SALVE ROMA! A Felidae Novel - By Akif Pirincci Page 0,42

advantage of without any hesitation. He turned around and wanted to escape towards the cross tunnel. But one of his bailiffs acted quick-witted and fired.

It created a noise like a springing trap, half of a hiss, half of a snap. At the hooded guy’s right upper arm appeared a hole in the size of a dime; and a small gush of blood oozed out of it. The master dropped the saber, which fell on the floor with a rattling sound, and grabbed the wound with his now free hand. Honor to whom honor is due; the killers knew their craft. They wanted to catch the miracle man alive and had therefore passed on a heart shot. They didn’t want to destroy the treasure chest before they hadn’t yielded the hoard.

For a moment there was silence in which the foes fixed their gaze on each other. Barely visible fume soared from the muffler of the fired weapon; blood oozed from between the hooded guy’s fingers, which were still pressed on the wound, and the tip of my tail shivered so feverish, as if I had just found a brandnew mouse hole. Then the boys stepped towards their cornered prey, and the events followed in quick succession.

Another crash went through the silence, even more booming now, the ground tremored and I began to hallucinate. I just couldn’t find another explanation for what happened on the ground. The cracks between the flagstones multiplied rapidly, some stones staggered threateningly, others already collapsed and eventually plunged into the deep like blown up building blocks. I only realized that I wasn’t hallucinating, when the foothold underneath my paws dissolved into thin air and I followed the plunging stones.

Before I started on the vertical journey, I was granted to witness the temporary end of the hooded man’s story. The opening had created an inveterate rift between the opponents. While the killers tried to get over their bewilderment, the master took a chance and ran away. Promptly another shot was fired. This time it hit the fugitive’s leg, which didn’t kept him from running until he reached a cross tunnel ... But this ambivalent happy ending was not for my eyes, because faster as anticipated I became a victim of gravity and dropped through the hole in a cloud of dust, flying small stones and big slates.

The arrival on the ground didn’t quite deserve the title »comfortable«, but I also wasn’t welcomed to the netherworld but in a circle of three enlightened. I landed on my four paws on a big pile of rubble, while a rain of dust and rubble fell down on me. Apparently I was in a new catacomb. This one seemed to be built far more primitively than the other – buckled and crooked walls, probably built bare-handed and with a mortar-mix of clay, straw and cow dung, bordered by support logs which were made from trunks and partially were still covered in bark. Everywhere around here seemed archeological jewels seemed gathered. Crosses from Rom and Jerusalem, aureoles, which represented the apostles with halo and heavenward pointing index and middle finger, and scenes from Jesus’ holy grave together with whining women had been painted on the walls with pure ash. But also colored paintings were on view. I suggested that this lowest level must be the original part of the catacombs.

I couldn’t enjoy the sights though, because the three illuminated guys surrounding me blinded me. Mine lamps, which shone directly at my face, were clipped to their canary-yellow hard hats. One of them was still doing the heroic pose of a monument for the laboring with an iron battering ram in his hands, which apparently he had used for hammering for cross ways to the temple. A woman wearing metal rims and a filter mask appeared to be the intellectual within the group as she simply held a delicate little hammer for minerals and a brush. The third guy looked freaking familiar. No wonder, as this stupid face usually bend over to me on a daily basis with lines like »Wuduwuduwudu, likey your yummy-treat?«.

As I knew that this guy’s speed of thinking was as good as a snails’ fugue, and as I also knew which line was about to follow this exhausting mental work with the utmost probability, I whiled away the time with something useful. I raised my head and stared at the breakthrough in the ceiling. The boys upstairs had – unsurprisingly – disappeared by now, and nothing reminded of the gunfire