SCENE 44
EXT. CIRCUS ARCANUS, BIG TOP—NIGHT
The big top is on fire. Firedrakes weave patterns in the sky above it, trailing showers of sparks. The fire has terrified and enraged the creatures. A hippogriff is rearing and plunging while its handlers try to control it. Everywhere performers are packing up, fast, elves shutting themselves into boxes, which fold smaller and smaller.
TINA Apparates and, with a flick of her wand, puts out the fire.
The Zouwu crate is on fire and shaking perilously. The creature within roars and howls. The Zouwu explodes out of it: a monstrous cat the size of an elephant, five-colored, with a tail as long as a python. It has been horrendously abused: Scars across its face, it is malnourished, limping, and now driven to a frenzy of terror.
TINA spots CREDENCE in the distance.
TINA
Credence!
The Zouwu hobbles as fast as it can, away into the darkness. SKENDER knows there is no catching it now. He runs to galvanize his workers.
SKENDER
Pack it up! Paris is done for us now.
SKENDER points his wand at the tent, shrinks it to the size of a handkerchief, and pockets it.
TINA
(approaching SKENDER)
The boy with the Maledictus, what do you know about him?
SKENDER
(contemptuous)
He’s looking for his mother. All my freaks think they can go home. Okay, let’s go.
He leaps up onto a carriage and, as the crates and boxes are all magically reduced to a few cases, clatters away into the night.
TINA is left on her own in what seems for a moment to be a deserted square. Then she realizes that KAMA is standing behind her.
CUT TO:
SCENE 45
EXT. PARISIAN CAFÉ—NIGHT
TINA and KAMA sit together at an outside table. TINA is suspicious of KAMA.
TINA
I think we were both at the circus for the same reason, monsieur . . . ?
KAMA
Kama. Yusuf Kama. And you think right.
TINA
What do you want with Credence?
KAMA
The same as you.
TINA
Which is?
KAMA
To prove who the boy really is. If the rumors of his identity are correct, he and I are—distantly—related. I am the last male of my pure-blooded line . . . and so, if the rumors are correct, is he.
KAMA takes The Predictions of Tycho Dodonus out of his pocket and holds it tantalizingly before her.
KAMA
You have read The Predictions of Tycho Dodonus?
TINA
Yes. But that’s poetry, not proof.
KAMA
If I could show you something better—more concrete—something that proves who he is—would the Ministries of Europe and America let him live?
A beat.
TINA
They might.
KAMA
(he nods)
Then come.
He gets up and TINA follows.
SCENE 46
INT. GRINDELWALD’S HIDEOUT, DRAWING ROOM—NIGHT
GRINDELWALD exhales vapor from a glowing skull-shaped hookah. His ACOLYTES watch as the smoke forms a vision of the Obscurus, a swirl of black and flashing red, then resolves into an image of CREDENCE.
All look excited, except KRALL, who is sulky.
GRINDELWALD
So . . . Credence Barebone. Nearly destroyed by the woman who raised him. Yet now he seeks the mother who bore him. He’s desperate for family. He’s desperate for love. He’s the key to our victory.
KRALL
Well, we know where the boy is, don’t we? Why don’t we grab him and leave!
GRINDELWALD
(to KRALL)
He must come to me freely—and he will.
GRINDELWALD returns his gaze to the vision of CREDENCE suspended in the center of the drawing room.
GRINDELWALD
The path has been laid, and he is following it. The trail that will lead him to me, and the strange and glorious truth of who he is.
KRALL
Why is he so important?
GRINDELWALD walks to face KRALL.
GRINDELWALD
Who represents the greatest threat to our cause?
KRALL
Albus Dumbledore.
GRINDELWALD
If I asked you now to go to the school where he is hiding and kill him for me, would you do it for me, Krall?
(smiles)
Credence is the only entity alive . . . who can kill him.
KRALL
You really think that he can kill the great—can kill Albus Dumbledore?
GRINDELWALD
(whispers)
I know he can. But will you be with us when that happens, Krall? Will you?