Enemies new and old

Ella and I think we have a handle on what happened the day and night of our shared memory loss. It relates to some construction going on at the site of the amphitheater, putting in some new seating. This had been something Ella was wary of, given what she knows about the place, but since they didn’t appear to be digging up the area around the stage she wasn’t panicking.

What was causing her some alarm, however, was the stone ring in my mystery photo from last post. Wanting to know what it was about, she had looked into the construction project and discovered that one of the decision-makers was someone in the university’s art department, named Pickman. The appointment on the bookstore’s calendar that Miriam discovered was created by Ella as a reminder to go to Pickman’s office. Apparently I had gone with her and her intent was to look at just the office, because at about that time was when Ingrid got the phone message from me asking about getting a lock picked.

For the rest of the story, including the bar fight, we had to rely on Leticia. The handful of results a “barfight detling” image search on Google yields is something called “Sexy Red Head Kicks Male,” but I’m pretty sure that’s not a photo of her.

I got a call from you asking if I knew anything about that pit being created at the amphitheater. I didn’t but I told you I would ask around, and we decided to meet up at Emmie’s Bar that night to report. I talked to some of my guys, who told me that when they were around there at night they thought they saw some activity around there, but when they got close enough for a good look nothing was going on.

You two were at Emmie’s when I got there. I told you what I knew and was going to ask if I could see Ella’s famous darts skills when three guys approached us. I recognized two of them, even though I hadn’t seem them in person: they were two of the guys you’ve written about on the blog! The guy with the John Deere hat and the guy with the glasses. In the middle was someone I’m assuming was Pickman, since he was about twenty years older than the other two guys and dressed in a dark suit. He was slightly shorter than them, and had thick, dark hair that he combed straight back. Blue eyes that were bright and cold, like…I don’t know, you’re better at similes than I am

So, Pickman got all melodramatic villain, telling you and Ella to stay out of his affairs. You were like “or what — you’re going to put a threatening sculpture on my doorstep?” Pickman turned his head to the left, looking around the bar, and when he turned his head back to look at us, about four other guys had left their seats and were standing in front of us. They had the some kind of dazed look that people get when I work my magic on them.

Pickman said “Leave the bride of darkness to me,” so he knows what I’m about. I gotta admit that it felt kind of cool to be referred to that way. John Deere and Glasses were confused though, because they were like “um…you mean the goth chick?” who I guess was Ella.

I could have taken all the guys Pickman assembled, but whoa – Pickman was tough! He came at me with a knife, silver I think. I was able to dodge no problem but his speed was pretty close to my own. I had my hands full with him so I wasn’t able to see what was going on with you two. I got in some good hits, though, and I think I was close to winning when…

Actually, I don’t know what happened, because I suddenly found myself in a different part of the bar, with Pickman nowhere around. The fight you guys were in was over. The four guys from the bar were still around, looking confused, but Glasses and John Deere were gone. I thought they had just vanished, but that wouldn’t explain why I shifted in space. Then I realized that Pickman must have done a steal memory trick, which is something I’d heard of before. Sometimes, like in my case, you get only a minute stolen, but you and Ella seem to have gotten hit a lot harder.

So I don’t know the final fate of Pickman, though I haven’t looked too hard. I don’t know if there was some major revelation that he didn’t want us to remember or if the memory steal was just an evasion tactic. Ella and I went to Emmie’s after that night and some of the patrons had some photos from the fight, including one of Ella standing on the bar and kicking someone in the head, but that’s the only record I’ve been able to find of what happened to us that night.

We went to the stone ring at the amphitheater during the day and the bottom looks solid, so I don’t know if there’s something there we need to be watchful against. I don’t plan on staying there after dark to find out.

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