SALVE ROMA! A Felidae Novel - By Akif Pirincci Page 0,27
it appertained for an adonis in any situation, and of course he looked gorgeous even when he was fast asleep.
The room door stood ajar, and through it pale light shone on the floor in the shape of a fan. The strange sound also came from somewhere behind the door. I must have been sleeping for a couple of hours because forgotten were the strain of traveling and former tiredness. After a little stretching which equally lubed all of my muscles and strings, I sneaked towards the door and risked a glimpse outside.
In the matte light of an ancient carriage lamp I could see Samantha at the stair head. She stood right beside the elevator cage and nervously pattered back and forth on the marble floor. Doing this, her eyes never seemed to let go of the lower level underneath the winding staircase. Without a noise, as if I was hovering on air cushions, I left the room and approached her from behind. Then I stopped at her back and reduced breathing to a minimum so that she couldn’t hear me. I wanted to see what she saw, and so I also got the lower level in my sights.
The glimpse through the halfway open door to the Prince’s room offered an insight, which was fairly strange, if not to say sensational. The old man had taken off his dressing gown and was changing clothes. This very fact was weird enough at so late an hour – I guess it had been about three or four a clock in the morning. Even stranger though was this new clothing or should I say his costume. Of course the Prince was part of an aloof elite, and of course it wasn’t that strange that a lonely old man did strange things now and then. Still, I found this whole masquerade to be as bizarre as it gets.
The Prince wore a Fin de siècle tailcoat with almost floor-length laps, white silk shirt and a giant bow tie. Now he only needed to put on a black cape, don a topper and ... While I imagined this, it be became reality! He grabbed a cape and a hat from a stand and completed his gothic outfit. Now he stood there like Count Dracula, apparently looking for the glass he put vampire teeth and some denture cleaner in, or for a cozy coffin with a heating blanket. However, his glazed eyes apparently seemed to be looking for something inside the room. Suddenly he rushed forward, found a vintage walking stick with a golden handle in the shape of a lion’s head, slipped on some white velvet gloves and put on a black mask.
I reckoned that the Prince was heading to some costume party. From experience, parties like that usually come to an end at this late hour. I was about to slap nervous Samantha, who was still sitting in front of my nose, on her shoulder and ask her for the answer to this mystery, when suddenly there was another link added to this chain of weirdness.
The masked man left the room, entered the elevator and went downstairs. At first, I thought he was too weak to cope with the staircase to the lower level. But then I watched through the artfully forged cage how the elevator went past the ground level towards the cellar and finally disappeared in murky darkness. As if she had been waiting for this very moment, Samantha shot ahead and ran down the stairs. Startled for a moment, I quickly recovered myself, followed her and cut her off halfway.
»What the hell is going on here, Samantha?«
»Francis, what are you doing here? Go back to sleep!«
The Blue-Point-Burmese was past all recognition. The elegance, which the light, smoky figure had just exuded a few hours ago, had given room to a churned up, terrified creature. By now, every single hair on her body stood on end like quills, and she shifted from one paw to another with excitement.
»You really want to tell me that, considering this hanky-panky, sleeping would be the best thing to do, Samantha?«
»You have no idea, Francis, and I don’t have the time to explain the whole complex story to you here and now. You and Antonio, you’re certainly not the only ones wanting to stop the cruel crimes towards our kind. But unlike you I’m a couple of steps ahead, and I’m not in the slightest mood to stand still and wait for you. So if you would excuse me