Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Call

by P. T. Dilloway

  Chapter 13

  Emma stared into her mug of tea and wished she had the power to see the future in the murky liquid. Then she might be able to see if Becky would ever forgive her. At the moment, that didn’t seem very likely.

  Becky had moved the last of her things from the apartment, into the house she was supposed to have shared with Steve. When Emma had woke up that morning, the apartment seemed strangely quiet and empty. The worst part came when she realized it would be like this for the foreseeable future.

  Emma had tried to call her friend after the funeral, but Becky refused her calls. The voice mails Emma left remained unanswered, as did the text messages she sent. She had been Becky’s best friend for the last twenty years and now she didn’t exist.

  Much as she wanted to believe this situation would change, that Becky would come to her senses once the pain dulled a little, Emma didn’t believe this. This was far more serious than when Emma had accidentally decapitated Becky’s favorite doll in the second grade; the wound in Becky’s heart might never heal. From experience Emma knew the difficulty in losing a loved one; for over ten years she had run from her pain until finally forced to confront it after she took up the Scarlet Knight’s mantle.

  “Having a bad day?” a familiar voice asked. She looked up to see Dan with a sandwich and bag of chips. “Mind if I sit down?”

  “No, go ahead.”

  He sat across from her and then smiled at her. “You get some bad budgetary forecasts or something?”

  “I was thinking about Steve.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “I know. I was thinking about what’s going to happen to Becky now. She’s so angry with me. I’m not sure we’ll ever be friends again.”

  “Why is she mad at you? There wasn’t anything you could have done.”

  Emma looked down at her tea as she tried to couch an answer to this that wouldn’t compromise her secret. “She thinks I should have done something.”

  “That’s nonsense. What could you have done?”

  Emma had given that question a lot of thought. Sure, she had been at the altar as the maid of honor, but five years as the Scarlet Knight should have given her a sense about these things. She should have known something would happen. At the very least she should have taken some security precautions. But she had been too complacent, too sloppy to assume anyone would ever try to hurt Steve. Or her.

  She still didn’t believe Becky’s interpretation of the incident that the shooter had tried to shoot Emma. Someone like Roberto Moreno wouldn’t miss that badly, or so she told herself. Maybe he had. Maybe something had spooked him at the last second so that his shot went wide. But why would anyone want to shoot her either? Unless they knew she was the Scarlet Knight, in which case, why hadn’t they tried again? Why hadn’t they struck here, at the museum, where she was vulnerable?

  “I don’t know,” she finally said. “She thinks I should have seen it coming.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think maybe she’s right.”

  Dan shook his head at this. “You’re smart, but you’re not that smart. You’d need ESP to have seen that coming. You aren’t psychic, are you? If you are, maybe you could tell me some lottery numbers to pick.”

  Emma couldn’t help but smile. “No, I’m not psychic. I wish I were. Then I could have saved him.”

  “Who would ever think anyone would want to kill Steve? He was such a nice guy.”

  “I know.” Emma took a sip of her now lukewarm tea. There was no way she could fully articulate the problem to Dan. She had promised herself that she would never put his life in danger. Though he might be in danger at the moment anyway. That awful wife of his—Isis. “How’s Isis adjusting to life in the big city?”

  “She’s doing fine. It was a little touch-and-go for a while, but I think she’s settling in now.” Dan took a bite of his sandwich before he said, “I wanted to thank you and Becky for being so nice to her. That’s really helped. She didn’t have any friends here.”

  “I’m glad we could help,” Emma said, but she was unable to keep the sarcasm from her voice. Dan didn’t seem to notice this.

  “She’s putting together a dinner party. She wanted me to invite you.”

  “Oh, well, I’m not sure I can make it. I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  “I understand.” He smiled at her again. “Consider it an open invitation.”

  “I will.”

  “I hope you can make it. It’s the first time we’ve let anyone in the house since my stepmother died. I’m sure you’d get a kick out of all the antiques we have. It’s probably the best private collection of Egyptian artifacts in the western hemisphere.”

  Emma knew from her dates with Dan that most of these artifacts came from his stepmother’s trips to Egypt; on many of these she had taken young Dan along, which had piqued his interest in the ancient culture. They had never gotten far enough along in their relationship for her to see the inside of his stepmother’s house; the scientific part of Emma’s mind did want to see what sort of things he had in there, but the rest of her wanted to stay far away from the house that might have been hers to share with Dan.

  “I’ll see what I can do.” She checked her watch. “I’d better get back to work.” Emma hurried away to leave him alone at the table.

  ***

  Instead of returning to her empty apartment, Emma stopped off at Mrs. Chiostro’s house. This time she hadn’t come about any dress alterations. She needed to see Mrs. Chiostro in her other capacity.

  Emma found Mrs. Chiostro in the parlor; the witch tossed some things into a large purse. “Are you going somewhere?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid we’ve got to take a little trip. Both of us,” Mrs. Chiostro said. “I hate to leave you alone at a time like this, but there’s nothing we can do.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “That is a secret.” The old witch put a hand on Emma’s arm. “Trust me, dear, you’re better off not knowing.”

  “When are you going?”

  “Very soon. I was going to call, but I had a feeling you would show up here first.” Mrs. Chiostro shook her head. “Look at me carrying on without asking what brought you here. You need another pretty dress?”

  “No. I was wondering if you had seen Marlin around. I haven’t seen him in days. I thought maybe he’d come back here or maybe you could summon him. I could really use his help right now.”

  “I’m sure you could, dear, but Marlin’s gone on a journey.”

  “A journey? I thought he couldn’t stray too far from the armor.”

  “That’s true—in the real world. The place he’s going is outside that.”

  “You mean like the Twilight Zone?”

  “Something like that.”

  “For how long?”

  “There’s no way of knowing. It could be quite a while.”

  “What did he go there for?”

  “I don’t think I should say, dear.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s hard to explain, even to someone like you.”

  “And now you’re going too. With Sylvia?”

  “Yes. Unfortunately.” Mrs. Chiostro cleared her throat. “I wish we could stay to help, but this is for the best.”

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “I’m not sure. A few days probably. These things can always be difficult.”

  “Can you at least tell me what this is all about before you go?”

  Mrs. Chiostro looked around the room as if to make sure no one could hear them. “I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself until I’ve met the others. All I can say is that if Marlin is right, then we are all in very big trouble.”

  “It’s Isis, isn’t it? That’s what you’re so worried about.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “What is it about her? Is she the Black Dragoon?”

  “No, dear, she’s worse.” The way Mrs. Chiostro said this made Emma cringe. The o
ld witch forced a grandmotherly smile to her face. “I’m sorry, dear. I don’t mean to upset you. It could be nothing. In the meantime you keep an eye on her.”

  “I will.”

  The smile faded from Mrs. Chiostro’s face. “But whatever you do, don’t try to fight her. Not even the armor can protect you from her—if she’s what we think she is.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “We’ll be back as soon as we can. In the meantime, don’t forget who you are.”

  Emma wanted to ask what this meant, but Sylvia came in with a duffel bag Emma hoped contained only clothes. Sylvia gave Emma a brief hug, a definite signal things were not well. “You stay safe until we get back,” Sylvia said.

  “I will.” Emma took a step back and then the witches disappeared in a flash of white light. Emma blinked a couple of times to find herself alone in the room.

  ***

  With Marlin and now the witches gone and with Becky still mad at her, there was only one other place for Emma to go for help. She pulled up in front of the Park Glen Rest Home in Parkdale, only a few blocks from where she had once lived with her parents. Years later she came to the rest home to visit Aunt Gladys, who had struggled with Alzheimer’s before she finally succumbed to it. Emma had gone back to the rest home only a handful of times since then to visit her friend Percival Graves.

  Mr. Graves sat in his usual chair in the recreation room and looked up from a newspaper as she came in. His face brightened as it always did when she visited. His own family—a son and two grandchildren—never came to see him in the rest home. “Hello, love,” he said. “How are you holding up?”

  Emma pulled up a chair to sit across from him. “Not well,” she said. She told him about the situation with Becky. “Maybe she’s right. There had to be something I could have done.”

  Mr. Graves shook his head. “Don’t be daft, lass. Not even the Scarlet Knight can stop everything bad from happening. Take it from one who knows.”

  “You’re probably right. But maybe I brought this on her. If I wasn’t her, then maybe this never would have happened.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “I’m not sure what to believe anymore. All I know is that Steve’s dead and Becky hates me.”

  “Come now, don’t start thinking like that. Your friend is mad at you, but she doesn’t hate you, even if she said she did. In time she’ll understand it wasn’t your fault.”

  “Maybe.”

  “In the meantime you keep your chin up.” He gave her a grandfatherly pat on the shoulder. “Stiff upper lip, as they say.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Good girl. I don’t suppose there’s any other reason you came here?”

  “Oh, well, I hate to ask—”

  “Ask away, love. That’s what friends are for.”

  “Well, Marlin’s gone on some kind of journey and now Mrs. Chiostro and her sister have gone too for some reason. I thought maybe you could help me.”

  Mr. Graves tapped the leg he had injured in a fight with the Black Dragoon over thirty years earlier. “I’m not sure how much good I would be to you. I’m a broken down old man anymore. Unless you need to hear some boring old stories of days gone by.”

  “You’re not a broken down old man.”

  “That’s sweet of you to say, but I’m far too decrepit to go running around anymore.”

  “Well, I thought maybe you could help me from the Sanctuary. Sort of be my eyes and ears from there.”

  “I don’t know much about computers, lass.”

  “It’s mostly automated. You just have to radio me if you see anything. Please, there’s no one else who can help me.”

  Mr. Graves stroked his chin. “I suppose, so long as I can sneak away from here. The new security guards aren’t quite so understanding. They might give me a shock from one of those joy buzzers of theirs.”

  Emma laughed at this as she tried to imagine someone using a Taser on Mr. Graves. “I’m sure you can find a way.”

  “Yes, I suppose so. What time do you need me?”

  “Probably about midnight. If that’s not too far past your bedtime.”

  “For you, love, I’ll make an exception.” He gave her another friendly pat on the shoulder. “Now, I don’t suppose you’ll help me up? I should take a nap before tonight’s shenanigans.”

  As Emma helped him up and then took him to his room, she hoped she hadn’t made a mistake.

  Chapter 14

  It hadn’t taken as long as Emma had thought to teach Mr. Graves the basics of the Sanctuary’s computer system. As such, she left to search for Steve’s killer at only two in the morning. For his part, Mr. Graves seemed to welcome the challenge; he didn’t so much as yawn after a long walk through the sewers. “I think the Sewer Rat likes you,” Mr. Graves told her as he opened the hatch to the Sanctuary.

  “He doesn’t like anyone. Anyone human at least,” Emma said.

  “He made a sculpture of you. A real work of modern art.”

  “I know. They’re probably a totem for his friends.”

  “Maybe. Then again you are the only woman he’s seen in however long.”

  Emma blushed at this. The Sewer Rat had been kind enough to her in the last five years, but she couldn’t imagine him as anything more than an ally. She cleared her throat and then said, “Now, this is how the system works—”

  Once Emma finished for the night, Mr. Graves would have to make another trek through the sewers, though this one would be shorter. Emma would give him a ride home from a spot near the Plaine Museum. Then she would have to go to work, probably without much sleep. It would be a long day.

  With a sigh she stopped her motorcycle in front of the Winchester bar. She had already gone inside, but Jamie Moreno was not there. Emma thought she would stake out the bar for a little while in case the mobster showed up. Or maybe Emma would get lucky and Roberto Moreno would show up. “Do you see anything?” she asked through the microphone installed in her helmet.

  “Nothing on the screens,” Mr. Graves said. “I’d forgotten how boring these operations could be.”

  “You want me to bring you some coffee?”

  “No, this stuff you’ve got in the fridge is fine. Really packs a wallop.”

  Emma smiled at the thought of Mr. Graves guzzling cans of Red Bull energy drink as if part of some commercial. “OK. Let me know if you see anything.”

  She circled around the building on her bike to look for another entrance Moreno might have used to get by Emma. She spotted the fire escape on one side of the building. As she followed this with her eyes, she saw the broken window. It was possible someone might have broken the glass by accident or it might have been vandalism, but she doubted this. “I’m going to check out something upstairs,” she said over the mike.

  “Be careful, lass.”

  “I will.” Emma pulled the cape tight around herself so no one would see her as she approached the fire escape. Instead of climbing up, which would force her to pull back the cape, she bounced on the soles of her boots until she generated enough lift to jump to the top of the stairs. After she cleared aside a few stray bits of glass, she ducked through the window.

  It didn’t take long to find the bodies. The one she recognized as Jamie Moreno, despite the bloody hole in the woman’s chest. The other was a man who looked so similar to Jamie Moreno that Emma knew it was her brother—Steve’s killer. The man also had a hole in his chest. Grateful for the gloves of her armor, she reached inside the hole to feel around. As she suspected, his heart was gone. The rest of the nearby organs and bones all seemed to be there; the attacker had only taken the hearts of both victims.

  “I found him,” she told Mr. Graves. “Someone already got to him.”

  “Police?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Probably a rival mob.”

  “This doesn’t seem like their style.” She explained about the hearts that had been torn out.

  “Maybe a new gang. Or a rand
om psychopath.”

  “That’s what worries me.” She began to search the storage room for clues. She found the makeshift bed in the back where Roberto Moreno must have stayed while he was supposed to have flown away on Don Vendetta’s private jet. As well she found holes in the wall, though they seemed too irregular for bullet holes.

  Before she could get any farther on the investigation, Mr. Graves said, “There’s something happening in the park.”

  “What is it?”

  “I can’t see exactly, but it looks like a policewoman is running from someone.”

  “I’ll get over and check it out.” Emma sprang out the broken window and let the armor cushion the impact as she landed in the alley. She hurried over to the motorcycle and then kicked it to life. “Where are they at in the park?”

  “Northwest entrance.”

  Emma opened the throttle up all the way and weaved her way through traffic. “I’m almost there. Can you see who she’s running from?”

  “No. Whoever it is, he’s a clever bugger.”

  “Just what we need.” Emma skidded to a stop at the northwest entrance to Robinson Park. She didn’t bother to wrap the cape around her body; she didn’t want to restrict her movements. If the officer really was in trouble, there might not be time for such subtlety.

  She was too late. Emma watched as a shadowy figure stabbed the policewoman in the chest. The police officer collapsed to the ground with the killer over her. Emma pulled the Sword of Justice from its sheath. She hurled this towards the murderer and used her mind to guide the blade. This was also too late as the killer took off and soon disappeared into the darkness.

  Emma knelt down beside the fallen police officer. When she saw the woman’s face, she gasped. She knew the officer from an incident five years ago. After a hypnotic suggestion from the Black Dragoon, Emma had nearly gone mad. While she searched for her dead mother, she was picked up by a kindly officer named Lois Early. Lois now lay on the ground, bleeding to death from the deep gash in her chest.

  Then Emma heard voices. “You’d better get out of there,” Mr. Graves said. “The cavalry is coming.”

  ***

  Lieutenant Donovan snuffed out another cigarette in the ashtray of her car. Kramer’s car hadn’t moved from in front of Robinson Park in two hours. The man’s head remained visible in the front seat, which meant that unless he was a magician—or had an evil twin she didn’t know about—he was still in the car.