SALVE ROMA! A Felidae Novel - By Akif Pirincci Page 0,77

As praying was probably the only thing that remained to me in my desperate situation, I asked Peter for help, gasping and panting. After all his bones were buried directly underneath the pope’s altar, so the transcendental way of communication between us was relatively short.

But although I was asking for heavenly assistance, I wasn’t neglecting the search for an earthly escape from this dilemma at all. Without taking a breather, I ran down the gallery, in the elusive hope Miracolo would be distracted by that somehow. Underneath the dome in the niches of the pillars there were four giant figures of saints, which were connected to the Passion. Their blessing also found my ready welcome. Through the big windows of the dome I saw mighty bunches of thunderbolts, which illuminated the city for split seconds. Rome was at my paws now. My eyes could see from St. Peter’s Square to the Alban and Sabine Hills and into Vatican City, which was surrounded by a big wall. In the distance the obelisks, the colosseum and the metropolis seemed to burn, and at the lonely Campagne the Tiber sparkled in its countless windings. And as if this wasn’t my demise but something like my resurrection, I could see the first crimson spark of dawn far away in the dark belly of the sky. At the time I faced death the sun was rising. Now that was an exit in style!

Antonio jumped out of the tunnel into the lantern hallway, saw me on the other side of the tribune and came at me without hesitation despite his bad condition. Totally pumped out and rather messed up we now faced each other next to the line of bars. Our fur was totally ruffled and our ears hung down like kinked branches. In the Oriental’s coal-black face I noticed a mix of worry and some rest of morosity.

»You die for a good cause, Francis«, he said. »Because of your death thousands, maybe even millions will survive. Our kind also.«

»Thanks for the comforting words, Antonio, that’s very sweet of you«, I replied. »But I would have preferred if you had played the role of the martyr. It would have, how shall I put this, suited you better than me.«

The boiling green magma in his eyes thoughtfully leaned on me for a very last time. Strange, I still liked him – although of course I couldn’t let him off his penalty.

»Intolerance, Francis, must be exterminated, and all these monsters, who want to tell others the way they have to live, must be killed! But in the end: Life is beautiful – mankind is ugly. I beg you to forgive me.«

With a deafening whining sound the missile shot out of the exit and turned into the lantern hallway, fast like an animal and without any hesitation. Its maneuverability really was unbelievable, and its agility to make turns with the smallest possible radius reminded of the lightning-fast sidestepping of our kind. Getting louder, it flew alongside the dome, until eventually it was only a few feet away from us.

»Ciao, Francis! We will see each other again some time – in a better world ...« Antonio said and was about to bow out to make room for the explosive finale.

»Why wait so long, il mio amico!« I replied, sprang at him and plunged all of my claws into his fur. Wedged like that we rolled towards the railing until we broke through the gap between two bars and fell down together ...

In free fall we kept spinning over and did a couple of full turns. At that also the inherent parachute-reflex was employed, which causes our leg muscles to switch to muscle relaxation at maximum crashing speed. So we reminded of a natural parachute, using the braking effect of the air. We used our tails to balance us out, and our heads automatically faced the ground. Despite of those small tricks, I bewared of letting go of Antonio because I knew that a fall from this height was going to be my certain death without his future sacrifice. Regardless of how hard he tried to get away and how much he twisted and turned, my claws were stuck in his fur.

But the old danger hadn’t been outgrown at all. Directly after the grasp at nothing I had seen from the corner of my eyes that due to the changed situation Miracolo hadn’t at all experienced an identity crisis and hadn’t ended the hunt being a fair sportsman. The missile had