Day Twelve
The sun went down a few hours ago, as they waited in Frank's office again. The meeting started in about half an hour, so they guessed that Helena will show up a little bit earlier. Vincent and Anthony got bored of just waiting in total silence, so they started playing cards across Frank's desk. Gerald on the other hand just wandered around in his office, looking at the newspaper articles that were pinned onto the wall.
„I start to think that you're cheating“, Vincent said.
„Just your imagination“, Anthony replied, putting another card on the desk before turning to Frank. „You're sure that you don't want to play as well? Might help you to think of something else.“
„It's okay, really“ was the answer he got. „The only thing I'm hoping for is that she finally shows up. Normally, she would have already come...“
„I think that you fear her. Why are you so eager then for her to visit your place?“ Vincent wondered, laying a card onto of Anthony's.
„You're not the only one thinking that“, Frank answered. „I utterly despise her and the things she apparently does to me, but somewhere-“
„You love her?“
„No, not something like that. It goes more into the direction of... fascination. Something in me is fascinated about how odd she is.“
„As in?“
„She almost always has that convinced smile in her face. The only way to get her to show other emotions was to attack her. And damn, did she got aggresive from one moment to the other.“
„She's very unpredictable then?“
„Something along those lines.“
Anthony was still trying to decide what card on his hand he should play.
„What are you playing anyway?“, Frank asked.
„We don't really know ourselves“, Vincent replied. „We just lay cards on top of each other.“
Frank looked very dumbfounded at them, when he heard the screeching sound from his stairway again. „Guys, she's here.“
The steps got closer until something pushed the door away, revealing the – to Frank, at least - familiar red haired woman.
„Hello there, Frank“, she greeted him. „I see that you have guests.“ As she looked around, she spotted Gerald staring at the articles on the wall. „And he seems to be here, too.“
Gerald turned to her. „So you're this woman who threatens Frank.“
„I wouldn't call it threatening if I didn't already know that he's going to come over later anyway“, Helena replied. „I'm just here to have a little bit of chit chat.“
Frank sighed. „Not one of those again. These just tend to end up the same way anyway.“
She looked at Frank, with her typical smile. „I'm getting bored of trying to tell you that you cannot resist it either. It doesn't seem to convince you, so why should I even bother?“
„A new topic would be nice. How about „Who the hell are you?“?“, Frank demanded.
„Huh? I thought you already knew my name.“
„Quit messing with me! You know what I mean!“
She tilted her head. „Do I?“
Vincent said in a calm voice: „He wants to know your origins, your motivation, something like that.“
„Oh, now I see. Why haven't you said so from the beginning, Frank?“
The detective was abuot to get up and punch her into the face, but Anthony held him back. „Don't react to that. She only wants you to give her an opportunity.“
„I don't see why I should tell you this now. I have better things to do.“
„Like breaking into my office?“, Frank said.
„No. I'm talking about messing with you. If I told you what my reasons are to do certain things, it would make sense for you and everything I've done to this point was worthless.“
„Wait, what is that for a reason?“
„If I tell you what my motives are, you could see where I'm going with this. And that's exactly what I'm trying to prevent happening.“
„You could at least try to explain us why you don't try to make sense“, Anthony asked, still concentrating on the card game.
„Hm, I guess I could tell you at least that“, she said, leaning against the door. „My point is: As soon as I'm starting to make sense, I'm developping a pattern that can be found out by logic. So I'm doing my best to confuse all of you for as long as I need it.“
„But now that we know that you don't want us to think in a normal matter-“
„Still doesn't work. I'm just too good at this to be found out.“ She got closer to Frank. „It's time. Let's get going before we're arriving late.“
„Hey there, lady“, Vincent stopped her, getting up and getting a hold onto his Gatling that leaned against the wall beside the window. „We won't let you do that anymore with him.“
She glanced at his weapon. „So what?“
He aimed at her. „Either you get out immediately, or you're going to have blue beans as meal.“
„I haven't managed to eat for dinner until now, so-“
Vincent pulled the trigger, firing a salve towards her. Apparently, it was pretty dusty in here, because nobody could see a thing and all there was to hear was people coughing. As soon as the dust sunk down again, they couldn't believe her eyes.
The bullets dropped down from her hand, as she was trying to clean off her clothes. „Thank you, but I doubt that I'm going to like these. I'm going to the bar later on for a midnight snack.“
They were baffled. She didn't even seem to bother. Around thirty bullets, flying at her with several hundred meters per second while standing away from her six feet at most, and she just catched them as if somebody lightly threw hard-boiled eggs at her.
„Could we now please go? If we stay here any longer, we'll be late! Frank, get up.“
The detective left his chair behind and walked towards the door, as Anthony was trying to stop him. „No, Frank! You don't have to do this.“
„I'm saying otherwise“, Helena said. „Now come, Frank.“
„Frank, you know what she's going to do to you again!“, tried Gerald to talk some sense into him. „Why aren't you even trying anymore to fight it?“
„Because he would just waste his energy on it“, Helena replied, before leaving with Frank, as the rest stared outside in disbelief.
„This woman is freaky“, Anthony said, shaking his head.
„She catched my bullets with her bare hand!“, Vincent said, while looking confused at his Gatling. „Either this thing needs to be repaired, or this isn't your typical woman!“
„This is getting weirder and weirder“, Gerald wondered. „And I'm saying this as somebody who walks around in his own novel and discovers all kinds of confusing stuff.“
They stood there for a while before Gerald asked:
„So, what are we going to do next?“
„We can't rely on Frank anymore“, Anthony answered. „Who knows what she's doing with him. Maybe she manipulates him in a way to continue her task to mystify the entire thing even more. We got no other choice to investigate ourselves.“
„And how?“, Vincent replied. „Now she knows that we are aware of what she's doing to him. So we can't rely on them throwing them into his mail.“
„There is only one solution to this“, Gerald said.
Simulaneously, Anthony and Vincent asked him: „And how?“
„I'm going to have to play a decoy until they catch on again. Our only chance to get close to them is letting them near us.“
„And you're sure that the only way to do so is letting you get attacked?“, Anthony asked. „These people are pretty dangerous, and you know that!“
„Do you have a better idea? If we try to follow him, we might get tricked again.“
„I see your point“, began Vincent, “but you're going to have to admit that it does sound pretty stupid.“
„I know that myself, but we've got no choice for now. We only can wait until they lose their attention.“
Saturday morning. The warm and delicious smelling bakery stood in contrast to the cold and uncomfortable street to their right. Gerald was whirling with a spoon in his black tea, when Sebastian interrupted him:
„You're pretty quiet.“
„I know that, Bastian.“
„Has something happened?“
Gerald sighed. „You could say it like that...“
„Something in your family?“
He shook his head. „It's all fine with them. My... writer's block just kicked in again.“
„Even with the ritual?“
„I seem to get used to it. Maybe I should just take a longer break from it so I can regenerate properly.“
Sebastian chuckled. „That's all you seem to do recently: either you're sunk into your writing, or you're taking a break from it.“ He looked outside. „Doesn't this get monotone after a while?“
„Well, sometimes, I look for through the job offers, sometimes I'm meeting you somewhere... it's not like I'm fixated only at my novel.“
„It still got pretty worrying.“ He took a sip from his coffee, before he continued: „I think that it might have been a really bad idea that I told you about the ritual. You don't really seem to make any progress with it and yet you're still always working on it. It's like you got addicted or something.“
Gerald stopped there. „You really think that I'm-“ He didn't get any further because he bursted into laughter.
„Gerald, that's not something you make jokes about!“
„It's just something for inspiration's sake, not some new designer drug or anything, Bastian. You're just panicking yourself for no good reason. That can't be really healthy.“
Sebastian sighed, before answering: „Yeah, maybe I just exaggerated there for a moment, but my point still stands. Look, I just want you to not get sucked into this too much. I'm saying this as your friend.“
„It's nice that you think that way, but I know what I'm doing.“
„Do you really, Gerald?“
