground, breathing hard with effort and the smoke still burning her throat.
Her trembling hand reached for the phone.
There was no list of contacts, only a single number that had been called. Rosa tapped it.
“Yes?” answered a hoarse male voice. Old and unhealthy rather than hungry.
Rosa coughed smoke out of her lungs, gathered all her strength, and said what she had to say.
A little later the noise of powerful rotors could be heard, approaching over the plain.
The helicopter came in without any lights, invisible in the night. The pilot didn’t switch on a searchlight until he was right outside the burning palazzo. The light stabbed far through the billowing smoke, passed over the tops of the olive trees, brushed past Rosa, went off and on again three times. A signal.
Howling rose from many throats all around the property—up on the terrace, along the north facade, and at the gateway tunnel to the south of the house.
From the foot of the palms, Rosa watched as the helicopter touched down on the meadow beside the courtyard. Its landing was hidden by bushes