Chapter
1 – A Foreign Threat
The two explosive lovers, my
brother and his wife, head into the warehouse at the docks guns blazing and run
out like two kids who kicked a hornet’s nest and are trying not to get stung,
except the hornets are firing foreign silenced pistols and rifles at them.
Coming to their aid, my wife and I surround the foreigners with gunfire of our
own, and are then aided by members of the family who bring the real heavy
firepower. When the smoke settles, we go in and make sure none of the
foreigners kill themselves with their guns or cyanide pills in their mouths. I
make sure one of the foreigners can’t kill himself, and then start questioning
him in our shared language.
He looks disgusted at me, spits in
my face, and says in English, “You speak Mediterranean like a true Medigan,
you’re dog shit and a disgrace to the old country of Lupa.”
“The Mediterranean Empire shouldn’t
be in the United Chimaera States. You should keep your trashy ideology to
yourself and the old world,” I say.
“Why should we? We improve
everywhere we conquer. We have all the territory the Roman Empire once had, and
what we don’t have is being conquered by our allies in the Zeitloses Imperium.
What do you have in comparison? Nothing. If your authorities need criminals
like you to watch them, then they’re pathetic, and you are as well. Your wife
looks like a tanned pig with all that jewelry, makeup, and tacky clothes-”
I punch the foreign man in the face
to shut him up and knock him out.
“You didn’t have to do that, Vincenzo.
I wasn’t insulted by what he said,” Marin says.
“I don’t care. No one insults my
wife. Besides, the cops will question him next.”
“We could’ve questioned him. You
know I have a way of making people tell me what I want to know.”
“You’ll have to save that for me
for later.”
“Uuu. Let’s not wait too long,
then, and get out of here.”
Marin and I walk over to check on
my brother, Cesare Campione, and his wife, Okazaki Mistico, or rather, Okazaki
Campione now, both of whom are talking and laughing like kids who got off an
exciting ride.
“We got’em good, didn’t we? I love
it when a plan goes exactly as planned!” my brother, Cesare, says.
“I told you Providence was on our
side, didn’t I, honey?” Okazaki asks.
“That you did.”
“Hey, you two. Are you both okay?”
I ask.
“We’re great, Vincenzo. Are we good
to head out?”
Just as Cesare finished speaking,
the cops head up to where we are and start arresting the foreigners and putting
them in their trucks. Heading over to the police sergeant, we acknowledge each
other and head our separate ways as if we were just coworkers exchanging
shifts. Cesare and I take our wives to Angelo Delicato’s restaurant to
celebrate with the other members of our family.
Angelo comes to congratulate us for
doing our duty for our country, and I ask him, “You can get on in this deal we
have with the government if you want. We can use all the help we can get.”
“I’ll let you know if I hear of any
foreigners causing trouble in the neighborhood, but that’s all I’ll do for
you,” Angelo says. He’s dressed as slick as always and looks like the spitting
image of an aged Mediterranean man of honor who never has a wrinkle on his
shirt or hair out of place. “You know how I like to do business, quiet, simple,
and in the neighborhood.”
“Where’s Russell? I haven’t seen
the old mechanic in a while,” Cesare says.
“Russell is doing business with the
new families in the country. He’s gotta make sure they’ll do as we request if
they want to be a part of our family.”
“Is he accompanied by anyone from
the family?”
“Some people and his trusted
bodyguard, some Great War veteran named Frank. Frank will keep Russell safe and
do the dirty work for him. They’re like father and son, those two, despite the
difference in race.”
“The king has to make sure his
governors are doing their jobs correctly,” Marin says. “The new man who took
over Amoroso Puramente’s territory and businesses, James Sovrano, is doing
well.”
“I’m sure you’re keeping a close
eye on him, Mrs. Campione.”
“Yes, Mr. Delicato. He wants to
make sure that he’s a true man of honor, unlike the previous traitorous leader.
At least that’s what I heard from the people under him.”
“Keep up the good intelligence
gathering on him and the others, and please, make sure your husband and
brother-in-law don’t get into any more serious trouble than they’re already
getting into.”
“Yes, Mr. Delicato.”
Angelo turns to Okazaki, “Mrs.
Campione.”
“Yes, Angelo. I’ll make sure the
boys are on the path laid out for us,” Okazaki says.
Angelo kisses Marin’s hand and
Okazaki’s hand and walks away. While Okazaki and Cesare eat, drink, and
celebrate, Marin and I talk about what we should do next.
“The government expects us to make
sure that the infiltrators from the Mediterranean Empire and Zeitloses Imperium
don’t infiltrate our country with their heinous ideology of Von Menscehn und
Vorfahren or just Vorfahren as it’s commonly called. Once we do it, they’ll be
more favorable to us, even help us get a president into office who will be on
our side,” I remind Marin and myself. “They don’t care if the problem
completely goes away as long as it doesn’t bother them in our country, but I
care. Over in the old world, those two empires are turning it upside down,
killing and jailing people from different races and beliefs, both political and
religious, and taking land that they think is rightfully theirs because the
past empires had it.”
“I know where you’re going with
this. They’re coming over here and trying to spread their belief here to
conquer the United Chimaera States as well,” Marin says.
“They won’t. I’ve foreseen while
meditating in the adoration chapel. It’ll be us who will stop their reign of
terror,” Okazaki says.
“Yeah, we’ll make sure those
Vorfahren bastards won’t mess with us or ours. Tell me more about what you
saw,” Cesare says.
As Okazaki explains her visions and
connects them to the present circumstances, Cesare looks enamored at her as if
under her spell. I swear he’s been different ever since they first met. It’s as
if Okazaki knows how to bring something out of him that no one else can. When
we first met up with Okazaki and Marin, they were known as and still known as
the Gatta Sorella, the Cat Sisters. Okazaki was the one who arranged the
meeting and said to Marin that we were the men that they were meant to marry,
and after a series of dates, we got married.
Okazaki has always been the
spiritual one, loving to talk about visions and dreams, to pray and adore, and
to be gun-ho about doing what needs to be done, as she believes is the voice of
God, the saints, and her guardian angel. She always wears a golden cross
necklace, a golden St. Benedict medal choker, and a golden miraculous medal
necklace, along with pink clothes and makeup. She’s Cesare’s bella nera, and to
balance out her wild visions is my wife, Marin. She was once Marin Carena, the
planner of the two. Just like me, Marin likes to plan things out, get all the
details, and then act either diplomatically or use violence as a last resort.
Okazaki and Marin were known as the
Gatta Sorella since they did much good work for the family on their side of the
city, rooting out traitors and men and women who worked only for themselves
rather than for the whole family. Just like Okazaki, Marin wears golden
jewelry, except Marin wears four golden bracelets on her right arm that have
Scripture verses on them and three other golden bracelets on her left arm that
have wise words from the saints. Marin wears purple clothes and makeup rather
than pink, and both girls are influenced by an Eastern fashion style called gyaru.
Sometimes the two will work for the Church with our primary contact, Bishop
Rodrigo Dovuto, to help clean out any of the false faithful who are trying to
destroy the Holy Church from within.
“Vincenzo,” Okazaki says as she
turns to me. “I can tell you’re letting the stress of the situation get to you.
It’s making your mind retreat into old memories of comfort so that it can
relax.”
“You’re right. I shouldn’t let the
stress get to me, but even being here with the most important people in my life
isn’t helping much. I’m sorry to admit that,” I say.
“No, you’re right to feel that way.
Our leaders don’t want us to directly go after the opposing leaders of the
other countries since that would start another Great War, so there’s no helping
us there, so we must help ourselves instead, and I know just the place that
will help us further our goal of getting rid of the poisonous foreigners.”
Okazaki brings us to a home for the
poor that’s run by the Church.
She says, “I’m sure Vincenzo and
Marin figured out the foreigners who are poisoning our country with their
ideology came in not just from the docks and airports, but with the fleeing
immigrants as well.”
“That’s right,” Marin says with a
look of surprise on her face.
Neither of us explained to Okazaki or
Cesare that we knew the Vorfahren infiltrators were coming in with the immigrants,
but hadn’t brought it up because we didn’t know which boats or planes they came
on or where they went from there.
“I know you didn’t bring it up
because you didn’t know where they were entering from and where they went, but I’ve
been told-”
“In your dreams or a vision?” I
ask.
“By my friends in the Church this
time. They told me that they stay here with the immigrants and use it as a base
of operations, a place to hide weapons, manufacture propaganda, and meet with
people in power.”
“Let’s go in there and take care of
business then. Thanks as always for your help, babe,” Cesare says as he pulls
out his revolver that’s loaded with shotgun shells. There’s the old Cesare.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Marin and I say.
“What?”
“We can’t just go in there, turning
the place upside down to look for the Vorfahren, or what I mean to say is that
we can’t do it without permission,” I say.
“When did we need their permission
to do anything we know to be right?” Okazaki says, while taking out her foreign
pistol with exorcist prayers engraved on it.
“Woah, woah, woah,” Marin says with
her hands out in front of Cesare and Okazaki. “What do you think this is going
to look like to them, us just going in there shooting and taking people in for
questioning?”
“Like a bunch of criminals doing
what we do. Come on, Marin. You’re used to this.”
“We usually have a cover for our
actions.”
“We have the government’s cover. We’ll
explain to them later what happened, and with what we’re coming out with, they’ll
have no choice but to grin and bear the reward. So, are we doing this or not?”
Marin looks at me, and I shrug.
“I’m only doing this because you and
your husband will do it even without us.”
“You know it, sis.”
I take out my golden pistol loaded with
rifle rounds, and Marin takes out her magnum. We head into the poor house, and
Okazaki tells the front desk worker she knows to go home for the night, and she
does.
“I hope you make them pay,” the
worker says as she leaves.
Okazaki then leads us to the priest
that she knows and asks him to reveal the location of the Vorfahren to us.
“Okazaki, please, there are poor
men and women here. If the authorities were to find out about what we’re doing,
then everyone here could suffer,” the priest says.
“Father, they already are suffering.
With the Vorfahren here, they will suffer even more, especially if they corrupt
the country with their false beliefs and hatred,” Okazaki says.
“What’s the worst that they can do?
Kick you out? Shut this place down? We can ensure that doesn’t happen,” Cesare
adds.
“Cesare, beloved, some of the people
who work here aren’t forced to hold evil men and women here against their will.
A lot of them want to for one reason or another.”
“Is that true?” The priest has a
hard time answering, giving his answer through his stuttering and jumbled
answer. “I ought to shoot you. Tell me one good reason why you let these people
subvert the country you call home.”
Again, the priest stutters and has
a hard time giving a straight answer, so Okazaki says, “I’ll answer for him. I
can read in his soul that he doesn’t want the government to shut them down or
the Church to stop sending them funds, because if this shelter is compromised,
then they’ll stop making hundreds of thousands for all the immigrants they’re
taking in. He has a lot of excuses for using the money to care for the actual
poor and needy, but he knows what he’s doing is wrong.”
As Cesare points his revolver at
the face of the priest, the priest tells him to wait and tells us, “They’re in
the basement. Here.”
The priest presses a part of the
wall like a button, and a hidden door opens.
“If this is a trap or you don’t
tell the cops everything you know, I’ll cap you myself,” Cesare says to the priest.
“It’s not a trap. They stay down
there, make their propaganda down there, store their weapons, and meet their
people. I swear!”
Cesare looks at him, then at
Okazaki, who nods at him. The four of us head downstairs to see people working
on picket signs, flags, and papers with Vorfahren symbols and propaganda on them.
Marin grabs all of us, pulling us
aside and whispering, “Okay. We have to play this smart. No guns blazing because
we need this evidence intact, meaning we need a lot of these people alive
enough to talk to the authorities.”
“What should we do then?” Okazaki
whispers.
“We go with the usual Gatto Sorella
plan of attack. Pretend that we have more strength than we actually do, and
with our boys, it’ll be easier to fake it.”
“We get it. You don’t need to
explain the plan to us,” I say, to which Cesare agrees.
“Let’s do it then, on my go. Let
the ladies take the lead,” Marin says
Agreeing, Marin sends the cops our
coordinates through our phones for immediate backup, then she and Okazaki take
the lead. They shoot their guns up into the air, announce that the cops will be
here soon, and that the only hope of them getting off easy is their
cooperation. Everyone here has their hands up, and those who look down at the
guns, I shoot in the direction of, hitting the wall, and threatening them to
keep their hands up.
“If I were you, I’d do as the
ladies say,” Cesare adds. “I’m feeling awfully trigger-happy tonight, and you
people are already pissing me off with what you’re doing in the old world, and
now you want to bring your disease here? No. You don’t get to do that.”
No one says a word, and the four of
us are able to keep the crowds under control until the cops come here and
arrest everyone without anyone fighting back or firing a shot directly at
anyone.
Outside, I say, “I know that the
Vatican is compromised in the old world, but for some reason, I didn’t consider
that the people here were as well, especially in our own neighborhood. How did
we not see this happening?”
“We’re up against people who took
their country’s government from under them. Our country may not be in the same
circumstances as theirs was, but there are a lot of people here that are
sympathetic to their cause, even in our government,” Marin says.
“We’d better report back to Vito D’Accordo
about this. With his responsibilities over who and what comes in and out of
this country, I’m sure he’ll want to plug this hole as fast as possible,”
Cesare says.
“And then go to our contact in the Church,
Bishop Rodrigo Dovuto. If anyone is
going to get into trouble, it’s him,” Marin says.
“Let’s hope the good bishop is
actually good then.”
“If anything, at least we have a
better lead on getting rid of the problem from our city,” Okazaki says.
“That’s right. Let’s get to it
before the Vorfahren can plan around it,” Marin says as we head out to go to
our separate contacts.
