“I’m here to pledge,” Raphael repeated.
“I can’t believe this shit.” Undone by laughing too hard, Mr. Wifebeater brought his arm to his midsection. “Pup, you better scoot.” He wiped his eyes with a flour-dusted hand, spreading white powder over his face.
“I’m fast and I can do the runs for you—”
The Red pointed a finger at the Nimbus. “And you would do that on that piece of crap?”
Raphael shifted and planted his boots wider, then folded his arms over his chest. “Ask Lazlo Torni how I’ve always delivered on time when I worked for him. Even when that Red was after me.”
Mr. Wifebeater shook his head, tears still escaping his eyes as he gave in to more laughter. “Go home, kid.”
Refusing to be dismissed, Raphael stood taller and raised his chin. “Try me.”
The werewolf stepped closer to Raphael, and inflated his chest. “You’re funny, but playtime’s over. Go away or I’ll make you go away. Your choice.”
“I won’t go unless you try me.” Raphael’s statement triggered another bout of hysterical laugh, and he gave the Red a cold stare.
“You’re cute.” Mr. Wifebeater waved the rolling pin at Raphael. “Listen, if you don’t run I’ll try you all right.” He made to close the door, but Raphael put his boot in its trajectory and blocked it. “What the—”
His boot was crushed by the wolf forcefully pushing the door from the other side, but Raphael clenched his teeth and stood his ground. “Give me a chance to prove myself.”
“Move. Out. Of. The. Way!” The bellow was loud enough to startle a few stray cats napping in the corner.
The door was slammed against his boot three times in rapid succession making his eyes tear. He breathed through the piercing pain, then answered, “I. Won’t.”
Obscene swearing accompanied another round of boot-bashing. Almost at the end of his physical endurance, Raphael willed his trembling leg still.
The door was ripped opened and a furious wolf exploded out of it. The Red grabbed Raphael by the collar, then hit him with his free hand. His body betrayed him and Raphael fell forward. A hard slap on his ear caught him midair, sending him against the wall. Disoriented, his injured foot gave away, and he slid to the sidewalk.
“What’s happening?” someone asked from the street.
“Not your business,” the werewolf answered as he closed the door.
Raphael blinked, his ear rang, and everything sounded distant, but he heard steps getting closer.
“Hey, are you okay?” the passerby asked, leaning over him.
One leg outstretched before him, Raphael gave the man a wave of his hand. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? I can call an ambulance. The police—” The man had his cell phone ready on his hand.
“There’s no need. Thank you though.”
“You don’t look okay—” The man fidgeted with his phone.
Raphael wondered where those good citizens were when he was beaten daily by his father. He could have used some help then. Pushing himself up without swearing was a feat, but he achieved verticality with a mere grimace. “I appreciate your concern, but I’m fine. Just a misunderstanding with my friend.” With a smile that hurt his face, he wobbled to his bicycle, but instead of mounting the Nimbus he walked it away. His ear still ringing, he was unbalanced for the first few steps, but got the hang of it soon.
Rounding the corner, he looked behind to check if the man was still there. He was. Raphael sighed and hurried to enter the first alley he encountered. There, he hid behind a dumpster and waited, flattened against the wall.
A few heartbeats later, the man strolled past the backstreet, then came back, his steps slow as he paused a few meters from Raphael. Shaking his head, the man finally left, and Raphael let out the breath he was holding.
“So help me Great Wolf from the good Samaritans.” Sliding along the wall, he sat on the thin layer of asphalt covering the cobblestones, taking a breather before going back to the Reds’.
When he knocked, Mr. Wifebeater opened the door. “You gotta be kidding.”
Squaring his stance proved problematic—his balance wasn’t fully back yet—but Raphael stood tall before the wolf. “Put me to work.”
A jogging couple stopped on the other side of the road, and the woman bent to tie her shoes while her companion glanced at them.
The werewolf gave Raphael one exasperated look. “Go away.”
“I won’t.” Raphael waved at the couple. “Hi.”
“What are you doing?” The wolf’s hand shot forward and grabbed Raphael by his shirt.
While smiling at the couple, Raphael lowered his voice to say, “If anything happens to me, people saw me talking to you here.”
Mr. Wifebeater’s eyebrow arched, a grin tugging at his lips. “Yes, but, apart from the fact that a few witnesses mean nothing to me—” He twisted Raphael’s shirt in his hand. “If anything happens to you, believe me when I say that you’d never be found.”
“You don’t scare me.” Still with his eyes on the couple, Raphael shrugged. “Give me something to deliver.”
The wolf shook his head, but released his hold on him, and started laughing. Then he stopped, his brows furrowed for a moment, soon replaced by a slow smile. “You know what? I’ll give you something to do. But if you fail, you promise to never come back. Understood?”
“Understood.”
Looking behind his back, the wolf stepped forward. “I need you to get something for me”
“I deliver—”
“Lesson number one, and it’s free this time. If you really want to pledge, you don’t talk back to a big brother. You lower your head, and say ‘How can I be of service?’” The wolf stared Raphael down.
Prancing and howling, Raphael’s wolf rebelled in his mind, but he had expected his beast to react that way and forced him to behave. Good thing the moon was new, and the wolf was at his least powerful. With what he hoped was his most humble look, Raphael lowered his head and repeated, “How can I be of service, big brother?”
“You aren’t a pledge, so you don’t have permission to call me anything but sir.”
At that, his wolf jumped ahead to challenge the Red’s beast. Willing him to stay put a second time, Raphael ground his teeth, and let out the required words. “How can I be of service, sir?”
“Bring me back a vial of V, and I’ll think about talking to the alpha about testing you.” With a satisfied smirk, the Red shushed Raphael away.
The door was already closing, when Raphael grabbed the lion knocker. “For when do you need it, sir?”
The werewolf looked at him from over his shoulder, surprise on his face, but he covered it with a scowl. “I want to be generous. I’m on door duty until ten, tonight. Come back with my gift before then. Now leave or I’ll change my mind.”
Shaking legs and mind in turmoil, Raphael took away his hand from the knocker and watched as the door closed. A long list of swearwords left his mouth, as he moved away from the Reds’ and tried to reorder his thoughts toward finding a solution to his predicament. All the while, he would have given anything to know if Luisa was in that building, as Carla had suggested. Otherwise, he was about to go against his moral and infringe several laws for nothing.
After his limbs stopped trembling and he had cleared his mind, he mounted his Nimbus. The longer he rode his bicycle, the easier it became to accept he was about to steal V. Pedaling without sparing himself, Raphael concentrated on the task ahead. He had to reach the city center and Termini Station within the hour. There, he hoped to find the two shifters who had declared war on drugs one street at a time. His entering Reds headquarters depended on it.
Chapter Six
Termini Station was filled with people. Not just commuters and travelers swarming inside the big structure, crisscrossing paths on their way to the platforms or leaving them. Outside, a whole world gathered 24/7. Immigrants—from several parts of Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa—had clai
med the large area around the station as their own. They used the premises to meet and greet, to sell and buy, to play games of chess, and even to have cookouts.
Raphael loved the micro-worlds of the station, each ethnicity never straying in someone else’s territory, but always polite to their neighbors. Sometimes, cultural exchanges were made, and colors mixed, then everyone would go back to their corner.
Dismounting his Nimbus, one hand on the handle, Raphael ventured into the melee, looking for Edoardo and Ludovico. A team of two, they were also known as the Street Angels for their safety patrol work within the renegade community. A few years older than him, and belonging to the shifter society upper echelons, they spent their fortunes and time to help kids in trouble. Edoardo and Ludovico were probably the only non-renegades Raphael admired. And Quintilius. But he could never go back to the alpha, and by now Iris had already informed the alpha that Raphael hadn’t showed up for work.
Red and white striped umbrellas covered vendor carts from the relentless sun, and Raphael used the shadows they cast to take refuge from the afternoon heat. Colors and scents assailed his senses, and so did the memories.
When he was a young cub, his father brought him to Termini Station every Sunday. Usually, Raphael was left to entertain himself by the spice vendors, while his father worked on one of his cons. Those schemes of his were seldom successful, and, afterward, his father would be in a bad mood for days. Drinking helped his father forget about his latest failure, and by Saturday he would come up with the next big idea. Despite what happened after those weekly visits to the station, the spare hours Raphael spent there were his fondest childhood memories. A gift his father had inadvertently given him.
The hint of freshly ground turmeric was followed by basil and rosemary in his roaming along the carts and boots. Then the colors and scents changed and became hearty and rich in cardamom, cinnamon, fenugreek, and nutmeg. An African tune blasted from a broken speaker hanging by a cable from an umbrella stretcher.
From one of the larger stalls, a small man invited Raphael closer, then he gestured for him to consider his baked goods. “Couscous? Homemade with lamb.” He pointed to a different spot on the table. “Eggplants? Zighinì?”
Shaking his head, Raphael smiled at the man. “Not today.” He wished he could pause and savor a plate or two. The food was presented on brass trays with flower petals to separate each dish. The aroma emanating from the stall was wetting Raphael’s mouth, but the night would be on him soon if he didn’t get moving.
“Next time, yes?”
Raphael brought his hand to his chest and resumed his stroll. “Next time.”
Under the sun and the afternoon heat, Nimbus was heavy to pull along. Raphael’s eyes were watery, and he was sweating. Yet, he pushed himself and the bicycle out of the African section, and headed toward the Far East corner. The Street Angels used to frequent that portion of the Roman Kasbah—Raphael had renamed Termini Station thus after watching a documentary on Istanbul’s famous market, and noticed the similarities between the two places.
Not sure he would find them at their usual spot, between the mahjong players and the dumpling soup cart, Raphael looked among the crowd, hoping to see the spiky purple mane of Edoardo and Ludovico’s shaved head with a Roman Eagle tattoo. A werewolf and a were-puma, they liked to mingle with renegades and mortals better than with their own.
“Hey, little wolf!”
The call came from the right, where, from under a pagoda-shaped gazebo decorated with red paper lanterns, a raised hand was waving at Raphael who couldn’t help but breathe in relief. “Edoardo.” Raphael beelined toward the werewolf, passing among the thick crowd and entering the pagoda.
“Long time no see.” Edoardo rose from the bamboo stool he was sitting on cross-legged, and gave him a one-armed hug. “Glad you came to visit.” He showed him a second stool and sat back down.
“Where’s Ludovico?” Raphael couldn’t remember a single time when he had seen one but not the other. The two shifters were a couple, and they usually did everything together.
“Family day. I’m not welcome.” Sadness tinged Edoardo’s words.
“They’ll come around.” Raphael lowered himself to the stool, but couldn’t find a comfortable position.
“I’m not so sure anymore. We’ve been steady for two years now, and his family won’t relent.” Edoardo passed a hand over his stiff hair. The purple was highlighted by blue strands. The complicated hairdo and the colorful mane were all the rage among werewolf youth.
Poverty had dictated Raphael’s signature haircut and color, long and naturally light brown with sun-bleached blond streaks. Accustomed to it, he had kept his mane thus even when he had the money to go to the barber.
Raphael shifted his weight to the side, sitting on his bent leg. “Were-pumas are known to be on the racist side.” He checked the time on his cell phone, and noticed several calls from Quintilius’s office. Most assuredly Iris’s.
Edoardo snorted. “That’s an understatement. When his parents thought we were just friends, they barely tolerated my sight, always sniffing me down as if I stunk. They only admitted me in their house because of my father. But when we announced we were a couple, they told Ludovico no sons of theirs would ever mate with a wolf.”
“I can’t believe things like that still happen in this day and age.” Raphael stretched both his legs out and under one of the two coffee tables placed before the stools.
“It’s because they’re were-puma royalty, and think they’re better than the rest of the world. But enough of that—” The werewolf shrugged, then saw a cart with dim sum baskets rounding the pagoda and he waved at the vendor. Angling his head toward Raphael, he asked, “Are you hungry?”
Although he was worried about wasting precious time, and couldn’t help but take another look at his cell phone, Raphael automatically reached for his wallet in his jeans pocket.
“My treat.” With a smile, Edoardo raised a hand when Raphael didn’t put his wallet back. “I don’t like to eat alone, and I’m so glad you appeared, when I was just about to go and make a scene at their royal-pain-in-the ass’ mansion.” His eyes on the approaching food cart, he uncurled to his full height and stood by one of the wooden columns. “And you know, nothing screams ‘I love you’ like ruining your boyfriend’s cousin’s big fat were-mitzvah.”
From one of the many churches nearby, the joyous tolling of ancient bells announced the hour, and Raphael shuddered.
“I need to talk to you—” Raphael inwardly groaned. “And I’m afraid you won’t like the reason why I came.”
The vendor parked his cart laden with steamy bamboo containers by Edoardo. The wolf leaned over the carved wooden parapet, but asked Raphael, “Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“I got myself in a bit of a situation.” Raphael watched as the vendor, shouting in Mandarin, removed lids and pointed at the food, while Edoardo ordered in the same language. The two seemed to argue over the content of one of the baskets, but the vendor vehemently shook his head, then shoved the container to the bottom of the stacked pile of steamers, and uncovered steamy buns instead.
“Okay. How can I help you?” Without missing a beat, the wolf talked to both Raphael and the man, switching back and forth between Italian and Mandarin. Meanwhile, he picked three different kinds of dumplings, sticky rice, congee he asked extra spicy—he translated for Raphael—buns but with no pork, and an array of sweet concoctions.
“Still vegetarian?” Raphael helped him place the food on the two coffee tables, and his stomach growled.
“Yes. ‘Being a wolf wasn’t enough, he also had to be one of those unnatural weirdoes!’ Her majesty the countess’s exact words.” As he grabbed one last basket, Edoardo swiped his card over the vendor’s cell phone. “But we were talking about you.” He gestured for Raphael to take his pick of the food.
Passing his hand over his jaw, where soft blond stubble had started growing in the last few months, Raphael sighed. “I’m desp
erate. I wouldn’t come to you and ask of this if I had a choice.” His eyes went to the rest of the Kasbah—the crowd was ticker, the air steamier, and the sun lower—then back to the wolf and shook his head. “Believe me, I really have nowhere else to go, but I need V.”
The dumpling Edoardo was bringing to his mouth fell into the basket and broke, revealing a filling of cilantro and spinach. “You need what?”
“A vial of V, by tonight.”
“You are not kidding.”
“I’m pledging to the Reds.”
“What?” Edoardo’s chopsticks followed the dumpling into the basket, his brows raised and his jaws dropped. “Why?”
“Luisa.” Without pausing, Raphael summarized the events of the last five months for the wolf.
Eyes wide, Edoardo shook his head at the end of Raphael’s tale. “What you’re doing is crazy. Luisa might not be there at all.”
“She must be.”
“Your friend could be wrong.”
“But everything coincides, names, dates—”
“Yes, but what if it is just that, a coincidence?”
“And what if this is the last chance I got to see her again?” Raphael’s wolf let out a sad cry. “She’s my mate.” Shoulders raised, he opened his hands to the side. “I can’t do nothing.”
“Okay.” Edoardo sighed. “V, you say.” He looked down at the baskets he had closed while Raphael talked. “Let me eat first, then I’ll call Ludovico, and we’ll come up with something.” Chopsticks at the ready, he removed the lid from the vegetable buns container and offered one to Raphael. “You should eat too. It’s going to be a long night.”
****
Edoardo and Ludovico were on the phone for half an hour. The plan they concocted sounded too vague to Raphael, but he couldn’t contribute anything better. His strategy would have involved prowling at night chasing weak vampires, incapacitating the hopefully-willing victim, milking their blood with a straw, and storing it in a resealable plastic bag. So he kept quiet.
Two hours later, they were waiting outside Ludovico’s house. Raphael’s nerves were strung high, and he paced back and forth on the gravel. His boots were coated in white-gray dust after a few minutes.
Raphael (The Immortal Youth Book 1) Page 7
