and tiger locked in combat. She doubted whether she could fight back as well as her sister.
Another scream, and this time it seemed endless. The snarling of the big cats echoed through the night. Several Panthera scuffling with one another for possession of the prey. Then came the mighty roar of a lion, and after that, silence. The argument had been settled.
She reached a crossroads in the path and turned right. Another bridge under branches hanging low. Ahead of her yawned the mouth of a pedestrian underpass. She could see the other end of it, not thirty feet away, a vague gray patch in the black of the darkness.
She stopped, listened, heard her heartbeat thudding. Alessandro’s face appeared before her mind’s eye, but that was the last thing she needed right now. She was waiting for the snake, for the ice-cold reptile in her. She didn’t want to think of Alessandro at this moment. But the more she fought against it, the more her feelings rose to the surface. She couldn’t let them distract her from what lay ahead.
From the black mouth of the tunnel.
From the muzzle of the black panther suddenly barring her way.
They stared at each other, and for a crazy moment she felt sure that the panther was Alessandro.
She hadn’t yet seen many Panthera after their transformation into big cats, but she knew that their human features could still be recognized in animal form. Only in small details. There was a certain sparkle in Alessandro’s eyes. Not in this panther’s.
She took a step backward.
Behind her, the snarling of the pack could be heard again, and then branches breaking and snapping. They were coming through the frozen winter woodland of the Ramble now, ignoring the paths, racing through the undergrowth.
The panther in front of her didn’t move, just imperceptibly raised his nose and waited. Then she realized that he was picking up the scent of the others as they charged this way through the night. Presumably working out how much time he still had to claim her just for himself.
Quickly, Rosa began climbing the steep slope to the left of the path. The panther wasn’t twelve feet away, with the tunnel opening directly behind him. Somehow or other she had to get to the top, crossing the frozen snowdrifts caught in the tangled tendrils and roots. Broad tree trunks rose above the slope. Something was moving behind them.
The panther let out a snarl, but she didn’t turn around.
Then the sounds coming from his muzzle changed.
“Not that way.”
She looked down on the path. A naked man was crouching in front of the tunnel, at first glance not much older than Rosa herself. As she stared at him, he stood up, swaying, dazed by the speed of his shift back to human form. Strands of panther fur scurried over his muscular body, branched out, and disappeared. But his eyes were still glowing; his hair was still raven black.
“I’ll help you,” he managed to say hoarsely, as his interior organs went on changing and his vocal cords became human again. He looked pale and defenseless in front of the deep, black mouth of the tunnel.
“Come with me.” He stretched out a shaking hand.
She went on climbing. Up to the trees. To the figures moving among them.
Swaying, she straightened up, and now she could see just over the top of the slope.
Two lions were prowling through the undergrowth. Then she saw the girl. Jessie was cowering behind a tree over to the right, trembling with the freezing cold as she hid from the beasts. When Rosa looked left again, there were more Panthera there. A leopard. Two tigers. A graceful lioness with huge eyes, her beautiful feline face seeming almost innocent.
The beasts were approaching Jessie’s hiding place. The girl couldn’t see them, but she probably smelled them, heard the crunch of frozen foliage and twigs under their paws. But Jessie stood there, frozen to the spot, behind the trunk of the oak tree, not daring to move.
Only her eyes were turned toward Rosa, over a distance of some twenty-five feet, pale pearls shining in the darkness. A pleading, terrified glance.
A hand was placed over Rosa’s mouth from behind and forced her down, into the shelter of the edge of the slope. A whisper in her ear, almost inaudible: “There’s nothing you can do for her.”
As if she had no will of her own left, she let him lead her down the hill. She knew he was right. But she had just turned