Free Arcadia Burns by Kai Meyer

weak, emaciated, helpless young people who would have all the Panthera on their heels in a few moments. They reached the trees and disappeared from Rosa’s field of vision. The girl was still in tears, and her sobs gave away their whereabouts.
    As Michele straightened up again, the first Carnevares were throwing off their robes in the background. Outside the headlights on the trucks, human silhouettes changed and distorted. Snarling, growling sounds came from all directions. There were women among them. Unlike the Lamias, Panthera of both sexes could change shape. Rosa saw one of the women fall to her hands and feet—in the next moment she had four paws.
    With an angry gesture, Michele shooed away two of his henchmen, who were about to fall on Rosa. “I’ll have a part of you sent to Alessandro,” he said. “Deep-frozen. Which do you think he’d like?”
    “He’ll kill you for this, Michele.” She had simply said that without thinking, but as she spoke the words, she knew it was the truth. She had seen how vengeful Alessandro could be. He wouldn’t rest until he’d killed her murderer.
    Not that that was any help to her right now.
    The boss of the New York Carnevares wiped a drop of blood off his split lip, looked at it on the back of his hand, and licked it off—with a tongue that wasn’t human anymore,but supple and rough. His hair also changed color, growing lighter. He didn’t go to the trouble of taking off his clothes.
    “Run, Rosa Alcantara,” he spat at her, as more and more of the others sank to the ground on four paws. “Run, and keep your meat warm until I catch up with you again.”
    Then she raced away, out of the bright light to the other side of the clearing, through the ranks of the snapping, growling, howling predators who could hardly keep their greed under control.
    She ran westward in the shadow of the trees, over virgin snow.

THE PACK
    S OON SHE WAS STUMBLING down a slope, at the bottom of which was a narrow path. Ahead of her in the darkness rose a mighty arch made of rough-hewn stone blocks. She knew this part of the park; she had been here before, years ago.
    It was the Ramble, an artificially laid-out wilderness with dense woodland, winding paths, and steep rock formations. Streams and pools of water looked idyllic in daylight, but on a winter night the open, unprotected, icy surfaces became insurmountable barriers.
    Somewhere in all these thickets there was a man-made grotto that had been closed to visitors for years, as well as countless other nooks and crannies that might provide a hiding place. Michele certainly assumed that his prey would look for cover somewhere, hoping that the Panthera wouldn’t find them. But Rosa knew what a keen sense of smell the big cats had and didn’t make the mistake of underestimating it. She had seen Alessandro and other Carnevares in their animal form, and it was obvious that there was nowhere to hide from them. Sooner or later they would track down anyone who crept into one of those places for shelter.
    Run straight ahead, she had told the others. But you couldn’t do that in the Ramble. The network of paths woundthis way and that, there was no way to see straight in front of you, and steep slopes and precipices rose on either side. Michele had chosen the best imaginable playground, for the same reasons that Cesare had once chosen the Gibellina monument. There was no escape from the narrow aisles between the rocks and the rampant undergrowth.
    Rosa ran through the crusted snow and tried to control her racing breath. The soles of her heavy shoes kept her from slipping, but she was still too slow. She wanted to go west, to the edge of the park, but whenever she caught a glimpse through the trees, she saw only darkness, no skyline. Maybe she was running the wrong way, farther and farther into the park. She didn’t dare turn around. The Panthera had to be on her trail already.
    She heard the first scream when she was ducking low as she crossed a