Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis

by P. T. Dilloway

“I won’t,” Emma said. She took the folder to a vacant conference room and spread the contents on the table.

  There wasn’t much in the file of Megan Putnam. She was a freshman, in her second semester at Rampart State University and had yet to declare a major. Before that she had attended Wallace High School in the Heights. Her grades there were mediocre at best, as were her grades at the university. Young Megan seemed destined to graduate with a ‘C’ average and then disappear into some menial office or retail job.

  The work Megan had turned in for Geology 101 supported this trend, but something about the girl’s consistency didn’t sit right with Emma. Whenever Emma had looked directly at Megan she would look down at her notebook so a wave of white-blond hair obscured her face. A few times, Emma had managed to sneak a peek of the girl unawares. In those instances, she had seen Megan follow along with an intensity Emma knew well from her days in college. There was intelligence in Megan’s pale blue eyes that for whatever reason she tried to hide.

  For that reason, Emma had taken it upon herself to find out why Megan had missed the last week of class. She wrote down the number for Megan’s father in his upscale neighborhood and the location of Megan’s dorm room on campus. These would be the most obvious places to begin her search. It might be as simple as an illness or family emergency, but Emma suspected it was more than that.

  She returned the folder to the pale intern, who only grunted an acknowledgement. Then Emma set out across Rampart State’s campus. The unusually warm May weather had prompted a number of students to spread out on the grass while others tossed around Frisbees and footballs. One of the footballs would have hit Emma in the ribs if not for her well-honed reflexes. She skipped out of the way so that the ball landed harmlessly at her feet.

  “Sorry, babe,” a student in a red-and-white letter jacket said. One of his friends elbowed him in the ribs.

  “That’s Dr. Earl, dude,” he snarled at his friend.

  “Oh. Really?”

  Emma picked up the football and tossed it back with her right hand in a tight spiral. To throw a football wasn’t that difficult when she’d thrown the Sword of Justice at criminals for seven years. “Holy shit,” the young man in the letter jacket said. “You should be on the team.” His friend elbowed him in the ribs again.

  “Thanks,” Emma said before she hurried away. She was often mistaken for a student; the first day of her classes, most students didn’t realize she was the teacher until she wrote her name on the board and started to take attendance.

  The dorms were clustered on the other side of the campus, a group of anonymous brick rectangles not much different from the rest of the buildings at Rampart State. If not for the signs that read, “Ash House,” “Birch House,” and so forth no one would have recognized them as dorms. Emma steered around a group of sunbathers and more football players as she wound her way up to Maple House, where Megan Putnam lived.

  Thumping bass greeted her as she entered the house. She detected the scent of marijuana—and possibly other narcotics as well—in the air. As a teacher and the Scarlet Knight she was obliged to report this to campus security, but at the moment she had greater concerns to deal with.

  Megan’s room was on the third floor, near the end of the hallway. Emma had to knock three times before the door opened. A disheveled brunette peered out through a crack; the bags under her eyes didn’t look much better than Emma’s. “Amanda Murdoch?” Emma asked. She remembered the name from Megan’s file.

  “What do you want?” the girl said.

  “I’m looking for your roommate. Megan. Have you seen her?” Emma asked.

  “Not recently.”

  “Do you know where I can find her?”

  The girl opened the door wider and brushed back a veil of dark hair so Emma could see her angry brown eyes. “What’s it to you? You a cop or something?”

  “No, I’m Dr. Earl, her geology teacher. She hasn’t been in class. I thought maybe she was sick.” Emma opened her briefcase to remove a sheaf of papers. “I brought her homework assignments so she won’t fall too far behind.”

  Amanda snatched these from Emma with an annoyed grunt. “I’ll be sure to give these to her,” she said in a tone that indicated otherwise.

  “I hope you don’t mind my asking, but is she in some kind of trouble?”

  “Look, I’ve got things to do—” Amanda tried to slam the door shut only to find one of Emma’s size-9s in the way. “I told you I’d give her your stuff. What else do you want?”

  “Do you know where she went?”

  “No. Weezy left for class one morning and never came back. Didn’t say a word.” Subtle twitches in the girl’s cheeks indicated that she had lied.

  “Weezy?”

  “That’s what some people call her because of her asthma.”

  “Did you ever call her that?”

  “No.” This time there were no twitches; Amanda had told the truth. “Is there something else you wanted?”

  “Look, I know she’s your roommate and you want to protect her. I just want to know that she’s not in any trouble.”

  “Why do you care?”

  “I told you, I’m her teacher.”

  “Yeah, well, Megan wasn’t the type to talk about her plans.” Again the girl had lied. “You had to practically yank every word out of her with pliers.”

  “Maybe I could have a look at her things? She might have left a clue—”

  “Hey, I know my rights. You can’t come in here and start rummaging through our stuff without permission.”

  “I’m sorry. I only want to help.” She reached into her briefcase again for a business card. “If you do see or talk to her, have her call me.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that,” Amanda lied. Emma removed her foot so the girl could slam the door in Emma’s face.

  Emma walked back to her office, which was more like a closet with a desk and chair stuffed into it. Dr. Maxwell assured her they would find her a bigger office soon, but Emma didn’t really mind. It only became a problem when students dropped by during office hours. At the moment there were no students, so she could drop into her chair and lean back a couple of inches—the most allowed in the tight confines of the office.

  She asked herself why she had become so concerned about this. A student missing a week wasn’t that big of a deal. But after her conversation with the roommate, the situation struck Emma as even more wrong than she’d first thought. A shy young girl like Megan, especially one with bad asthma, didn’t go off on a sudden vacation.

  She took out the slip of paper with Megan’s home number on it and then dialed the telephone. A woman’s voice, colored by a thick Latin American accent, answered the phone. “Mr. Putnam no is here,” the woman said.

  “I’m trying to reach his daughter, Megan,” Emma said in flawless Spanish. “I’m her geology teacher and she’s missed several days of school.”

  “Megan has not been here since school began,” the woman answered back in Spanish.

  “Does anyone there know where she is?”

  “No. Is she in trouble?”

  “I’m not sure. Could you have Mr. Putnam call me when he gets in?” She left her number with the woman, who promised to give it to Mr. Putnam when he came home, which might not be for some time since he was on a business trip in China. “What about her mother?”

  “Her mother is dead.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “I will let Mr. Putnam know you called.” The woman hung up the phone. Emma couldn’t be certain if the woman had lied or not. She checked her watch and saw her next class didn’t start for another hour. That would give her time for a catnap; it would be another long night.

  ***

  Emma came home that evening to find Becky’s suitcase in the living room. Her friend soon appeared on the stairs, dressed in casual business attire and with a large purse on her shoulder. “Oh, hey, there you are,” Becky said. “I was starting to wonder if I’d miss you.”

  “You’re g
oing somewhere?”

  Becky came to the bottom of the stairs and then rolled her eyes. “Chicago? The urban development conference? Any of this ring a bell? I told you about it two weeks ago.”

  Emma scanned her memory and then sighed. “Sorry. I’ve had a lot of other things on my mind.”

  “Sure. Maybe you should start keeping a planner in your armor.”

  “So how long’s this conference going to last?”

  “Until Tuesday.” Becky sighed dramatically. “Three days of boring speeches on renaissance zones and urban blight. So much fun.”

  “I’m sure it won’t be that bad.”

  “You probably would enjoy it.”

  “Urban planning is an interesting subject.”

  “Well, maybe we could have the witches switch our bodies again so you can go to the conference for me.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Emma said.

  “Yeah, you’re right. Then I’d have to teach geology.” A horn sounded from outside. Becky checked her watch and winced. “Oh shit. I’ve got to go.” She leaned forward to wrap Emma into a bear hug that sucked the air from Emma’s lungs. When Becky finally let go, she smiled at Emma. “No wild parties while I’m gone, young lady.”

  “I won’t.”

  “And try not to get into too much trouble.”

  “I know.”

  The horn sounded again. “I’ll see you on Tuesday, kid.” Emma stood aside so Becky could wheel her suitcase out to the taxi that would take her to the airport.

  Emma stood in the doorway to watch as the cab pulled away. Becky turned back in the window to wave at her. Emma held up a hand in farewell. She left it in the air until the cab disappeared from view.

  It wasn’t until she closed the door that she sagged to the floor; she barely held back a violent sob. There was a conference in Chicago, but Emma knew the real reason Becky wanted to go: Dan Dreyfus was in Chicago to do some work with the Field Museum as part of a joint venture with the Plaine Museum to share exhibits and research.

  It had been nearly a year since Emma had first caught a glimpse of Dan and Becky outside a restaurant as they kissed in the rain. She had not told them of her discovery, nor had they come clean about their relationship to her. Since Emma wasn’t around most evenings and nights, it wasn’t difficult for Becky to engage in a covert relationship. She would sometimes make an excuse about overtime at councilwoman Napier’s office. By the same token, Emma doubted Becky had been Napier’s first choice to go to an unimportant conference. More likely Becky had begged her boss to let her go so she might have a weekend alone with Dan without the fear Emma might discover them.

  It wasn’t the relationship itself that bothered Emma the most. The worst part was that Becky had still not told her about it. They had always been like sisters; they had trusted each other with almost everything. Emma in turn had entrusted Becky with the greatest secret in her life: her identity as the Scarlet Knight. Despite all of this, Becky still tried to pretend there was nothing between her and Dan; she snuck around behind Emma’s back under a cloud of half-truths and outright lies.

  Emma took a few deep breaths so she wouldn’t cry over this most recent deception. Then she slowly got to her feet and went into the kitchen to make herself dinner. She ate alone in the kitchen and listened to the wind rattle the old house’s shutters. She tried not to think about what Becky and Dan would be doing together in the Windy City.

  Chapter 2

  From her research, Sylvia knew Rampart City had over three hundred salons that ranged from the basic fast-food type chains to elaborate spas. Hers was the only one in the city that featured a gun range behind it. And so far the Artemis Salon was a success.

  That would have shocked the bureaucrat at city hall who approved her business permit. “A gun range in a salon?” the man had asked.

  “No reason women can’t look good when they’re shooting,” Sylvia had said. She knew the concept sounded ludicrous, but she didn’t care. Styling hair and shooting were the two great loves in her life and she saw no reason she couldn’t combine them. Besides, she had plenty of money after four hundred years of weapons sales; it wouldn’t be much of a financial hit if the salon failed.

  But it didn’t fail. The unique concept had tapped into Rampart women’s two greatest fears: looking unattractive and crime. So at the Artemis Salon they could get an attractive new hairdo and self-defense lessons. That way when they went out to the city’s nightclubs they wouldn’t have to fear the muggers and perverts.

  Though she had started out by herself, the business had grown rapidly to accommodate demand so that now she had five stylists and three self-defense instructors. She offered classes on gun safety and instruction on every caliber of weapon from a 9mm pistol to the latest in assault rifles in addition to hair dyeing, manicures, and pedicures. Plans were already in the works to expand into paintball and tanning, both of which were popular with the office crowd, who wanted to eliminate stress and the pastiness brought on by the city’s gloomy winter.

  Despite her success, she still left time for romance. In particular she met her boyfriend for lunch every day. Or at least she had, until he started to work for this TriTech company. Since then their lunches had become every other day, then once a week, and now he was late for this week’s lunch. Sylvia checked her watch again while she swept up hair around her styling chair.

  It wasn’t like Tim to be late for anything, especially a date with her. Besides Emma Earl, he was the most organized and punctual person Sylvia had ever known. It seemed impossible he would stand her up, as the young women who worked for her would say. She turned to one of these women now and said, “I’m taking lunch now, Val. I’ll be back at two.”

  “Sure thing, Syl,” Val said. Sylvia flinched a little at this nickname, but let it pass. That was how the young people talked and she was a young person now—or at least so anyone thought. In reality her five hundred tenth birthday would be next week, which she had hoped to spend with Tim, who would think it was her twenty-eighth birthday.

  When she got behind the wheel of her Ram pickup, she felt a familiar twinge of guilt that she had to lie to Tim about her true origins. She reminded herself that to tell a mortal she was a witch was against the coven’s rules. Her sister Agnes had been married to Alejandro Chiostro for fifty years and he had gone to his grave not knowing his beloved wife was a witch. He had also gone to his grave not knowing an even darker secret, one not even Aggie knew about.

  Sylvia tried not to think about this; it had been nearly two hundred years ago, water under the bridge now. She focused her thoughts on Tim and what might have happened to him. She reached over to the passenger’s seat and found her cell phone to key in his number at TriTech. He didn’t answer the phone. She tried his cell phone, but still didn’t get an answer.

  The possibilities ran through her mind. Was he hurt? In Rampart City, despite Emma Earl’s best efforts, crime was still a commonplace occurrence. Or perhaps, even worse, he had found another woman. It surprised her when she felt a warm stab of anger run through her body; she hadn’t felt that in almost two centuries. She supposed these young feelings were a byproduct of her transformation, but so far on the whole it had been worth it—at least until now.

  She pushed down on the accelerator.

  ***

  TriTech had moved to Rampart City nine months ago under a city initiative to attract more high-tech businesses to replace the defunct manufacturing industry. The company’s arrival came at the perfect time for Tim Cooper, who had just learned NASA had rejected his robot design. His qualifications were such that he had other offers, most of them in other cities or in a more academic capacity.

  With TriTech he got the opportunity to work on advanced technology in a hands-on fashion. While he had always enjoyed his classes, he had preferred to work in the lab and tinker with machinery. In the interview, his future boss had promised him as much lab time as he wanted. “A creative mind like yours needs to be employed whe
re it can do the most good,” Mr. Ward had said.

  At the moment, Tim was alone in his lab to put the final touches on his latest design, the Remote Automated Traveler (RAT for short), Mark II. Unlike the skeletal appearance of his early prototypes, this RAT had a fully sealed exoskeleton that would allow it to explore the moon, Mars, or other distant planets. Or at least that was still his goal.

  The NASA rejection had devastated him, but it wasn’t the end. Mr. Ward promised that once the RAT was fully operational and run through all safety tests, he would work some of his contacts at the space agency to get it a real tryout. Then his device could finally do what he had dreamed of since he was a child.

  That was only the tip of the iceberg. He had already drawn up the plans for something even greater. He would present the specs to Mr. Ward on Monday. With enough money and manpower, he was certain he could devise the next generation of power for spacecraft, and perhaps it could even be used to alleviate some of the energy problems on Earth.

  Someone tapped on the glass door to the lab. Tim turned around to see Ms. Fielding, Mr. Ward’s assistant. She motioned for him to come over to her; from the way she glared through the glass he doubted it was good news. Though Tim wasn’t interested in gossip, even he knew Ms. Fielding had a reputation for nastiness.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked after he changed out of his clean suit.

  “You have a visitor in the lobby,” Ms. Fielding said, her voice icy.

  “Who?”

  “A Miss Joubert.”

  “Sylvia? But—” he stopped as he checked his watch. “Oh no. I was supposed to meet her for lunch today.”

  He left Ms. Fielding behind as he ran upstairs to the lobby. The look on Sylvia’s face was even icier than Ms. Fielding’s. He knew better than to hug or kiss her; he knew it was more likely she would deck him. “I’m so sorry,” he said, though he also knew this would do little to assuage her anger. “I lost track of time.”

  “Let’s go. I’ve got to be back to the salon by two,” she said. She waited until they were in her truck and on the road before she said, “They sure keep you busy there.”