The men drove the children through the gates of the trainyard and into an industrial neighborhood that had a distinctively sour stench.
"What's that smell?" Lyra asked, wrinkling her face.
"The pork processing plant," Andre explained.
"Why does it stink like that?" Bonnie asked.
"It's the smell of money, kids," Angelo informed them with a shrug from the front seat, "Ain't a pretty business, but it's kept this neighborhood afloat for generations."
"That and the family, of course," Gianni added, turning to look at them over the back seat with an arrogant chuckle, "We keep out the street gangs and the thugs who want to send everything to hell in a handbasket. That's why the cops and politicians don't even try to mess with us anymore. No one can stop the dragon!"
"What dragon?" Bonnie asked with sudden enthusiasm, "That one?" She pointed at Angelo. Confused, Angelo looked down at his lapel, where the image of a dragon was etched in gold on a rectangular pin and he chuckled.
"No, doll," he replied with a bit of pride, "That's from the order of San Giorgio, given to me by the neighborhood cultural society for 'service to the community'."
Andre snorted then quickly cleared his throat and shifted his gaze so it disappeared into the floor of the cab.
"You got something to say back there, Dre?" Ragazzi demanded menacingly.
"No sir, Mr. Ragazzi," Andre replied, meeting his superior's gaze with cold, defiant eyes.
"It's not like you would know anything about serving the community," Ragazzi continued to rant, "What do your people ever do but tear shit up?"
"I don't know, sir," Andre replied, his eyes still cold as steel as he expertly hid his hatred of the man.
"That's right," Ragazzi continued to grumble, "Without us running this thing, they'd have this whole neighborhood looking just like the shithole ghetto that surrounds it."
"Hey, chill," Angelo interrupted in a low, stern tone, "Andre's with us."
Orion listened to this conversation in silence, and tried to keep his eyes peeled to the window, lest these illustrious, community-minded gentlemen see his face and sense his reactions to what he was hearing. The grownups were talking in a code that was not meant for children to understand or question, but Orion had a good guess of who he was dealing with, and if 'the dragon' in Chicago meant anything like what it meant in New York, he could guess precisely what sort of service it rendered to the community.
Orion took in the neighborhood frantically as the car maneuvered wildly through the traffic. If this was the community the 'dragon' was meant to be protecting, Orion noted that it was already pretty 'ghetto' as it was. Tired, brick homes lined the streets, many of which were partially collapsed, burned out, or boarded up. An occasional building in good condition stood defiantly amid the blight, surrounded by broken windows and discarded liquor bottles. Many of the street lights were shot out and Orion caught glimpses of alleys and courtyards filled with wooden skeletons of dilapidated stairs and landings, some with signs of habitation, but nevertheless looking on the verge of rotting off the backs of the brick buildings to which they were crudely affixed.
In fact, the scene outside Orion's window could easily be mistaken for a ghost town, except that it wasn't. Amid all this squalor, crowds of people were huddled around, eyeing the enormous, new, and freshly washed and waxed truck with a mixture of suspicion and contempt as they drove past. At one point, Gianni was forced to slam on his breaks as a woman pushing a shopping cart that said 'Osco' on it, shoved her way in front of them. Gianni blared his horn, but it wasn't nearly as jarring as his indignant yelling and colorful choice of language. Glaring daggers, the woman silently marched unconcernedly out into the street pushing her cart into the boulevard on the other side.
Following her path through the littered greenspace, Orion noted several dark shapes laying in heaps among the grass.
"Why are those guys laying down in the park?" Bonnie asked softly, as if even her young spirit could tell that the answer was bound to be something she didn't want to hear.
"They're just taking a nap, princess," Angelo assured her, rolling up his window.
'Why are they taking a nap outside on the ground?"
Gianni snorted.
"Well, they like to do that, baby, when the weather's nice. "
"That one has a tent," Bonnie remarked as they drove past several others.
"Isn't there a homeless shelter?" Lyra asked, unable to hide her disgust at the thought of people being forced to sleep on the ground in the middle of a park, in broad daylight, "Shouldn't we call somebody who can help them?"
"Sure, angel. We will call as soon as we get home."
Lyra returned Orion's glance skeptically. Orion suspected that Angelo had told that lie many times before.
Orion was a little relieved when they turned off the main road into a neighborhood that did, in fact, appear a little more wholesome. Most of the buildings still stood erect, though they certainly showed signs of wear and tear. Recently painted advertisements pointed out functioning businesses such as restaurants, corner stores, bakeries, pawn shops, and laundromats. Parking meters existed and hadn't been smashed to pieces yet. And the green space that ran down the center of the boulevard was mostly litter and unconscious-vagrant free, though a group of elderly men in suits sat together in lawn chairs, engaged in passionate conversation.
"Hey, Uncle Rocco!" Gianni shouted out the window at one of the gentlemen.
"Is that Giannino?" one of the men asked irritably, shielding his eyes from the sun.
"Meh!" grumbled another old man who must have been Uncle Rocco. He was so fully engrossed in the dispute in front of him that he only shot the truck a curt nod before waving them along dismissively.
"Ha!" Angelo laughed.
"He loves me! I'm his favorite nephew!" Gianni bragged with a laugh.
The truck turned another corner around a large church with an adjacent school. The school yard was filled with children in uniform, mostly playing kickball on the blacktop behind a very high, heavy rod iron fence with protective spikes on the top. As the truck passed, several of the children stopped to watch and one of them ran to the fence and waved timidly through the bars. Bonnie came alive at this and shouted a loud, "Hi!" at the stranger as she waved back emphatically. Gianni laughed while Ragazzi groaned.
"That girl waved at us," Bonnie informed her brother, "Did you see?"
"That's Fiorella," Gianni told them, "She's Mr. Angelo's girl."
Next to the church's playground was a corner store with a large front window displaying advertisements for liquor, baked good, and gelato. Two tables sat outside, near the sidewalk and someone had taken a lot of trouble to fill the store front's hibernating flower boxes with seasonal greenery. Between the store and the next stone building was the opening to an alley that was so narrow, Angelo and Gianni had to roll their windows down and pull the side-view mirrors in so the huge truck could make it through without scratching the paint. The colorful, striped bricks on either side indicated that not every driver had been successful in this regard. A heavy, rod iron gate met them at the end of the alley, along with a video camera. Gianni waved at the camera and pressed a button on a control that was mounted on his dashboard. The gate opened, allowing the truck to park in a large courtyard with a well-tended garden.
Almost before Gianni had parked the truck, two men came from the back of one of the buildings and began unloading the boxes from the truck bed.
"That sure is a lot of crayons!" Bonnie exclaimed as they watched them unload the boxes, "Do you have a lot of kids?"
Angelo laughed at this and replied, "It so happens we do, babydoll!" Then to one of the men unloading the truck, he said, "Take the 'crayons' down to the basement and unload them and call Frankie and tell him his shipment has arrived."
Then turning back to the rest of his crew he directed, "Take them inside and keep them in the kitchen. I'll have to run this by the old man before we know what to do with them."
"Aren't you going to help us get home?" Lyra asked urgently.
"Sure we are, sweet angel, sure we are!" Gianni cooed at her, "But we've got to follow the protocol. That's the way things are done around here! You understand, right big man?"
Orion hesitated, not sure at first who Gianni was talking to, then nodded his head numbly.
"That's right!" Gianni concluded in a pleased tone, "Now let's get you in here and get you some grub!"
They went up the backstairs of the house, past a tall man with a large weapon at his waist, who looked at them curiously.
"Don't worry, kids," Gianni assured them, "'That's Mickey, like Mickey Mouse. He's our security. We can't always depend on the cops around here." Mickey nodded his head and held out a massive fist. Bonnie giggled and gave him a fist bump.
They followed Angelo through a large, screened-in back porch that overlooked the courtyard, and into a cozy white kitchen, stuffed with an industrial sized stove and refrigerator. The stove was ablaze and working on two large, steaming pots. Orion's stomach gurgled at the mere aroma of the room. Then, from behind the pantry door, appeared a stern, elderly woman, followed by another, equally stern, but far more ancient woman.
"Angelo?" the ancient one demanded in a menacing tone, "What is this? Who are these children?"
"We rescued them Ava," Gianni explained before Angelo could get a word in, "They were stuck in a train car."
"Who rescued who?" the other woman asked suspiciously, placing her hand on a hip and scowling at the men, who seemed strangely intimidated by this slight, feeble-looking lady.
"We did, Nonna," Angelo explained again, "Me and my crew."
The two women shared a glance, then large smiles appeared on their wrinkly faces.
"My boys!" Nonna exclaimed proudly, rushing forward to grab Gianni and Angelo by the face and kiss and praise them for their alleged heroism. Orion had to strain himself not to laugh as the two grown mobsters smiled and shuffled embarrassingly at the old woman's gushing and quickly moved to reconfigure their hairdos after her aggressive affection. Meanwhile, Ava kept a stern, slightly suspicious affect as she examined the strange children with a calculating gaze. Finally she managed a temperate smile as well.
"Come, come bambini," she ordered with outstretched arms, "Come, have some soup and bread!"
Ava set them up at a rickety wooden table on the back porch off the kitchen.
"Can't we eat inside?" Bonnie asked, tugging at the hood of her sweatshirt.
"No. Fresh air is good for children," Ava declared in a no-nonsense tone. But she turned on a space heater that sat beside the table, which warmed their feet and emitted a strangely comforting burning smell that almost covered the pork processing plant odor they hadn't seemed to shake. She poured a steaming hot, creamy soup with potatoes, sausage, and vegetables into china bowls and brought them a warm loaf of bread from the shop downstairs, and some butter.
"Can I play in the house?" Bonnie asked her excitedly, pointing through the window to an elaborate plastic playhouse in the corner of the garden.
"First, you finish the soup!" Ava told her, "You must have milk. I will get you some from the kitchen." The children watched the withered old lady disappear behind a heavy wooden door with chipped, white paint. As soon as she was gone, Lyra leaned toward Orion and hissed,
"Have we been kidnapped by the mafia?"
"I'm afraid so," he admitted.
"How does this stuff keep happening to us!" Lyra exclaimed in as hushed a voice as her frustration would allow.
"I know, right? But given our family history, it was only a matter of time."
Lyra slunk back in her seat with her arms folded and a scowl on her face.
"I suppose you're right," she replied, "I didn't expect there would be soup."
"It's good too. You should try it."
"What's this green stuff?" Bonnie asked, poking at the leafy greens in the soup with disdain.
"I think it's kale," Orion told her.
"Only mobsters would put kale in soup," Lyra declared bitterly.
They were startled by the sound of the heavy door opening again, and Ava came out of the kitchen with a small tray of glasses, filled with milk.
"How is the soup?" she asked as she laid the milk glasses before each of them, "It is good?"
"Lyra doesn't like kale," Bonnie told her matter-of-factly and Orion and Lyra froze, wide-eyed in horror.
Ava's eyes also widened, as if the child's words shocked her to the core.
"You don't like the kale?" she asked in disbelief.
"I-I do like it!" Lyra stammered, picking up the spoon and quickly tasting the soup, "Thank you so much!"
Ava's eyes narrowed and she regained her stern demeanor as she looked at Lyra, frantically sipping at the rather hot soup. Slowly, Ava reached down and took the soup bowl from in front of Lyra.
"Kale is good for the growing bones," she informed her huffily, "But Ava will heat up some chicken for you instead."
Orion and Lyra practically held their breath until Ava had disappeared into the kitchen again.
"Bonnie, you have got to stop talking!" Orion hissed at his sister.
"Why?" Bonnie asked defensively.
"Because these are not good people," Orion tried to explain, "They're not our friends. And we do not want to make them mad!"
"But they helped us out of the train," Bonnie argued, "And they're a clan like ours. They said they serve and protect their community, just like us."
"They serve themselves and extort everyone around them," Orion told her.
Bonnie squinted at him suspiciously.
"What's 'extort' mean?" she demanded.
Orion sighed in exasperation, "It means you need to keep your mouth shut and…"
The screen door that led to the courtyard opened and Andre emerged, looking a little surprised to see the children sitting down to a meal on the porch. He pushed the door fully open and allowed the small girl who had waved at the truck from the playground to step into the porch. Her hair hung in dark ringlets from two plaited pigtails. Her pretty brown eyes looked red around the edges, as if she had been recently crying. She held her arms crossed behind the bib of her gray-plaid school jumper, as if she were cold or nervous that someone might grab her by them.
"Nonna!" Andre called into the kitchen, "I think little Miss Fiori eloped from the school again!"
Nonna peeked out from behind the kitchen door and caught sight of the renegade child, who hung her head and glared defiantly at the worn wooden floorboards.
"Fiorella!" she barked, "You get inside this instant! Wait until your papa hears about this!" The girl barely glanced at the strangers eating at the table before stomping into the house.
A few moments later, Ava returned with her tray, now loaded with three bowls of steaming chicken and pasta, with a buttery looking sauce that made Orion's mouth water.
"Here is the chicken," she announced as she set a new bowl in front of each of them, "This is better, yes? No green things!"
Lyra looked sheepish but thanked Ava graciously and quickly demonstrated her sincerity by shoveling a forkful into her mouth. Ava seemed satisfied by this and left to return to the kitchen.
Now that the room was quiet, Orion slowly rose from his seat and crept to the door, straining to hear what was going on behind it. Unsatisfied, he made his way across the creaky floorboards to the screened window, to take a look at the courtyard below. Mickey, the security guard was still down there, keeping vigil over the entrance to the house. Orion could see one of the other two men talking with him. He could hear their voices, though he was too far away to make out what they were saying. Orion noted that the other man was also heavily armed.
"There's cameras all over this place," Orion remarked anxiously.
"There's one right there too," Lyra informed him and he turned to look over his shoulder at the security camera, perched on the brick wall of the house, looming over a seating area of wicker furniture. Orion felt a chill that wasn't from the gusts of wind that blew across the porch.
"I don't see any easy way out of here," he muttered to Lyra as he sat back at the table, trying to keep his voice low enough that the camera wouldn't pick it up.
"But at sunset, we'll have our wings and claws," she whispered back.
"Yeah," he agreed without much hope. He glanced toward the west. Sunset was a long way off. He wondered how he could ensure that no one would see them transform, lest the sight of three gargoyles make the gangsters go trigger happy.
As Orion sat there anxiously picking at his plate, Angelo, Gianni, and Ragazzi exited the house boisterously, clearly in the midst of an argument.
"I told you this was no business for us!" Ragazzi complained.
"Oh, pipe down!" Angelo countered dismissively,
"And what makes you think they're even worth our trouble?"
"Hide and watch, my man!"
"Mr. Dragoni?" Orion pleaded, "Will you please let us call our family soon?"
"I'll do you one better, kid," Angelo replied confidently as he grabbed a hunk of bread from the basket in front of them and plopped himself on a wicker sofa next to Gianni, "You give me your old man's name and number and I'll call him myself."
"Well, sir," Orion began, reciting the story he'd been rehearsing in his head, "Our mom has been sick in the hospital, and our father is there with her. We've been staying with our family for a while now. So, if we could just call our uncle…"
Angelo met this information with a raised eyebrow.
"What kind of relatives let kids play in freight cars?" he asked incredulously.
"It wasn't their fault," Orion explained quickly, "We weren't supposed to leave and…can we please call them?"
"Sure, kid. I'll call them and we'll come up with an arrangement to get you home."
"Really?" Orion asked, hoping he didn't sound as suspicious as he felt. After all the misfortune they'd faced, could it really be that easy?
"No problem!" Angelo assured him as he pulled out his cell phone, "What's Uncle Dependable's number?"
"Well, you see…" Orion paused, "You can't call him until after sundown."
"After sundown?" Angelo repeated with a raised eyebrow, "What is he, a vampire?"
"Well, he works…" Orion tried to explain.
"Kid. If his children have been missing for two days, I'm pretty sure he called in for the day."
"Hey, maybe not, Angelo," Ragazzi taunted, "You wouldn't let your guys call in for something like that."
Angelo gave a wicked chuckle.
"No, I wouldn't," he agreed snidely, "Alright, little boss. We'll wait until dark. What's this uncle do for a living anyway?"
"Um…He works security."
Angelo nodded approvingly.
The gangsters chatted on for some time, while the three children filled themselves up with enormous helpings of soup and chicken. Eventually, Ava returned to clear the plates, giving a satisfied smile at the sight of how much they'd eaten, and replacing them with a basket of cookies.
"Hey, where's my cookie, Ava?" Gianni complained, tugging at her sleeve affectionately as she passed. The saucy old lady gave him a swat to the back of the head.
"You'll spoil your dinner!" she replied and the two other men snickered uncontrollably.
Orion watched as his sisters dug into the cookies. He was doing his best to maintain his outer personna of an oblivious kid, all while frantically wracking his brain for a plan to get his sisters out of the sight of the mobsters before sunset. Orion was certain he could hold off his transformation long enough for Angelo to call Brooklyn and let him know where they were, but he was equally certain that they couldn't count on Bonnie doing the same.
Just then, Nonna emerged from the kitchen and crossed the porch to open the screen door and shout out into the darkening evening.
"Fiori! Nico!"
She turned to the men on the porch.
"Did the boys come home from school?" she asked anxiously.
"They're down in front of the store with their friends," Gianni informed her, raising his phone to show her that he had them tracked.
"Use that thing to call them home. It's nearly dinner time," she ordered, "And where's Fiorella?"
Angelo shrugged dismissively, then shot Nonna a charming smile, "She'll come in if she's hungry. She has to know it's almost ready. You can smell that cacciatore from here to heaven!"
Nonna rolled her eyes, but smiled at the flattery.
"Find that girl and get her in before she freezes," she ordered before returning to the kitchen. Angelo didn't seem the least bit bothered about finding his daughter though, and leant back in the chair to relax.
"Hey, little princess," he called to Bonnie, "How about you bring Uncle Angelo some of those cookies?" Bonnie smiled and brought the basket around to the gangsters, then went to peek hopefully out the window at the alluring playhouse in the garden. Orion caught sight of this and it gave him a brilliant idea.
"Is it alright if Bonnie and Lyra play in the garden?" he asked, "She really likes that house." Bonnie's eyes lit up excitedly and she bounced up and down.
"It's almost dark, little man!" Gianni exclaimed.
"Please!" Bonnie begged, her eyes widening into her most hopeful face, "Please, please, please, Uncle Gianni?"
"Oh, baby doll, you're killing me!" Gianni said with a laugh, scooping Bonnie into his lap and taking a hold of her chin, "Look at the mug on this kid! Hey, maybe this uncle of theirs would agree to a proposition? Think of what she'd do for business? Who needs a bagman when you got this angel-face with the puppy dog eyes?"
"She'd be at least as useful as your boys," Ragazzi replied snidely, and a good deal of the good humor drained from Gianni's face.
"My boys have better things to do than run bags," he replied coldly, with a glare that dared Ragazzi to run his mouth again.
Then, as if on cue, a group of boys around Orion's age romped loudly up the stairs.
"When's dinner?" one of them asked.
"When's dinner?" Gianni replied mockingly, as he set Bonnie to the side, "Come here and say 'hello' to your father, Nico!" Nico and one of the other boys approached Gianni, who stood to embrace them quickly before heading in to claim places at the dinner table.
"How was your day, boys?" Gianni asked, kissing Nico's hair.
"Horrible!" Nico replied dramatically, "Sister Zita got me in trouble again!"
Gianni's brow furrowed as Nico handed him a slip of paper that must have documented Nico's misdeeds. Nico had his eyes on his father, clearly expecting him to react to Sister Zita's tyranny with appropriate outrage. Gianni's eyes narrowed and he gave Nico a swift whack on the back of the head.
"Ow! She was disrespecting me, Pop!" Nico whined, "I had to do it!"
Gianni shook his head while he reread the paper, and his face slowly went from a scowl to a wicked smile.
"My son!" he groaned as he placed an arm around his son's shoulders, "I just don't know if you're cut out for a classical education."
"I sure hope not!" Nico whined and the men all laughed.
"That's gonna be three weeks of food prep before school, little boss," Gianni informed him and Nico groaned emphatically in response.
"I love you, son!" Gianni told him sweetly.
"I love you too, Pop," Nico replied begrudgingly, heading off to complain about the injustice to his brothers and cousins.
"Is that old bag still teaching there?" Angelo asked in amazement, taking a seat in a whicker chair.
"Are you kidding? Your own kid's in her class!" Gianni replied incredulously and Angelo shook his head.
"Sister Zita was ancient when we were students there!" he continued.
"She was twenty-three then. That's just what she looked like after a few years of teaching Dragoni children and praying incessantly for our rotten souls."
"Yeah," Angelo agreed with a hint of pride, "But if we had ever disrespected Sister Zita, Mama would have beat our asses until her hand bled! Then Pop would have beat our asses again for hurting Mama's hand!"
"I don't have to beat my kids," Gianni informed him in a sanctimonious tone, "I own a restaurant."
"Ah!" Ragazzi interjected, "So the boys who are above running for the family are just fine slicing tomatoes and making pizza dough with Gigi?"
Gianni rolled his eyes.
"You can't be serious! Nico's still in grade school!"
"I was a lookout for Dracon when I was twelve, and running bags by the time I was his age," Ragazzi argued.
"He's a kid, for crying out loud!" Gianni protested, "That's what we got Andre for!"
"That's why all your boys are soft!" Ragazzi declared triumphantly. Angelo's gaze grew ice cold and he drew a sharp, threatening breath.
"That's why all my boys are still alive!" he retorted.
For a moment the room fell silent, as the two men glared at one another menacingly. Then both men leapt to their feet, snarling and reaching for their waistbands.
"Stop!" Angelo bellowed in a sharp tone as he too rose, quick enough to topple the chair behind him. Neither man took their bitter eyes off the other, but neither drew a weapon either. Angelo continued in a low, calm voice.
"I would remind you both that you are guests in my father's house. Now we are all family here, and we can work these little disagreements out among ourselves, but we will have civility under this roof or the consequences will be most regrettable."
For several anxious moments, no one spoke. The two adversaries glared with contempt at one another, and Orion felt frozen in the fear that if he made a sound, one or both of these unhinged mad men would start shooting up the place. Though he was certain she didn't understand what was going on, Bonnie seemed to have realized the severity of the situation and had the sense, for once, to remain quiet and invisible at Gianni's feet. It seemed as if an eternity had passed, but finally, Gianni seemed to relax and drew a loud contemplative breath.
"I do not wish to disrespect the memory of your son," Gianni said at last, extending his hand, "Mea culpa." Ragazzi looked from Gianni to Angelo, before reluctantly shaking Gianni's hand.