With a roar, Chorda flew from the room into the foyer where shafts of light slashed through the shadows. He extended his fingers and his claws appeared as he peered through the paneled-glass window beside the front door.
As he looked, I listened and held in my scream. The jeep was too far away for anyone to hear me, and yelling for help would just enrage Chorda. I exhaled slowly, suddenly calm. Calm in my decision that I would rather die trying to escape than be dissected alive. Calm enough to remember that Alva’s father had insisted his daughters carry switchblades. Did Fabiola keep hers up her sleeve like Alva had?
I checked that the beast was still at the front door, and with my bound hands I reached for Fabiola’s wrist, only to snap my fingers back after a single touch. Her skin was cold, and her arm, stiff. Closing my eyes, I forced myself to run my fingertips over her velvet sleeve. And there it was — a lump. Maybe, please, a switchblade. Wincing as I leaned over Fabiola, I attempted to nudge the lump out of the girl’s sleeve. My head bobbed as I glanced up with every breath, terrified that Chorda had returned on silent, padded feet. Finally, a rounded metal edge poked out of Fabiola’s cuff.
Sweat filmed over me like grease as I plucked up the knife and fumbled to open the blade with hobbled hands. A sob escaped me. The knife was tiny — only a few inches long. Unless I stabbed it directly into Chorda’s jugular, the little blade wouldn’t even slow him down. At least I could cut through the duct tape on my wrists. Then I’d be free to find another weapon. I shot a look around the room but felt swallowed up by the rotting furniture and swirling wallpaper.
Just then, Chorda stalked back into the room, hunched, feline, predatory. “Your friends are searching for you.”
Stay calm. I drew up my knees so that my hands were out of view and sawed at the tape.
Slowly he closed in on me, claws tensed, tasting the kill — closer and closer he crept.
The knife sawing through the tape was too loud. I needed to cover the sounds. “Why will my heart break the curse?”
He sank until he was poised on all fours, his eyes burning me. “You are the most human of humans…. There is no trace of beast in you.”
The knife cut through the tape, but it was too late. Chorda was going to pounce; I could feel his intention coming off him in hot waves. As desperately as I wanted to seem brave, tears spilled from my eyes. I didn’t want to die like this or be left to rot in this killing house. I twisted away, trying to get a grip on my terror so that I could figure out how to escape. My wrists were free, but I wasn’t.
“Look at me, Lane,” he commanded, sounding more like the man that I’d first met.
Yet I stayed turned away, eyes clenched tight, not wanting the last thing I saw to be his gaping maw or his bloody claws. I fingered the knife in my hand.
“I think it would be quite something to know you when I’m human again,” he said. “It’s too bad I won’t have that chance….”
My breath caught at the finality in his voice, so close behind me. This was the last second of my life and I would not meet it with my eyes closed. I pried open my lids and saw, right beside me, what I hadn’t before: a fireplace with iron tools propped beside it.
My hand gripped the rusty iron poker and I sprang up, turning and swinging high. Before Chorda could rise, I brought the heavy poker crashing down on his head. The vibration from the impact flew up my arm as the crouched tiger-man fell to his knees.
I watched him grab his head, his fingers splayed as if to keep his brains from spilling out. He didn’t make a sound. Then my vision sharpened. Run! With the poker in hand, I took off, not even stumbling when his claws raked my calf.
I sprinted into the foyer, gasping as pain radiated up my leg. I reached the door, hand out, ready to yank on the handle — only it was wrapped in chains. But I still had the poker. I swung it into the diamond-paned window, but the glass didn’t shatter as one and the poker caught. Even if I could wrench the tip free, it would take too long to smash away all of the panels.
I shot a glance back into the parlor where Chorda was still down on all fours, his face lowered and body swaying from side to side. Hurt? No — gathering his strength! I left the poker and ran through the house, dodging around corners, leaping over half-eaten animal carcasses, until I stumbled into the kitchen. But here too the door had been sealed. Not with chains but with boards hammered into place. I yanked open several drawers but they were all empty. No scissors, no knives.
The next room was long and narrow — a butler’s pantry — with two doors at the far end. Somewhere in the front of the house, a piece of heavy furniture toppled. My legs melted into jelly, verging on collapse. I dashed forward and pried open one of the doors to find stairs leading up. I hated, hated this choice — trapped above ground level — but with no other option, I sprinted up the narrow staircase.
22
I paused on the second floor landing to listen for the tiger-man, but the house had fallen silent. The smell of death coated the air like oil. A smear of blood stained the wallpaper. I hurried down the dark corridor past closed doors, too terrified to open any of them, afraid of what I’d find, until a blood-curdling roar shook the house.
I yanked open the closest door — an empty closet. I tried the door across the hall and blinked against the sudden flood of sunlight. A smell slammed into me, so foul that I had to clamp my hand over my nose and mouth. On the opposite wall, tree branches invaded the room through the broken windows. Like sturdy arms they reached out to me, promising to bear my weight. I stepped through the doorway, my eyes adjusting to the light, and caught sight of someone crumpled on the floor. My muscles went rigid.
No, not someone. A corpse. The room was filled with them. Dried out corpses with taut grins and shrunken eyes, they’d been flung into corners and on couches. All with their chests mutilated. All in various stages of decay. I felt something inside of me tearing and then breaking.
I backed out of the room so fast I bumped into the wall of the corridor. Something brushed my face and sent me spinning aside. A thin rope hung down from a hatch in the ceiling. I gave the rope a tug, pulling the hatch open just a few inches when I heard a strange rustling, like the sweep of dry leaves on concrete.
I knew that sound!
My fingers flew open and the hatch banged shut. I’d nearly pulled an attic full of weevlings down on myself. Creatures that were attracted to the glistening stuff dripping down the back of my calf where Chorda had clawed me. Chorda, who had to have heard the hatch bang shut.
Suddenly a plan formed in my mind. Insane. Dangerous. But I had no other ideas and someone was now pounding up the stairs.
I caught hold of the hatch rope again and backed into the narrow hall closet. With the door cracked and hatch rope in hand, I watched Chorda stagger onto the landing. Lowering his head, with his broad, striped back to me, he sniffed the first doorknob. Then, inhumanly fast, he swung around to stare at the cracked closet door, his pupils enormous in the dim light. As his muscles shifted, coiling for the pounce, I burst from the closet and yanked the rope as hard as I could.
The ceiling hatch dropped open and a skeleton tumbled out. I tugged harder and brought down the whole collapsible staircase. The dry rustle of featherless wings filled the air, followed by the deafening clicks of hundreds of weevlings. They poured from the hatch like black, billowing smoke. With the attic stairs now between us, I couldn’t see Chorda, but I heard his scream — shockingly human — as I tore into the room with the corpses and hefted myself onto the largest tree branch poking through the broken window.