Then something wonderful happened. As if blinds, which had been closed for centuries, had just pushed open and finally offered a clear sight on the bright day, I suddenly realized that I was neither in h.e.l.l nor in an art gallery. I was standing in the insight of an ear, in fact in one of these brands, which are at my kind's disposal. In my dream, I had shrunken to the size of a flea and had taken a walk through a felidae-ear. The route, that I had taken, was the auditory ca.n.a.l, and the membrane was the eardrum. The snail with its ossicles and the resonator actually looks like a snail in real life and is called cochlea. And the crown was the balance system and vestibular organ ...

I slowed down instinctively. Why hadn't I noticed this earlier? I, Francis, who knew our kind's anatomy so well that I could have easily habilitated in it. The inner ear wasn't just responsible for the hearing. In humans as well as in animals it hosts the most precious sense of all, namely the sense of balance. Just that the sense of balance of the felidae is in the same proportion to that of humans as a Formula One car to a Trabant. In other words: If a human had a vestibular organ like us, he could perform far more reckless maneuvers than a trapeze artist ...

I wanted to go further into this question, when I slowed down another time. The reason was a barely hearable lapping behind my back, which made my fur stay on end. Although it was an ordinary noise, it sounded inexpressibly ugly, yes almost filthy. I turned around and choked in horror.

Like in my last dream, the leading role was again played by Antonio's coldhearted master. He wore a pastel-colored disco suit from the Seventies with wide lapel and flared pants, and he was sitting in the pope's wheelchair. The partially unb.u.t.toned shirt again exposed his hairy chest with a dangling silver-cross. Through the big dark sungla.s.ses he smiled at me maliciously. This time, the flawlessly tanned, a thick cigar sucking macho didn't really come into question as an affable guest in a retro show. Because dark bullet holes gaped at the right sleeve of his jacket and at the left pant leg, from which real streams of blood had poured across the pretty suit. Maybe for once he had been too cheeky in his macho world and had gotten his comeuppance. Nevertheless, he kept his composure and acted as if nothing had happened. If anything, he was still in the mood for macabre actions. The old baptismal font from the chapel was directly in front of him, and the silver bowl was filled with almost black blood. The Roman dipped his free hand, including the Rolex and the golden cufflinks, into the dark soup and stirred. His fingers carried out a naughty lapping, and now and then blood drops dripped off the tips.

"The evil has many faces, Francis", he repeated my own words from the afternoon. In this strange chamber they resonated as if we were in a dripstone cave. "And it has the power to change its appearance. It can invade even the best soul and exploit it for its noxious purposes."

Although the dream machine had borrowed shreds of recent experiences, the wounded guy reminded me of another. Why did the macho have the gunshot wounds of the hooded guy, whose wounds must be in exactly the same spots?

"In order to conquer the evil, the balance of the world must be restored, Francis", the wounded went on. "Unfortunately, the world's balance is connected to the balance in your heads like the coating of water-repellent plant leaves is connected to modern car paint."

"I know it's about the hearing aid", I said and congratulated myself to finding the key to a case in a dream for the first time.

Across the blood-covered man's dark sungla.s.ses flew starlike light reflexions. His smile broadened, and he quietly whistled out of the corner of his mouth.

"Smart little guy!" he approved. "One should always know what's up and what's down, what's wrong and what's right. In short: You give us your unique balance, and we the miracle to balance out the world again."

"You will fail", I said. "Something, someone, me, the decent humans, maybe even the Almighty himself will wipe you and your sinful deeds from the face of the earth! And the only miracle that you will experience will be your hot performance in h.e.l.l!"

The smile abruptly disappeared from the tanned face, and the whole coldness of this man, who was hidden only by ridiculous accessories, turned up unconcealed. He grimaced as if he found my words disgusting, his lips turned into a small line.

"Got it, you also are only a friend of this noncommittal peace, the peace of soapbox oratory and phony televised debates. It's always the same. Barely one is willing to make sacrifices for the good cause. The good ones though, the heroes, the true Christians will bring definite peace to this world like a miracle. Look here!"

He sent the cigar flying through the air and reached into the blood soup with both hands, causing the fluid to move. Heavy waves, which made the blood slop over the edges of the baptismal font, took turned with fountains, which dashed up into the air, and the loud bubbling of blebs. It looked like the dream-butcher tried to catch a big fish, which flailed around in panic. Eventually, he fished a little truss out of the blood and presented it to me with an angry face. Although it was totally soaked in blood, I instantly realized what it was. The b.l.o.o.d.y thing, that started to stretch itself cozily as if it awoke from a blissful nap, was a fellow. I knew this fellow very well. After the Oriental Shorthair had finished the stretching exercise in his master's hands, he turned his head to me and opened his turquoise eyes.

"Samantha is dead!" Antonio said.

I also opened my eyes and faced Antonio's wedge-shaped head that was bend over me.

"Francis, Samantha is dead!" he said.

His front paws still pressed against my flank. Obviously, it had taken him a lot of juggling to arouse me from my deep sleep. Without having done the usual stretching, I jumped up and on all four paws. I was instantly awake.

By now almost all of the candles had burned down. So I must have been in the arms of Morpheus for quite a while, which by the way agreed with me very well aside from the nasty dream. In the concentrated twilight the chapel had appeared cozy, now in the light of only a few candles it reminded of a creepshow. The altar and the cross upon it resembled a morbid scenery, left alone the baptismal font, which was still filled with the miraculous blood. Real spooky though, if not to say excruciating, had been Antonio's wake-up call.

"This is simply not possible, il mio amico", I disagreed. "This monster should barely have any interest in doing her a mischief."

"Why not?"

In this somber light the pitch black-furred, brawny stripling almost seemed to be invisible. Only the green eyes beamed with the brightness of burning magnesium and pierced the darkness. Now that he had stepped back into my life, I felt more intense than ever before how much I had missed him the whole time. He was more than a loyal companion, in his elegant way he reminded me of the former, the younger Francis. I faced my younger self. The otherness of his s.e.xuality resembled a mirroring effect in this case. One can see himself mirror-inverted, but is still the same person. G.o.d enjoys some diversion within his zoo. To h.e.l.l with prejudices: I wanted to kiss him here and now!

"Because they're in cahoots together", I went on. "Although I must admit that I don't have a clue how such a relationship of evil between a human and an animal might come about. I mean we are not dogs who can be trained. Anyway, your fine lady has led me astray purposely. Did you know that there exists a secret society of so-called theosophists in this city?"

Infrequently at first, then in quick succession we heard the dashing of first raindrops on the chapel roof.

"Not only that. By now I'm able to mechanically recite the events, which you went through, in chronological order and almost dead on time. Maybe I will submit a screenplay of this whole thing at Cinecitta. Believe me, by now you're even more famous in Rome than Berlusconi, Francis! The b.u.ms from Largo Argentina, with Giovanni leading the way, this strange Sancta, these priest imitators here and last but not least this ridiculous wanna-be-pope Miracolo have spread he news of your heroic deeds around town in no time at all. You're even said to have performed a miracle. Everyone talks about you in deep respect. They call you detective di artiglio, detective with claws."

The rain won on strength, and what had began as dripping, had turned into a steady rushing in no time.

"Wonderful", I said. "As soon as my job is done, I will deliver myself up to the press and have autograph cards printed. To get back to Samantha: She made me believe that the theosophists are behind the murders. These brothers are creepy for sure, and what's more extremely bizarre. In my opinion this theosophical society is a harmless grandpa-club, whose members prepare themselves for the afterworld with much hocus-pocus and bad singing. This doesn't apply for their chief priest though. He seems to be heavily involved in the murders, if he isn't the beast himself! His motive isn't clear to me yet, but it is only a matter of hours before I see through his game. I actually have a theory on what this ear-cutting is about. Samantha wanted to take me for a ride, when she put the idea in my mind that there would be our kind sacrificed at those ceremonies. She reckoned I would take to my heels at the sight of this scary ha.s.sle before anything would even have happened. So I would have declared the case as being solved, and the detective di artiglio had embarra.s.sed himself pretty much. Because everyone knew that the weekly theosophists' circus in truth is the best source of food in town. The great detective would quickly have turned into a clown. But things turned out differently as you know now."

"Samantha is still dead", Antonio said and nervously drummed his thin, long tail on the pew. "How did she die? And where is her body now?"

The black Oriental made a face as if he had to explain to a coo-coo which letter comes after A.

"What do you think how she died? Her ear was cut off. She bled to death. She lies in Prince Savoyen's cellar, and I can tell you, it's not a pretty sight."

"d.a.m.n it, now I do feel bad for her! Something doesn't make sense. I just had a crazy dream, which seemed to reveal the motive for the murders. You were also in it by the way. Do you know about bionics, Antonio?"

"Now you're asking me one ..."

"It is an artificial word and consists of a combination of the words biology and technology. This research area deals with the transmission of nature's inventions, which have been developed and improved for millions of years, into technology. The humans try to w.a.n.gle its secrets out of nature and use them for revolutionary new products and technologies. But now and then it didn't adhere to learning by watching. In certain fields we animals totally outperform the beautiful new technologies and we're not copyable. It would safe a lot of expensive research if one just installed the eligible organ of the animal on the sluggish technology."

"You mean, the killer removes our ears to convert them into highly sensitive directional microphone or something like that? Don't get mad at me, but I thought of that myself."

His glorious image of the detective di artiglio seemed to crack.

"I know that, my friend. But the thing with the uber-ear would just have been too simple. No, it is about what's inside the ear, or else inside the inner ear. The answer to our problem is the vestibular organ, which is located upon the cochlea and keeps our sense of balance happy. It is some kind of measuring instrument, which collects data on s.p.a.ce and acceleration. The sensor works in extremely simplified terms according to a water level's principle. It consists of several water-filled chambers, the inside walls settled with sensory cilia. At the change of positions the fluid begins to move and stimulates the cilia, which instantly report to the brain. Similarly, it works with humans. But in us, this thing has been intensively propagated. We are able to saunter on a garden fence with such somnambulistic grace as if there was no gravity, we are able to perform such acrobatic stunts as if we had the rare gift of flying, and we can ease us through expensive china so elegantly as if it was pure magic. According to observations of Giovanni and a female fellow called Blixa, the killer prefers young victims with a marvelous sense of balance, even among our kind. The connection needs no comment."

"Nice theory", Antonio said and ruffled his whiskers. At that he seemed to be pretty upstage. I could read in his face that he believed my story to be wacky. But maybe there was a shriveled, envious chappy stirring inside him, because I had come up with the idea first. His thin face with the giant ears looked the most attractive with this put on skeptical pose.

"Somehow sounds like Dr. Frankenstein. But let's a.s.sume the vestibular organ really is the object of desire. And let's also a.s.sume that this really is the hooded guy's miracle Giovanni has told me about his then the most important questions still remain unsolved: How is a human able to make use of it? What's the use of a tenfold, for all I care even hundredfold more efficient sense of balance? And: Into which stupid device does he install something like that anyway?"

Now it was my turn to play the upstage, not to say the offended one, as my epochal thoughts were questioned, yes, secretly smiled at. And to be honest: I didn't have a clue what I should reply to him. This really sounded like Dr. Frankenstein somehow.

"I once read that a self-steered missile needs a technical counterpart to a balance system, because it has to be to know if it's rising or descending or chancing its speed at any time." I lectured roughly. "This work is usually adopted by a gyrometer. But if one could short out the vestibular organ of our kind with an extremely high-duty computer, this thing like us would be able to, uhm, keep his head up and level, correct its body according to its head's position and to land on all fours even when it's in free fall."

I smiled innocently as if I had given him a song and dance. "As if"? I just had given him a song and dance!

"Well, well, a self-steered missile, which adjusts the body in accordance with the position of the head and then lands on four paws", Antonio said, and this time he put on a very, very worried look. He probably frantically tried to remember the nuthouse's phone number.

"Okay, maybe I slipped too much phantasy in it", I tried to save the situation. "I mean, it was just an inspiration from a dream ..."

"Never mind. I just want to know one thing" he said and almost seemed upset at that. "Don't such gyrometers already exist and do quite a sufficient job or not?"

"Yes", I replied feebly. "Yes, I guess so."

"Alright! Then it doesn't need a feline vestibular organ. I very much apologize, il signor genie, this was just the humble opinion of a simple gay man from a simple gay people. So what do we do now?"

"I want to take a closer look on Samantha's body. But how do we get to the palazzo most rapidly and dry-shod at this heavy rain? Even the Tiber lies in-between."

"You have three guesses." Antonio gave me a superior smile as he could finally shine with his expert knowledge. "What do you think where the center of all Roman catacombs is? They start in Vatican City, and they end in Vatican City. I suspect that the building of catacombs is a patented Vatican invention. Sorte, c'affrettiamo! We still have a long way to go."

After we had run out of the chapel into the pouring rain, Antonio found a pa.s.sage through the underworld within thirty seconds. It was an abandoned basalt conduit from the Middle Ages next to the city wall. Outbounding from an also abandoned, big fountain, the conduit angularly went a couple of feet into the ground and then turned into a tube. Antonio and I crawled through it, and soon afterwards we found ourselves in a moldy maze, which I already knew from my nocturnal expedition. And so we left Vatican City. Although I bored my way deeper into the State of G.o.d than even the most Catholic pilgrim could ever dream of, the inside of St. Peter's Cathedral had been denied to me!

This time we had to pa.s.s on the light of burning torches. But why had the good Lord given us a pair of eyes, which easily turned the night, well not quite into day, but still into a fairly decent twilight? At the bottom, every part of us was a high-quality high-tech-product! While we moved through the tunnels at a smart pace, I filled Antonio's knowledge gaps regarding my recent adventures. He was already well informed by hearsay, but it wouldn't hurt to tell him things, which only I knew about. This time there were no dangers lurking in the realm of darkness. No hooded guys with sabers jumped out of the death chambers, and no armed killers appeared behind partially decayed exposed bridgework. Not even Gustav could be seen anywhere around. And although we were on the road for quite a while and now and then there seemed to be eerie skeletons staring out of their wide orbit, time flew.

We finally reached the Cyclopean wall underneath the Palazzo, where the arch-like gates offered the entry into the catacombs. From there we climbed up the bars of the elevator shaft until we reached the cellar of the Palazzo. Antonio guided me through dusty rooms with countless, sorted out pieces of furniture and accessories. An antique dealer with an expert eye would probably have given his arm for all that stuff. Then we turned around a corner, and in the darkness we spotted what we had been looking for.

It may sound a little jaded, but this time the shock was less upsetting. And this had a certain reason. At a first glance the Blue Point Burmese seemed to be a sleeping beauty, although the wide sapphire-blue eyes interfered with this view. Her cream-colored body with its velvet fur and the dark markings simply lay on the floor. The white "shoes" on her paws glowed even in this darkness. All her legs were spread and her snout was slightly open. The wound on the head was clearly visible, but only little blood had run out.

I approached the body and examined her. At that, I sniffed at her intensively and shifted her head slightly to the side to get a better view. Although I was a medical layman, my instinct told me that the time of death didn't date back much. Samantha's body wasn't warm but also not very cold. Also, cadaver rigidity hadn't completely supervened yet. I a.s.sumed that she met the killer about five or six hours ago.

Antonio watched me from the distance with certain expectations. As the whole thing was delayed, he fretfully cleared his throat and finally approached me.

"What is it? Is something wrong?"

"You bet!" I replied. "I'm afraid in this case our good old butcher is totally innocent."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me, Antonio. Someone else is responsible for Samantha's death."

"What are you talking about! The wound obviously bears the hallmarks of our killer."

"At a first glance. But as you can see only the auricle has been removed. The ear ca.n.a.l, which is embedded in the cranial bone, the ossicles, the so-called cochlea and the nerve pathways to the brain have remained totally sound. The part of the skull at this spot is also totally intact on the contrary to the other cases. Neither small bone fragments nor traces of blood can be found in the vicinity."

"And what is that supposed to mean, great master?"

He gave a less confused but pretty unhappy impression now.

I turned Samantha's head to the site and showed him the two tiny holes in her neck that were only visible on closer inspection.

"She probably went west before her ear was ripped off, and that was due to a cla.s.sical neck-bite, which our kind masters expertly."

Antonio lurched away from the body as if his view of life had just been crushed. His wedge-shaped face twitched instinctively, his whiskers trembled, and he opened and closed the mouth without giving a sound. He sat down on his rear legs far apart from me and seemed to petrify.

"When did you find her?" I said.

"At midnight. When I woke up yesterday morning, you both weren't at the palazzo anymore. So I went into the city and looked for you everywhere. At this, I got to know about your heroic deeds. Shortly before I wanted to leave for Vatican City, I got the idea to check on Samantha once more. Privately, I had been worried about her the whole day, as it wasn't her custom to leave the property for more than the garden walls. She was sterilized. When I still couldn't find her around the house, I went down to the cellar and ..."

His eyes were flooded by the first tears now, which rolled down to the tip of his nose, shortly stayed there and then dripped down in heavy drops.

"I never had a dearer friend, Francis, and never a more sympathetic one ..." he said sobbingly.

"It happened like this", I pa.s.sed over the sad situation. I wanted to comfort him with at least a prospect of enlightening all this horror. "Samantha knew her killer, she trusted him. It may even be that they were in cahoots over this murder thing. After all she led me on a wrong trace. The killer, in this case clearly a fellow, wiled her to the cellar under a pretext, she followed him unsuspectingly. In an un.o.bserved moment he inserted the neck-bite. She died right away and yet had to endure a lot after that. The beast bit off her ear to make it look like she was just another victim of the rampant murder series in this city. I bet the good stuff is hidden somewhere around here."

"Why?" Antonio said, and in this mournful pitch it sounded like a philosophical question.

"It sounds a little megalomaniac, but she had to die because of me. The killer knew that I would get back to her and take her to task. And then her connection to him would have been easily revealed. So it was very convenient that the incident could be disguised as another of the butcher's deeds. Yet, it was pretty stupid of him to believe I would miss the neck-bite and let go off all logic at the sight of a wounded ear. At least we know now, that Samantha wasn't directly working with the human monster but just with his loyal animal a.s.sistant."

We both had to stomach these insights. In the darkness of the cellar was total silence, and not even a c.o.c.kroach scuttled around the corner and nibbled on our concentration. Samantha also looked prayerfully with her amber eyes, as if she wanted to succor us from the ulterior sphere. After a small eternity Antonio was the first to move.

"Do you think what I think, Francis?"

"I guess so", I said.

"This suspicious shadow, whom Blixa watched taking to the future victims in the Bernini Colonnades at the Piazza San Pietro, is involved in this disgrace."

"He picks out the appropriate candidates and guides them to a human, joking and making big promises. This guy sedates them, prepares them for the operation and robs their ear and life. The rest is our four-legged friend's part again. He carries the bodies away and spreads them throughout the city, in the justified hope the callous world out there won't put a SWAT team together at the sight of a mutilated carca.s.s. Probably this surely most productive teamwork between human and animal since Tarzan and Cheetah first began when it became too risky for the butcher at Vatican City. After all, even the unworldly padres there would eventually notice the increasing loss of animals on the site. And in the long run he couldn't keep misusing all Vatican parks as hazardous waste deposit. Also, he had cultivated his surgical skills so much that he needed a professional operating room in a secret retreat. The only question is why a fellow would lend oneself to being the handmaid for some monstrous felidae killer. What is the reason?"

There was another pause, but a shorter one this time.

"Do you think what I think again, Francis?" Antonio asked, very compa.s.sionately this time, as he was reading my thoughts apparently.

"Maybe", I replied. "But I wish, one would finally take the thinking and the ultra heavy weight of this horror story off of my shoulders. I'm in a bad fix."

"I know. If you don't follow this lead, you sin against our kind and allow the killer to go on with his incredible malice. And if you do and hunt him down howsoever, you rob your beloved Sancta of her master and ensure that soon she will have to join the other homeless at the Largo Argentina. Francis, il mio amico, face the truth: This Umberto with his technical skills is the only person in your investigation file so far, who is capable of the gruesome bricolages you hypothesize. Even more, he works at Vatican City, and being security chief he has access everywhere day and night."

Given his trenchant a.n.a.lysis, I kept silent. But that didn't release me from my dilemma. Antonio had simply expressed things, which had been floating about my mind for a while, just that I hadn't been willing to draw any consequences. Nevertheless I wasn't able to trace this case with open eyes, when I closed my eyes from the already looming finale at the same time. That was crazy, and people, who did that, were also crazy. There was another word for such a behavior: Sin!

"Where does this guy live again?" Antonio wanted to know. In his turquoise eyes, which were still wet from the tears, flared cravings for revenge.

"Sancta mentioned, that he owns a stingy cabin under the Ponte Rotto at the Tiber."

"d.a.m.n it, so we will actually get quite wet tonight!"

Ponto Rotto, which was only a couple of stones throws away from the head of the Tiber Island, was a strange ancient residue. Originally, this first stone bridge was called Ponte Emilio but as it was neither rebuilt nor removed after its ultimate collapse due to a heavy flooding in the 16th century, it has been called the broken bridge ever since. Technically, there was only a single element of the ruin left, which looked like a triumphal arch that had been frayed at its sides. The two sockets of the arch stood on raised stone hills, which over the ages had created a couple of islands with rampant vegetation. As we arrived at the Tiber bank it soared in the rain-soaked night sky, which was haunted by angry thunderbolts, like the last brown snag in the mouth of an old man.

After a dead run through Rome's flooded alleys, Antonio and I still had to face the worst, but that didn't really bother us any more as we would probably die from pneumonia in the next couple of days anyway! The may rain had put us through the mill so hard, that we reminded of socks, which had been spit out by a broken washing machine drum, with our soaking wet hair that stick to our body and made us look half our actual size. We jittered.

We arrived at the Ponte Fabricio, which was illuminated by old streetlights, a sound bridge that connected the city with the Tiber Island in the middle of the river. The rain performed a crazy dance and blocked our view. Not many had lived on the tiny island, people used to visit the sacred sites the Temple of Aesculapius and then later a medieval church and then they left. We ran over lateral stairs, which led from the bridge to the island and sort of ran to the stern of the ship, a stone platform with a couple of steps that led to the sh.o.r.e. Only a couple of feet lay between us and the Ponte Rotto, only that these few feet were filled with turbulent water.

There was something encouraging after all. Next to the bottom of the left arch of the bridge's remains and partially hidden in dense undergrowth a pale light shimmered from a window of a box-like building. On the sh.o.r.e a gray rubber raft with outboard engine was moored. It was a little suicidal to visit a killer in his slaughterhouse. But I hadn't endured all this madness for two days, just to crawfish out now. That I was put Antonio at risk because auf my mad curiosity did bother me though. But hadn't he said just two days ago "I want to apprentice to you, yes, I want to be your Dr. Watson"? Life's not easy at the bottom!

"And you're absolutely sure that there are no floaties lying around somewhere?" I yelled at Antonio through the howling gale.

He shrugged.

"Scary area", he said. "Looks a lot like a freaking test of courage for real men."

"But, il mio amico, you are a real man. Above all, in contrary to us boring straight guys you are actually able to judge a real man!"

Despite the omnipresent coldness, which gripped me to the marrow, I was capable of a c.o.c.ky smile.

"You will excuse me though, when I dare a jump in good old broads' way ..." the black Oriental replied, and in the next moment he was in the water at a clumsy