The Theft

The Theft

Sweat was beading down her face and trickling along her spine beneath the pressing weight of her backpack. The camera bag she had slung across her shoulder rested in her lap. The nylon tickled her arm until she dropped her hand along her side. She was trying to stay alert but the heat was getting to her. Drowsiness overtook her and as the M-line drove into a tunnel her eyes fell shut of their own accord.

She awoke with a start at the announcer’s voice. The doors were sliding shut. Quickly she brushed her dark curls aside and looked out the window to see  which station they were passing. The sign read Köttbusser Tor. With a sigh of relief she sat up straight.

She twisted in her seat to get a drink from her backpack, her movements unhindered. She was reaching out to the water bottle in the side pocket when a black nylon strap slid off her shoulder and fell to the ground. She froze in horror as she slowly realized what had happened. There had been a young man sitting beside her. She hadn’t paid much attention to him. Now she rather wished she had. She could not recall his face and she felt stupid.

She fished her phone out of the tight pocket on her thigh, grateful he hadn’t taken that as well, and made the call she had dreaded. ‘Aleesha, why are you calling us?’, Michaël said. Aleesha swallowed hard to clear the lump in her throat, ‘I lost it…’ There was silence on the other end of the line. A wave of heat rolled from her neck up to her forehead.

‘Tell me when and how.’, Michaël said. Aleesha let out a breath before responding: ‘Just now on the M-line. I had disguised it in a camera bag. I’d been so worried about them finding it, I hadn’t thought about pickpockets.’ She kept her voice as steady as she could. She had humiliated herself enough to last a lifetime, no need to make it worse by letting Michaël hear her crying.

‘Are you sure it was just a thief?’, he said. ‘Yes, I checked for demons when I got on.’, Aleesha chocked back a sob. ‘You'll have to stay in Berlin. I’ll book you a new train ticket. Find yourself a place to stay. If a hostel’s the only place you can afford then make sure you get a private room.’

‘Okay, but what do I do?! How can I get it back?’, Aleesha said. ‘It will come to you when it’s done.’, Michaël said. ‘What? You mean that thing is going to find me?!’, she covered her mouth and spoke in a whisper. 

‘It’s a cursed object Aleesha. You have the kind of power it’s drawn to. It will remember your initial touch. But things that were created to cause trouble will find a way to do so. It’s going to kill that thief and when it’s done, it’ll be back in your possession.’ 

‘Just, just like that?’, Aleesha said. ‘Just like that. I’m sorry. Try to think of a better disguise. One that is less appealing?’ ‘I will.’, she said. ‘Good.’, he replied and hung up.

Aleesha stared at the blank screen of her phone for a while. That young man whose name she didn’t know, whose face she couldn’t remember, he was about to die because she had dozed off for a few minutes. He shouldn’t have been stealing but still, death seemed an extreme punishment for such a petty crime.

She was standing on the desolate platform of Görlitzer station. It had been the next stop after the robbery and she’d jumped out expecting to go back. By the looks of it, going back was still her best option. Aleesha headed for Alexanderplatz. It was in a safer part of town and she had seen a familiar coffee chain there.

She sat down with her café mocha and used the free Wi-Fi to search for a place to stay. She was trying to find a hostel or a cheap bed and breakfast but a hotel add kept popping up on her screen. Frustrated she clicked on it to see what it was. It turned out to be a very nice last minute deal for a hotel that was no more than ten minutes north of Alexanderplatz.

The Imperial Artist was a four star hotel which usually catered to businesspeople. Now they were offering their regular rooms at summer discount rates. Aleesha hesitated for a moment, wondering if it was too good to be true. But her intuition whispered in favour of the hotel. She booked it and set off.

Her walk took her across the lively square and past a huge derelict building that seemed to be waiting for its date with the dynamite. She felt uncomfortable walking there alone. At the end of the lonely stretch there was a Pluto hotel with plenty of guests coming and going. Aleesha breathed more easy at the sight of them. She crossed a big road and saw the sign of her hotel up ahead in the distance.  

The lobby drew her eyes further into the hotel. She saw the concierge desk and a lounge. She had to turn around to discover the reception behind her on the right-hand side next to the entrance. The check-in clerk did a double take at his screen. ‘Is something wrong?’, she said. ‘No, it’s fine, you’re very lucky! I don’t think we offer these prices very often. Here’s your key, you’ll be in room 270. Enjoy your stay.’, he replied.

The room had everything Aleesha needed. She used the small water heater to make some tea. She sent Michaël a text message with her location and unpacked the few items she would be needing overnight. She wondered if the stone would return inside her backpack. Michaël had said the thing would find her but he didn’t say how she would know of its return. 

It had been two hours now. What would the young man be doing? Would he have thrown the stone away once he’d seen it or had he tried to sell it as an opal? It could easily pass for one. Aleesha was pacing the floor in front of the twin beds. She forced herself to sit down. The Guide to Hunting and Handling was lying on the bed where she had left it moments ago. She carried her old textbook along as a companion on her solo mission.

She tried to read it but when she picked it up the book flopped open to the page ‘Guarding the artefacts’. She barely made it past the first paragraph before she got sick to her stomach. She dry heaved in the bathroom. Aleesha drank a glass of water and decided to go outside.

On her way here she had passed a blue line marking the way to a female correctional facility. She might as well go see what that was all about. It was still warm outside though the heat seemed to be easing off a bit. The blue line lead through a nondescript street with flats on one hand and a restaurant and supermarket on the other.

The line bent to the left passing bushes on her right-hand side. It ended rather abruptly at a closed gate. Beyond the gate the line turned left again. There was black writing on it informing her that she could get the audio tour 30 metres to the left. Aleesha tried the gate but it was locked. What had been a correctional facility in the past, was now a park where children could learn traffic rules. There was no one in sight.

She had hit a dead end. This was her second solo artefact run and she had messed it up completely. Mistakes are deadly. She had known that on a theoretical level. Now she was beginning to feel the weight of her former instructor’s admonition. She cried then. But she didn’t let herself go. She had no right feeling sorry for herself while a man was about to die.

She still needed to secure the artefact she’d been sent to collect. Aleesha wiped her tears and headed back to the hotel. As she passed the restaurant she saw they had steaks on offer. 

She couldn’t finish her meal with all the guilt still occupying her stomach but what she did manage to eat tasted like a proper steak should. When Aleesha returned to her room she gave ‘Guarding the artefact’ another try. She made it through two paragraphs before calling it quits.

She switched the flat screen TV on and lay in bed flipping through the channels. When she came to the local news the remote went dead. There was a political piece on. After that the news reader received a special bulletin. 

An accident had occurred at Ostbahnhoff. A young man had somehow fallen on the tracks right when a train was entering the station. While the police was still clearing the site of the accident all S-lines heading east would be interrupted.

Aleesha’s feet had gone stone cold at the mention of the young man. Her eyes were glued to the television. She sat there till the weather report not wanting to look away for some reason. 

When she finally allowed her eyes to wander off the screen she saw the black stone lying a few centimetres to the right of the TV. Something glistened on the surface of the stone. There was a whiff of iron in the room. Aleesha didn’t want to think about that smell.

Instead she saw how the glistening substance on the stone dimmed as it got sucked into the rock without leaving a trace. She jumped up, grabbed something from her backpack and wrapped the stone in it. When she looked at her hand she saw it was a sock. Aleesha stared at it, then put the sock in a plastic bag and threw it in her backpack.

Knowing the stone was in there, she shut it away in the closet. She would have to notify Michaël of its return. And sleep. She had to sleep with that thing in her room tonight. Sleep was important she couldn’t be dozing off tomorrow as she had done this afternoon. She would be leaving tomorrow, no more delays! It was all about guarding the artefact now wasn’t it?