But then the arrow was gone, so I stopped.
I slapped the damn thing.
“What?” Billy asked, as he stumbled slightly on my back.
“Nothing. That’s it, nothing,” I said breathing out.
“Where was it pointing before it was gone?”
“To that parking building, I think. I’m not sure.”
Billy squinted and looked up at the building. It was five floors tall.
My phone then blipped and a message read, “You are being followed. Lose them. π.”
I whispered, “Look,” and showed the message to my tall friend. I had never been followed before. Not like that, I think. Followed by teenagers, sure. Some leery men, too. A creep or two, when I walked home. But not like this, conspiratorily.
“Uh huh,” Billy said and then looked around as if looking at street names. Then he said, too loud so he could be heard by anyone, “I think the store is over there.”
We fell side-by-side into a hurried walk, round the corner, towards crowded shops and people. We were going the other way, far from the parking building.
I tried to hide it, but I was anxious. Being followed by people? Some nebulous face? I needed to make it real, to see someone. They say that the unknown is what’s really scary, that if you familiarise yourself with something, it doesn’t scare you anymore.
I rubbernecked all the time, trying to catch a glimpse of our pursuers.
Then I saw them. Two guys, wearing light coloured shirts in the heat, but they seemed the sort to favour suits. Sunglasses, short hair. Nothing distinctive on them, no tattoos, no piercings. Average height. They were the sort of people who would blend in easily, and who you couldn’t recall anything specific about if you were asked.
Billy was pulling me close to him, not forcefully but I would find myself being hauled along if I tried to stop for a second.
Two streets down I saw them again. They were definitely following us.
“What are we doing?” I whispered.
“We are trying to get lost in the crowd,” he said.
“You are too damn tall! You stand out like a lightpost!”
“I know, that’s why we are going to Varvakios Agora.”
Varvakios, or rather its more recent name Athens Central Market, was the biggest place to shop for perishables in Athens. Fresh produce, meat, fish, anything you can think of is stacked in rows of little shops, carried back and forth while people yell loudly and speak out their sales. It is so big that it’s actually a tourist attraction. It has a retro feel to it, a very tall ceiling, old-style roof and metal supports with white and dark green paint. Some shop signs are modern, some are old. High-tech aluminium open fridges sit right along the classic drop-the-fish-into-ice-boxes technique. Screens yell out advertisements and public-interest messages, banners fall down from the ceiling. It’s packed with people.
And the fish.
Oh boy, the fish.
A pervasive fish smell oozes out blocks away from the place.
And to my joy, Billy was taking me right towards a fish merchant.
Chapter 20
I was trying to be as ladylike I could, but it was impossible. If I could find a clothespin I would use it in a heartbeat. I just held my nostrils tight.
Billy was talking to a merchant, right next to a big stack of those shallow wooden fish crates. Names were written at their side. As I waited, while holding my nose of course, I read some of the surnames from the fishermen who had brought them.
Afovos. Fearless. Armenistis. The wanderer. Anemos. The wind. OK, those were probably nicknames, not surnames. But the rest were ordinary last names.
The noise in the agora was intense. I couldn’t hear them speak three meters away. So I went closer to see what was up.
“I can’t let you go back, I’m sorry,” the middle aged man said. He was, in a word, weathered. Rough hands, rough face, gentle eyes.
Billy was gesturing wildly. “Come on Mr. Antoni, I just need a couple of minutes.”
Mr. Antoni’s eyes fell on me. At first I was rattled by that, but then I realised he was checking me out and whispering to Billy in approval.
So I did what I always do.
I struck a pose and took a selfie.
I put in my most seductive yet innocent face, as if for the camera. I could see in my peripheral vision Mr. Antoni softening up. Billy, his mind quick and sharp, admitted quietly that he had promised me to show around the back.
He let us go past, and I thanked Mr. Antoni as we went by, holding my breath in a nasal “Tenk yom”. He went back to selling his fish.
Billy looked under a dirty metal stool and found a key. He unlocked the back door and put the key back to its place. He kept the door open for me and I went inside.
“How do you know this man? This place?” I asked.
“I worked here last year,” he shrugged.
“You were selling fish?”
“I was mostly carrying them and placing them on ice, but yeah.”
A teenager that works. I didn’t know that about him. Me, I’d never worked a day in my life. What else didn’t I know about the people who I called best friends?
We went through tunnels. No, they weren’t really tunnels, but they were so dirty and smelly and thick in grime that they might as well be. Dangerous too, metal edges, discarded wires. People were carrying heavy loads back and forth with those handy two wheel lifters. They barely slowed down, I had to stand aside or get squashed down.
Then I stepped on something squishy.
We walked at the far end of the Varvakios agora and came up to the sunlight. The street was busy as always.
“Whoever it was, we shook them off for now,” Billy said while holding the heavy metal door for me.
I rubbed the soles of my feet on the pavement. I didn’t even wanna know what I had stepped on.
Chapter 21
We stared up at the parking building.
Billy held my arm and said, “Wait, are they just gonna let us walk in?” We both looked at the guy in the booth, next to the swinging barrier.
I perched up myself and tilted my nose up. “Just walk in like you own the place,” I said, and did just that.
I didn’t even acknowledge the man’s presence as I walked past him, and he simply went back to fussing with his crossword puzzle. My tall friend followed me behind. I couldn’t see his act, but I was sure it wasn’t as good as mine.
As soon as we went a few meters inside, I pulled out my phone again and fired up the veil app. The arrow led us up the stairs, two floors up.
I panted. I was so not used to physical exercise.
After I caught my breath, we moved along, and found a white van, nondistinct, with a private company’s plain logo at its side. It looked like a technician’s van for a communications company, two small antennae at the top.
We walked around the front, and were greeted by a young woman with a gun pointed at our guts.
Chapter 22
“Why did you bring him here?” the young woman asked, pointing with the gun vaguely at Billy’s feet. She was lean, pretty, in her thirties.
I put my hands up, and the woman leaned forward and pushed my arms down. “Are you nuts! Don’t raise your arms, there are cameras here.” She tugged her jersey hat even lower and adjusted her ponytail, keeping her face hidden from any camera. I realised then that she had barely shown the gun, and that it was my startled imagination that made me think she had pointed it at me. In truth, she had merely shown us the gun and had never threatened us directly.
Huh.
Talk about unreliable eye-witnesses.
Billy was about to raise his long arms and paused halfway, turning the gesture into a scratch and a yawn.
“I wasn’t gonna come meet a crazy sleazy guy by myself, would I?” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
She squinted. “What guy?”
“Prodromos. Aren’t you taking us to him?” I asked.
“Yeah, yeah. Right. Get i
nside, we gotta go. Those guys might have lost you but they won’t be long now,” the woman said and went back into the driver’s seat.
Me and Billy stared at each other, and I shrugged at him.
“I thought you said it was a guy,” he whispered to me.
“It is a guy”, I replied, not getting it.
“How did you manage to get me into this mess?” he asked, but moved around the van and opened the car door for me.
The young woman lifted an eyebrow at that, but said nothing and fired up the engine. We all sat in a row, a van’s seat can accommodate three people, and we drove down, paid the parking fee with a paycard and drove out into the streets.
I glanced behind me. There was a thin divide with a hole at our backs. I raised myself and peeked inside. There was a ton of computer equipment in there, double monitors, racks of hardware, blinking lights, cables neatly arranged in copper guts and sinews. I was in no way an expert in computers, my knowledge was limited in selfie uploading, chatting and photofilter applications, but this looked non-standard for a tech-company’s van. It looked something that Deppy would drool over, and I mean that literally.
We drove in silence. Billy was silent, in observation mode. I could see the gears spinning in his head, processing all details, big or small.
The young woman was peeking at the mirrors constantly. She once muttered, “We are running out of time…”
After a while, we got away from the city centre and towards some warehouses, an industrial area. I wasn’t really sure where we were, my sense of direction is wobbly at its best. I doublechecked even the train direction at the platform, the very same one that I used daily. I had gotten on the wrong one a few times too many.
She parked us in a secluded space, finding some shade from the scorching sun. We got off the van and the slight breeze felt nice.
What a great place to get executed in, was the thought that came to my mind.
“So?” I asked, “Where is he?”
She snorted, taking off her jersey hat to cool off.
“Oh Mahi…” Billy said, presenting her with a gesture of his hand. “Meet Prodromos.”
I was stunned for a minute. I closed my mouth because my jaw was hanging like an idiot and then said, “But you look normal.”
“Thanks?” she said hesitantly, but then her expression changed into a stiff tone. “Give me your phone.”
I put my hand over my jeans pocket and said, “Ohi. No, I’m not giving it to you.”
Billy was about to say something but she raised a hand and he stopped.
“I know your father gave it to you. I need that phone,” she demanded, opening her palm, the other hand resting at the hilt of her holstered gun.
“All this so you could rob us? Going the long way around, are we? Just find a dark alley and get over with it,” I said in challenge.
Billy interjected, “I think you should give it to her, Mahi.”
I blinked at him. “What?”
“There is something happening to you, those episodes, and it all began as soon as you got that phone. Right?” he said, and paused until he got a shrug of approval from me. “From what you told me, I can only conclude that Prodromos,” he said showing the young woman, “Is investigating this and needs your phone to test stuff.”
“But my father gave it to me! He would never do something to hurt me!” I protested, forcing back a tiny amount of tears.
“He wouldn’t!” Billy said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “He might not know, Mahi. He’s just in the marketing department, he doesn’t know what this is.”
Prodromos was softer this time. “I need it now, but I can give it back to you at some point.”
Billy said to her, “It’s best not to raise suspicion right? We don’t want her dad noticing that she lost it.”
Prodromos shrugged and said, “Yeah, a couple of days should do it. I’ll contact you and give it back then.
I straightened my spine and gave my phone to her. As I did, Billy asked, a frown on his face, “But why? What does this phone have to do with anything?”
Prodromos checked the time, pointed at my horrified face and said, “This.”
I saw the Erinyes climb out of the concrete and come straight at me.
Purple time
I saw her hands like steel claws, breaking through the concrete floor, pieces shattering and exploding all around, pulling her body up the hole.
I reacted a second sooner this time, my feet taking me swiftly at my side, dashing towards metal barrels.
The Erinyes rose up and lunged at me, missing my back for a hair’s width. I ran towards the barrels and looked behind me. Billy was trying to reach me, and the Erinyes brought down a hand and cut his extended arm where it was. Her strands of hair grabbed him and choked him, but her attention returned back to me. I hesitated for a second, seeing my friend like that but I couldn’t control my body. I ran back to the maze of barrels.
She ripped his head out of his body and her purple hair loosened again. She came at me, her hand sliding on the stacked barrels, her nails sending sparks around in staccato rhythm. I pulled down a top barrel to block her path and then ran away.
She put both her hands inside it and ripped outwards, passing through it with ease.
I pulled down another barrel but it was heavy and didn’t budge. She closed the distance, her purple hair floated and darted towards my neck. She pulled me hard on the floor, brought her face over mine and tightened her grip on my throat.
I thrashed and slapped the concrete, moved my arms in defence but I was powerless. She stared at me with deadly eyes and choked me.
Darkness fell and I let it take me.
Chapter 23
I got pummelled on the concrete floor, unable to open my eyes. Something heavy thumped on my chest, a little more and it would break my ribs. I took in sweet, warm air and managed to fill my burning lungs.
Billy fell back relieved and I turned to the side, coughing my lungs out, wheezing in air, coughing, wheezing, and so on.
Prodromos leaned back, crossed her chest in an absent-minded religious gesture and sat near me on a barrel. As soon as I managed to calm myself, I stared at Billy, who was rattled but fine, and at the fallen barrels at my path. The mess was real alright, but what I had seen before, my friend getting choked and ripped apart by the Erinyes, and her tearing of the metal barrels was not real. I had knocked over a barrel or two myself, but nothing more.
I must be going crazy.
Billy didn’t look Prodromos in the eye, though he was clearly addressing him. “What. Is. Happening?”
“I don’t know,” she said quietly, and met my friend’s sudden deadly stare. “I don’t! I swear to God almighty!” She took out a cross from a chain around her neck.
Billy said as-a-matter-of-fact, “That’s what you are trying to figure out.”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Prodromos repeated, a hint of plea in her tone of voice.
My friend turned back to me. “Are you OK?”
I touched my wet lips and said, “Were you kissing me?”
“I was doing CPR!” Billy said apologetically.
“Well, you took my breath away,” I said and enjoyed his blush.
Chapter 24
I barely got inside my house when I decided to head back out again. Mother called me out and I answered back with some excuse I can’t remember, shut the door and headed straight to Deppy’s.
As I walked there, I got lost in my thoughts.
This all seemed nuts. If my friends hadn’t been there for me, I’d think I was going crazy.
My friends.
I took them for granted, but they had really been there for me. Billy the tall and lean geek had come with me to a strange meet, saved my life after my heart stopped, and still said when we parted, “Call me as soon as you need me.” Deppy, the short and curvy geek, whom I didn’t even care to hang out with at school, had defended me from the people who’s attention I craved for.
It was the first time I really appreciated them, instead of just thinking I was worth it so they just did stuff for me.
One hundred and nine minutes. That was my life now, a countdown.
Chapter 25
“That’s impossible,” Deppy said with a squeaky voice. We were in her room, I was sitting on a pokemon woolly stool or something like that.
Did I mention she was a nerd? Yeah, I need to emphasise that again.
Her room was filled with nerdy stuff, spaceships, monster toys, muscly men and curvaceous women with swords, superhero movie posters, and of course, a big computer with blinking blue lights and two huge monitors, silent as a whisper.
I pursed my lips and said, “Yeap. 109 minutes, that’s what Prodromos said.”
“Wait. The period is 109 minutes, and she shows up for a minute?”
“Yes, the period is 109 minutes, but no, she shows up for the duration of the last minute. So, 108 minutes after my last episode,” I said presenting the countdown app I had running on my old phone, “She’ll show up again for one minute.”
She held a pillow to her tummy. “So it’s 108 minutes, plus one minute of appearance.”
“Nai. Sure, call it like that,” I surrendered.
“Like Lost. Pushing the button.”
“Wha’?”
“Haven’t you seen it? Lost, where the plane crashed on the island, and-”
I put up a hand, and said, “It sounds boring, so assume I haven’t.”
“Anyway, they find a person who is stuck in a vault somewhere, and he has to press the button every 108 minutes, for four minutes. So he was to schedule his sleep, his food, his whole life around that schedule. He can’t leave the place of course, and he believes something bad will happen if he doesn’t reset the countdown. And it does, but he still goes back-”
“I know it sounds thrilling for you, but this is happening to me right now, so it’s more like horrifying than like, interesting,” I said, and chose my tone of voice specifically to hurt her.
Erinyes Page 4
