Elementary Virtue: The Prophecy (10 page)

Keanu was an absolute slave driver. Gregory had no idea where he got all the energy. Twice a day he did his spectacular performance in the circus and the rest of the day he rushed him around, trying to make a true warrior out of him. Since the day, Gregory had arrived. Training with the Akandos in Canada had been a walk in the park compared to this torture. Today it had been particularly intense. Gregory was sitting at an old fountain, standing on the headland cooling his blisters. His arms and especially his back were covered with blisters.

Keanu had constantly attacked him with fire, and after some time his concentration dropped but Keanu knew no mercy, that’s where the blisters came from. In addition, Valentina and Antony had started a fight with Keanu and accused him of trying to kill him. Keanu, had endured the accusations stoically without a blinking, "The Vultures and their mafia friends will not spare him when things get serious. You two don’t have the slightest idea. If he fails to keep up his concentration, he has no chance to survive. So calm down, if you ask me, he's a wimp and he still has a long way to go if he wants to be our Savior," apparently insulted, he stormed off leaving the three of them behind.

"You shouldn’t let him push you around like that," Antony said, giving Gregory a towel and a special ointment to heal blisters. "Possibly, but he has got a point. I can’t concentrate. I don’t know why! In Canada, it worked much better. Either he is much stronger than me, or I'm just unable to handle the situation." He hung his head and stared at his blister-cluttered arms. "Besides, now I also look like a monster," he sighed. Valentina put the ointment gently on his back, "No, you're not weak or unable, he's mentally strong. Have you ever thought about meditating?" Gregory looked surprised, "Meditating?"
"Yes, there is a way to achieve mental strength through meditation, and then you can show him that he is wrong about you. That you are no wimp." Gregory's interest flickered, gladly he would show that muscleman, who was in charge around here and kick his butt real good, "How does it work, can you help me?"
"Of course," Antony interfered, "We are practicing a kind of progressive muscle relaxation training, and also some Tai Chi every day. This is to strengthen our mental force, which we need for our performance. It helps us find our inner peace. Come with us, we will show you our training for today. It is about to begin. Keanu will not know what hits him, next time he tries to attack you." Gregory shrugged frustrated, why not, it would certainly do no harm to meditate with these two, although he didn’t think it would help him any further, but at least he could get out of Keanu's way for a while. His whole body ached. He missed Mila. She certainly would have helped him miraculously ease the pain away with a few herbs. With slumped shoulders, he trotted behind Valentina and Antony.

On the way to the training center, they ran into Donna Tiziana. She took one quick look at Gregory's back snapped and waved the three of them over. She looked terrifying as always. Her eyes make up was dramatic and made her look like an unfortunate owl. Her face was covered with a white powder and her false silver eyelashes, almost reached her forehead. The word that came spontaneously to Gregory’s mind was grotesque, or he pondered that she looked like some sort of transvestite. He almost felt ashamed about his thoughts, but then again, she hadn't been exactly friendly so far had she? She pretty much made him understand from the beginning, that she considered him to be some kind of loser. She didn’t have any trust in him, which 'The Savior' being the last hope, clearly should earn. Considered of course, one really believed in the Onenda prophecy.

They were standing in front of the stern looking Signora, who was on her way to her Fortune Teller tent as the great - Donna Tiziana. She spoke once more about him through others, which she did constantly and which made him furious each time. As if he was not even there. "Come si e combinato il nostro Salvatore di nuovo?" she said with scathing criticism to Valentina and Antony. Which meant, what in heaven's name has happened to our Savior this time around? Gregory felt that he was losing it. Enough was enough. First, damn Keanu, and now the crazy Signora.

He looked at her angrily, "I've got a name and it would be nice if you stopped treating me like I'm your doormat. You are such a smug bunch of bigheaded people. Finally, it looks as if you need me for you damn Savior thing! If you continue to behave so crappy, I ‘ll dye my hair, buy myself some contact lenses, and go off to Holland, where no one knows me," he was in a rage. When he heard the Signora laugh aloud, he turned around looking at her in surprise. She patted her thigh cheerfully, laughing until the tears ran down her powdered cheek, and leaving a trace of that white powder behind. Valentina and Antony looked puzzled at each other shrugging. It took a while until Signora Tiziana had recovered from laughing. Finally, she was able to speak again. She shooed the siblings away saying, "He will get to your training, don’t worry, I am not going to eat him alive. Well, now about us," she looked at Gregory, who was still standing defiantly in front of her. Crossing his arms full of blisters across his chest, "we must treat your blisters," she got to her trailer and when he didn’t move to follow her, she said, "oh, now come on, Gaetano, it is time that the two of us have a talk in private."
"Who the hell is Gaetano? You don’t even know my name, my name is Gregory and not Gaetano."

She had disappeared in the meantime into the trailer and he heard her fiddling with dishes. Shortly after, she stepped into the open again. She held a marble bowl in her hands stirring in it with a mortar like a wild woman. Then she held out the content, a green mixture reminding him of mud, in his face, "Drink Gaetano, the blisters will disappear in no time." Gregory looked at her, frowning, then he took the bowl shrugging. What the hell, he thought. It was worth a try hopefully the old crazy lady didn't want to kill him. He drank the viscous pulp, which tasted surprisingly minty and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. A jolt went through him, he felt hot and cold at the same time, and he remembered the day when Mila had healed his nose with her mixture. It felt similar. Amazed he looked at his hands and arms. The blisters disappeared one by one, and after a short time, he looked completely unscathed. It was like a miracle. The Signora stood there smiling, and then she patted invitingly on a folding chair beside her, she wanted him to sit down beside her. Gregory had no other choice than to sit down.

"So, Gaetano, it seems that Keanu is a pretty brutal sadist. I wouldn't have given him that." She shook her head disapprovingly. Gregory was confused, "Why do you always call me Gaetano? My name is Gregory." The Signora shook her head back and forth,
"let me ask you something, what did Keanu tell you about your origin?" Gregory shrugged, "Not that much, I guess, but he told me about Ourday and his two sisters. That Ourday has pronounced the prophecy before he plunged into the volcano." Signora Tiziana nodded agreeing, "That's what I thought. Well, I guess then I'll leave it to him to tell you the tale about the descendants of the Onendas mixing with the locals, the ones we call Akandos today. But, have you listened carefully, when Keanu told you about the prophecy?" Gregory shrugged, "Yes, I think so. The prophecy says that only a descendant of Ourday can be the savior, I mean break the curse.”
That's right, only his descendant, which means you're a descendant of Ourday’s line, and you're not the first Savior Gaetano."
"Ok, if you are saying that I am not the first, probably means, that the first one got killed before he could fulfill his destiny, right?" He looked at her questioningly, “Exactly, the first savior appeared in 1896 and was murdered after his 19th birthday. Gregory looked suddenly very interested. He realized he could find out much more from the Signora, than he would ever get out of the silent warrior Keanu, "What was his name and who killed him?"

"Slow down, boy. Not too many questions at once. His name was Lorenzo Belmont and his own grandfather Yuri Orfeo killed him. Now we have to talk about you. Your mother's name was Maria Rosa Belvedere, and she was a descendant of Lorenzo Belmont, but this fact no one knew at first. Your grandmother Leandra Roccamena was a direct descendant of the first savior, even if Clarissa Alia, the childhood sweetheart of the first Savior had married a Roccamena. She was already pregnant, with Lorenzo Belmont’s child." Gregory felt dizzy, so many pieces of information were hard to put together, "Wow, I am confused, that’s a lot at once and who is my father then. “Maria Rosa Belvedere was a modern woman. She studied in Genoa, where she fell in love with the lightheaded but charming Leonardo Maltese, and Yuri Orfeo’s grandson. They got married and had a child, a boy who was given the birth name - Gaetano Maltese. Most of the Sicilian Akandos had very weak skills, and only a few of them were strong.

At the ceremony of the elements for Gaetano, none of the elements could be clearly defined, and he reacted to all of the four elements. The Maltese family had always had strong mafia connections, and always abused the Akando abilities, as much as they could. They used them in their favors for criminal activities and doubted that the boy could be the savior of this century. As Maria Rosa overheard a conversation between Leonardo and his father about sacrificing her son because the family feared he was the savior, she took the baby and fled to the north. However, they caught her in Lerici and shot her in a wooded area. Fortunately, at that time of the day a Pastor was on his morning walk in the woods to internalize his sermon. This pastor saved Gaetano’s life and gave him the name Gregory after St. Gregory. The Boy got adopted and disappeared from the scene. I guess the rest of the story you know yourself, and I don’t have to explain anything further." Gregory was speechless.

What a crazy story, he was the descendant of good and evil at the same time; beside that - a prophesied savior. What if the dark side - the Maltese part - was stronger than the bright Belvedere part … what then? Maybe this dangerous wild greedy side of the Vultures was also in him and was far stronger than his humble, modest side? Which side would he choose? He was standing there brooding and Signora Tiziana watched him smiling, "You have to work on your poker face boy, I don’t even have to be a fortune teller to know what you're thinking. Your face is like an open book. The qualities of the Savior among others are his impenetrability. Gregory looked up angry, "How the hell do you expect me to react after such a revelation?"
"Well, certainly not that you dye your hair and take off to Holland, just as you have threatened me before." He couldn’t suppress a wry smile. This woman was completely crazy. But it occurred to him that she had become quite friendly towards him, and that her initial hostility was gone. She put a hand on his arm looking sympathetically at him with a look that probably should have been maternal, but it rather came across like some pick-up line of a confused transvestite.

"You are thinking about the fact, that the dark blood of the Maltese flows in your veins, and finally could take the lead, which would turn you into a greedy monster like Gabriele." Gregory looked at her dumbfounded, did she truly have some clairvoyant abilities? She patted his arm, "Don’t worry boy, we all believe in you! The last savior wasn't as strong as you are. The blood of two Onenda lines is united within you. You'll liberate the world from the domination of the Vultures, I know you will. You have to believe in yourself, remember everyone has a dark and a bright side. Where there is shadow, there is also light." He gave her an uncertain look. "And if the dark side is stronger than expected, you can look at it from the bright side. Then you would most certainly survive, and the legend would probably be over.

As the prophecy says if the savior fails, the earth and nature itself will react with fire and earthquakes. As we all know the last savior failed his mission and this time around the earth's reaction will be far more unpleasant than last time. This means this time around Sicily will sink into the ocean or even worse. The world as we know it would finally meet its doomsday as repeatedly propagated since decades. My friend, this would be your fault, and you wouldn’t survive either way. So why be bad, if it is not even worth it. She laughed at her own joke. “Maybe you should try reading my palm then," Gregory suggested halfheartedly.

She batted her silver eyelashes and straightened her burgundy turban. An interesting idea and so innovative, she reached out her long-fingered spider hand towards him. Gregory shook his head. "Wait, I think I just got enough confusing information for one day. Maybe it's better to leave it at that for now. God knows what you'd read out of my palm. I'd rather go to Valentina and Antony to find my inner peace."

He got up and strolled away. Signora Tiziana looked after him with a smile on her face. She didn’t need his palm to know that he was the right person to bring back the Vultures to the path of virtue, and to fulfill the prophecy calming the elements, as well as the Etna.

She knew since the first time she had seen the boy at the airport. This boy was born to be a strong leader. She knew he would finally unite the Vultures and the Akandos. But he was not yet aware of his strength and she would have to talk to Keanu about it. She didn't approve of his training methods and information strategy. Ever since that girl led him on, he was no longer the same person anymore. The girls, descending from the Maltese Family had always chosen the dark path. Whoever got into their catches had bad cards and an even worse experience getting hurt. Keanu made no exception, because Giada di Benedetto, a descendant on her father’s side of the Maltese. Despite her innocent charm she made no exception to this rule. She was bad news, such a shame that he had buried the faith in love with his disappointment over her betrayal.