The Medusa Stone

Chapter 14

Soula and Helen continued to the hotel, having no idea that they were being followed. Helen supported her ill friend by holding her up under her right arm.

“Are you alright, Soula? Your husband is going to be so upset with me for getting you so sick,” Helen mumbled as the sound of their feet clacked through the barren street two blocks from the front door of the Royale Masters Hotel.

Soula was coherent, to her companion’s relief, but she sounded like a patient waking up from a horrendous surgery. “No, he will not. He often sees me like this,” she told Helen, leaning heavily on the much thinner professor’s arm. “Besides, since I puked under that tree I have been feeling much better.”

“Really? That is good to know. I thought you were going to collapse at my feet a block back,” Helen admitted.

They staggered over the next street, ignoring a few passers-by laughing and pointing. “Oh, sod off! You’ve all looked like this! Wait till you hit your 30s. Gits,” Helen cussed them out, but her friend just groaned under the burden of another threatening outburst.

Soula muttered something, as she had been doing on and off. But this time, she looked at Helen with more urgency.

“Almost there, love,” Helen reassured. “To tell you the truth, I am going to have a bit of a purge too before I head home tonight.”

“Helen,” Soula puffed, “will we make it to the hotel before they catch us?”

“Sure we wi… wha… before who catches us?” Helen inquired quizzically.

Nonchalantly Soula replied with some blood-curdling words. “The two men that have been following us. They are getting too close for my liking.”

“What?” Helen frowned, feeling her blood run cold. Just then she first discerned the sound of infrequent footfalls behind them, footsteps she had not heard before because they were not this close. She elected not to look behind them because then their stalkers would know that they had been made. And that would only lead to a full-blown chase the ladies could not afford, so they soldiered on, attempting to quicken the pace to where the bright blue and white lights of the hotel poured out on the sidewalk in front of it.

As they sped up, the followers came closer.

“Christ, what am I going to do? I don’t even have pepper spray,” Helen said to herself.

“What if we get into trouble?” Soula asked.

“We are in trouble,” Helen hissed, checking her peripherals for moving shadows.

“I mean, do something crazy to draw attention,” Soula forced through her lethargy. “Maybe if we make… noise and act c-c-crazy they will l-leave us alone. People will be looking at us..a-a… and witnesses, y-ou know?”

“Oh, I see what you mean,” Helen whispered. “But this is London on a Friday night, Soula. Acting crazy will just get us arrested.”

As she said it, Helen knew what to do. She held Soula back to a halt.

“Sit down here on the bench,” she told the Greek woman.

“Why?”

“Just do it!” Helen snapped softly. “Just trust me. If you feel anyone try to take you, you kick the shit out of him, okay?”

“Oh yeah!” Soula shouted drunkenly with a hoarse voice that would intimidate a Whitechapel pimp. “Oh, I will! I will!”

The two men stalled a bit, keeping their distance, but they kept coming closer. Helen picked up a trash bin, and, after losing grip on the impractical object a few times and spilling trash onto the street, she finally got it. She dragged it to the next shop window along the sidewalk that of Leila’s Boutique, where the ornate pink and green cursive slanted into pretty ribbons and twists.

“So sorry, Leila,” Helen said with a groan. Lifting the trash can as high as she could, Helen flung it through the window of the high-end clothing shop with a mighty crash, watching how the bin shattered the beauteous logo. All round the street she could hear people gasping while Soula gave her a resounding cheer and burst out into applause.

Reluctantly, Helen turned to see what their stalkers were up to, but the two men had apparently disappeared. Shortly after the screeching tires of two security vehicles announced the arrival of the authorities. Helen plopped down next to Soula.

“That was a good idea,” Soula laughed crudely as the security men approached them.

“I’m sorry, love. I suppose we are going to be arrested, but it is better than getting killed,” Helen sighed. “You had better call your husband and let him know you will be late.”

“Oh, please,” Soula scoffed, “this is the most f-fun I have ever had in this bloody bland, co-old country of yours.”

“Madam, may we have a word?” the polite security officer asked.

“Certainly, officer,” Helen replied. She got up and acted as sober as she could, informing the officers of the two men who were gaining on them. Of course, she imbued the statement with talks of guns in their hands and shouted for them to come over, but she would be forgiven that for making her misdemeanor look more justified.

“We will still need you two ladies to come with us so that we can take a formal statement in the presence of a police official if you don’t mind,” the officer informed her. “But not to worry, it is mostly for insurance purposes.”

“Thank you,” Helen said, as she and Soula climbed into the one vehicle to be taken to the local police station. She felt bad for doing what she did but every time she reminisced about the scaly males on their trail who had God knows what in mind, she felt safer in the claws of the authorities.

“Soula, are you alright?” she asked. Her Greek friend nodded, looking exhausted. “Here, put on your shoes.”

“I wonder… who they were,” Soula whispered in a foul breath that almost had Helen hurling, yet Soula had a valid point. The men did not show any guns, after all, but there was no doubt they were about to seize the two women.

“I don’t know,” Helen replied. “I cannot think of anyone who would want to kidnap me. What about you?”

Soula scoffed and smiled at her. “I can think of hundreds.”