Carpathian 10 - Dark Symphony

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    Dark Symphony
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    shadow of the palazzo. She sprinted, under cover of the thick fog, to the garden. She knew how many steps it took, and she counted as she ran, her eyes closed tightly.
    "Toni? Are you out here? Where's Nonno?" Tasha called from the terrace overlooking the courtyard. "Can you believe this fog? It was supposed to be clear tonight."
    "Tasha, hurry, get over here," Antonietta said softly. Her voice sounded strange and muffled in the swirling mist. She laid Josef in the garden bed, uncaring that she squashed her grandfather's flowers. There would be only minutes to do what needed to be done. Scooping up handfuls of the rich soil, she mixed her own saliva and packed the wounds carefully.
    Tasha came out of the eerie fog, looming over them. "What in the world are you doing, Toni?" She crouched down, saw the thick congealed blood shining black in the mist, and covered her mouth. "Good God, are you crazy? You'll kill him putting dirt in his wounds like that."
    "Don't ask questions, just help me. The jaguar did this. It's hunting us now."
    Tasha dropped to her knees, scooping up the dirt, glancing around warily. The fog was too thick to see much. "Shouldn't we get him inside?" She kept her tone low.
    "His mother and father are coming to help him. I just have to keep the jaguar off of him.
    Nonno is in the maze with Celt."
    It didn't make sense to Tasha, especially with Antonietta's sight problems, but she leaned over Josef protectively. "He's a nice kid, a little young for his age." She shivered in the howling wind.
    "It's Helena." Antonietta rose, placing her body between her cousin and the expanse of lawn. "The jaguar is Helena. She can shape-shift."
    "That's not possible, Toni." Tasha spoke very distinctly, as if to a child.
    "Yes it is. I'll explain later, but I saw her. Why would she hate us so much? She said she belonged, and we didn't see it. I don't understand. How could she be a Scarletti?"
    "She was the one. It had to be Helena."
    "The one that what?"
    "Don't you remember? When we were children? My father carried on with every woman in sight. Helena was so beautiful. Of course he would have chased after her. She must have been the woman who became pregnant. Remember she was gone for months taking care of her father when he was ill. She could have been pregnant then."
    "She was friends with our mothers," Antonietta protested. "She was family to us."
    "I was never friends with your mothers." Helena limped out of the fog, her face bloody, her nose crooked. Her eyes glowed strangely, much like a cat. She was across the lawn, and the mist clung to her, curling around her legs and body. "We were lovers. He should have married me. We could have had it all. With Antonietta and her parents out of the way, he would have inherited so much. He talked to me about it, but I was the one who did something about it. What did he do to repay me? He refused to get rid of his wife. He despised her, a weak woman, but she clung to him. I had to take care of her, too. He knew I loved him. I had his child inside of me. I would do anything for him, but he wanted me to get rid of it. He called my son a bastard."
    "That was wrong of him," Antonietta said. "Very wrong of him. He should have been proud of his child." Her hand behind her back, she signaled Tasha to silence.
    "He deserved to die. Out with his whores, refusing to many me, refusing to claim his son, even when I freed him from his miserable marriage. It was so easy with him drinking the way he did. I didn't even feel bad about it." Helena's voice vibrated with a strange, raspy growl.
    Lightning ripped across the sky, slammed to earth very close, shaking the ground beneath
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    Dark Symphony
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    their feet. The howl of a predatory cat accompanied the sound of thunder. Helena smiled.
    "My son. Esteben. He is killing Don Giovanni. Soon there will be no one left to inherit but my son."
    The cat screamed again. An orange-red fireball broke off from a dancing whip of lightning overhead, streaking to earth, disappearing in the thick fog. The silence was deafening. Antonietta strained to keep Helena in focus. "You sold Scarletti