9.
In front of me stands a figure, completely dressed in black tights and mask and all. It’s a man, I could tell by the deep cry of surprise. He looks at me with big anxious eyes through the groove of his mask and drops a leather-like book at the floor, which he was holding in his hands. It makes a hard, muffled sound and I hope Jabar heard it and rushes to my assistance. The painting lies on the floor and the safe and a broken window are open.
I rush towards the intruder and unfold the blackjack at the same time. I aim at his head, but he just puts a step aside, through which it lands on his shoulder. He drops himself to the floor, rolls and jumps back up again a meter away from me. He has the book in his hands again, which he throws out of the window in an elegant gesture.
After that, everything goes quickly. Out of the corners of my eyes I can still see a figure in the garden picking up the book and rush away. The guy outside apparently has a bunch of tools with him, because it makes a rattling noise when he runs away. At the same time the man in the room jumps towards me.
I fall flat and painfully on my back, but I still have (and I’m proud of that) the blackjack in my hands. However, the pistol will cause a firm bruising. The man is now on top of me and makes a grab for my hands to pin them down on the ground. However, he isn’t fast enough.
A hit with the blackjack in his neck makes him moan, but he stays on top of me and even sees his chance to lay hold on my wrists. He’s heavy and in my feeling fucking muscular. I try to get from underneath him, but don’t get him off of me.
That’s enough! Whether he’s a human or something else, I’m going to give him hell!
I transform my fingers so they become longer and thinner and get my hands on his wrists. I keep an eye on his look, but he doesn’t look as if the transformation comes as a surprise.
The door flies open, the moment he wants to stand up to escape.
Meanwhile my fingers have changed into steel wire so that he gets stuck on me, as if he’s handcuffed.
‘Try to get out of this, you cunt!’ I yell.
‘Let him go, Manon, I got him,’ I hear Jabar saying, but I don’t see him standing.
I transform my hands back to normal. The guy is pulled back and falls with his head on the windowsill where he collapses.
Jabar is looking down on me and offers me his hands to get me on my feet again.
‘Are you alright?’ he asks with a worried look in his eyes.
I tidy my dressing gown, pick up the pistol and blackjack and nod. ‘Stupid burglar. He had a partner that made off with a book.’
‘Get a generous piece of rope from the garage next to my office and give me your pistol,’ he commands.
I hand over the Glock, lay the blackjack on the windowsill and hurry towards the front door, because before the office I have to go outside. Next to the office is a second garage in which Jabar’s Porsche stands. I snatch a piece of cable rope that hangs above the bench and hurry up back inside.
‘Here.’ I give the rope to Jabar.
‘Give me a hand.’
Together we put the masked man on a chair and wrap the rope tightly around his chest and arms.
‘What if he’s a devil or a vampire?’
With that I mean that a devil can do in thought manipulation and a vampire has the gift of hypnotizing. Two things Jabar and I aren’t immune to and a pistol is useless against.
‘Get Diedie. Quick,’ Jabar orders to me. ‘Before he comes round.’
I sprint up the wooden stairs that lead to the first floor, for me nimbly avoid the furniture and take the following stairs to the attic floor. Panting I knock on Diedie’s room door.
‘Diedie, quick!’
I keep knocking until she appears at her door in a cute flowered sleeping dress.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Burglar… now… need your magic.’
Diedie doesn’t hesitate and readily follows me down.
She puts her hand over her mouth when she sees the man sitting on the chair.
Jabar has pulled of his mask and leans nonchalantly against the windowsill with his arms crossed in front of him. The safe is closed again and Permeke properly hangs in front of it.
The burglar looks like the man in the street with a short brown haircut. I don’t recognize him at first without his custom-made suite and in those typical black burglar tights. Above that his chin leans against his chest. When I come closer, I see it’s one of the two gentlemen that were in the pub this afternoon. Not the one with the big nose, but the other.
‘Diedie, protect us all, will you?’ Jabar ask calmly.
You can’t tell from his face he has just caught a burglar in his house.
Diedie murmurs some words Jabar nor I understand. Her eyes turn into an intense, purple color, which I always find wonderful. A light tingle against the crown of my skull indicates it’s done. Right in time, because the guy wakes up moaning, looks surprised at the rope and afterwards at us.
‘Welcome,’ Jabar says jesting.
‘It’s one of the guys that was acting so mysteriously in the pub this afternoon,’ I say.
Jabar nods at me and then turns to the intruder: ‘Where is my book?’
‘Go fuck yourself, bloody elf,’ the guy hisses between his teeth. So that guy knows what we are. Nasty, but it makes the interrogation a lot more interesting.
‘Let’s check what kind you are,’ I say and while I bend over to him, I transform my index finger and thumb into pincers.
‘What are you gonna do?’ he screams. I put the pincers between his lips and look into his mouth.
‘Just checking,’ I say honeyed. After that, I check his ears, feet and hands.
Why not just with my fingers? Pincers are much more fun and are scarier. However, I refuse to check his body for birthmarks. I don’t want to touch that much.
‘Keep your hands off of me!’ He shakes with his chair and all.
‘If you don’t stop, I’ll cut out one of your eyes!’
Obediently he keeps himself calm and hisses: ‘Freak.’
‘Well, well, that isn’t nice.’ I turn around to Jabar and Diedie. ‘No characteristics. So, human, witch or transformer. Since he hasn’t unleashed a spell yet or transformed, I bet on the first.’
Before I turn away from the intruder, I poke in his eye. Hard.
‘Autch, you cow!’ he cries out.
‘Where is the book?’ I repeat Jabar's earlier question.
He spits on the floor right before my feet. Look, I think that’s just disgusting. And, above all, coarse and cliché-ridden.
‘Stay calm, Manon,’ Jabar says in a soft tone.
Nevertheless, I know he doesn’t mean it, but that he’s playing the good cop. He mainly leaves the interrogation to me and I know why. The such-and-such test.
‘Do you want I let you get bewitched by her?’ I say and point at Diedie. ‘She’s a powerful witch, you know.’
‘Witches can’t practice black magic,’ he answers with a triumphant grin. ‘It namely comes back three times.’
‘Ah, you know your lesson,’ I say sneering. ‘But I can transform into your worst nightmares and I’m not bound to the witches’ good ethic.’
A faint glimpse of fear appears in his eyes.
Of course, we still have our Mister Glock, but as I already said earlier, it just creates such a mess.
‘Besides, you woke me up. And I need that sleep, badly, shithead! You don’t get away with that!’
‘The book?’ Jabar repeats who has his emotions better under control than I have.
‘Gone. And you’ll never find it back.’
I studiously look up at Jabar.
‘I’ll tell you about that later,’ he says. ‘Just do your thing.’
Playing time!
I transform into one of my favorite animals: the wolf.
I make the mouth bigger than usual and the teeth extra sharp. I’m not planning to bite him. Gross. I’m not a vampire. I hope the appearance alone will be enough to convince him of our seriousness.
That’s what I thought! He fucking starts to laugh out loud. ‘Manon Maxim. Don’t think we don’t know you. You don’t dare to bite me.’
Oh, damn it. How does he know that? And how come he knows my name?
If I only knew what he’s afraid of.
And then I get an idea.
What are most people afraid of? Right. Tickling, stinging and hairy Arthropoda. In two seconds the wolf is transformed and shattered into hundreds of banana spiders and scorpions. I do need to take care of the contact between the different Arthropoda, so I stay a single entity. With thousands of facet eyes I see how the intruder is shuffling backwards with his chair. His screaming and the rasping of the chair legs cut through my auditory channels.
‘The book?’ Jabar’s voice sounds as if he’s talking through a megaphone.
I hope he gives in fast, because the sounds hurt my eardrums.
‘I don’t know his name,’ the burglar now whines.
I crawl into his trouser-legs. He shakes his legs until I fall to the ground, but my armor protects me.
‘Get them off of me! Get them off of me! I’ll tell everything I know!’
Phew, back to good old Manon. With tears in his eyes he looks up relieved at my human appearance. The cold after the transformation immediately takes possession of me and I begin to tremble like crazy.
The guy is trembling also, but of fear. ‘I’ve never seen the client, but I know he exists. I work directly for Selena.’
His dialect sounds Antwerp, I can hear now, and not Ostend.
‘The vamp,’ I say.
He nods heavily.
‘What’s your name? And your partner’s?’
‘Edward Moon and my partner is my brother, Joseph Moon.’
‘Why did you have to steal the book?’
‘I don’t know, I really don’t. I don’t even know what kind of book it is. You have to believe me!’
‘How come you know us and especially what we are?’ Jabar asks.
‘Selena told me. She knows a lot about you. I don’t know how she got that information. I belong to the lowest level. She only told me what was necessary.’
‘What is your client,’ I ask. ‘An otherkind?’
‘Otherkind?’ He blinks his eyes in amazement and then: ‘Oh, you mean… I don’t know what he is.’
‘What do you know?’ I insist.
If only I was a devil right now, so I could read his mind.
‘The ropes cut my skin.’ There’s not a bit of courage in his voice.
‘What do you know?’ I ignore his plea.
‘Nothing. I get paid for this order. Royally paid. Steal the book and get away, that’s all.’
‘What did Selena tell about us and about the otherkinds?’
‘Nothing special.’ His eyes anxiously shift back and forth between us. ‘What you can do. We didn’t believe it at first. But now.’
Damn it, Manon! I shouldn’t have transformed myself!
‘We can’t let him go,’ I say to Jabar.
‘We have to, Manon, we’re not murderers and we don’t keep prisoners either. Besides, his partner probably knows as much as he does and that one’s gone.’
‘The police?’
‘No.’
‘Why not? He’s a human and he burgled a house.’ I yell angrily.
‘I’ll tell you later why not. Besides.’ Jabar comes closer and whispers in my ear: ‘I’ve got the suspicion that Selena will take care of them. She draws little benefit if they decide to earn big money on the leaking out of information.’
I nod. It’s horrible to know that those two people probably won’t survive this. On the other hand, they chose for it themselves. I sincerely hope I can ease my conscience with this, but what else is there to do?
‘So that’s why you kept an eye on me this afternoon?’ I ask the burglar.
‘Yes yes, to watch you closely. To see what we would be confronted with.’
‘With how many people does Selena work?’
‘I only know something about my brother and I. Further on, I know nothing.’
‘Where’s Selena now?’
‘We never met at her place, but every time at a different location. An empty shed or so.’
‘Diedie? Can’t you put a Truth Spell on him?’ I ask.
‘Leave it.’ Jabar leans down to cut loose the ropes. ‘I can see very well he knows nothing more and that he’s speaking the truth.’
Well, if you’re living one hundred and fifty years already, you become a good judge of human nature.
Soon after the burglar crawls back through the window and runs away like a rocket.
‘It doesn’t have any use to follow him, Manon,’ Jabar says when he sees I’m getting ready to climb through the window. ‘He’ll probably won’t search for his partner. Just leave it.’ I keep watching him run off.
‘What kind of book was it, Jabar?’ I eventually say.