Elementary Virtue: The Prophecy (18 page)

For a while they sat next to each other without saying anything, then Gregory looked up at Keanu’s sharp dark profile, he seemed to be miles away from his thoughts, "Why are we going to Malta?"
"I have part of my family there, living in the north of the island, near an artificial lake. No one will disturb us up there, and it will not surprise anyone when storms are coming, and floods subdue wild flames. Nobody knows about this place, not even Tiziana or Giacomo."
"That means you could also bring me there to kill me if no one knows where we are. Who knows maybe you're working with Giada secretly and are just pretending to be on my side? "Keanu clucked angrily," I'll bring you to a safe place idiot and now shut up before I’ll punch you in your stupid face. Don’t forget that the idea for that duel was yours not mine. This means that we are supposed to kill each other right now. The only one that has seen you is Giada, and she thinks that you are Antony. Precisely this fact will save the Circus and all their asses as well as our asses.

"I don’t understand what you're talking about." Keanu looked into the distance with a slight smile on his lips, "Giada is sort of a life insurance for Giacomo, Tiziana, Valentina and Antony, and she saw me sail away with Antony, right?" "Yes, so what?" "Think Gregory, when they find out that the real Antony is still in the Circus. When one of them shows up there, they’ll know that it was you. However, they can’t threaten our people because they don’t have a clue where we are. And, they think we killed each other." Gregory was impressed, "Dude you're awesome." Keanu nodded smugly, "But don’t you dare tell your Arielle, or else I will whack you."
"Don’t worry. But, you have had quite a good look at that picture. You are well informed. Keanu grinned, "What can I say? I'm not blind." Gregory grumbled something unintelligible under his breath. “And how will you let Giacomo and Tiziana know that we are still alive."
"Let me worry about that. I know ways and means that you don’t know anything about.

Now let’s create a decent storm." He didn’t have to ask him twice. The clear ocean swirled. A storm broke around the sleek white ship, followed by fireballs. In the eye of the storm, the white sailing boat glided calmly and undisturbed ahead. The spectacle lasted about half an hour, and it was as if a war had broken loose on high seas. When they passed near a cruise ship, Keanu made a sign towards Gregory helping him understand that it was time to stop. Finally, the last thing she wanted was getting the attention of other ships. Besides, they had almost reached Valletta, Malta’s main harbor.

Keanu maneuvered the ship into the port. Once they arrived, they left it behind, both carrying only a backpack. They looked like two ordinary tourists. Gregory clamped a skateboard under his arm, which he found on the ship. He loved to skate, and man, he was damn good at it. Keanu had to stop him by force when he was skating around him. "Darn kid, stop it, you're driving me crazy," he barked gruffly, grabbing the board. He tucked it under his arm. Gregory smiled and looked at the grim-faced Keanu, he stopped in front of him, looking sternly like some strict father. "Of course, Mom," he said mockingly having Keanu raising his Ray Ban looking reproachfully at him. They strolled through the old city of Valletta, which was built like a fortress. Right and left the dusty street there were tourist shops that offered all sorts of souvenirs and light shows of Malta's interesting past. The Island has been pretty much conquered by everyone having access to the sea at least once. Gregory felt somehow light headed, although he didn’t know why the energy of the island maybe. It was as if he had been here before, it was like a feeling of coming home, he didn’t understand.

On their way towards the bus station, a young man who stepped out when they were passing by lured them into a shop. Something about him was scary Gregory thought to himself, he wore his black hair in a bun, which gave him an Oriental touch. His apparently cheesy smile with admittedly bleached white teeth, for which many others would have envied him, was as wrong as his British accent, or the antique items he wanted to sell them. Gregory felt damn uncomfortable under the glare of the jet-black eyes of the seller, although he couldn’t explain why he had the feeling. All he knew was that he wanted to get away immediately from the guy and the store. His instinct told him to run, and he didn’t even know why. Anyway, he was grateful that he was wearing the shades. As much as the island fascinated him, this young man with the piercing black eyes scared him in an eerie way. Somehow Keanu didn’t seem to notice his discomfort, quite the contrary. He apparently wanted an amulet he had set his eyes on, from the store. He even began to negotiate the price with the scary young man. Gregory's whole body was ready to run. He had to get out of here, and it had to be now. There was no good reason to run, but the fact was, he couldn’t bear to stay in this damn shop any longer. He wrenched the skateboard from the puzzled-looking Keanu mumbling something about the bus station, and then he hit the road on the board, without looking back.

Keanu looked after him, shaking his head. The boy was a freaking fruitcake. He needed that damn amulet. It was important for the destruction of evil, of falsity, of greed but how was Gregory supposed to know that? Something scared him off. Something he hadn’t noticed. Bad vibes? Was it the young man, who was quite pushy? He told him he was from Israel. His name was Yusuf, he was very talkative, which was odd enough, the locals in Malta never were quite like that, if they didn’t know someone. They had taken over the British aloofness and thawed only after they got to know someone closer. "Your friend is not the patient type," he said, watching Gregory leave on the skateboard. Keanu raised the Ray Ban once again and looked at him warily. Then he tossed back his hair with an impatient movement, "Forget my friend, how much you want for it?" He took the amulet carved out of wood on a black braided leather band dangling from his hand. It looked as if it was already quite old. The embroidery presented a structure, could have been a volcano, a tree, or a swirl. There was a gemstone on all four sides, in the middle a crystal, a sapphire on the right, an emerald on the left, and a ruby at the bottom center. The young salesperson had clearly recognized that Keanu wanted the amulet and began to praise its advantages. Keanu slowly lost patience to deal with this weasel. But he needed the amulet badly, and the guy understood, which didn’t make it any easier. He wanted to close the deal as Gregory had taken off and he didn’t know where he was. So he paid finally a much too high price leaving behind a happy smiling Yusuf, who was looking after him waving. Good thing the idiot didn’t know the amulet was indeed of great value and had only come into that shop because of Keanu’s various relations. Anyway, he hoped that this brazen young seller didn’t know anything about the true origin of the amulet otherwise it could cause some real trouble.

Keanu hurried up the stairs to the bus station. Gregory was sitting on the ground next to his skateboard at the bus station and was surprised how many different bus lines traveled around the island. He hadn’t expected that many possibilities to get around the Island on a bus. His phone beeped, he had received a text. Leyla wrote him that he had been right about Ana, she had been Gabe’s spy. She added a weeping emoji, and assured him how sorry she was, and that it was all her fault. He quickly wrote back, that he didn’t want her to blame herself, and she shouldn’t feel guilty. He also wrote her telling her that he was no longer on the island and that it would be better for her if she didn’t know where he was staying. Then he added a kissing emoji and sent the message.

It took damn long until Keanu finally showed up. He was visibly upset and moved his head in a gesture that made him understand that he wanted him to follow. Gregory got up and walked to Keanu, who was getting into a bus, destination 'Cirkewwa'. They sat down on an empty seat. Keanu remained silent and seemed to be pissed about something. Around his neck there was a wooden amulet dangling with four gemstones stones on each side and a tree in the middle. Gregory didn’t dare asking what the amulet was about. Keanu was absent and unapproachable like he was miles away with his thoughts. In silence, they drove along the coast. They passed the nightlife area of St. Julian, and then they went up further north. The area was wild and mostly rocky. The ride took almost an hour until they arrived at a small village, standing on a rock plateau. Gregory read the name of the village 'Mellieha' then the bus went back down to the beach. They drove further for about ten minutes of the coastal road to the bus terminal, which was somewhere in the boonies and from where the ferry went over to Gozo. Keanu and Gregory were the last two remaining passengers. Keanu got out without turning to Gregory and trudged along the dusty road. There was no house in sight. Gregory had no choice but to follow him.

Keanu goose-stepped forward then he turned into a dusty, rocky road that was lined with dry bushes. The road led steeply uphill. After a long climb, a house appeared on the top of the hill. It was white, had blue shutters and a big blue entrance door with a golden doorknob. A large veranda and a terrace that lead around the house could be seen from afar. When they finally reached the top, Gregory was out of breath and was welding his forehead. Keanu, however, seemed to enjoy the climb. At the top, he took out the key from underneath a pot with a cactus and was about to unlock the door when the door opened from the inside and a small plump woman in a black dress, with a white headscarf, looking like an old gypsy woman, stood in front of them. A flood of words in an unknown ominous-sounding language hailed down on Keanu. Gregory cringed awaiting any moment to see her pull a gun from behind her back aiming at them. But, that couldn’t have been further from reality, as it was a broom she was holding behind her back. Keanu laughed picking up the small woman. He spun her around in circles and the broom almost hit Gregory’s nose, and he was able to cringe once more at the very last moment. Keanu put her back on the ground and hugged her fiercely, and then turned to Gregory, "May I introduce, Veronica, my uncle’s housekeeper, and at the same time the good soul of this house."

She looked at him kindly saying with a strong British accent, "Welcome, come in, Brutus will certainly be more than pleased to get some company." Gregory followed Keanu unsure, and he had a strange feeling as if something could be attacking him anytime such as some bad-tempered dog. Keanu seemed to enjoy seeing him nervously looking around as they followed Veronica into the house. The interior of the house was furnished in a cozy and warm way. It was cluttered with various oriental decorations and precious carpets. Gregory stepped carefully into the living room expecting an attack when suddenly something touched his legs. He winced and saw himself suddenly face to face with a large bushy black cat staring at him from green roly-poly eyes, purring loudly. Keanu grinned, "This is Brutus. You were probably afraid that he was going to eat you alive, wimp!"
"Let the boy alone, will you," Veronica immediately reprimanded him "you must be hungry, sit down on the terrace I will make you a little snack." Keanu opened the refrigerator and grimaced. "Why the hell do you always buy this ghastly Greek beer? The name alone says everything there is to say about it. How can beers with a name like 'The Myth' taste any good? Damn it."

"Stop bitching around the boy, your uncle Yaros likes this beer and how am I supposed to guess, that you will show up. You never call, you never write," then a few sentences in that strange language from before followed. "Ok, ok, don’t get excited Veronica, Gregory do you want a horrible, disgusting Greek beer?" Gregory didn’t have time to answer, because a can of beer shot at him, he caught it in a reflex. He opened the can because the heat was killing him and he was extremely thirsty. He took a big gulp and saw in the corner of his eye that the small housekeeper was staring at him intently. "I guess it tastes like beer, and I don’t know what Keanu is talking about." Veronica smiled satisfied giving Keanu a deprecating stare. He made a disparaging gesture going over to Gregory to get comfortable on one of the two brown Alcantara lounges. "You are such a low-brow, you’re hopeless anyway," he muttered, but the usual sharpness was missing in his voice.

Again, Veronica flooded him with a torrent of words in this strange language. It sounded as if she told him to behave properly or something like that. Keanu grinned cheekily, and she went away, shaking her head and disappeared into the kitchen. Gregory decided to look at the previously mentioned terrace. He stepped out, and the view was like from another world. On one hand, he looked directly from the rocky hill out to the shimmering deep blue sea. On the other, below the house, there was a large green-blue shimmering lake. Around that lake, flowers bloomed in so many colors. He hadn’t even been aware previously that so many different colors even existed. These colorful flowers somehow didn’t fit into the dried out scenery. Gregory was overwhelmed, it was exhilarating, and he had never seen anything like it. For several minutes, he stared at the lake and the flowers until he realized that Keanu had joined him. He glanced over at him, then back to the intense superb landscape. He couldn’t look away. "Breathtaking isn’t it?" Gregory nodded and looked at Keanu.

"It is the only source of fresh water on the island and at the same time also a nature sanctuary. The government lately built a seawater treatment plant, but it is not enough by far, and import is made from Sicily for most of the drinking water. The Maltese firmly believe that there is magic at this lake. Some say this is a bewitched place." Gregory looked at him questioningly, "Do you think it is true?" Keanu shrugged, "Who knows? In every rumor, there is known to be some truth they say, right? People around here are very superstitious. There are 365 churches in Malta, and they like to be close to God. As you see, there is a church for every day of the year."
"What do churches have to do with the lake and the colorful flowers? I don’t understand."