THE POPE'S CASTLE OF ANGELS

"How do we get in there?" Anna Christina inquired. A valid question. The three vampires searched the fortress wall.

"First, we need to get into the inner ring," Franz Leopold observed. "The old bastions on the riverside are almost sunk in the mud. They're not an obstacle."

"Yes, that's true, but then what? Look at the smoothly plastered walls!"

"But only the main walls, not the bastions at the corners," Franz Leopold replied. "Look over there, the bastion to the right of the gate is lower than the others, and the bricks in the corner are so weathered that we can surely climb up there safely."

Anna Christina grimaced but said nothing, instead following her cousins, who had already begun to climb the wall. They had to be careful. Although there were enough gaps and protrusions to provide grip for their fingers and shoes, many stones were loose, and the mortar had become brittle over time. Nevertheless, they reached the battlements quickly and without much difficulty. Anna Christina leaned over the parapet and looked down into the moat that encircled the castle. "There must be a staircase somewhere," she said.

"Why?" Franz Leopold asked. "It's not that high. We can jump!" With that, he swung his legs over the parapet. With a long leap, he vaulted forward and landed skillfully on his feet and hands. The others followed suit. Karl Philipp grumbled a bit under his breath, but he seemed to have survived the jump well. He adjusted his belt with the lightweight rapier. Franz Leopold stood up and brushed the dirt off his trousers. He had forsaken that cumbersome weapon.

"Come on, let's take a walk around. Maybe we'll find an open door or a window we can crawl through."

They had no luck. Soon they were back at the spot where they had started their round. Franz Leopold's gaze wandered up the castle wall, which seemed to stretch infinitely into the night sky.

Anna Christina stood beside him. "And now what? You don't seriously intend to climb up these walls, do you?"

"It's quite high," Karl Philipp agreed.

"Yes, but look at the alternating bricks and blocks. They're ancient and porous, and so irregularly protruding that it'll be a breeze."

Anna Christina nodded. "In this old section, perhaps, but the upper part of the fortress tower seems more challenging to me. Just look at how the ring protrudes with those arches. Don't you think the distance to the window niches is too great?"

Franz Leopold shook his head. "It might be. It's hard to judge from down here. But I would say we can manage it. If you want, I'll try it alone first."

"What's the point?" his cousin objected. "We've come this far, and there's still no sign of the others. Now let's claim the triumph that's rightfully ours!"

She stretched, inserted her fingertips between the crumbling mortar pieces, and then climbed up with her feet. She made a good figure, steadily pushing herself higher, her body always tense, her torso pressed tightly against the wall. Franz Leopold quickly followed her. He was the most skillful of the three and soon had surpassed her. Karl Philipp, on the other hand, had some trouble. His rapier, in particular, was in the way and got stuck several times. He also dislodged small mortar fragments and slipped several times. He cursed.

"You have to move slower and more evenly," Franz Leopold called to him, who had almost reached the ring of the wall. "And push the rapier further back. Follow me!" He paused and looked up. Yes, that should work. Franz Leopold pulled himself up on the curved arch supports, shifted his weight sideways, and clamped one of the supports between his legs. Now he could stretch out his body and lean so far outward that he could reach the next narrow ledge. For a human, it would have been a feat that his body could not have withstood, but for a young vampire, the obstacle was not too difficult to overcome. Franz Leopold pulled himself up onto the rounded ledge and then slowly stood up. As he had suspected, he could reach the edge of the window niche. Done! Anna Christina, who had watched him closely, was already sitting in the adjacent window niche. When Karl Philipp, grumbling and groaning, reached them, Franz Leopold had already opened the window.

"Welcome to the Castel Sant'Angelo! I knew we could do it. So, let's find ourselves a nice spot on the roof where we can comfortably await our challengers!"

The three young vampires and the white wolf ran along the riverbank. Seymour ran ahead with wide leaps. Ivy and Alisa were barely slower. Only Luciano fell further and further behind. "Luciano, come on!" Alisa called impatiently.

The Nosferas groaned. His chest ached, and a pounding began in his head. Why had he agreed to this insane competition? That was, of course, not a real question, as the answer was clear: Because someone had to put that unbearable braggart Franz Leopold and his whole clan in their place! "And why is it so important to you? Why do you have to do this?" a voice in his head continued to probe, laughing mockingly.

Luciano watched Ivy's silver locks bounce in rhythm with their steps. The dark hood had slipped back and now hung down her back. Her slender body moved swiftly, silently, and gracefully. Her bare feet seemed to float above the ground. Just this sight alone was worth enduring any hardship for!

"Ah, you're doing this for Ivy! Do you really think you can impress her with such an action, especially if you lose because you're simply too slow and sluggish?" The voice in his head sounded a bit like Franz Leopold.

"Luciano! Come on! Don't dawdle," Alisa called back over her shoulder. "The Dracas might be faster than we'd like!"

Luciano clenched his fists, but he tried to run even faster. When was the last time he had run like this? He couldn't remember. He needed all his strength not to stumble and fall on the cobblestones. The image of St. Peter's Basilica danced hazily before his eyes. Luciano noticed that the river was winding to the east. Good, they would soon see the Castel Sant'Angelo, and then they would be there soon, and then he could finally stop and rest a bit while they waited for the Dracas.

There it was, the Castel Sant'Angelo came into view. The three ran past the Ospedale di Santo Spirito, the hospital that had been built here for the needy by the then pope over six hundred years ago. Even today, poor women could push unwanted children through the "rota" and thus leave them unrecognized to general care, instead of drowning them in the Tiber, as was previously customary.

But at this moment, not even Alisa paid any attention to the people and their problems. Seymour had come to a sliding stop and lifted his snout with a low whine. Ivy reached him first.

"What's wrong with him?" Alisa asked when she stopped next to her.

Ivy narrowed her eyes, then pointed to the walls of the Castel Sant'Angelo. "Do you see that?"

"By the infernal demons."

"What? What's wrong?" Luciano wanted to know as he now wheezed his way to them. He leaned forward, pressing both hands into his sides. Alisa glanced at him, and he believed he could read a mixture of astonishment and pity in her eyes. Both hit him. Ivy still pointed at the castle. When Luciano realized what she was pointing at, he even forgot his craving for blood, which was greater than ever after the run.

No doubt. The three Viennese vampires were climbing over the outer perimeter wall. They could see Franz Leopold, reaching out his hand to help Anna Christina. Then they disappeared from their view.

"This can't be true," Luciano groaned. "How did they get here so fast?"

Alisa kept running. "Come on! We're not giving up yet." The others followed her.

"Do we have to climb over the wall too?" Ivy, who had fallen back to Luciano's side, asked. "We can't leave Seymour behind."

"No, we won't climb any wall," Luciano panted. "We'll take the Passetto."

"Passetto? What's that?" Ivy asked as she seemed to stroll alongside him, even though Luciano was running as fast as he could.

"A rescue tunnel for the Pope from the palace to the castle," he blurted out. "Over there, on the west side."

Luciano ran toward the damaged protective wall of the bastion. At the point where the Passetto crossed it, its arches barely rose more than five steps above the ground. He pointed to a tree whose branches stretched over the stone path. They quickly climbed up. Even Seymour managed to get up the thick branches with a little help and jumped through a broken cover plate into the passage that had long served as an escape route for the popes. Running, they crossed the moat and reached Bastion San Marco. They crossed the lower defense tower, on whose platform stood a few rusty cannons. In the corners lay stone cannonballs covered with moss and lichen.

Luciano waved them further along the battlement. "Over there is a footbridge, and I know how to open the door."

"Do you see that?" Alisa exclaimed. "They're actually climbing up the outer wall of the castle!" Was there admiration in her voice? Luciano only cast a brief glance at their opponents. He had more important things to do than admire their smooth, slender bodies, which seemed to move to a silent melody. "How elegant! How beautiful!" Had one of the girls said that, or were the voices in his head mocking him again?

Luciano crossed the stone footbridge and pushed open the door, which was only jammed, not locked. "Come on!"

They hurried on over a rising ramp with shallow steps that cut through the entire fortress. On the left, a corridor opened into a wide spiral leading downwards. However, Luciano followed the ramp upwards. They crossed a wooden bridge over a chasm that formed a chamber in the center of the castle. To Alisa, it felt like she was in an ancient mausoleum, not in a papal fortress. Luciano nodded when she said it aloud.

"Yes, the castle is built on the mausoleum of Hadrian. That's the urn chamber, and down there the passage winds in a huge spiral down to the foundation. But we don't have time for that now. We need to get to the Angel!"

Luciano really knew his way around the castle. He turned left twice and followed the stairs into a courtyard. The two girls caught glimpses of once magnificent chambers that now obviously housed no more popes but were used as storage and armories. The painted ceilings reminded them of the paintings in the Domus Aurea.

They ran across the courtyard towards another staircase. Alisa tilted her head back. There was the Angel, almost within reach on its pedestal!

Arriving at the top, Luciano ran along the gallery, which offered a wide view over all of Rome. A few more steps led them into a room with a vaulted ceiling. Finally, a narrow spiral staircase brought them up to the platform. The three stormed out onto the rooftop terrace and almost collided with the Dracas. For a moment, they just looked at each other. Seymour's growling broke the paralysis.

"Up to the Angel!" Alisa and Franz Leopold exclaimed simultaneously and already clung to the first white decorative strip, which was the only thing providing them with support on this wall. Carefully, they pulled themselves up and reached for the next strip. The others followed suit. Luciano and Karl Philipp slipped repeatedly, while the others labored on.

Franz Leopold was a little ahead of Alisa, then came Ivy, who couldn't pass Alisa at this point. The same went for Anna Christina.

The white pedestal on which the bronze Angel stood, the sword blade lowered to sheathe it, was not very high. Alisa reached up and grabbed the edge. With a swing, she pulled herself up, swung onto the pedestal, and reached for one of the angel's bare knees.

"Victory!" she exclaimed, just before her hand did not find, as expected, hard bronze, but rather perhaps equally cool, but softer flesh. She gripped a maybe equally cool but softer arm. She looked into the most beautiful and coldest face she knew.

"Not quite," said Franz Leopold, smiling. "We were clearly faster!"

"I touched the Angel first." She noticed that she was still holding onto Franz Leopold's wrist. Alisa let go of him so hastily that she almost fell backward, but he grabbed her by the sleeve until she regained her balance.

"You're leaving already?" he cooed. "Then I wish you a good flight!" Although he let her go, Alisa stood securely now and could glare angrily at him.

"Admit that we were faster and won the competition!" Franz Leopold put on his usual arrogant expression and let his gaze wander. "I only see our fatty standing down there and throwing pitiful glances up at us like a dog!"

"Yes, he's standing there together with Karl Philipp..."

"... and the two are about to start a fight at any moment," Ivy added and jumped back onto the platform. But Seymour had already positioned himself between the two young vampires, growling with bared teeth.

"Shall we watch my cousin turn the little fatty into mush, or shall we intervene?" Franz Leopold asked. "What do you think, Alisa?" She didn't answer him but followed Ivy. Franz Leopold shrugged and then elegantly jumped back down as well.

"No one has won the victory!" Ivy said. When the others raised their voices to protest, she silenced them with a single vigorous gesture. Although she was the smallest in terms of her size, she exuded an authority that made her appear more powerful and made her slender figure fade into oblivion.

"Alisa and Franz Leopold touched the statue of the angel simultaneously. The four of us remained behind. So if there are winners, it's them, closely followed by the rest of us. I think the competition has shown that our families don't differ so much after all. We have different powers, but all of them are useful, and we can both compete against each other and fight alongside each other. Let's enjoy this wonderful view over the moonlit Eternal City of Rome for a while longer. Then we should make our way back home, as the light of the stars in the east will soon begin to fade."

"What a speech! My head is spinning, Signora Professoressa," said Franz Leopold, but it didn't sound half as mocking as he probably intended.

"Yes, it's a wonderful view," confirmed Alisa, who had stepped up to the railing. The Tiber flowed sluggishly between its muddy banks. Lanterns burned on the barges and fishing boats of the northernmost of the three city harbors, their light reflected in the water. The occasional torchbearer moved through the maze of alleys on the opposite bank towards Piazza Navona. The warm glow of the fire flickered over the walls of the closely packed houses. But most of the people of Rome were resting at this hour, just before the first market traders set out with their goods to the various squares of the city. The peaceful atmosphere enveloped them until Karl Philipp rudely broke it.

"Nothing is decided! Maybe we barely won the first part, but we'll clearly win the way back!" He grabbed Franz Leopold, who stood next to Alisa and Ivy, looking out over the rooftops of the city, by the shoulder. "Come on, don't stand here as if you had to howl at the moon. The race continues!"

Anna Christina's eyes began to sparkle. "Yes, the race continues!" And the three of them hurried down the stairs and disappeared around the bend.

"Hey, what's this?" Luciano called after them. "This second race wasn't agreed upon!" He snorted indignantly. "I'm not running through all of Rome again!"

"What?" Alisa looked at him with wide-open eyes. "You want to let them have the triumph of beating us on the way back? You can't do that! Just because you don't want to make an effort?"

"Luciano is still too exhausted," Ivy said, and although there was no accusation in her voice, Luciano protested. He would rather collapse along the way than admit to this disgrace! Resolutely, he straightened his shoulders.

Alisa beamed. "So let's go! Show us the shortest way."

And off he went down the stairs from the rooftop terrace to the gallery, into the courtyard, and past the chambers of the Renaissance popes.

"Right or left?" Alisa called out, impatiently hopping from one foot to the other until Luciano finally came into view.

"Right, down the ramp!"

They left the fortress and hurried past the outer wall to a small gate that Luciano could open. "We'll take the other bank now, it's shorter," he panted. "Over the bridge!"

As they crossed the bridge - Seymour leading the way - the three Viennese vampires had already crossed the Tiber and disappeared into the maze of streets.

"You need to wash your hands," said Carmelo. Latona looked down at her bloody palms. "Maybe you should wear black gloves next time." His voice was devoid of any emotion.

"Maybe," she said softly, avoiding looking at the body lying motionless in the corner of the courtyard. "Can I go now?"

His expression softened. He put his hand on her shoulder. "Yes, go to the room, wash up, and change. I'll meanwhile cover our tracks. And then we'll eat together. I know a little bar where they still cook something for us at this hour."

She nodded silently. She still couldn't imagine ever being able to eat anything again. This time it had been bad. Worse than usual? Or was she becoming more sensitive with each time? She had thought she would become numb over time, colder, especially towards the old and ugly, but hope had deceived her. She kept telling herself that they were monsters, not humans who had no place on this earth, but she couldn't quite convince herself.

Carmelo briefly squeezed her hand. "It's just a trick, you know. They can influence our minds, make us defenseless, fearful, or numb, even make us forget everything. And as a last resort, when it becomes dangerous for them, they can ignite our sympathy to save themselves."

Latona looked down at the body. "That didn't work out very well for him in this case."

"No, it didn't."

Latona rubbed her bloody hands together. "You still need to clean up everything here. Are you going to cut off his head?"

Carmelo nodded. "You know it's necessary. But first, I need the stone."

He knelt beside the cold body and slid his fingers between the jacket and the shirt. Nothing. He undid the gold buttons and loosened the silk shirt. The chest gleamed white in the moonlight. The wound left by the blade was mercifully hidden by the dark fabric of the jacket. There was no trace of the ruby that the others wore around their necks on leather cords or fine gold chains.

"Go and wash up," Carmelo said in a sharper tone. "I'll search him until I find the stone, and then - clean up here. Wait for me in the room."

He tore the vampire's jacket down and opened the shirt completely. Latona turned away. This gesture seemed more brutal to her than Carmelo's stab with the blade into the heart of his victim. No, she corrected herself in her thoughts. The vampire was the robber, and the humans were his victims. With quick steps, she hurried to her room in the small hotel opposite the half-ruined church of San Nicola de Cesarini. Two cats greeted her and rubbed against her feet, meowing.

"It's amazing how many cats there are," she thought, focusing on the black and reddish-flecked bundles of fur to avoid thinking about the bloody corpse that Carmelo now definitively destroyed with a wide swing of his sword. And freed the soul?

She stroked the cats' backs and then climbed the stairs to her room. The water in her washbasin had long gone cold, but Latona undressed and washed herself repeatedly with the rough cloth. She scrubbed her skin, which was already freed from the blood and now began to glow red and sore. Finally, she paused, grabbed her sheet, and dried herself off. She had just thrown on her thin underdress when Carmelo burst into the room without knocking. However, he seemed not to notice her attire at all.

"I searched him from head to toe. Nothing! I lit up the entire square with a torch. Again, nothing! He didn't lose it during our fight either," Carmelo raised his arms and then let them fall again. Despair and anger were evident on his usually composed face. "He didn't have any of those ruby pendants on him!"

Latona threw a cloak over herself. "Maybe not all vampires have such a stone."

Carmelo stormed towards her, grabbed her shoulders, and shook her roughly. "Do you not realize what this means? We won't get a single silver coin. Nothing! The Cardinal only pays upon delivery."

Latona gently loosened his hands, which were painfully clawing into her bare shoulders. "That's annoying, but what can we do about it? I suspect nothing."

"No, nothing!" he exclaimed, agitated. "We put ourselves in danger and freed Rome from another bloodsucker for nothing. We're no closer to our freedom."

"Then we'll just have to keep going for a while longer," she said as gently as possible.

"And what if we've just been lucky so far? What if most of them don't have the stone, and we're searching and hunting in vain night after night?"

Latona wrapped her arms around herself. Suddenly, she felt cold. At the same time, her skin burned, and she felt lonely and vulnerable. "Then all we can do is pray and hope that God leads us on the right path."

Carmelo snorted disdainfully. "God? It's more likely the devil's Cardinal!"