(It's been a long since I last wrote anything on this. Will try to see if I can retake the path I had set forth for the story when I started writing it... or maybe it'll go elsewhere...)
II – Another Heretic.
"Help! Help!"
Diana Springer turned into a corner and ran panickedly across the deserted dark street. She could hear the footsteps behind her. Uneven yet rageful. Tears streaked down her cheeks helplessly.
She didn't understand. But again, most of the life she remembered was like it. Not much of a lifetime though. According to the police, she had been found unconscious in an alley two months ago. She had been found by a beggar who was decent enough to phone off the police, but not decent enough to spare the naked, fainted attractive woman his manhood. She didn't remember the rape though. Or the alley. Or anything prior. She was amnesiac.
She glimpsed back. The man was still after her, and in his hand he could see the sword, with its tiny shiny blade practically screaming for her blood.
She tripped but didn't fall. She regained ground and kept on running. The church was up ahead. The freak might chill out there. She reached the door and pushed against it. Closed!
She began to push against it, wailing for help. Suddenly the door was opened and a stern-faced priest only began to ask what was going on before she pushed him aside and went in, looking for a hide-out.
She ran up to the altar and crawled behind it. She glanced. There was the priest… and there was that man! He no longer had the sword. He was talking to the religious man. She was his sister. Schizophrenia. She was due to have her medication and had escaped.
The priest understood and pointed at where she was. She began to scream in emotional agony. The man approached slowly, talking smoothly, telling her it would be alright. He ducked by her and as he had a very nice smile on his face, produced a small knife and stabbed her in the heart…
--
Diana sipped the dark coffee, hoping it would wake her up. It was almost 11 AM but she had stayed awake till 6 the night before, attentively reading a book on fencing. She was rather much the intellectual, and she pondered how much like now she had been in her previous life, before the amnesia.
But, regardless of whether she had been a library rat or a night slut, she was sure that she had not been what she was now: immortal. She would live forever, never growing old, unless someone chopped her head off her shoulders.
She felt the dim sensation in the back of her head and before she could realise, her mentor was in front of her, holding a small basket with three strange narrow and large things probably made of flour, a cup of coffee, and bearing a good morning smile on her face.
"You look tired." She commented.
"That book you gave me. I liked it, Clarice."
"Really?" Clarice Minon drowned the tip of one of those flour things in the coffee and took a mouthful of it. "I couldn't read past the first thirty pages."
"What's that you're eating?" Diana asked.
"Croissants." The reply was sharp and distant.
"You've been to France?"
"Not really…" Clarice seemed reticent to discuss it.
Silence took over the table. Diana tried a croissant and liked it. She glanced at Clarice, who was staring down at her coffee as she nibbled another mouthful. Occassionally, she had these fits. Diana tried not to inquire much. Clarice had taken her in. When she awoke after the church attack, she had been in a hotel room, and she had been by her. She explained that Diana had become immortal and all that immortality brought with it. The Game, its rule and the myths thereof. She felt it would be ungrateful to pry on what might not be of her concern.
"So…" she said to try and to break the mood. "Any plans for today?"
Clarice downed the mouthful of her French snack with a large drink of coffee. "Sightseeing."
Again, the response was brief and cut-off. The rest of breakfast would be drowned in silence.
--
After an uneventful albeit really hot day around Brussels, Diana and Clarice returned to the hotel. The clerk beckoned at them. Diana checked her watch. It was past eight. Both worked in the hotel kitchen, one each night, from eight to six in the morning. The job was in exchange for accommodation and food, Diana was due tonight, and she had arrived late. They approached, the mentor fearing dismissal and subsequent eviction, the apprentice fearing only a reproach. But it was neither.
"I'm very sorry, Mr. Rouge. I promise it won't happen again."
The plump, greyhaired man grinned at her and shook off his head. "Never mind. You've worked very hard so some minutes late won't matter." He paused. "A… gentleman requested you today, Mademoiselle Minon."
"Did he leave any name or a number?" Clarice asked, a tickle of alarm in her voice.
The clerk produced an envelope and handed it to her. "Only this."
"Merci." Clarice said as she took the envelope. Diana took off to the kitchen while Clarice went to her room.
She stripped till only her underwear remained, sprawled on the bed to let some of the air conditioner cool off her body and opened the envelope.
There was a card in it, with the address of some bar in it. It was in Paris. But that was not what puzzled her. At the bottom-right of the card, there was a symbol. She heard a knock on the door.
"Yeah?"
"It's me." Diana's voice replied dimly.
"Come in."
Diana walked in. She blushed slightly upon the sight of Clarice in white lingerie, lying in bed so… temptingly. She awkwardly sat down at a chair near the bed and tried not to stare.
"So… " she stammered. "What's in the envelope?"
"An invitation." Clarice replied stiffly.
"You told anyone we were here?"
"I don't need to. They know where we are." Clarice distractedly leant forward to hand the card to Diana, her breasts testing the cotton of her brassier. Diana felt her blood boiling with an odd, sudden desire. She took the card, their fingers touching slightly, her eyes glaring on and off her mentor's bosom.
"What is this… symbol?" she mumbled.
"A group known as the Watchers. They record everything we do."
"I thought you said nobody knew of us."
"They do, and some of us know about them."
"I see." Diana stood up and left the card on the seat. "Are we…?"
Clarice just gazed at her, a sweet look that made the hairs of her body raise in excitement. "Yes." She said.
"OK." Diana stammered quickly. "I'd better… get back to work and… you know and… Good night."
Clarice was left alone soon, slightly amused by her apprentice's uneasy behaviour. She turned out the lights. She needed to think and to that, first she needed to sleep…
