SALVE ROMA! A Felidae Novel - By Akif Pirincci Page 0,76

green into a light blue in a split second. Dragging this blue fiery tail Miracolo take off of the ramp and dashed towards the dome with an expansive bend. But I sensed that it was still in the warming phase and slowly probed, which of the breathing attendees underneath matched the biometric pattern in its memory. Absolutely, it had already seen me.

The passage came closer and closer, and after a sheer senseless sprint I finally arrived there.

»Francis! Francis! ...« I suddenly heard Antonio’s voice behind my back. I yanked my head around and saw the Oriental running towards me. Umberto didn’t seem to be very happy with this twist. He catcalled at his partner in crime and ordered him to come back as if he were a dog. Understandably, at the moment I wasn’t in the mood to deal with their relationship problems. When I looked up, the shock almost paralyzed me. The flying monster had reached the highest point of the dome by now and curved in an amazingly precise and small-radius semicircle. Then it dashed down at me with its flaming tail ...

I jumped into the passage and to my horror I noticed that nothing more hid behind it than a circular staircase, which was hewn in massive stone. By the look of it, it led to the lantern hallway. What was I supposed to do? Going back would have been sheer suicide. Standing still also! Without further thinking I started to run upstairs. Breathlessly, I speeded upwards, and the steps underneath my paws quickly turned into a striped pattern on a twirly strap.

»Francis, you stupid smart-ass, why did you have to poke your nose into this dirty deal!« Antonio yelled at me out of the tunnel. Panting, he also rushed up the staircase. As he was located a couple of turns below me, we couldn’t see each other. Actually, right now I wasn’t in the mood to see the henchman of death anyway. Instead I was interested in the other messenger of death. Through a little hole in the wall I saw how the rocket rushed into the dark tunnel downstairs. Soon it would be up here.

»Damn idiot«, Antonio yelled, and his voice sounded broken. »The Siamese would have been the last victim. Everything would have sorted itself out, and a few weeks from now nobody would have ever spared a thought about it again. And if you had swallowed the thing with Samantha, I wouldn’t have decoyed you to the Ponte Rotto. Damn idiot!«

By now the capacity of my lungs was exhausted up to the border of a collapse. The steps I climbed up didn’t seem to end. Through a hole I saw the whole nave, which almost reminded of the view from a plane. Umberto and the general by now were only ant-sized dots on the marble floor, which was decorated with artful intarsia and bathed in pale light. Yet, my eyesight was enough to read the unequaled fascination in their faces, absolute enthusiasm about this launching, which merely intoxicated them. Their mouths stood open, and they were hunted by twitches of excitement. I dared to predict that in a hundred years even devices a hundred times as smart as Miracolo wouldn’t be able to stop all the torturing and murdering in the world given such a reprobated species!

I cut myself with the whip and climbed up the stairs at a terrific speed. Although I was suffering of breathlessness and felt pretty giddy, a magical force moved me on without mercy. From the lower part of the tunnel I heard the squealing nose of the rocket, which got louder with each second. The encounter of Miracolo and I seemed inevitable. Umberto’s crafting skills hadn’t left anything to be desired until now. The thing worked perfectly, and despite the extreme sport I was just doing, the question what I was supposed to do when I reached the lantern hallway kept pushing into my mind.

All of a sudden the last question became a highly urgent subject. Pale brightness greeted me, and before I knew what was happening I was standing at the 142nd step of the dome! Through the metal bars of the railing the first thing I spotted in the inside of the dome were the Latin words according to Matthew, which were shaded in gold: »You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it«. The words sounded like a prayer to me.