Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Call

by P. T. Dilloway

  Becky thought about it for a minute. She remembered the promise she had made to Emma’s mother long ago. She had promised to look after Emma, to make sure nothing bad happened to her. So far she hadn’t done a good job of this, but now was her chance to make up for it.

  She took the red vial from Mrs. Chiostro. “Let’s do it.”

  Mrs. Chiostro handed Becky a teaspoon. “Remember, give her two teaspoons of this. Two exactly.”

  “What if I give her too much?”

  “Then she might not wake up again.”

  “Oh.” Becky fought back tears at this thought. “Where is she?”

  “Sylvia will look for her. The armor’s magic should be able to help us locate her, but we can’t seem to pick up on it.”

  Tears finally leaked out of Becky’s eyes as she thought of Emma alone on the dark streets. There were so many bad people out there, people like the ones in the alley. Emma had saved her from them, but now who would save her? “We have to find her,” Becky said. She tried to spring out of bed, but Mrs. Chiostro gently pushed her back down.

  “Don’t worry, dear,” she said. “Sylvia is a very good tracker.”

  “But she doesn’t know Emma. I do!”

  “I know you do, dear, but there’s no use in us running around in circles. You sit here and wait.”

  Becky closed her eyes and tried to think. Where would Emma go? The Plaine Museum, maybe; she had always loved that place. Then Becky remembered what Emma had said after pushing her into the wall. Emma wanted to go home.

  “I know where she is,” Becky said.

  Chapter 22

  Officer Lois Early slowed her car as she saw a familiar face up ahead. Dwight McDougal, known as “D” on the streets, had already done two stints in prison for dealing. Yet there he was, bent down next to the window of a BMW, no doubt selling weed to some yuppie’s kid.

  Early pulled over, careful not to slam the door as she got out. She put a hand to her gun belt, but she didn’t draw the weapon yet. She waited until she was right behind D before she slid the gun out. “Hey, D,” she said. “Remember me?”

  The BMW took off; Early memorized the plate number to run it later. “Shit, man,” D said without turning around. “Why you always picking on me?”

  “Just lucky, I guess,” she said. “Turn around slow with your hands up.”

  He complied with this. He revealed he didn’t have any guns or drugs obviously on his person. “You ain’t got nothing on me, pig,” he said.

  “We’ll see.” At times like this she wished for a partner so she could keep the gun on him as she searched for any hidden weapons or narcotics. Instead she put the gun into the waistband of her pants, in the small of her back to make it harder for him to reach.

  As expected, she found a half-dozen dime bags in his pockets. “Well well,” she said. “What have we got here?”

  “You planted that, bitch,” he said.

  “Tell it to your lawyer.” She took out her cuffs, slapped one onto his wrist and then yanked his arms around his back. She read him his rights, to make sure whatever public defender he got couldn’t try to use that old excuse. Then she pointed him towards her cruiser. “Let’s get you back home.”

  He at least wasn’t stupid enough to struggle. Some of them tried to run even with the cuffs on. D had enough experience that he must have known this would be futile. She could easily chase him down and then add resisting arrest on top of possession and dealing.

  She had D halfway to the cruiser when she heard a man scream from the alley. Early took the gun from behind her back and braced for trouble. Another scream came from the alley, but no shots. Probably a knife. Or it could be something more exotic like a garrote. She hoped not; she hoped it was someone with a sore tummy.

  She unlocked one of the cuffs around D’s wrist, to snap the cuff onto a parking meter. “What you doing?” he asked. “You can’t leave me here.”

  “This shouldn’t take too long. Be a good boy until I get back.”

  With that she started towards the alley. It occurred to her she was under no obligation to do anything. People screamed all the time. She didn’t have to check out every one of them. She could take D back to her car and then haul his ass to the precinct for booking. By the time she wrote it up, she’d be able to go home. She could crawl into bed with her husband for a couple of hours and then get the kids up for school.

  Yet she didn’t stop or turn around. She was a cop. She wasn’t about to run and hide now. With a deep breath, she edged into the alley.

  At first she only saw a barrel on its side, a few bits of debris still on fire. This provided enough light that she could see three men lying on the ground, against one wall. They didn’t look as if they were napping. Her stomach fluttered as she thought of the Robinson Park massacre. Whoever it was might be at it again.

  Then she heard another scream, this one a woman’s scream. She saw a woman clad in only her underwear in a corner, hands pressed to her head. The woman’s red hair covered her face, but the rest of her appeared to be uninjured. Early cleared her throat. “Are you all right—?”

  The woman looked up then and Early saw the bizarre gold eyes. Early had seen a lot in her years on the force, but nothing like that. Were they some kind of special contact lenses? That was too strange of a fad even for Rampart City.

  Early forced herself to take a step towards the woman; she kept one hand out in what she hoped was a friendly gesture. “Are you hurt?” The woman said nothing. Early took another step forward. “You’re safe now. I’m a police officer—”

  The strange yellow eyes began to glow. “Stay away from me!” the woman shrieked.

  Officer Early had dealt with victims of almost every crime imaginable. She had learned how to deal with people who were frightened or shell-shocked from violence. Yet those yellow eyes made her take a step back. “All right,” she said. “I’ll stay back. Let’s talk this over. I can help you. Why don’t you tell me what happened here?”

  “I—” the woman’s sentence became a scream. She collapsed on the ground, her hands pressed to her eyes. She shook her head wildly.

  Early hurried over and put a hand on the woman’s back. “Come on,” Early said. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll take you to someone who can help.”

  Officer Early wrapped an arm around the woman’s narrow waist and then hoisted her somewhat upright. The woman didn’t struggle; she kept shaking her head. “I need you to walk now. Can you do that?”

  The woman didn’t say anything, but she did put a foot forward. “There now, very good. Let’s keep going.”

  It took them a good ten minutes to reach Early’s car. She turned the girl away so she wouldn’t see D still chained up to the meter. “Hey, bitch, what about me?” he called out. Early ignored him and opened the back door of the cruiser.

  She helped the woman lie down on the backseat, where the girl continued to shake her head. She began to whisper something too, but Early couldn’t make out the words. Early gave up and took her seat behind the wheel.

  This was far beyond her abilities as a beat cop. Whoever this girl was and whatever was going on in her head, she needed some professional help. Proper procedure dictated taking the woman to the hospital to be kept in the psych ward, but Early’s years of Catholic upbringing told her a priest would be better. The way the woman shook and mumbled, not to mention those eyes; this girl needed an exorcism, not psychiatric analysis.

  She turned on the radio to call the hospital so they could have someone waiting. She kept her voice as low as possible as the dispatcher came on the line. “Listen, I need you to patch me through to Rampart General. I’ve got a psych consult for them.”

  Before Early could get a response, the girl tore through the divider between the seats as if it were made of paper. The woman punched the radio hard enough to leave only a sparking dent where the radio had been. When the girl turned to her, those golden eyes glowed.

  “Take me home. Now!”

  Thin
king of her husband and two children, Early nodded. “Sure. Where is home?”

  The woman rattled off an address in Parkdale. Early could get fired for taking a loony out to Parkdale. On the other hand that loony had already taken down three bums and a police radio. Early didn’t want to be next in line. She slipped the car into drive. D shook his fist at her as she drove off, though right now she would gladly change places with him.

  ***

  When Mrs. Chiostro had asked for a blanket, Becky had thought it was to take along for Emma. Becky retrieved Emma’s quilt from the closet, the same quilt they had shared often enough as kids on cold nights. Mrs. Chiostro took the quilt and then spread it on the floor.

  “What are you doing?” Becky asked.

  “You’ll see,” the old witch said and then began to speak words Becky had never heard before. She doubted they were words in any documented language.

  Her eyes widened as the quilt began to rise into the air. She took a step back and stumbled onto Emma’s bed. From there she watched the quilt rise to the top of the mattress as Mrs. Chiostro continued to chant. Becky had heard of a flying carpet before, but she had never heard of a flying quilt. “Don’t worry,” Mrs. Chiostro said, “it’s perfectly safe.”

  “It is?”

  “Of course, dear. You have to hold on real tight.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “There’s nothing to worry about. It will take you right to her house. You won’t even have to steer.”

  “That’s comforting.”

  Mrs. Chiostro patted Becky’s cheek. “Emma is counting on you, dear. You want to help her, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then this is the only way you can get there in time.”

  “You can’t zap me there?”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t spent much time in Parkdale. I can only vanish you to somewhere I’ve been.”

  “Oh.”

  “I know it’s scary, but it will be safe. We’ve done this before, haven’t we?”

  She turned to her sister, who had reappeared about ten minutes ago, still without any sign of Emma. Sylvia shrugged. “It’s Glenda’s spell. I’ve never tried it.”

  “You’re not helping.”

  “You want me to lie to the kid?”

  “You’re sure there’s no other way?” Becky asked.

  “It’s all right, dear. Everything will be fine.” Mrs. Chiostro led Becky over to the quilt they had taken from Emma’s closet. This now hovered six inches in the air thanks to the spell the witches had put on it. Becky stared at it for a moment and then reached out to touch it; the quilt felt solid enough. “See? It’s fine.”

  “Make sure you hold on real tight during the landing,” Sylvia said. “Too bad we don’t have a helmet that fits.”

  “Sylvia—”

  “I’m preparing her for the worst.”

  “You always were such a worrywart.”

  “Someone has to be.”

  Mrs. Chiostro glared at her little sister and then peeled the front edge of the quilt up so Becky could take it in her hands. As soon as she did, the quilt began to rise. “Good luck, dear,” Mrs. Chiostro said. “Remember, two teaspoons.”

  “I’ll remember,” Becky said. She hoped she lived long enough to give Emma the potion.

  The quilt sailed through the open window without any prompting. Becky turned to see Mrs. Chiostro waving at her while Sylvia nodded. So far they had been good witches, but what if this turned out to be some kind of crazy trap? Maybe they got their kicks flattening people with flying quilts.

  She didn’t have any more time to think once the quilt rose over the rooftop of the apartment building. From there it began to move ahead; the quilt picked up speed until Becky was certain they had broken the sound barrier. She did her best to keep hold of the quilt and closed her eyes so she wouldn’t get sick. Despite how much she wanted to scream, she kept her mouth closed so she wouldn’t swallow any bugs.

  A couple minutes later, the quilt began its descent. Becky opened her eyes to see Emma’s old neighborhood, the rows of ranch houses all of roughly the same design. Off to the west, she could make out the trailer park where her little sisters still lived. If this plan failed, her sisters might have to bury her before much longer. Then again, there might not be enough left of her for anyone to bury when this thing came down.

  As Sylvia had warned, the quilt dove towards Emma’s house like one of her precious meteors. Becky clung to the front of the quilt for dear life while she flattened the rest of her body. She finally opened her mouth to scream as the front yard rose up before her. “Oh shit!” she wailed as the quilt made its final descent.

  It came to a stop inches from the ground. Becky didn’t believe this at first. She continued to cling to the front of the quilt for a full minute. When the quilt still didn’t slam into the ground, Becky took one hand off of the quilt to reach down to the ground. It was perfectly solid and a little moist from early morning dew.

  She finally let go and then rolled onto the front yard. She lingered there a moment, as she tried to remember the last time she had smelled actual grass. It had to have been before Emma had left for college. Since then she had lived in the trailer with its tiny dirt yard and then in the city, where the only grass was in Robinson Park.

  When she got to her feet, she saw the police car in the driveway. Not a Parkdale car but a Rampart City cruiser. What the hell? Why were the Rampart City police here? Maybe that bitchy detective had someone staking out the place. Becky took a moment to smooth down her hair and clothes; if any cops asked she was visiting an old friend’s house.

  She knew something was wrong as she neared the front door—or where the front door had been. Emma must have torn the door off its hinges. Becky paused for a moment and wondered again if she should do this. Then she patted the red vial in a pocket and remembered why she had come. Emma needed her and she wouldn’t let her friend down again.

  The walls of the house looked the same, but all of the furniture and pictures were gone. Emma had sold or donated the furniture after Aunt Gladys went into the nursing home. The pictures she had kept stored away. Becky hadn’t brought up the idea of retrieving these to hang in the apartment yet.

  As she stepped into the living room, a flood of memories came back to her. The Earl family had not watched a lot of television, but she and Emma had sat there watching a few movies. She remembered the first time they watched An Affair to Remember late at night in their pajamas. Emma’s mother brought them a bowl of popcorn and then later Emma’s father had come in to turn off the TV and carry his daughter to bed. He didn’t carry Becky, either because she was too heavy or he didn’t think it appropriate. Instead he had shaken her awake and said, “Let’s get you to bed, kiddo.”

  Becky had smiled sleepily and nodded. She had secretly loved that he called her “kiddo” the same as Emma, as if she were a member of the family. It was a far cry from her family, where she was addressed as “Piggy” or “Dummy” or something worse. But now Emma’s father was gone and no one would be holding any sleepovers here anymore.

  In the dining room she found the police officer. Like Becky back at the apartment, the woman lay inside the dining room wall. It took Becky some effort to pull the policewoman free. As she did, Becky gasped.

  The woman looked nearly identical to Emma’s mom. The same curly chestnut hair and pale skin. She was probably about the same height too. The tag on the woman’s breast read, “Early.” Holy shit, Becky thought.

  Early was still breathing and didn’t seem seriously injured. She should probably go to a hospital to make sure, but not until Becky helped Emma. Provided she could find Emma.

  She tried her friend’s old bedroom first. This still had the same pink walls with marks from where Emma had hung her copy of the periodic table and a star chart. Becky felt the marks on the carpet from Emma’s bed and desk. As she touched the carpet, she remembered how often they had played and talked on the floor. They had discussed their f
utures on this carpet, futures that hadn’t exactly turned out like they had planned.

  There was only one place left Emma could be if she were still in the house. Becky went to the doorway of the master bedroom, only to find the door off its hinges. This has to be it, she told herself. She took a deep breath and then stepped inside.

  Emma huddled in the corner the same as she had done back at their apartment. Becky could hear her sobbing. “Emma?” There was no response at first. “Emma, it’s me. It’s Becky.”

  Finally Emma turned around to reveal those weird gold eyes. These glowed in the dim light of the bedroom. “Becky?”

  “Yes. I’m here.”

  She braced herself for Emma to punch her again, but after a moment of staring at her, Emma said, “Becky, help me. Make it stop. Please!”

  Becky risked kneeling down next to her friend and put a hand on Emma’s shoulder. “What is it, Emma? What’s wrong?”

  Emma looked down at her hands. “The blood. There’s so much of it. It won’t stop. Why won’t it stop?” The yellow eyes glowed again and Emma took a hold of Becky’s dress. “You have to make it stop!”

  “I can.” With her free hand, Becky reached in her pocket for the red vial and spoon. “You have to take two teaspoons of this potion. Then it will stop.”

  Emma tightened her grip on the front of Becky’s dress. “What is this? Poison?”

  Becky forced herself to look into those terrible gold eyes. “You know I would never hurt you, Emma. I’m your friend. I’ve always been your friend. Ever since kindergarten. Do you remember?”

  Emma let go of Becky’s dress. Her hands went instead to her eyes. She bent forward until her forehead touched the carpet. She shook her head violently and whispered one word over and over again: “Blood.”

  “There’s no blood here, Emma. The Dragoon is trying to trick you.” Becky bent down and put a hand on Emma’s back. “But the Emma I know is too smart to fall for that. She would never believe such a simple trick.”