Elementary Virtue: The Prophecy (29 page)

The young man looked indignant, "What are you thinking? Of course not! Only decent people are working in this restaurant, Rodriguez is her boyfriend, he can be very possessive, and violent at times, I can guarantee you that." Gabe lifted his hands defensively being slightly annoyed, "Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything to your establishment, but as it looks Rodriguez isn’t all that wrong being jealous, as this Rhonda apparently took off with my old man." The bartender's mouth twisted into a grimace, which should probably have been some smile, "Let's hope that Rodriguez doesn’t do anything stupid, he is still on probation and Rhonda is some money greedy bitch. Your father waved around pretentious with money bills and bought a bottle of our best champagne. Then they took off together."
"Simply adorable," Gabe rolled his eyes, his old man truly needed to lecture him about being spontaneous, hotheaded and not thinking previously about what he was doing, when he himself was imprudence in person and was probably getting shot tonight by a certain Rodriguez. He clinked glasses with Rodriguez in his imagination, for him it was fine if he killed the guy, even better if somebody else did. Then no one could hold him responsible.

He thanked the young bartender for the information and started to walk in direction of the cabin, as his Dad, drunk as he was, had taken the Ferrari along when he took off with Rhonda. It was not very far to the cabin and Gabe took a shortcut through the wooded area behind the cabin. The cool evening air felt good and sharpened his senses. He thought about his dad, what an unpredictable asshole, he never knew what he was doing next. When he arrived at the cabin, he took a long shower and then he lay down in front of the TV. He watched some stupid action movie. There was a scene with a planned murder, when they cut the brake cable. Gabe was suddenly all interested at the scene. Unfortunately, the target Person survived. Gabe was wondering what could have been done better to make it work out when his phone rang. He expected to have - the boozer - 'his father' on the line asking him to pick him up somewhere having forgotten in his drunken state of mind that he had actually taken the car with him. On the other hand, that he was fleeing from Rodriguez and needed his help. Which he could forget immediately. Gabe wouldn’t lift a finger, that much was clear. But, it was not his father, it was Angel, "Hey babe, just wanted to ask how the weekend goes with your Dad? Did you kill each other yet?" Gabe didn’t want to tell her the sad truth. Namely that his old man was a horn dog, so he decided to keep it vague, "No, Dad's already gone to bed, the red wine we had for dinner was a bit heavy." Angel chuckled, "He is not the youngest anymore, your old man, even the Botox and the false teeth don’t help in this case." Gabe didn’t’ know what to say. If Angel actually knew what was going on, she would die of laughter. He had to admit, that he was somewhat flattered because she apparently missed him. She might be a bitch at times, but since the fake kissing at the Crowd, there was some crackling in the air between them. He wasn’t sure whether this was good or bad. It could lead to complications, which would better be avoided, if something were going on between them. He didn’t need any more complications. Even if Angel was smoking hot and made him sweat each time, they touched. His father was enough of complications to handle at the time. He had his hands full with this darn ladies’ man. Where was he anyway? With his luck, he didn’t even come back to the cabin tonight and then the fatal fishing trip would fall literally into the water.

He had forgotten all about Angel who was still waiting for an answer on the phone. "Gabe are you still there?" He instantly got back to reality with his thoughts and he had to admit, that he wasn’t into any conversational chat with Angel for now. She would ask him questions about his father, to which he could not give her an answer, without betraying his plans and he had to prevent her from coming behind his plan. Angel might be hot, but she sure as hell was not stupid, what made her dangerous. He did well to keep her at an arm's length away. The risk that he burned his fingers was simply too big. He took the phone and tapped it lightly several times against the coffee table. He said sounding jerky - Angel - connection - and knocked a few more times against the coffee table, then he rejected the call. After a moment, his phone started ringing again. He took the call, saying, "Hello," and then he hung up again. He repeated this process for several times, each time she called again until Angel was apparently tired of calling back.

He hoped that she bought his story about having such a bad connection out here. But, he had other things in mind now and would call her later on when things were settled. Where was that stupid demented old geezer? The guy was driving him crazy. How could he possible scrag someone if he didn’t know where he was. Gabe paced back and forth furiously, trying to reach Carmine by phone. Exasperated, he threw himself on the sofa, turning on the TV again. He changed channels listlessly. Hundreds of programs and each channel was showing the same crap. Finally, he watched some international news channel, reporting about flooding in a small town in Sicily and a volcanic eruption. Suddenly Gabe was wide-awake, the topic of the program was total junk and drifted away to some corrupt mayor, who had not taken the necessary steps for renovations and arrangements since the last disaster and had squandered money by the Italian government, and associated with the Mafia. The citizens of the town were complaining about him, and there were even riots and looting going on. Chaos reigned, and each of them blamed the other one. No one took the blame even burglars were blaming the robbed citizen because one of them had shot at them to defend himself. Now the burglars dragged the victim to court. What an insane thing to do, unbelievable Gabe thought, if all Sicilians were that crazy it might be difficult to put a reasonable crowd of followers together. Even if they all seemed to be completely nuts, that wasn’t the reason why he was wide-awake all of a sudden. No, these politicians, a certain De Capitani and a lawyer named Di Benedetto were present and if he was not wrong about it, this lawyer happened to be Angel s father.

The news was quickly over and national issues were on again. Gabe sat there for a while pondering. If the volcano already started to become active, the time had come to feed a certain Gregory to it. Appeasing the volcano as the legend required the Vultures to do, if they didn’t want to lose their privileges. Damn, he really had to go to Sicily and it had to be at the planned time. There was much to prepare and he had to motivate his people. His father would not screw this up for him, he couldn’t allow that to happen, but the more he thought about the whole thing, he had to change his plans, or else his trip to Sicily was over before he even got there. He realized that there was no way he could kill his dad at this point.

The Family would make a big thing out of it. It became clear to him, that if there happened to be an accident, it had to be a perfect one. One that didn’t raise any uncomfortable questions. How about if Carmine lost his memory for a while and was out of the Picture for this reason? If for that reason, he wasn’t able to take any decisions? It would give him time to do what he thought was right and no one would try to stop him. He called Angel back, telling her the news he watched about her father on TV, "We've got to go to Sicily, not only because of Gregory, but also because of your father. He sure needs you now more than ever." Angel was quickly convinced that their presence was required at home in Italy, after Gabe embellished the News a bit, claiming her father was being threatened.

"My dad, doesn’t want me to go to Sicily, he thinks the savior legend is none of our business, the Vultures in Sicily should deal with it by themselves. He says, we have nothing to fear here in Canada, as the Volcano is in Italy and the Prophecy was pronounced on the Volcano." Angel could hardly believe what she was hearing, "He is such a traitor, he knows quite well that most of us don’t have any powers in Sicily, only a few of us have powers." "Really?" Gabe hadn’t had any idea about this. "Didn’t he tell you, this disgusting back-stabber? We need you, otherwise we have no chance to deal with Gregory and the Akandos." That was interesting, Gabe thought and very practical. He tried to calm her, assuring her, that he was going to find a way to go to Sicily, and to convince his father about the urgency of this journey. Then he ended the conversation.

He picked up the phone again to call Gary. "Hey Gary, you looked at the car yesterday, didn’t you?"

Maria Rosa was running as fast as she could through the Train station of La Spezia. Her lungs were aching. She pressed the baby that was wrapped in a baby sling tightly to her chest. She couldn’t make it much longer. They would get her because she didn’t know where to go, and whom to turn to in this foreign city, in which she had only gone off the train because they were on her heels, she had been busted. Damn, but her plan had worked out so well. So many had helped her and risked everything to save her beloved baby Gaetano. But, someone among them had betrayed her, she didn’t know who and the people helping her escaping were surely going to pay for it. Shortly after Florence, she noticed that someone had tracked her down on the train. In Pisa, they had almost caught her and in La Spezia, she didn’t have any other choice than to leave the train in an unobserved moment. She hid for a while in the station toilets until the coast was clear. She wrapped the sling tightly around her body. Fortunately, Gaetano was sleeping. He was such a sweet baby. She wouldn’t allow it to happen, that they took him away. Only over her dead body they would get to him, she knew that they would kill him. She had overheard a conversation between Leonardo and his father. Leonardo was a wimp. There was no help to be expected from his side. He would sacrifice his own son if his father demanded it.

His father and the whole Mafia gang were convinced that Gaetano was the long predicted savior out of this ridiculous legend, and just because he had these bright blue eyes and had been born a few years before the turn of the century. Maria Rosa had never liked Leonardo's family. But, as the daughter of the Belvedere clan she played along grinning and bearing. Her family had been against the union between her and Leonardo from the beginning, but she had been stubborn und blinded by his charm. For a long time, she didn’t want to admit that this marriage had been a mistake. It had been doomed from the start. Strictly speaking a terrible mistake, what had she been thinking? How could she ever have fallen in love with Leo, what had been wrong with her? Where had her common sense gone? Although he was quite charming, he had never been strong willed. He had the heart of a poet. Probably she had liked that side of him, which had ended fatally. He might have been a poet and a hopeless romantic and was incredibly handsome. Unfortunately, he was also a wimp who let himself be ordered around by his corrupt father and his entourage. At first, Maria Rosa had not noticed how bad the situation was. They were both studying in Florence far away from their families, but when they moved back to Sicily, it had become worse, and after Gaetano was born, Leo had seriously begun to change.

Finally, on that fateful day, Maria Rosa had overheard the conversation between Leo and his father. Her baby should be sacrificed because of a stupid legend. That had pushed her over the edge, and she could no longer close her eyes to reality. She had married a wimp, and his father was a monster, who was planning to kill his only grandson because of a legend. She couldn’t get her family to help her, as she was on bad terms with them since she married Leo against their will. Some close friends had helped her to plan her escape and get away. Unfortunately, Leo's father and his followers got wind of it and were at her heels. She peered out the door. The coast seemed to be clear for the moment. Maria Rosa sneaked out with her head down walking through the crowd, and she had to hide away her long curly mahogany-colored curls under her hood which was difficult.

Her hair was far too eye-catching. She bought a baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses at a kiosk. Then she hid her lush hair under the cap putting on the sunglasses. As unobtrusively as possible, she walked towards the exit to the bus station. She had no idea where she should go. The decision was made for her, when she saw Amadeo and Francesco, two of her persecutors walking around, obviously looking for someone. She quickly got into the first available bus, bought a ticket, and sat down in an empty seat. Her heart was pounding rapidly; she prayed silently that the bus would close its doors and finally leave. Her prayers seemed to be heard. The doors closed and the bus drove off. Not a second too early, as Amadeo discovered her and was waving wildly to his accomplice. Such a stupid thing to happen, now they both knew exactly where she was going and would, of course, take up the pursuit. Maria Rosa wondered if she should get off at the next stop to disappear in the crowd, but rejected the idea again immediately. First, she needed a plan, what her next steps would be. Meanwhile, she had seen where the bus was going. - Lerici - there was this small town on the coast, a bay over which a Castle towered.

She had once been here before, and she knew one of the Counts sons. He studied at the University of Florence with her. His name was Franco Rossi, if she managed to get to the castle, she might ask him for help. He was a kind soul and had given her some good advice during her study time in Florence. He would remember her if he were around. The trip to Lerici took over half an hour. Full of panic Maria Rosa looked out the window, and she was almost 100% sure that Amadeo and Francesco followed the bus. They were probably even behind the bus following her in a taxi. She had to act quickly as soon as the bus reached its destination. As most passengers got out at the port, she decided to change her plans. She wouldn’t get off at the last stop. That was too obvious. If she happened to be the last passenger getting off, it would be too dangerous. She mingled with the passengers getting off acting as if she belonged to a group of loudly cackling American tourists. She joined them and then disappeared at a favorable opportunity in a narrow alley of the old town. She waited a moment, the baby began to stir, and hopefully it didn’t start crying. She paused a moment, and then she crept through the narrow streets, to a staircase, which was leading to a wooded area in front of the castle.

The sun was high in the sky, and it was already getting hot. Sweat run over Maria Rosa’s forehead, as she climbed the steep steps. Breathing heavily, she arrived at the top. She risked a glance back, and her blood froze in her veins. Amadeo and Francesco came running up the stairs. Amadeo clearly had a weapon in his hand. There wasn’t a soul in sight. Maria Rosa runs as fast as she could to the forest, which led to the castle. The baby had woken up and began to cry loudly. Maria Rosa ran further into the woods. She saw a dark shape in the distance coming towards her. She mobilized her last forces, and adrenaline shot through her veins. This simply could not be the end. She had to save Gaetano. They couldn’t get their dirty fingers on him. A shot echoed through the silence of the forest. Maria Rosa collapsed and crashed down on the hard ground. Even as she fell, she held her arms protectively around the baby. The sling loosened and the baby rolled on the ground beside his mother. The crying ceased immediately, and it lay very still.

Father Paul, was on a late morning walk, trying to memorize his sermon. The fresh air in the forest helped him usually to prepare his best sermons.

All of a sudden, he realized that a young woman was running in his direction from a distance. She was apparently in trouble being followed by two men. One of them was obviously carrying a gun. Then a gunshot echoed through the peaceful scenery and the woman fell to the ground. Behind her, he saw the two men, one of them still holding the gun in his hand. Without thinking any further, Father Paul quickly hastened courageously as fast he could to the young woman, even if the attackers were still at close range. He bent down to her, but it was too late, the young woman was already dead. Father Paul looked up, and her pursuers were backing away, apparently they weren’t cold-blooded enough, or simply too religious to shot a churchman. They probably thought that their mission was settled, and the young woman was dead. It was only by then, Paul saw the baby, who had rolled away from its mother during the impact. At first, he thought it was dead. He lifted it up and cradled it in his arms. What kind of criminals shot at a mother carrying a child? What had become of this world? Father Paul thought bewildered, and he went back to the church with the supposedly dead baby. Suddenly it opened its eyes looking at him with bright blue eyes. Father Paul gasped for air, and he felt as if the wisdom of the whole world was lying in these eyes.

When Paul held the baby, he felt the warmth like the heat from a fireplace on a cold winter night. As if it wanted to tell Paul everything, the baby babbled, gesturing with its pudgy little arms, staring at him with its piercing blue eyes. Paul found it particular and named the Baby Boy Gregory, a subtle reminder to stay alert, a trait that saved its life! Finally, Father Paul was a member of St. Gregors’ church and had been at the right time at the right place, which meant this name had been destined for the Baby.