But although I felt so bad and I was close to let the inside of my stomach see the sunlight again, the organ of curiosity gave some witty thought about the tableau of horror: 1. The killer of the Siamese at the Largo Argentina and the killer of these brothers and sisters here must be one and the same person. As even though the decay of the body was far advanced, it couldn't hide the butchers gross signature feature. The hearing aids of all bodies had been completely removed at one side. The worms must have fulsomely taken a call at this discovery, as they were able to get to the tasty brain right away.

In contrary to the dead Siamese the newly found victims showed a tiny and yet very important difference though, one that only occurred to someone, who had really gotten to the bottom of the incident: 2. In regard to the "deseeding" the killer apparently had been in the early stage of his crimes. Let's call it "the rough period". The much clumsier manner of surgical intervention proved this a.s.sumption: some skulls were half-open, some even totally wrecked. So could it be that Signore X had wildly and maybe unsuccessfully experimented in Vatican City at the beginning of his project? And one step further: Could it be that he first wanted to gain surgical skills before he turned the removing of hearing aids into a career? 3. Although Vatican City was a secret kingdom hidden in itself, he had dared to entrust the great butchery and his experiments with the other clerics. In the history of Christianity animals had always played an ambivalent

role. (5) By now the great atonement was the order of the day even in this relationship, so he had rather kept his crimes to himself and had buried the victims in the park. But where did he move his experiments after that? According to the phase of decay of the bodies, he must have changed his operation room about a year ago.

"What is happening here, in G.o.d's name?" I suddenly heard a ba.s.s voice behind my back. When I turned my head and saw a snow-white Persian walk along the lawn, I began to doubt about if I should actually be glad that I found Miracolo under these circ.u.mstances. I only knew about the racial characteristic from Sancta but now that he stood right in front of me, I immediately knew who he was.

He looked as if someone had pressed a ton of cotton into a hydraulic press and had then condensed it to a construct of the size of an arm's length. Everything about him looked constrained: the tiny ears, which totally got lost in the blown-dry looking fur, the blue little eyes, the very short nose, that had a deep dent between the eyes, the miniature limbs, which only enabled him to scamper, the bushy tail, simply everything! Had a crazy sorcerer turned a peek into a Felidae, the result wouldn't have been much different. The only impressive thing about Miracolo was this fluffed appearance, which was caused by overweight and that explosion of hair.

"We came across an old cemetery at this place, Excellency", Pius said, who also wasn't an adornment belong his breed. His voice sounded as if a blunger had sampled the sound of a toilet flushing and formed words from this material.

"Don't you talk silly, Pius!" the piebald sitting next to me barked. "Don't you see that these poor wretches were killed and then hidden in the ground? Even inside of a pea more brains can be found than inside your stupid head."

"Silencium!" Miracolo said and stepped into our circle. "I don't tolerate ranting and raving at this place ..."

The hair meatloaf's lower jaw flapped down when his eyes met the unbelievable, that we had already studied well enough. The tiny eyes bulged from the dense cotton swabs, and he uttered a pressed groan.

"Holy Mary, Mother of G.o.d, help us! Holy Mary, Mother of G.o.d, help us ..." he kept moaning. He was sincerely shocked, yeah, one could really see how razor-caused wounds gaped inside him. He began to weep bitterly. The others also got bleary eyes, and gave full scope to their grief. In the end a heartbreaking sobbing raised above the dead, which lasted for a long time and reminded of a chorale. I was a little embarra.s.sed of my recent thoughts, which hadn't exactly shown sympathy for Miracolo. Each of us must live as he sees fit, and if someone chose faith for his own fulfillment, what was wrong with that? Fooey, Francis!

"Il diavolo!" Miracolo finally said after he had calmed down a little and had wiped away the tears. By now the others had adapted themselves to His Excellency's mood and gazed into s.p.a.ce with solemn faces. n.o.body made a sound.

"Il diavolo rose from h.e.l.l, o my dear brothers and sisters!" he boasted unctuously and rolled his tiny eyes. "This is the work of the devil. Because n.o.body would raise his paw against the other in such a brutish way. And no human would be capable of laying hands on us this harmfully. This is il diavolo!"

"I once knew a poodle whose master was called Sebastian Devil", Pius tossed in and rolled out a tongue that was so long that it could easily host a tug war. "I guess you're not talking about him, are you?"

"Reserve yourself with your stupid remarks, Pius, while His Excellency is talking!" the piebald ranted.

"Excuse me, dear community", I said and rose. By now I felt steady enough to add a little secularistic logic to the issue. "The offender is a devil indeed. Whether he has horns on his head and trails a cloven hoof is pretty doubtful though."

"You contradict His Excellency?" the piebald asked cantingly.

"Not exactly", I replied. "It's just that the evil has many faces. It has the power of shape shifting, I mean, it can invade even the best soul and exploit it for its noxious purposes."

"Sapiently spoken, my son!" Miracolo called out. I didn't really want to add the question, who actually was to call whom his son to the already complicated devil-issue.

"What is your name?"

"Francis."

"O Francis you have the name of a saint! What brings you here, my son, and what are your thoughts on this tragedy?"

Meanwhile I had lost count of how often I had told my story within the last twenty-four hours. But denying it to the pet of pope of all people would have been pretty indecent. Thus, I started with Gustav's phone call from Rome and ended with the gathering at St. Peter's Square. Of course I left out the hot encounter with Sancta, as I wasn't sure of how this kind of sensuous delight would come across with this group.

Due to the smell we had given ground to the ma.s.s grave by now, and in our small group we strolled to a small chapel close by. At its door, so I was told, the food for the feline members of Vatican City would be served on the n.o.blest china, punctual to the minute. Miracolo invited us all for a funeral party. Only Pius was left with the dead, a giant with a giant vacuum inside his head, incapable of getting the world, yet literally in G.o.d's hands.

The chapel that we approached was downright sensationally plain, compared to all the bombast around us. She had rather fit in a Sicilian village with only a couple of inhabitants in the middle of bleak landscape than in an area that had been grafted by the greatest artistic geniuses, sometimes on pain of excommunication. It actually looked like a scrubby farmhouse with a plain cross on the roof. I a.s.sumed that it belonged to one of the first Christian churches, which had either been miraculously preserved for centuries or had been laboriously reconstructed.

"So you've come to Vatican City just because my name is Miracolo and exactly this word has been dropped at the theosophists' meeting, my son?" the Persian asked. I got the faint idea that it wasn't the tradition of the wake but hunger that urged him to go to the chapel. The brothers and sisters who accompanied us hung on his every word as if he was about to disclose the secret of Christ's Shroud of Turin - with the piebald leading the way.

"Yes and no, Excellency", I replied. "On one hand I got tied over this word so much, that it literally electrified me when I learned from Sancta that one of our own volition is called like that. On the other hand my unmistakable instinct told me that if such a miracle really exists, it must be hidden here in Vatican City. Turned out, I was right only partially. I didn't find any hidden miracle, just bodies in a hidden grave."

"You shouldn't be deterred by this horrifying find, Francis. G.o.d moves in mysterious ways, but in the end He always leads to the truth."

"I hope so, Miracolo", I said and noticed that bit by bit dawn descended upon us. A long way away the antique pink silhouette of the St. Peter's Cathedral stood out from the golden sky. Flocks of birds fluttered around the dome like angelic hosts. On the horizon bluish-gray fields of clouds slowly gathered to giant levels, and some fresh wind sprang up. It was to be feared that we were about to get a comfortless night and some stormy May rain. But right now the park that we crossed still looked like every blade in it was ablaze.

"I know this question is a waste, Excellency, but did you notice something at this place during the last year what might have indicated these crimes?"

"Of course not!" Miracolo was indignant. His walk received something defiant. Maybe I should have approached this a little more diplomatically. "And if there had been anything, we certainly would have done something against it. We might look like a bunch of bigots, but when it comes to our own lives and that of our kind, we gladly remember our sharp claws!"

"I gladly confirm this", the piebald horned in again. "The padres and the other clerks really spoil us. But it is not only luxury that makes us stay here. No, here we are close to G.o.d, every one of us feels that. This doesn't mean that we're unworldly and don't notice when somebody goes for one of our throats."

"Okay", I said. "Then on to the usual questions: did you know the victims?"

"Not all of them, but a couple ", the piebald replied.

"The same applies to me", Miracolo said. "But it is not like I muster everyone in the mornings. Besides, n.o.body is forced to stay with us. Fluctuation within the community isn't high, but there is still some. We don't keep ringing the Cathedral's doorbells though when someone from our midst said goodbye without cause."

"Did everyone see one of the victims hang out with someone suspicious before he or she disappeared from the community and therefore from the daily routine at Vatican City for good?"

Everyone shook his or her head ... Almost everyone.

"Yes, I did!"

The whole group stopped so sudden as if they had b.u.mped against an invisible gla.s.s panel. I was no exception.

"Who said that?" I wanted to know, and Miracolo also swung his head back and forth as if il diavolo had appeared on the lawn in person. A chocolate-brown sister with copper eyes eventually stepped out of the cortege and came to us.

"As a matter of fact, I saw a suspicious figure with four of the victims at different times ", she said, after she had introduced herself as Blixa. "Of course not even in my worst dreams I would have connected this to murder back then."

"Great, Blixa, obviously you have great observation skills. What kind of a human was it?"

"It wasn't a human being, it was one of our fellows!"

Uhhs and OMGs of astonishment and disbelief made the circuit, and some weird sounds wrested even from my grasp.

"A fellow? But how ..."

Blixa seemed to be the only one who kept a cool head.

"All victims-to-be met the stranger in the Bernini Colonnades at the Piazza San Pietro. The stranger always talked insistently to his new acquaintances. Sometimes they burst out in a roar of laughter. They seemed to like each other. And eventually they disappeared between the columns. Without hurry, more like strolling, just as if they had just become friends for life."

And now for the price question.

"And what did the stranger look like?"

The chocolate girl cleared her throat and shook her had regretfully.

"No, that was the point: I always saw his silhouette only, a very dark silhouette, a pitch-dark shadow. But I would say young, slim and with extremely smooth moves. By the way, don't get me wrong: I have never seen this figure becoming violent. So only G.o.d knows if he really is the killer of the poor souls in the ma.s.s grave."

"You can bet your head on that, Blixa!" I yelled, as I just totally boiled over now. I was upset with the tricky situation, with myself because I as it turned out didn't make any progress, most of all with this blood thirsty b.a.s.t.a.r.d though, who even in a construct of theories always found a loophole. I didn't even know his motive. Maybe I was upset with G.o.d, who didn't even manage to save us from such nameless horror in his own state.

"Only G.o.d knows who the killer is", I went on in an angry voice. "But I already know with a certainty of 150 per cent that this dark figure can not be the killer. Wounds like that, caused by surgical devices, cannot be caused by animals of our size and ma.s.s. Somebody surgically meddled with these bodies!"

"But why are you suddenly so upset, Francis?" Miracolo said. He looked at me both puzzled and reproving. As I turned around I noticed that all of the others gave me the same kind of look. A plummet of shame and guilt pressed on my head and squeezed me down. I forced a smile.

"Because I had already built myself a theory with a human being playing the killer's role, and now there comes this suspicious dark figure and ruins everything", I replied.

"Like you already said, my son, evil has many faces, and it has the power to change its appearance. Trust in G.o.d, he will guide you to the right trail."

This guy really had a divine sense of humor!

"Right, right, Excellency", I said in a voice that sounded pretty resigned. "Hopefully, G.o.d hurries a little, before even more bite the dust."

I turned my attention to the group again.

"One last question to all of you. Did the victims have anything in common? I mean, maybe a pa.s.sion or a habit only they had? Or maybe they had special skills? For example, did they have sharp ears or something like that?"

Again it was Blixa, whose chocolate face slowly began to percolate something indefinite. She thought and thought, and the longer she did the more l.u.s.ter got into her copper eyes.

"I can be wrong", she finally said, "but I actually noticed two common features in those four. First of all, they were very young, they had just reached p.u.b.erty. And then they, how shall I put it ..."

"... made their marks with acrobatic stunts", I finished the sentence for her. "They even were capable of rotating their own axis a couple of times and then landing on four paws."

"Exactly!" she uttered. "How do you know that?"

"Giovanni", I replied. "But that again is a different matter."

Shortly before we reached the chapel, I noticed how a priest in a long monastic garment hobblingly scurried past us and disappeared through an old door that reminded me of a simple stable hatch. Everything went so fast that the others didn't even notice it. Turned out they weren't interested in such sensitive observations anyway. Because in front of the chapel so many plates with delicious food had been arranged that I could hardly count them. The Vatican colleagues brisk up to the delicacies like pilgrims to the bread at the Easter ma.s.s. Quickly a cordon of fur had emerged in front of the chapel, and hadn't it been for the up and down of the heads that greedily sank on the plates, one could have mistaken the view for an edgy arrangement of flowerbeds. While I contained myself at first and in my mind struggled with wild speculations on motive and offender, it was impossible for my empty stomach not to murmur at the sight of such tempting food. Suddenly I realized that indeed I hadn't eaten anything in a quite a while. Thus, I quickly joined the others and gulped down the delicious pieces of meat with sauce at a record time.

After the last plate had been licked clean, the community members gradually left the area in all directions. First they cordially said goodbye to me though and adjured me to find the offender of the ma.s.sacre at all cost. Their wish was my command. Everyone left except for Miracolo. Thoughtfully, he gazed after his sheep, which eventually disappeared in the distance.

"Was the funeral meal to your liking, Francis?" he wanted to know.

"Couldn't have tasted any better, Excellency!"

"So let's pray for those who pa.s.sed away", he said and turned away from the park, on which a wine-red light had settled upon by now. The sun had set long ago, and in the next couple of minutes total darkness would finally lay upon the State of G.o.d. Right now, it was still clearly visible how more and more cobalt blue clouds entered the echo of the red evening sky, which would probably bring heavy rain tonight.

"It shall become a very strong prayer, my son", Miracolo went on and moved towards the chapel's door that stood open a little. "Thus, I need the support of a very strong man. Follow me ..."

We entered the chapel and plunged into a twilight kingdom. The cleric, who had entered before us, had lightened countless candles, which emerged from countless long-handled holders and multi-armed candelabras. In a corner there also was a low table, on which tightly packed sacrificial candles burned. The first impression confirmed my a.s.sumption. It really was a very simple chapel from ancient Christian times, which reminded of a cave. A hand-carved big cross, which roughly showed the crucified, stood on a very simple altar made from a dresser. It was decorated with a white cloth with a Christ-monogram. The few ancient pews were nothing to speak of. In this confined room it wasn't even possible to hold a small gathering, let alone a ma.s.s. Through the only window directly under the ceiling I saw the last bright shimmer of the ending day outside.

The only impressive thing here was a masterly carved cub-shaped basalt baptismal font, at which the cleric prepared the baptism ritual with his back turned on us. The water-filled bowl showed the specific creamy shimmer of real silver and seemed to be detachable. Miracolo and I moved towards the first row and then jumped on the upper backrest of a pew.

"Turn your thoughts to the dead, Francis, and pray for them", His Excellency whispered. I obeyed, closed my eyes and gave it my best. But my concentration was disturbed by unbridled feelings of hate. The butcher was still out there and was probably hatching his next battle plan. Every time I tried to remember the many dead and let them come to life as purring living creatures in my mind, the picture of this soulless phantom and the clasping hands of this monster forced on me.

Suddenly the chapel's door was opened, and a white-dressed man in a wheelchair was pushed inside by two young priests. And when the warm light of the many candles revealed more and more of his appearance, it took my breath away: It was the pope!

"Relax, my son", Miracolo said, who had noticed the highly nervous state I was in. "He is only a child of G.o.d, just like you. Like every night, he comes here to dedicate the water for St. Peter's Cathedral. So lean back and enjoy!"

The Holy Father was pushed in front of the baptismal font, and with shaky hands and shaky voice he began to speak the Eucharistic liturgy, which was also supposed to me the memory of the renewal of baptism. Life, lavation, hazard and salvation in the prayer, these meanings were combined to Jesus Christ as their cradle. Slowly, I was able to contain my craving for sensation, my churned up state turned into a transcendental, and yes, I enjoyed it! No ugly pictures of the killer blemished the deads' faces, but on the contrary, I saw them vitally alive and playing around the Garden of Eden. Some of them engaged in wild duels in sunshine and next to noisy waterfalls.

"Impossibile! Incredibile! Non lo e a.s.solutamente certo! Dio c'a.s.siste!" the young priest next to the Holy Father suddenly shouted out and immediately roused me from cozy rapture. I opened my half-shut eyelids again.

"Impossible! Unbelievable! I can't believe it! The Lord help us!" the cleric had said. And truly, I saw how the water inside the baptismal font, which was clasped by the priest who had prepared everything, suddenly turned red. The obvious thought was that it must be a magic trick. The holy water kept changing its color, and the intense color soon didn't leave any doubt that it must be blood. Miracolo, who had watched the unbelievable act at my side, was so amazed that he almost buckled down the church pew.

"What's happening?" he croaked out.

"Good heavens, ever since I live here, nothing comparable has ever happened. A miracle is going on."

The pontiff subscribed to this opinion.

"Questo e un miracolo che c'e stato rivelato! Il sangue di Gesu Cristo ritorna da noi! Chi e responsabile?"

The pope, Miracolo, the young priests, they all believed it to be a miracle. It was the blood of Jesus Christ that revealed itself to them. A crackling silence filled the chapel, while different kinds of interpretations of this sign and its reason were discussed. Had maybe something else here changed too? Was there something different tonight from other nights? The clerics let their eyes wander the room and tried to find deviants of the usual picture. As there wasn't anything to find but the water that had become blood, their eyes finally came to rest at us, well to be more accurate, my humble self. Yes, something was different. There was a stranger sitting next to Miracolo.

The old pope's face, which reminded of rugged cliff scenery, darkened and the watery blue eyes were afflicted by a kind of tension that scared me. He maintained this expression for quite a while. The gem-bearing cross around his neck blinded me with reflections of the candlelight. I felt like I was taken for a test.

"Portatemi a lui!" he eventually ordered in a steady voice, which sounded like a pistol shot to my ears.

The two a.s.sistants did like they were told and pushed the wheelchair very close to us. Only the priest, who had prepared the dedication ritual, stayed at the baptismal font with his back turned on us. I felt that Miracolo was close to fainting, or maybe I imagined him to be because I myself expected to faint any minute. Standing face to face with the representative of Christ surely was no bed of roses. Meanwhile I actually got the feeling that his already hardened face had gotten a few levels harder.

Suddenly as if there had been a hole ripped into a foggy blanket of clouds and a blazing ray of light had been guided to the earth with unbelievable power all rigor disappeared from his face. The bushy snow-white eyebrows raised, the mouth corners twitched, and a nice smile appeared in the old man's face. Muttering at first, but in a steadily growing voice the primate began to consecrate me! My whole body shivered from happiness and emotion and I tried to wait a little before I actually pa.s.sed out. As when I had started my journey to Rome one day ago, I had expected everything but getting consecrated by the pope himself. Had I known the real reason of the miracle at this hour or even suspected what immense horror was still waiting for me, for the first time in my life I would have opened my mouth towards a human and for safety's sake I would have asked him for the last rites!

The following incidents I witnessed through a mist of rapture while I carried a continuous smirk, which seemed to be engraved in stone, the whole time. Still totally enraptured by the Holy Father's blessing, I noticed only vaguely, how he was pushed out of the chapel by the young clerics after the unctuous words. Eventually all of them left the room. Proud on his new protege, Miracolo now also gave the impression of being under the influence of happiness suppositories.

"You're a very special person, my son", he said when we were alone again. "One doesn't like to utter word "career" in this state, but let's suppose one did, you certainly would have launched the most glorious career one can imagine. You brought us the miracle. Your steps were guided, so that it would be performed at this place. Maybe it is a sign that by this means the ordeals of the murder victims are honored by heaven. Or else ..."

He pontificated about this topic at large and presented one religiously inspired theory after another. But eventually even he noticed that the recent day had completely ate up my strength as well as my absorption capacity. As he felt the approaching rain as well as I, he suggested I'd spend the night inside the chapel. The warmth of the burning candles would create a cozy blanket for me, he said, and he made me promise to visit him at the pope's domicile the next morning. Then he said goodbye and disappeared through the door crack.

Only moments later the twilight began to turn into a gold-glistering fog in front of my eyes, which gradually filled every corner of the chapel. The altar cross on the communion table, the holy water with the blood in it, the old pews, everything around me sank into a sea of blazing brightness. In the end the gold fog also covered me, and I hovered through the gleaming mist directly into the land of the dreams.

I walked through the catacombs again. But although no torches were burning this time, I didn't miss light. Everything lay clear and visible in front of me, even the smallest details were spared from shadows. I started to realize, that the walk, which my paws did like due to a hypnotic order, couldn't actually be happening inside a catacomb. It was a cave which had ups and downs and mysterious narrowings and then again sections, which felt strangely greasy. I felt a slowly rising tension inside of me, which how I believed was supposed to prepare me for something real special. This numb feeling mixed with fear, but nothing stopped me from going on like a fanatic search dog, without the slightest clue of what or whom I was hunting. Eventually my route ended at a sandy-yellow membrane, which embraced the pa.s.sage without a gap. It looked like someone had built a wall with one of these modern super synthetic materials. Without further thought, I bared the sharpest claw on my right paw and cut a clean hole in the elastic material. Then I slipped through and found myself in a very bizarre, snow-white room. The inventory in it remembered of the installation of a hypermodern artist. A gigantic construct in the shape of a snail, from whose sh.e.l.l grew some kind of crown with semicircular arches, hovered from the ceiling. A long connecting cable branched off the mysterious thing and petered out to the range of the room. In the upper range the membrane more and more took the shape of a beak, whereat the material fluently transformed into cartilage, and then from cartilage into bone. Finally the beak docked on the snail with the help of fine little bones. Some of the objects shimmered in the color of very tender meat, and underneath their surface I could see thousands of little blood vessels in which blood pulsated.