Centaur

by JunoMagic
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives-ShareAlike license

Centaur

In his youth, Sal Cangelosi was the bookie with the best connections in all of New York State. He knew everything about everyone – humans, horses, or even magical creatures. You wanted a good bet on anything alive, dead or immortal? He’d sell it to you.

But these days he was growing old and  his activities were mostly legal. He wrote articles for the sports section of the New York Times and provided consulting services for the owners of racing stables, charging the living daylights out of them and then some.

‘Make ’em bleed, son, out their nose and out their ass,’ his Sicilian father used to say. ‘Or they won’t believe you’re worth the hairs on your balls or the lice in between.’

Sal had taken that to heart, and that motto had served him well.

After all, today he’d been invited to offer his opinion on the first and foremost racing stable of the United States. Old Nero Pelosi was probably spinning in his grave. But Jack, his oldest son, thought that a big fat article in the New York Times could only boost the bets placed on his runners – be they human, animals, or … creatures.

Leaning against the white fence of the Pelosi Stables and watching the racing track of the human runners, Sal raised his glass of chilled champagne in fond memory of his dear crooked old dad.

Vittorio Cangelosi had been an old school Mafia gangster. He’d given Sal his life, a good name (a little grand to Sal’s taste; but being Salamander Cangelosi had proved useful more often than not in the sixty-three years of his life), and one worthwhile piece of advice. That was more than most fathers gave their children, in Sal’s experience. He himself had never gotten around to that – at least to the best of his knowledge. It was the one and only regret he harboured, now that he entered the autumn of his life.

Taking another sip of champagne, Sal concentrated on the track. A young woman was just finishing a training lap. She was white, which was unusual; darker skin tones dominated the racing tracks these days. She was very white, very blond, very tall, and something about her bone structure struck him as strange. Sal frowned. If he didn’t know better, he’d have said …

The proud owner, Jack Pelosi, grinned at Sal as he beckoned the girl over. She jogged over to them.

‘Sir.’ Outwardly polite, her voice was cold with barely concealed contempt.

Jack Pelosi ignored her tone. Or maybe he simply didn’t notice. She was just one of his many pets after all. Beaming, Jack turned to Sal.

‘Sal, this is Nephele. One of my very own. Finally working off her college education on the track,’ Jack guffawed at his own joke. There was not an ounce of fat on Nephele’s lithe, muscular body. Then he waved negligently in the woman’s direction. ‘Nele, meet Sal Cangelosi, one of my most important external advisers. I’m sure you’ve heard about him.’

Nephele nodded, her gaze cool. ‘Mr. Cangelosi.’

‘Ms -‘ For some reason, Sal hesitated.

The blond girl forced a smile. ‘Nephele will be quite all right.’

‘Nele,’ Jack put in, ‘will show you around. And she’ll be available for an interview. She’s our biggest hope for the new season.’

‘That’s excactly what our readers are waiting for,’ Sal gushed. He knew his eyes didn’t mirror the enthusiasm of this declaration. And he could see that Ms Nephele had seen that, too.

Jack remained oblivious. He clapped Sal on the shoulder. ‘Well, Sal, have a good time. I’m sure Nele will do everything to make sure you enjoy your stay. If there are any questions left, feel free to contact me any time. I’m looking forward to reading the draft for your article.’

Asshole, Sal thought.

Nele smirked.

As soon as Jack was gone, she loosened the ties securing her pony tail and tossed back a luxuriant mane of golden hair in obvious relief. Obviously she knew that Jack had a thing for pretty hair.

At Sal’s raised eyebrow, she offered a wry smile. ‘We’re not allowed to cut our hair. Boss’s orders.’

Of course.

‘You do have very beautiful hair,’ Sal said. Gazing at the golden bounty, he found himself frowning again. Could it be … ?

But before he could even form a coherent question, a horse’s scream cut through the air. Shrill, grating, searing through his skull and reverberating painfully in his bones. Never in his life he’d heard a horse scream like that. Normally, even the worst cry of a panicked horse  just made the tiny hairs at the back of his neck stand on end. This was different. Sal jerked and spilled cold champagne down the front of his suit.

‘Fuck, what is -‘

‘FUCK! I told them not to go ahead without me!’

Sal could have sworn that sparks flew from Nephele’s hair as she whirled around, her gaze turned towards the racing track of the horses.

The horse whinnied again, panic clearly audible in its high-pitched scream.

The woman clenched her teeth and turned towards him, hands balled to fists in frustrated indecision.

‘What are you waiting for?’ Sal asked. ‘If you can do anything -‘

She didn’t reply, just took off towards the horse-racetrack.

Sal followed. After a few steps he started wheezing and was forced to slow down. Damn it. He knew very well that he’d never been as fast as that Nele character in his life, but still. Damn it all to hell. Old age sucked.

He arrived at the racetrack just in time to witness the tall blond woman jumping into a starting gate overflowing with a panicking black stallion.

Fuck, was the only thing that came to mind. Fuck, fuck, fuckityfuckfuck. Here goes a great interview –

Another anguished whiny. Hooves drumming against the steel of the starting gate. Why the hell had they closed the gate around a horse obviously not trained to the gate? That spelled disaster as sure as he was called Salamander Cangelosi!

But …

No painful moan of an injured human …

Instead: quiet.

Sal swallowed hard and wished he hadn’t spilled his champagne. He blinked. Blinked again. Then he started walking towards the starting gate. He felt as if caught in a dream. An ordinary human, jumping into the starting gate containing a panicking horse would have ended up sorely injured or dead. He’d witnessed a few of such tragic accidents over the course of the years. If a horse panicked in the gate, the only thing you could do was open it, and wait until the horse’s flight instinct was relieved …

What he saw now, reminded him of the oil-paintings of old masters.

A golden haired woman comforting a huge black steed. Just her hand, gently placed along the stallion’s cheek, just her sweet whispers calmed the giant beast down.

She seemed to be talking to him.

And suddenly, a terrible suspicion rose within Sal. His mouth dry, his fingers feebly forming fists, he stood rooted to the spot. To reiterate, fuck, fuck, fuckityfuckfuckfuck … he had to get out of here, and he had to get out of here now.

Sal had a great instinct for unhealthy information. And this tidbit, juicy though it might be, was positively life-threatening. Something for a up and coming cub-reporter. Not for a content, aging veteran of the racetracks like himself.

Nephele calmed the giant black stallion just by talking to him.

Then she rolled her eyes, snorted, whispered something into the horse’s ear, clambered out of the gate and strolled over to Sal.

Gazing at him, she let out her breath, relieved, and stroked back a strand of sweaty golden hair. Then she gave him a wry smile. ‘Guess I blew my cover just now, did I?’

Sal swallowed again. That point betweeen his shoulder blades itched, but he’d be damned to turn around. He had a right to be here, a job to do. Maybe it wouldn’t be quite as obvious to an outsider as it was to himself just what he had witnessed just now.

‘You could say that, Ms Nephele,’ he allowed.

She laughed. ‘Nele. Please. I do like your articles, Sal.’

Suddenly she offered her hand.

What had changed, he mused, as he shook her hand. She hadn’t liked him much before. Then he caught the calculating gleam in her eyes.

Ah, he thought. He had to listen to her now …

… really listen.

He stood with her hand in his. Warm, real. Beautiful long fingers. His gaze slid along her arm to her flat athlete’s breast, her runner’s body.

For a moment he had the eerie feeling of looking back at his whole life, from his little crooked beginnings to the moment when he was awarded the New York State Sports Reporter Prize. He’d come far. No doubt. He had no idea what is dad would think – not much, probably. He’d been too much of a law-abiding, upstanding citizen for that. But all in all …

And now, between one moment and the next, everything he’d gained, all he’d done –

it would be gone.

He stared at the beautiful woman before him. Flicked back  a gaze at the racetrack, where a giant black stallion was running faster than he’d ever seen a horse run before.

He stared at her silver-blue eyes.

I’m old enough to die, he told himself. And it’s not as if anyone depends upon me.

‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘A summary right now, and then we’ll go where we can talk.’

Her gaze pierced him. His throat constricted and his cock stirred. Fuck. He’d known that there was something wrong – no, not wrong – she was too beautiful for that – something about her, from the start. He really should be beyond such stirrings.

But she nodded, her silvery eyes sparkled with deadly mirth. ‘Very well.’

She stepped closer to him, wrapping her long, slender fingers around his glass. ‘Pretend you’re flirting with me.’

He gulped. ‘That shouldn’t be difficult.’

She laughed, a golden sound that caused him palpitations.

‘Indeed.’ She smiled against his ear. He could feel the movement of her lips. ‘I think you have already guessed the solution to the riddle I pose.’ She inhaled sadly. ‘And you just met my brother.’

She drew back and her expression was raw with pain. ‘I doubt that Mr Pelosi will allow you to see my father.’

‘He’s still here?’

Nephele nodded. ‘And I want him free.’

Sal had gathered as much. ‘Magical creatures of confirmed humanoid intelligence have the same rights as humans since the addendum to the Universal Decalartion of Human Rights in 2042.’

‘I know. So does Mr Pelosi.’

‘Great,’ Sal said dryly. So there’d be guards. ‘So do you have any idea how we get a centaur out of here without anyone noticing and shooting us before we move an inch?’

Song of the day:

Link(s) of the day:

Centaurs at the THEOI website | Centaurs at Artcyclopedia | Centaur Astronomy & Astrology | Centaurs in ur showers

…and my wish for you today is:

Twofold: Carpe diem. Seize the day and the situation. Trust your intuition.

And: Do what is right, and not what is easy. But don’t be stupid doing whatever you do.

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