Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Call

by P. T. Dilloway

  As she slid off her makeshift bed of newspapers and cardboard, a sharp pain in her shoulder prompted her to cry out. The Sewer Rat planted a filthy, clawed hand on her other shoulder to keep her upright. “Thanks.”

  “You hurt. Need rest.”

  “I don’t have time to rest.”

  The Sewer Rat shoved her back down on the bed. “Rest.”

  Emma did as he said; she saw no alternative short of trying to fight him and she hadn’t brought any cleaning products that would scare him off. She eased back onto the bed. There had to be something she could do. As she watched the rats scuttle around the Sewer Rat, an idea came to her. “I don’t suppose you could go up there for me and tell me if anything is still working up there?”

  The Sewer Rat considered this for a moment. It was well known he didn’t leave the sewers, ever. Not that the sub-subbasement of the Plaine Museum would be much of a trip. “I go,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  He left a half-dozen of his friends around the bed to watch over her while he and dozens of rats scuttled off towards the hatch to the sub-subbasement. Emma watched her rat guardians carefully; she wondered if he had left them here for her protection or to make sure she didn’t run away.

  While she waited for him to come back, she tried to piece together the events of the morning. How had the police determined she was the Scarlet Knight? How had they pegged her for Officer Early’s murder? It was true she had been at the scene of the crime, but only after the attack. She thought back to the dark figure that had run away as she approached Officer Early. A dark figure. The Dragoon. He had killed Officer Early.

  That still left the questions of how the police had determined she was the Scarlet Knight and how the Dragoon had found the Sanctuary. There were only a few people who knew her secret identity: Marlin, the witches, Mr. Graves, and Becky. Marlin and the witches had gone away and Mr. Graves was dead. That left only Becky.

  Emma didn’t want to believe it, but there was no other possibility. Becky had betrayed her to the Black Dragoon and in turn the police. Not intentionally. Becky would never do that—even if she did blame Emma for Steve’s death. It had to be an accident, a slip of the tongue. The only way to know would be to find Becky and talk to her. As soon as she could get out of here. With a look at the rats who patrolled her bedside, she wondered if she would ever get out of here.

  ***

  As Emma turned over these terrible thoughts, the Sewer Rat returned, his presence announced by the vanguard of rats that preceded him. The smell came not long after, before she saw the man himself. He carried a box in his hands, a crate that had somehow survived the fire.

  This he set down gently next to her bed. “You friend,” he said.

  Emma knew what she would find inside, but forced herself to look anyway. As expected, she found Mr. Graves’s remains inside. There was a skull with bits of seared flesh and hair still attached along with a pile of scorched bones in similar condition. She put a hand to her mouth so she wouldn’t throw up at the gruesome sight. “Thank you.”

  He put a hand on her shoulder again and bent down to look her in the eye. Through the grime and greasy hair, she could see concern in his red eyes. “Sorry,” he said.

  “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I’m the one who brought him down here. If I hadn’t asked for his help, he would still be alive.” Now, though she tried to hold them back, the tears finally came. She couldn’t help but think back to when she was three years old in the Plaine Museum, when Mr. Graves had lifted the velvet rope so she could touch Alex’s tusk. He had introduced her to the wonders of the museum, which had made her want to become a scientist. And she had repaid this kindness by getting him killed. Yet another person she loved taken away to join her parents and Aunt Gladys.

  “No cry,” the Sewer Rat said.

  “I’m sorry.” She didn’t know if she spoke to the Sewer Rat or Mr. Graves or perhaps the universe in general.

  The last thing she expected at that moment was for the Sewer Rat to lean forward and kiss her. His buckteeth bumped up against her upper lip and his pointed nose nearly poked out her eye. It was as clumsy a kiss as her first kiss after the senior prom when she was fourteen. She pushed him away with her one good arm so that he landed on the crate that held Mr. Graves’s remains.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Bitch!” he roared.

  She slid back against the wall and waited for him to kill her or have his minions do it. The image of thousands of rats gnawing away at her ran through her head. She closed her eyes to wait for the end.

  She heard only a splash followed by numerous smaller splashes that grew fainter. When she opened her eyes, Emma realized the Sewer Rat had stomped away. She sat on the bed for a moment and thought back to the kiss and the look in his eyes. “Oh no.”

  With a wince she hopped off the bed. With her one good hand, she managed to wrestle on the golden boots from the red armor so at least she wouldn’t have to walk through the sewers in her flats. The helmet was even more difficult to put on with one hand, but once she did, she saw in the sewers as if someone had strung lights up. She considered whether to bring the cape along too in case he changed his mind and did try to kill her, but decided against it. She didn’t want to seem too defensive, not after what she had done.

  Each step brought a fresh stab of pain into her shoulder, but she had learned to tolerate pain during her time as the Scarlet Knight. There was no way to follow the Sewer Rat’s tracks through the sewer, but she could follow him through his smell. His stench permeated the background stink of the sewers to make the air unbearable. Even with the helmet this smell managed to penetrate her nostrils. But if she could tolerate the physical pain, then she could tolerate this as well.

  She remembered the statues the Sewer Rat had made of her. One had been made of a sort of papier mache crafted from old newspapers as well as other garbage. The other had been composed entirely of copper tubing. She decided to try the nearest one—the papier mache one.

  She hung her head in shame as she thought again of what she had done. The Sewer Rat had allowed her to use his sewers to access the Sanctuary, had helped her save Mr. Graves from the first Dragoon, had made this sculpture to honor her, and had recently saved her life. Like with Mr. Graves, she had repaid his kindness with cruelty.

  “I’m sorry!” she shouted into the darkness. Her voice echoed through the sewers. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I panicked. I won’t blame you if you never forgive me for what I’ve done to you. You’ve been a good friend to me and I haven’t been one to you.”

  The air thickened around her. Through the helmet she saw him approach, only this time without any of his friends. He came to a stop a good ten feet away from her, hands plunged in his jacket to possibly conceal a weapon. If he did want to kill her, there was little she could do about it at this point.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  “I thought you different. You not. Like others.”

  “No, please, give me another chance.”

  “You go.”

  “There’s nowhere I can go. The police are looking for me.”

  “What you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything, but they think I did. I have to find a way to prove I didn’t.”

  “No care.”

  “I’ll go to prison. Is that what you want?”

  “No care,” he repeated.

  “I know I haven’t been very nice to you. I’ve taken you for granted.” She let out a sigh. “You’re right, I have been like everyone else. I thought of you as some kind of monster, but I was the real monster.” She put a hand on the sculpture of her. “No one has ever done anything like this for me before. It’s so beautiful.”

  “You beautiful.”

  Emma blushed at this compliment, though she supposed she didn’t have much competition down here. “Thank you. Do you think we can start over? I promise this time I’ll treat you like a real friend.”

  The Sewer R
at considered this for a moment. He took one hand out of his coat, to reveal an empty hand. This he held out and took a step towards Emma. She took the hand in hers; she tried not to flinch at the dirt and overgrown fingernails. “Deal,” he said.

  “It’s good to meet you. My name is Emma Earl. What’s your name?”

  He tilted his head to the side as he considered this question. She wondered how long it had been since he had used his real name, or if he even had a real name. Perhaps he had been down here so long he had forgotten it or he had never had one. “Jim. Jim Rizzard.”

  “Well, Jim, I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship.”

  ***

  At first Emma refused the Sewer Rat—Jim, as she reminded herself to call him—when he offered to use his friends as spies. Later she recanted; there would be no other way to find out what was going on in the city. She couldn’t venture out even with the Scarlet Knight’s cape, especially with her injured shoulder.

  An ulterior motive came to her as she lay on the bed in her ragged suit. As she’d told Jim, she’d have nowhere to go on the surface. She could take shelter in an abandoned warehouse or factory like many other criminals in the city, but that wouldn’t be much better than the sewer. In any event, she could use some clothes and other supplies.

  How the rats would get these items from her apartment she didn’t know, but Jim promised they could do it. “Maybe I should go with them,” she said.

  “No. Rest.”

  After the trip into the sewers to track Jim down, Emma felt tired enough that she didn’t put up much of an argument to this. She lay back on her makeshift bed and tried to take it easy. For the moment she was safe, unless the Black Dragoon decided to come back down here to search for her. No matter how many rats Jim had trained, Emma doubted it would be enough against the Dragoon. Nor did she give herself much of a chance with only one arm.

  As a student of languages she was fascinated to watch Jim address the rats. He somehow managed to make the exact sounds using his human throat to replicate the language used by the rodents. She listened closely to him to deduce what he told them. She managed to catch the gist of it—a set of marching orders to a platoon of the largest creatures in Jim’s employ. Whether she could ever master the language herself remained to be seen.

  “Not hard,” Jim said later when Emma asked him about it. He screeched, which prompted a half-dozen rats to scurry over to him.

  “What did you tell them?”

  “Come.”

  Emma tried to imitate this noise, but hers sent the rats away. “Was it something I said?”

  “You tell them, ‘You mother whore.’”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “They get over it.”

  Emma decided it would be best to put off the rest of the linguistics session before she prompted the rats to attack her. She cleared her throat and then asked, “How did you get here?”

  “Tired of people.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Three generations.” Since the average rat lived around three years, this meant Jim was about nine when he came down here.

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “You don’t keep track of time down here?”

  Jim thought about this for a moment. “Seven generations?”

  This would mean Jim Rizzard had come down to the sewers at least twenty years ago. “That’s a long time,” she said.

  “Not so long.”

  “Don’t you have a family?”

  “They my family.”

  “I meant a human family.”

  “No.” The venom in his voice indicated she shouldn’t delve any further into this topic.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You family dead?”

  “Yes, my family is dead.” With Mr. Graves gone the closest she had to a family now was Becky, who at present was angry with her and might have betrayed her to the Black Dragoon. Dan was in love with Isis, the witches had gone to a meeting, and even Marlin had left on his “journey,” to leave her with no one. The Sewer Rat was the closest person in her life at this moment. Despite her promise of friendship, this thought made her want to cry again. Everyone she cared about was gone. “I’m alone.”

  “Never alone.” With a keening sound he summoned a rat onto his lap. The creature stood up on its hind legs and allowed Jim to pat its head. He let the rat climb up into his hands, which he held out to Emma. She fought back a wave of revulsion as she reached out to touch the rat’s head. She had to admit it wasn’t much different from a cat or dog.

  “How did you tame them?”

  “Not tame. Friends.” Emma understood what he meant. Jim hadn’t domesticated the rats of the sewers so much as negotiated with them. By communicating with them in their own language he had brokered a truce with the first generation. From then on the rats must have accepted him as one of their own. And as the largest and oldest member of their society they viewed him as the leader.

  It would make a fascinating paper for an anthropology journal, but she knew she couldn’t write an article. To even discuss Jim in a scientific context would make him a freak. It was better he remain an urban legend, unseen and largely unbothered by the world.

  The platoon of rats returned what must have been hours later—Emma’s watch had been broken in her battle with the Dragoon so there was no sure way to tell time. To her amazement four of them dragged a bag filled with clothes. Three others carried another bag with toiletries like a toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, and shampoo. The platoon leader, a large rat with a silver streak along its back, reported back to Jim in squeaks and shrieks.

  “They see no police. Many items gone.” From this she gathered the police had already ransacked her apartment in search of clues. If there was a guard he was not in the apartment at the time, which allowed the rats to smuggle out Emma’s things. Even if the police noticed the theft, it would be unlikely they would be able to determine the culprits.

  Emma rummaged through the bag and took out a T-shirt, sweatshirt, and sweatpants along with associated undergarments. “Is there someplace I can change?”

  “Change here. We go.”

  She waited for Jim and his companions to disappear into the darkness before she began to strip off her clothes. Given the condition of her suit, she simply tore it away. To put on the fresh clothes proved more of a challenge, especially with her injured arm. She bit down on her lip to hold back a scream as she donned the T-shirt and then sweatshirt. When she finished, she collapsed gratefully onto the bed. She didn’t need Jim to tell her to get some rest this time.

  Chapter 19

  In some ways, being dead was a welcome relief. He no longer had to worry about tired feet or rumbling bowels or any of the other aches and pains associated with a corporeal body. The only drawback was he couldn’t touch Beaux. When he tried now, his hand passed through her.

  “You could have warned me,” he said.

  “Would you have agreed to go through with it then?”

  “Yes.”

  “You really would have let Greetha curse you and me kill you?”

  “Yes,” he said less certainly.

  “Liar. I know you. This was the only way.”

  “Still, you didn’t have to be so secretive.”

  “Of course I did. You’re too much of a coward to do it another way.”

  “I am not a coward!”

  “You were the most cowardly man in the village. That’s why you became his assistant.”

  They had left the cave at Greetha’s insistence—she waved her staff in a menacing fashion to indicate she might put another curse on Marlin—so Beaux now sat on a rock at the cave’s mouth. She looked down at the valley spread before them. “I should go home.”

  “You could come with me.”

  She shook her head. “No, you’re right. I wouldn’t like being a ghost in your world. This is where I belong.”

  “Maybe you could adapt.”

 
; “Do you really think so?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “Then you better go.”

  “I guess.” Marlin looked up towards the mountain’s peak and then back at Beaux. “I’ll come find you before I leave.”

  “You do that.”

  Since there was no way for them to kiss goodbye, they had to settle for a simple wave. Then Marlin floated up along the mountain; Beaux became smaller until she finally disappeared altogether. Marlin continued his ascent, up through a layer of gray clouds.

  Once through these clouds, he saw the peak. It was not sharp or jagged as one would expect, but a round, flat expanse covered in scrub trees. In the exact center of this was a crude cabin made of logs and sod. A thin plume of smoke rose from the chimney.

  There was no way for Marlin to knock at the leather flap that comprised the door. This didn’t matter as he heard the master’s voice for the first time in millennia say, “Come in, Marlin. You will anyway.”

  Most drawings of Merlin pictured him as an old man with a gray or white beard. In fact, because of the strength of his magic, Merlin still looked in his early thirties with a neatly trimmed black beard. He wore not the pointed hat and robe like Marlin but a simple brown tunic made from a deer hide. At the moment he was bent over a pot on the fire. “I’m sure you don’t mind if I eat this in front of you,” the master said.

  “Of course not, Master.”

  “There’s no need for honorifics.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You have always been loyal. To a fault, some would say.”

  “It’s been my privilege to serve you.”

  Merlin nodded at this. He turned to face Marlin with a frown on his tanned face. “I must ask you to continue serving me. I hope you will respect my wishes.”

  “I will do what you ask, Master.”

  “Then I am afraid you are going to leave disappointed.”

  “How so?”

  “You’ve come here to ask me to return to the mortal world, to save it from her. This I cannot do.”

  Marlin fought against his impulse to cry out an obscenity. “I don’t mean to question your wisdom, Master, but why not?”