Bite: A Shifters of Theria Novel (23 page)

“That’s right, Mr Pesconi.”

“And there’s no way out, except through that door—the door you never left.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And who’s at that door now?”

Silence. The two black-coated henchmen look at one another stupidly.

“Is it possible she’s hiding, waiting for you to walk away before she makes her move?”

“Um,” one of the men says.

“Get back down there and find her!” Carmine shouts. His booming voice sounds like thunder in the massive space. “And for fuck sakes, one of you stay by the cellar door.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS

Carmine’s men waste no time scurrying back through the door. Carmine begins shouting profanities. I’ve overstayed my welcome, but I have nowhere to run. I might be able to pick the stable door, but with nothing but a hobnail, it wouldn’t exactly be quiet with all the rattling and jingling as I stand out in the open.

“Your men are hopeless,” says Porsha.

“I agree.” Carmine walks across the room and grabs a pair of black leather gloves from a table. “You know, I had a feeling she was a mallock. She smelled like a rat.” I don’t know what mallock means, but he was probably right about me smelling like a rat, covered in the rat shit from the vents.

“What are you doing?” Porsha asks.

“If she’s a mallock, then she probably got into the vents. Is Vito in his room?” Maybe I am a mallock, whatever that is.

“I put him to sleep an hour ago.”

“Grab him and I’ll meet you in the carriage.” He locks the door to the basement.

“What are you going to do?”

“There’s a litre of rat poison in storage,” Carmine says. He turns towards me and I duck down, scrunching my body tightly against the wall. “I’m going to pour it into the air supply.”

“What about your men down there? You’ll kill them.”

“Yes, that’s the idea—along with that filthy rat in our walls. Go get Vito.” Porsha follows her husband’s command and disappears around a corner. Carmine starts towards me. His footsteps louden. I’ll be caught as soon as he turns the corner. There is nowhere to hide, except the nook across the openings, but crossing the opening now would be suicide.

I hold my body tight against the wall, close my eyes, and hold my breath, as if that lessens my chance of being seen. Everyone else seems to be changing into animals. Maybe with enough willpower, I can change into a chameleon. Unlikely. I only have one other plan: lunge forward and bite at his throat. Carmine is a step away from the opening. My mind is blank, oxygen depraved from holding my breath. I’m ready to wake up from this schizophrenic nightmare. Please, Olivia. If this is a nightmare, wake up.

Carmine stops, halfway into the hallway opening. He’s close enough to touch, close enough that I can smell his expensive aftershave, close enough to grab me and strangle me to death. But he doesn’t, because he doesn’t see me. His head is turned back towards the foyer. “Porsha!” he calls out.

“Yes, honey?” a distant voice echoes back.

“My jacket is in the bedroom. Could you grab it while you’re upstairs?” Carmine calls. He stands with his head turned away from me as he awaits a reply from his wife. I could attack. I could go for the jugular. I don’t.

Instinct takes control of my body. In a single silent motion, I leap across the opening, behind Carmine, into the narrow nook at the hall’s end. Carmine doesn’t notice.

“Sure,” Porsha’s voice echoes back.

Carmine turns and continues towards the cement service hallway, unaware of my presence as he passes within a foot of my body. Using a key from his pocket, he unlocks the service door I came in through. I wait for him to disappear before running to the stable door. The lock on the door is brass, made before the invention of one-way mechanisms. It’s a relatively simple lock to pick, with only two pins inside of its short cylinder. But the pin’s springs are thick and rusted, difficult to move with a flimsy hobnail. After a few clumsy tries, the lock gives, and the door drifts open.

Fresh air fills my lungs, and cool rain washes over my skin. I run out into a small field towards civilization: glimmering cobblestone streets, glowing amber lights, and lines of sleeping row homes and shops. I’m free. I’m actually free. I’m going to live to see another day, find Freddie, and gouge out his eyes with my fingernails.

I come to a swift stop. Between the field and the town is a steep ledge that drops twenty feet into a still river. It’s a moat. I look back at my prison—a massive limestone mansion, a curtain wall short of being a castle.

A hundred yards away, a single bridge connects the mansion’s compound to the sleeping town, on which are a dozen men in black coats. One of the men leads Porsha Pesconi and a young boy to a horse-drawn carriage. He helps her into the vehicle before passing the child to his mother. The bridge is out of the question. There’s only one other option, and I don’t waste my time.

I jump into the river. The water is frigid, still, save for the ripples that travel away from my body and reflect golden light from the town above. I wade away from the bridge, towards the point where the moat forks out into the town. I can see a ladder one hundred feet ahead.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

STRANGE PLACES

The little old man working the inn’s reception desk doesn’t look up from his book as I enter the little lobby. Even once I’m stopped in front of him, and I say, “Excuse me,” he insists on finishing his page. Slowly, he tilts his bald head up and squints over his spectacles. He looks me up and down. “You’re all wet,” he says. I’m not just wet; I’m soaked—not to mention freezing-cold, tired, and weak.

“I need a room,” I say. Hypothermia finally begins to set in; my teeth begin to clatter and my hands tremble.

The man moves slowly, flips open a thick date book on his desk and pushes up his spectacles. “For how many?”

“Just me.”

“Let me see what’s available,” He runs his finger leisurely down a page, before flipping to another and repeating the process. He keeps his head leaned in close, as if he can’t see anything farther than a foot away.

“Whatever you have is fine.” The shaking spreads to my arms and legs. I want a hot bath. I would kill someone for five minutes in a hot bath.

“We only have a single on the second floor. We don’t usually let people stay in it, though. It’s right above the bar.” The old man speaks slowly, casually. “And some people complain that the bar gets too loud—”

“—That’s fine. I’ll take it.” I try my best to speed the process along. The old man doesn’t get the hint. He continues to take his sweet time.

He refers to his big book again, using his finger to locate more information. He looks up at me. “It’s a bit and a half.”

“A bit and a half of what?” I wipe the water from my forehead that keeps dripping into my eyes. My tone is admittedly blunt and unsympathetic. My patience with the old man is thin.

“Half a bit.” The old man adjusts his spectacles again.

Half a bit? “What the hell are you on about, old man?” The shaking has spread through my whole body. I wrap my arms around my torso, but that does little good.

“Fifteen territs. One bit, and five marks.”

I shake my head. “Look. I don’t have any territs. I just need a place to dry off and sleep. Please.”

The man stares at me for a few seconds before looking back down at his thick reservation book. What he’s looking at, I have no idea.

At the Ilium Inn, on cold nights, homeless people would walk in off the street and beg for a room. It was policy to turn them away, despite the hotel being completely empty for thirty days of the month. On one particularly cold Ilium night, a particularly desperate homeless person came into the lobby. I remember my heart crying at the sight of him. He couldn’t stand up straight. His fingers were dead, black, frostbitten. One of his eyes was frozen shut with a thick gob of ice—frozen tears. The man was hopeless, tragic. I showed him to a suite.

The old man at the inn shows me to a suite.

I don’t even explore the room before bee-lining it to the bathroom. I climb into the claw foot tub and run the shower. I sit down and pull my knees to my breasts while I watch the black filth flow towards the drain. Oh God, it feels so good. I haven’t felt hot water since the night I smashed a lamp over Freddie’s head.

The small bathroom has dark wooded walls, dark wooded floors, an old toilet, an old tub, and that about covers it. The shower head is a curious feature, seeing as the slanted ceiling drops down too low for anyone to stand upright. Another curious feature—or lack thereof—is the absence of curtains on the room’s single, tiny window, which looks towards the town’s apparent centerpiece: the amber-glowing Pesconi mansion.

A mansion that is now a toxic mausoleum.

Thirty minutes have passed since Carmine dumped the rat poison into the air supply; everyone inside is dead. As far as Carmine and his wife know, I’m dead.

And what a relief being dead is.

The water now running clear off my body, I plug the drain and sink down into the filling tub. I can feel my rigid joints and bones thawing.

The rest of the suite is no different than the bathroom. Replace the toilet with an oak nightstand and the claw foot tub with an uncomfortable cot, and that about covers it. The room’s tiny window even shares the same view of the Pesconi mansion. I’m not interested in the view; I only care about the bed. The sweet, sweet bed.