“Shut up,” Aggie said. She followed Sophie out to the driveway just as a yellow school bus pulled up with the words “New Stockholm Public School District” written on the side. The doors opened and Sophie started up. Aggie lingered for a moment to look back at the brick ranch house where this version of her family lived, surrounded by other houses just like it.
“Aggie!” Sophie snapped. “Hurry up.”
“Right.” Aggie climbed up the steps and faced a dozen pairs of eyes that stared at her. Not that she could blame them, given how odd she looked. She turned her gaze down to the floor and focused on sliding her way along the aisle.
“Agnes?” she heard someone whisper.
She turned to see a tiny Asian girl with pigtails dyed magenta. “Akako?”
***
Akako was small enough that Aggie could sit on the bench seat with her and there was still room left over. Akako was dressed in a similar Goth fashion with a short black skirt, fishnet stockings, and a tight white blouse that altogether looked far too slutty for the Akako Aggie knew. She must have felt the same way, as her cheeks turned the same color as her hair and she couldn’t meet Aggie’s eyes.
“I don’t know what happened,” Akako said. “One moment I was being pulled into that portal and the next I was in a bedroom, getting ready for school.”
“Is this the real you or—”
Akako nodded. Then to Aggie’s surprise, Akako began to cry; black makeup ran down her cheeks. Aggie put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll figure out a way out of this.”
“It’s not that,” Akako said. “I can’t hear them anymore.”
“Who?”
“Everyone. All the other versions of me. I’ve been cut off.” Akako wiped at her eyes and smeared the black makeup across her face and hand. “The silence, it’s so empty.”
“You still have me. In a manner of speaking.”
“I guess. It’s just that I’m so used to having them there, whispering to me and now to have them cut off. It’s like losing a limb.”
They said nothing for a moment as the bus ground down the road. Aggie thought back to the school bus with “New Stockholm Public School District” written on its side. She had never heard of any such place in her over five hundred years of life. “Do you have any idea where we are? Why haven’t I ever heard of New Stockholm before?”
“Because it doesn’t exist in your world. It’s in one of the other dimensions. One where the Swedish discovered what you know as Rampart City.”
“The Swedish?”
“Yes.”
“Great. Anything else I should know?”
“That’s about all I remember of this universe.”
Aggie put a hand to her spiky purple hair. Other dimensions. It made sense—in a manner of speaking. “That spell of hers. It must have opened a portal to another dimension. One where the Swedes discovered Rampart City and we look like this.”
“Then why can’t I hear the voices?”
“I don’t know,” Aggie said. She never fully understood why Akako heard the voices in the first place. Quantum physics was more Emma Earl’s area of expertise.
“Then how do we get back?”
“We’ll have to go to the archives. Maybe the archives have a copy of the spell Sylvia took from our world.”
They sat in silence for the rest of the trip while around them the other children gossiped and joked as if it were an ordinary day. For them it was. Sophie was among those voices; she chatted with another plain girl and giggled on occasion. The sound of it almost broke Aggie’s heart. In this world Sophie was still alive, a normal teenage girl with her whole life ahead of her. She would never be burned at the stake for witchcraft.
The bus came to a stop at a rectangular brick building with a sign that read, “Gustafson High School.” The doors opened and the others began to file down the aisle. “I guess this is our stop,” Aggie said.
She slid her way along the aisle and kept an eye on Akako, who followed obediently behind her. Aggie wondered if she and Akako were really friends here or if they were simply two girls with the same taste in fashion. She supposed for the moment it didn’t matter.
Sophie walked right past Aggie without a word. The way Sophie stared at her friend, it was as if Aggie didn’t exist. Again Aggie felt her heart break. If this Sophie knew what Aggie did, she wouldn’t care nearly so much what the popular kids at school thought of her hanging around her freaky sister.
“Agnes?” Akako said.
“Come on, let’s find somewhere private.”
They walked around the side of the building, over to the football field. At this time of the morning there was no one on the field or in the bleachers. Aggie took Akako’s hand to lead her beneath the bleachers, where no one would see them. While Aggie had to duck beneath the supports, Akako was so small she didn’t have to bend at all. Aggie wondered if Akako was even supposed to be in high school or if she was still in junior high or even elementary school.
Once they were settled in the center of the bleachers, Aggie sat down. She closed her eyes and thought of the archives in her mind. When she opened her eyes again, she was still beneath the bleachers. “It didn’t work,” she said.
She tried the empathy spell she’d used earlier. Nothing happened. Neither did any of the other spells she knew. “It’s no good,” she said. “I don’t have any power.”
“We’re trapped,” Akako whispered and then began to cry again.
Chapter 9
This time Sylvia could vanish herself into Ward’s office, right in front of his desk. To her disappointment, he didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see her appear out of thin air. He merely nodded to her while he studied a business report. “Did you find it?”
Sylvia reached into her pocket to take out the scroll. She slapped it down on Ward’s desk; she didn’t care if it opened up that portal again. She wanted to knock a little of the smugness off his face. “What the hell kind of spell is it?”
Ward finally looked up from the desk and then tossed his reading glasses aside. She wanted to reach across the desk to choke the life from him when he grinned at her. “The kind that’s going to make me very rich.”
She slapped the desk with the palm of her hand; Ward showed no reaction. “That spell made my sister and her friend disappear. I want to know where they’ve gone. And I want to know how the hell you knew where to find it.”
“The latter is a secret. As for the former, you’ll find out very soon.”
“If you’re planning on using that on me, I’m not that stupid.”
“Not as stupid as your sister, obviously.”
“That was an accident. And if you ever say anything like that again—”
“Could we try to focus on the big picture here, Miss Joubert?” To emphasize this point, Ward touched a button on his desk. A monitor clicked on behind Sylvia. She turned and saw Tim still in his lab, hard at work. “Remember why you performed that little errand for me.”
“Fine, I did it. Now let him go.”
“Not just yet.”
Sylvia spun back around to face Ward; her claw reached out for his neck. With just a few magic words she could easily turn his head into a piece of abstract art on the wall, but could she stop him before he pushed the button to trigger the plastic explosive planted on Tim? She couldn’t take that chance. “We had a deal, you bastard.”
“And our deal isn’t finished yet.” Ward pushed back from his desk and stood up, the scroll in his hand. “First, let’s see if this really works.”
He handed the scroll back to her. “I’m not going to do it,” she said.
“You don’t have a choice. Open the gateway.”
Sylvia glared at him for a moment, but she knew he was right; she didn’t have any choice. She sunk her claw into Ward’s desk to keep from being sucked in as Aggie and Akako had. Then she tossed the scroll. The portal grew in size until it was at least six feet across.
Sylvia continued to read from the scrol
l and gradually the wind began to die out until she could let go of the edge of the desk. The portal remained open; it had swollen to take up half of the opposite wall. Ward grinned at her. “You see? I told you so.”
From his pocket Ward produced a remote control similar to the one for the plastic explosives detonator. Sylvia cried out, but Ward waved her concerns away. “It’s not that. I wouldn’t blow up dear Mr. Cooper just yet. Not when he’s so close to giving me what I need.”
“Then what—” she stopped as she watched one of Tim’s RAT prototypes scurry into the room; it used the wheels on the bottom of its feet to roll towards Ward.
He reached down to pat the RAT on the head as if it were alive. As the robot’s eyes lit up, Sylvia realized he hadn’t petted it; he had implanted a control chip in it. “Now, my little friend, go see what we’ve got.”
The RAT spun around and wheeled towards the portal. Near the edge it stopped and the wheels retracted. The robot raised its head as if to sniff at the portal. Ward looked down at the remote in his hand. “So far, so good. Now for Phase Two.” Before Sylvia could say anything, the RAT hopped into the portal and disappeared just as Aggie and Akako had earlier.
“Looks like you’ve lost your toy,” she said.
“Not quite.”
Sylvia’s mouth dropped open as the RAT trotted out of the portal, a piece of paper in its mouth. Like a dog with the morning newspaper, it walked over to Ward to drop the paper at his feet. He picked it up and unfolded it. From what Sylvia could tell, it was a map of a subway system for someplace called New Stockholm.
“Eureka,” Ward said. He folded up the map and tucked it into the inside pocket of his suit.
“Is that where Aggie went? This New Stockholm place?”
“I have no idea what you did with your sister.”
“I didn’t—”
“Let’s not quibble over details. Now that you’ve completed your first assignment, you’re ready for the next one.”
“I’m not doing anything until you let Tim go.”
“Not yet. Complete this next task and I’ll consider it.”
“Consider it? You slimy—”
Ward reached into his pocket for the detonator to Tim’s bomb. Sylvia closed her mouth. “Very good. Now, before my plan can reach fruition, there’s just one more trifle to deal with.”
“What’s that?”
“Not what so much as who.”
“Quit the fucking games. What do you want me to do?”
Ward took a step towards Sylvia; he looked her in the eyes and grinned evilly as he said, “I want you to kill the Scarlet Knight and bring her armor to me.”
***
She spent the night on a bench in Robinson Park like a hobo. Normally it would be suicide for a young woman—at least in appearance—to sit alone on a park bench all night, but Sylvia had more than enough protection between an arsenal of spells and the old Colt in her purse. The real hoboes and gang members somehow picked up on this and gave her a wide berth. This left her with plenty of opportunity to think about what next.
Even if Tim came home—Sylvia doubted Ward would let this happen—she didn’t want to see him at the moment. She didn’t want to risk he might somehow sense what she had done—and what she was about to do. If he did sense it, he wouldn’t love her anymore, and she couldn’t bear that thought even more than losing her sister and her friends.
She had been forced to make this kind of decision before. Back then she had been torn between love for a man and loyalty to her sister. That had been nearly two hundred years ago, back in France.
I’m down on my knees beside a fallen deer. I’m weeping uncontrollably when he finds me. He doesn’t say anything right away; he kneels down beside me and puts his arms around me. “It’s all right, Mademoiselle Sylvia,” he whispers into my ear.
“I didn’t kill him cleanly,” I mumble. “I hurt him.”
“It’s just a deer.”
“It’s not just a deer. He was a living creature. He deserved to die with respect.” I lean my head down and put my lips to the deer’s velvety ear. “I’m sorry,” I say again.
Alejandro puts a hand on my shoulder. We sit there in respectful silence for a minute. Finally I stand up to go. Alejandro smiles slightly at me. “You’re not like any woman I’ve ever known, Sylvia Joubert,” he says. “Women like your sister are tame canaries. You are like a falcon—soaring wild and free.”
“My sister is a good woman. She loves you.” This is and isn’t true; Aggie doesn’t just love Alejandro—she adores him as much as her new son. “Please don’t make me betray her.”
“But you feel the same way I do. I know it.”
“I do care about you. I have for a long time.”
“Then why not give in to those feelings? Why should we deny what we both want?”
“Because I love Agnes. I thought you did too.”
“I do love Agnes, but not in the same way I love you. Agnes and I have become so familiar with each other. Sometimes we sit in the parlor and say nothing for hours.” Alejandro shakes his head sadly. “In many ways we have already grown old.”
He reaches out then to brush hair from my face. I make no attempt to stop him, though I easily could. “My love for you is raw, passionate, like a fire inside me that can only be extinguished by your kiss.”
Maybe these aren’t the most poetic words ever, but they’re enough for me. I let him kiss me. I close my eyes and kiss him back. Before I know what’s happening, he eases me onto the ground, beside the fallen deer. “Alejandro—”
“It’s all right, Mademoiselle Sylvia. I won’t hurt you.”
But he did hurt her. Not that time, but much later, when she learned the price for betraying her sister. There would be a price for betraying her friends this time, but as she sat on the bench, she knew she would pay it. She would pay any price if it meant she could save Tim—the man she loved.
Chapter 10
Emma squinted through the binoculars and then shook her head. From outward appearances, TriTech looked like a normal business in the renovated Fleischman Building, but as she watched the guards, she had her doubts. The rigid way they walked, the way they looked around, and how they kept one hand on the pistol at their hips all indicated these were professionals, not the typical slackers designed to maintain the illusion of security.
Inside, she could guess there would be plenty of cameras and perhaps motion detectors as well. Emma needed only to think of the bruise on her left arm to remember such devices could detect her even with the Scarlet Knight’s armor. She wasn’t surprised Marlin looked grim when he showed up a few minutes later. “The place is like a fortress,” he said. “Whoever’s in charge is as paranoid as the don.”
“How many people are in there?” she asked Marlin.
“About two-dozen guards. A couple of executives working late. And that old witch’s boyfriend.”
“Tim Cooper? What’s he doing?”
“Working, from the look of it.” Marlin held up a finger before Emma could press for more details. “The science stuff is your department, so don’t ask me.”
“Is he safe?”
“Looked fine to me.”
“No one’s got a gun to his head?”
“Not that I could see. Maybe he’s just a night owl like you.”
Emma nodded at this. She knew that during his time at Rampart State, Tim Cooper had often stayed in the lab to work long after the other students and faculty had gone home. She had met him in a lab one night while she attempted to study a meteor.
Emma saw someone emerge from the building. The binoculars slipped from her hands to clatter onto the roof of the parking garage where she’d set up her observation post. Sylvia walked out the front doors and past the guards before she stopped at the curb to hail a cab.
“You didn’t say Sylvia was in there with him,” Emma said.
“I didn’t see her,” Marlin said.
“You checked the whole building?”
“Most of it.”
“Most of it?”
“I didn’t check the loos. I can go back and check if you want.”
“No, that’s fine. But you can follow her and see where she goes.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be right behind her.” Emma held up a finger in warning. “Just remember she can see you, so try to be subtle.”
“I’ve been a ghost for four millennia. I don’t need some girl telling me—”
“She’s getting away.”
“Fine.” Marlin floated away, grumbling under his breath.
After he and the cab had faded from sight, Emma ran across the top of the parking garage and launched herself in the opposite direction. She waited until she had dropped halfway down before she let out the cape to slow her descent. She landed gently in an alley, where her motorcycle was propped next to a dumpster.
She kicked it into gear and then raced after the cab. Though she could have easily caught it—not even Rampart City’s taxi drivers could match her speed and maneuverability on the bike—she held back to keep its taillights in sight. As she’d warned Marlin, Sylvia could see the ghost and she would be able to recognize Emma as well.
Ordinarily Emma would never tail one of her friends, but she thought of her conversation with Sylvia at the gun range. The pleading in Sylvia’s voice and the sadness on her face indicated something was wrong. Something that had to do with TriTech and Tim Cooper. She couldn’t be sure what was going on yet, but she hoped to find out.
Marlin appeared in front of her. “She told the driver to take her to the park.”
“Robinson Park? At this hour?”
“That’s what she said.”
Emma nodded. It could be the truth, or Sylvia could sense she was being followed and hoped to lose them in the park. Sylvia had lived in the city long enough to know better than to be caught in Robinson Park after dark. Though Emma had made some progress in cleaning up the area, it was still a haven for gangbangers and petty criminals, not to mention a good portion of the city’s transient population.
“You’re sure she didn’t see you?”
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 38
