“Could I talk to her for a minute?”
The girl’s pigtails bobbed as she ran back into the apartment. The door opened wider a minute later. “Who are you?” a woman about Emma’s age said.
“My name is Dr. Emma Earl. I’m wondering if you’ve seen Victor Estima lately?”
“You a cop?”
“No, I work at the Plaine Museum,” Emma said. She scrambled to think of a lie. “I’d like to offer Victor a job.”
“A job? What kind of job?”
“We’re looking for new security guards—”
The woman laughed at that. “Victor would be no good as a security guard. He’s only good at stealing. Last time he was here, he stole my television set. Even emptied out Margarita’s piggy bank.”
“Oh, I see.” Emma reached into her purse for a business card. “If you see him, could you let him know I stopped by? I’d still like to talk to him.”
“Sure,” the woman said. She crumpled the business card as she stuffed it into a pocket of her sweatpants. Then she slammed the door shut.
Emma went down to the end of the hall before she let out a deep breath. She doubted Estima’s sister would ever call her back. She hoped she had more luck with French’s ex-wife.
***
It was a long ride out to Westfield. As the Scarlet Knight, Emma probably could have made it in about twenty minutes if she drove at over a hundred miles an hour and weaved through traffic. As Dr. Emma Earl, she had to obey traffic laws, so it took over an hour before she reached the far western suburbs.
Mrs. Constance Reuben, the former Mrs. Roy French, lived at the end of a cul-de-sac in a subdivision. All of the houses were identical split-level ranches, the type Becky referred to as “McHouses” because they were built so quickly. Emma could see some of the houses were so new that the grass hadn’t grown yet.
A pink tricycle and some toys lay scattered on Mrs. Reuben’s dirt yard. Lieutenant Donovan’s report didn’t indicate French had a daughter, so the girl must be the product of Mr. and Mrs. Reuben. In a way that made her glad; she didn’t want to think about what kind of daughter someone like French would produce.
She rang the doorbell and then tried to rehearse the story she’d gone over on the way here. It might not be all that plausible and Emma was a terrible liar. If Mrs. Reuben didn’t buy it, then Emma would have to go to Plan B, which was to beg for help.
The door opened and a woman appeared. She was blond and well-dressed in a blue cardigan and slacks; she looked every bit like the typical suburban housewife. How did someone like this ever get mixed up with someone like Roy French? “Can I help you, young lady?”
Emma forced herself to smile. “Hello, ma’am, my name is Dr. Emma Earl. I work at the Plaine Museum in the city—”
“Yes, I’ve been to the museum before. It’s a very interesting place.”
“It certainly is. If I could have a few moments of your time, I’d like to tell you about some of our new exhibits.”
“I really don’t have time, Miss—”
“Dr. Earl. I’m a geologist.”
“Well, Dr. Earl, I don’t have much time. I have to pick my daughter up soon from kindergarten.”
“Oh, I see. It will only take a few minutes.”
Emma forced herself to meet the woman’s gaze for a few moments, until Mrs. Reuben finally said, “All right. Come in, Dr. Earl.”
The living room looked like something from Better Homes and Gardens, except far more toys on the floor. Emma took a seat on a floral print couch. “Would you like anything to drink?” Mrs. Reuben asked. “Coffee or tea perhaps?”
“Just some water would be nice.”
“Of course.”
Once Mrs. Reuben had gone, Emma got up from the couch. She went over to the mantle, where she saw some family pictures. Mrs. Reuben with her muscular blond husband and adorable blond daughter looked as if they could pose for a catalog. At the far end Emma saw a picture of just Mrs. Reuben from when she was about Emma’s age; she looked no less beautiful back then. When Emma looked more closely, she saw a hand on Mrs. Reuben’s left shoulder.
Emma checked again to make sure Mrs. Reuben wasn’t around and then took the picture off the mantle. She turned it over and then undid the clasps that held the picture in place. Once she lifted the back away, she gasped. Roy French! He had his hand on the young Mrs. Reuben’s shoulder.
Mrs. Reuben cleared her throat. Emma spun around, her face red. Her fingers fumbled with the back of the frame until Mrs. Reuben took it away from her. To Emma’s surprise, Mrs. Reuben looked more embarrassed than angry.
“I’m sorry,” Emma said. “I saw the hand and curiosity got the better of me.”
“Here’s your water,” Mrs. Reuben said.
Emma gratefully took it and gulped down half of it. “I’m sorry,” she said again.
Mrs. Reuben took the photo out of the frame and unfolded the edge with French in it. “I don’t know why I keep this old thing.” She shook her head and then sat down. “Are you married, Dr. Earl?”
“No.”
“When I was your age I was already married to a real creep. Roy French.” Mrs. Reuben pointed to him in the picture. “He was always getting himself in trouble one way or another. Never had more than two dimes to rub together.” She sighed and then studied the picture as closely as Emma had. “This was one of the good times. He could be really sweet when he was sober. Too bad he wasn’t sober very much.”
“That’s awful. But at least you got away from him.”
“Sure, but not until the second time he got thrown in jail. That was when I wised up. I guess I was just being stubborn.” Mrs. Reuben laughed. “I had hardly thought of him in years and then yesterday he came by here. Can you believe it? After all these years he shows up on my doorstep with Tim and Alice inside.”
“What did he want?”
“Money, of course. And a place to hide. He said someone was after him. Wouldn’t say who, only that they were going to get him. Of course I had to send him packing. I couldn’t let him around my daughter.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial level. “And I never told Tim about Roy. He thinks he’s the only one and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“Did he go away?”
“Sure, but only after I gave him all the money in my purse. I never could say no to those puppy dog eyes of his. Poor bastard.” Mrs. Reuben folded the picture up and replaced the backing. She handed it to Emma, who set it where she had found it. Then Mrs. Reuben reached out to put a hand on Emma’s shoulders. “If you’re really smart, don’t ever fall in love. It’s nothing but trouble.”
Emma thought about the love of her life, Dr. Dan Dreyfus. In order to keep him from harm, she’d used one of Mrs. Chiostro’s potions to erase Dan’s memory of his time with Emma. Then she’d planted the idea he go back to Egypt, which he did. “It certainly is.”
***
When she entered the vault this time, Marie found the place transformed into the set of a bad horror movie. The Watchmaker had painted a pentagram on the floor in red, with some of the leftover scented candles at the points. He was busy at the moment painting archaic runes inside the pentagram with a brush smeared with red paint.
“What’s all this?” Marie asked from the doorway. Amongst the lavender of the candles, she smelled something else, though she couldn’t place the odor.
“A little extra help.”
“From black magic?”
“If that’s how you choose to think of it.” He motioned to the chair in the center of the pentagram. “After you get dressed, we can begin.”
She stepped over to the chair and found a bundle of black fabric on the seat. She shook it out and saw the bundle was a robe, complete with a hood. Marie wanted to ask the Watchmaker if he were serious about the robe, but then decided against it. At this point, what could it hurt?
The Watchmaker had a robe for himself, which he put on after he finished with the symbols. Marie waited patiently on the chair for him
to don his garment. From a drawer of the old vault he took out a cup filled with a thick black liquid that looked and smelled like burnt motor oil. “Here you are, my dear. A little snack.”
“No thanks.”
“Please, my dear. This is a very special beverage I have prepared for you.”
“What’s in it?”
“Nothing dangerous, I assure you.”
Marie stared at the glass for a moment. With a sigh, she took it from him. Again, what could it hurt at this point? She regretted that a moment later when she tasted the Watchmaker’s “special beverage.” From the look and smell she had expected it to taste like coffee left to brew too long. Instead the drink had a salty, coppery taste that made her gag.
“Finish it,” the Watchmaker said.
Marie closed her eyes as she tipped the glass up again. She barely held down her gag reflex enough to finish the whole thing. As the dregs of it slid down her throat, she coughed. The Watchmaker took the glass from her hand and then patted her on the back like a baby.
“Very good.”
“What was that?”
“Primarily goat’s blood. I added a few other special ingredients as well.”
“Goat’s blood?” She put a hand to her head. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Just take a few deep breaths. Remember what I taught you.”
Marie did as the Watchmaker suggested. She took a few deep breaths and then closed her eyes to focus on her breathing and heartbeat. In a few minutes, she was calm again. She opened her eyes and then fumbled to find the elastic band for her hair.
When she looked down at the pentagram with her special eye, the paint sparkled as if the Watchmaker had dumped a bag of glitter on it. “You see it, don’t you?” he whispered into her ear. “You can see the power radiating from it.”
“I don’t know.” She put her hand to her head again. “What else was in that drink? Did you drug me?”
“Of course not. The time has come for you to unlock your full potential. I had hoped to rely on traditional means, but clearly that will not be enough, so we will take our preparations to the next level.”
“Are you some kind of Satanist?”
“That is a quaint way of looking at it. Let’s just say I am in tune with certain elements outside the norm. As are you.”
“I don’t want to be part of a cult.”
“Don’t be silly, my dear. Cults are for amateurs and con men. This is only a method to enhance your abilities by putting you in tune with those elements outside the mainstream. You do still want to save Veronica, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then this is what we must do. Now, I want you to focus on the symbols with that eye of yours. Relax. Open your mind. Let the power in.”
She stared down at the symbols the Watchmaker had drawn in paint on the floor. No, not paint—blood. The same goat’s blood in his drink; she could see that now with her eye. She pushed these thoughts from her mind and used the techniques he’d taught her to calm herself and focus. She thought of Veronica in bed, her body drenched in sweat. She was dying. No one could save her, not in the 19th Century. Only Marie had the power to save her.
Around her the vault turned to the dirt floor and stone walls of the root cellar. The pentagram remained on the floor; the glittering of the blood turned to a bright green glow. Marie shivered beneath her robe as the temperature went down to freezing. Instead of the candles, she smelled the musty odor of the cellar.
She was here. She was really here, in the root cellar, in 1876. Not as a spirit, but a real person. “I’m coming,” she whispered.
She stood up from the chair and then took a step, into the glow of the pentagram. She passed a hand through the glow and felt the damp wall of the cellar. At last! All she had to do was walk the few blocks to Veronica’s house and fetch her from the bedroom—
The moment she stepped out of the pentagram, the glow started to flicker. The walls around her flickered as well; they alternated between the dirt and stone of the root cellar and the steel of the vault. “No!” she shouted. She desperately thought of Veronica, so close.
Despite this, the glow from the pentagram dimmed. The room spun around Marie until she finally collapsed to her knees—onto the cold metal of the vault. She panted as she knelt there. Around her the room changed back to the Watchmaker’s vault.
“No,” she whispered.
He took her arm and then helped her back onto the chair. “Very good, Marie. Very good.”
“I was there,” she said. “I was in the past, for real.”
“I know. I was there with you.” He held out a fist and then opened it to reveal a handful of dirt. “You see?”
“That came from the cellar?”
“You think I would carry around a handful of dirt just to fool you?”
“I suppose not.” Marie reached back to take the elastic band from her hair. She brushed a tress forward to cover her special eye. The pentagram turned back to a flat red. “I was so close.”
“And you’ll get closer.”
“How?”
“We need to summon more power. More ‘black magic’ if you will.”
“How?” she insisted.
“Animal blood is fine for some rituals, but there is no substitute for the genuine article.”
“You mean human blood?”
“Yes. More specifically, the untainted blood of a virgin.”
“A human sacrifice?”
“Don’t be so melodramatic. We only need some blood. A quart of it should be enough. Of course in this sordid pit that may be difficult to find.”
Marie shook her head. “I know where we can find some.”
“Are you volunteering?”
“No,” she said. “I can’t.”
Not long after she had been admitted to the institution, Marie had engaged in a fling with an orderly. She had been fourteen and had spent the previous thirteen years of her life in a Catholic orphanage; she had been naïve enough to think the orderly loved her. She soon realized the mistake of that. Her special eye had come in handy then to show her what this orderly did with young girls new to the institution. He used them until he got bored and then he moved on to someone else. It was against the rules, but if the girl complained, who would believe her? No one would take the word of a mental patient. After that, Marie had learned not to trust anyone at the institution: the orderlies, the nurses, and especially the doctors.
“If not you, then who?”
“I think I know someone.”
Chapter 4
Though she didn’t feel ill, Emma still took Leslie’s advice. She heated a can of tomato soup, and then downed it in a couple of tongue-scalding swallows. Afterwards, she crawled into bed to get a few hours of sleep before she had to go out and fight crime all night.
Her alarm went off five hours later. It didn’t come as much of a surprise to find Becky in the living room. Becky sat on the couch and watched the news. “I thought maybe you were going to sleep all night,” Becky said.
“I can’t. I have work to do,” Emma said. She went into the kitchen to fix a protein shake to help give her a boost for tonight’s work.
As Emma began to blend the shake, Becky put a hand on her shoulder. “I think we should have a talk, kid,” Becky said.
“I’m fine,” Emma said.
“Come on, I know you too well. Aunt Gladys dying is eating at you a lot more than you’re letting on. Now why don’t you stop trying to be the hero and talk to me about it?”
“I am sorry Aunt Gladys is dead, but I can handle it.” Emma turned and forced herself to smile. “Thank you for your concern.”
“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?”
“I don’t have time for much else,” Emma said. She turned the blender off. She dumped the green concoction into a glass, followed by a straw. “How are you and Steve doing?”
“Don’t try to change the subject.”
“Becky, please. I’m fine.”
/>
“Sure, that’s why you were out all night.”
“I was out all night. I cried myself out and now it’s time to move on and worry about helping people. That’s what she would want.”
“Maybe you can fool yourself with that, but you can’t fool me. You’re my best friend.”
“I’m fine. Really.”
“You think you’re the only one who cared about her? I loved her more than my own mother. Don’t you think it’s hurting me too now that she’s gone?”
Emma put the remains of her protein shake aside so she could hug her friend. “I’m so sorry, Becky. It’s just…I needed to be alone last night. I needed time to think.”
“And now you’re just hunky-dory, is that it?”
“No. It still hurts, but I have important things to do. I can’t just sit around and mope. That’s not what she’d want.”
“You’re acting the same way you did last time. And you know how well that worked out.”
“It’s not the same. I’m not going to run away like that. Not this time. But I need some time to work everything out.”
“You don’t have to do it alone. I’ll help you through it. So will Mrs. Chiostro and Sylvia. We all care about you.”
“I know.” Emma hugged Becky again. “I care about you too. We’ll talk about it more later, I promise.”
Emma knew she should tell Becky the full truth, but she couldn’t, not yet. She still needed to digest it all herself. “I have to go.”
Becky stepped aside. “Go on, run away again.”
“I’m not running away,” Emma said, but even she didn’t believe it.
***
After she took up the mantle of the Scarlet Knight, Emma soon discovered that despite all her book knowledge, she had very little idea of how the criminal world operated. As she usually did, she tried to attack the problem by reading books on the subject. While studies of history’s greatest criminals fascinated her, they didn’t help her understand how modern criminals in Rampart City worked.
She was fortunate to have three teachers well-versed in the subject. Mr. Graves, the previous Scarlet Knight, had fought crime on Rampart’s streets for twenty-five years. Marlin had tutored Mr. Graves and hundreds of other Scarlet Knights over the last four thousand years. And Mrs. Chiostro’s sister Sylvia operated an arms business that brought her into contact with many unsavory characters. Between them and her own first-hand experiences, Emma had come to understand Rampart City’s streets much better.
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Call Page 30
