Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis

by P. T. Dilloway

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  Sylvia reached into her purse again to produce a thick metal ankle bracelet. “Put that on.”

  “What is it?”

  “Sort of a tether. It’s rigged with explosives. If you step out of this house, it’ll go off. I’ll be back to check on you two after I’ve finished with Emma.”

  “Emma? What are you doing to her?”

  “That’s up to her.”

  “Why are you doing this? We’re your friends.”

  “I know. That’s what makes this so hard. But it’s the only way. I wish it wasn’t.” Before Becky could say anything else, Sylvia vanished in another flash of light. Becky stared at where the witch had been for a moment and then went over to the bed. She pulled aside the covers and then turned Dan around into a sleeping position. After she pulled the blankets back up, she kissed him on the forehead; she knew she wasn’t the one who could break the spell.

  Chapter 12

  After dinner, they stood outside the restaurant to wait for the valet to retrieve Emma’s bike. She checked her watch. “I guess it’s time to get back to Aggie’s house now. Pepe’s probably worried sick about you.”

  “He know where I am. And who I with,” Jim said.

  “You’ve been having your friends keep tabs on us?”

  “Not my idea.”

  “Oh, I see.” She supposed the rats would want to know where their king was at all times. With so many rats in the city, it wasn’t difficult for them to keep an eye on Jim; they passed information to one another like a computer network. That he was with their “queen” had probably made them more cautious.

  “No need to go home yet.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “If that’s what you want.” The valet arrived with Emma’s motorcycle and she climbed on. “Did you have anywhere in mind?”

  “I know place.” He whispered directions into her ear as she drove to take them in the opposite direction from Aggie’s house. When they entered the industrial district near the waterfront, she started to wonder what he had in mind. With someone else she might have suspected a trap, but not with Jim. He had never lied to her since they’d known each other and she doubted he would start now.

  He instructed her to head down a hill, past an old tire factory to where the road ended at a rusty chain-link fence. She stopped the bike at the fence and for a moment looked around. “This is it?” she asked.

  “Not yet.” He pushed open a broken section of fence to continue down to the base of the hill. Emma followed him to find him stopped at a drainage pipe. “We go down.”

  “Into the sewer? Maybe you should take off the suit first.”

  “It fine.” He pushed the cover aside and then started down a set of metal rungs along the side of the pipe. She shrugged to herself and then decided to follow him down. At the bottom, she found him standing in a river of what she hoped was mostly water. “We go.”

  He took her hand and led her along the cement banks of the pipe. She imagined some of his friends were probably nearby to relay their location to the rest of the city’s rodents. “Where are we—?”

  “We here,” he said.

  She could only nod back at him in stunned disbelief. The pipe ended a good hundred feet above the harbor; the runoff from the pipe drained into the water. From where they stood it looked and sounded like a waterfall, possibly the only one in the city.

  Even more surprising, a pair of wooden chairs were at the edge of the pipe. The chairs had mismatched legs, but looked sturdy enough when Jim sat on one. “This nice place,” Jim said. “I come here. To think.”

  She sat down on the chair next to him and stared out at the harbor, where freighters from all over the world emerged or disappeared into the setting sun. She put a hand to her mouth and sighed. “It’s so beautiful.”

  “Many beautiful things people not see.” He looked into her eyes as he said this.

  “I think you’re right,” she said. She found herself leaning towards him, until their lips touched. She had already kissed him twice before in the sewers after she was nearly killed by the Black Dragoon. The first time she had angered him when she pulled away. The second had been a spur of the moment thing; she hadn’t really dwelled on it since then. This time it was a mutual decision, so that neither of them pulled away prematurely.

  Since they’d kissed before, Emma already knew about Jim’s overbite and buckteeth that made things more of a challenge. She managed to work around these and to her own surprise found her tongue darting into his mouth. She had kissed Dan like this once, but that was in Becky’s body; her own tongue had never found its way down anyone’s mouth.

  They finally had to come up for air. Jim broke the silence when he said, “I love you.”

  “I—” she wasn’t sure how to end that sentence, but was saved by her BlackBerry; the ringtone indicated Becky was on the line. “I have to take this. Hello?”

  “Emma, is that you?” Becky asked. Her voice sounded on the verge of panic.

  “Yes, it’s me. What’s wrong?”

  “I need to talk to you. Right now.”

  “Now? But you’re in Chicago. Aren’t you?”

  “No, I came back early. Where are you?”

  “I’m with Jim. We’re down by the waterfront. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. I need to see you.”

  “I can be home in twenty minutes or so—”

  “No, I’ll go down there. I’ll meet you at Pier 15 in ten minutes.”

  “Wait, Becky—” the connection went dead.

  “You friend in trouble?”

  “I don’t know. It sounds like it.”

  “I go with you.”

  She put a hand on Jim’s shoulder. “That’s nice of you, but I think this is something I should do alone.”

  She thought he would argue with her, but after a moment he said, “I understand. I go back home. Wait for you there.”

  “Thank you.” She gave him another, much briefer kiss on the lips. Then they started back for the bike as the sun went down beneath the harbor.

  ***

  She took the motorcycle to Pier 15 after she called for a cab to pick Jim up. She left him with some money and Aggie’s address printed on a card; she hoped the driver spoke English well enough to understand. If not, Jim wasn’t averse to walking long distances.

  She had been to the piers often enough at night as the Scarlet Knight, usually to break up drug or weapons deals from Don Vendetta or some other criminal organization. From what she remembered, there was nothing special about Pier 15; she couldn’t imagine why Becky would choose it except she might have just picked a random number.

  She pulled over behind a pile of wooden crates to hide the bike. Then she whispered the magic words to summon the red armor to her. It didn’t come as much of a surprise when Marlin came with it; he had probably sensed her call for it. “About time you did something useful instead of hanging around with vermin,” the ghost said.

  “Jim is not vermin. He’s a very nice man. Much nicer than some ghosts I know.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve got some schoolgirl crush on the Sewer Rat now.” He shook his head. “You’re pathetic.”

  Emma could feel her face turn warm out of embarrassment. “That doesn’t matter right now. Becky called and wanted to meet me on the pier. Can you make yourself useful and find her and see if she’s alone?”

  “I suppose I can do that.” The ghost floated away, which left Emma to change out of her new suit and into the red armor. She left off the helmet so Becky could see her face—if it was Becky who really wanted to meet with her. The odd location of this meeting and Becky’s sudden reappearance in the city made her question this.

  Marlin returned as Emma emerged from behind the crates. “All I see is Fatty standing on the pier, bawling her eyes out.” He gestured to the armor. “You really think you’ll need that?”

  “I don�
�t know. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  “I’ve heard that before.” Marlin cleared his throat—or whatever a ghost used for a throat. “You want me to watch your back?”

  “If you would. Thanks.” Then she stepped onto the pier and began to walk towards the end of it. Becky came into sight; her large body leaned against the railing of the pier and her shoulders shook as she cried about something. “Becky?”

  Becky turned around; her smile turned to a look of shock. “You wore the armor? Why?”

  “I thought you might be in trouble.” Emma closed the distance between them so she could touch Becky’s shoulder. She jumped back a moment later when Becky’s image flickered like a projection. Then Becky disappeared entirely, to reveal Sylvia in her place. The witch looked even worse than this morning, as if she had aged five years. “Sylvia? What’s going on? Where’s Becky?”

  “She’s safe. For now.”

  “For now? What’ve you done to her?”

  “I’ve put her and your friend Dan somewhere for safekeeping, until this is over.”

  “Until what’s over? Sylvia, what’s happened to you? Does it have something to do with Tim and TriTech?”

  “You’ve always been too smart for your own good.”

  “Whatever trouble you and Tim are in, I want to help. I’m your friend.”

  “If you want to help, then give me the armor and disappear for a few days while I handle this.”

  “You know I can’t do that. Not without knowing what you’re going to use it for.”

  “I can’t tell you that. All I can say is if you don’t give the armor to me, then Tim is going to die.”

  “Look, Sylvia, I can help you, but not unless you trust me enough to tell me what’s going on. We can find a way out of this—together.”

  The witch shook her head. “No. I can’t risk his life on one of your plans. Just give me the armor and go away. I promise I’ll get it back to you as soon as I have Tim back.”

  “Sylvia—”

  Sylvia held up a hand that erupted with fire. “Give it to me, Emma, or I’ll take it from you.”

  Emma dove off the pier an instant before a fireball evaporated Pier 15.

  ***

  Normal armor would have dragged Emma to her death like Virginia Woolf, but the magic armor was light enough that she could swim reasonably well. What she really missed was the helmet with the rebreather she’d installed a year ago that would have allowed her to stay underwater. Instead, she had to surface after she swam a few yards; she broke the surface of the brown water to gulp for air.

  She shouldn’t have been surprised to find Sylvia waiting for her. Not only was Sylvia a witch, but she was well-versed in hunting and tracking. At the moment she stood on a cement pylon with a crossbow in one hand. “Give it up, Emma. You can’t escape from me.”

  Emma treaded water and tried to buy more time to come up with an escape plan. “What is that, the crossbow of William Tell?”

  “It’s just a regular crossbow.” Sylvia tapped the arrow currently ready to launch. “This is an arrow of Apollo. It’ll go right through that armor of yours.”

  “You don’t want to do that, Sylvia.”

  “Maybe I do. Maybe I’m sick of pretending to be your friend.”

  “If you really thought that you would have killed me when I showed up on the pier.”

  “Maybe I just didn’t want to get blood on the armor.”

  Emma saw what she needed: a pipe similar to the one where she and Jim had kissed earlier, though this one was far lower, right at the surface of the water. If she could get in there, she could escape. “You’re not a killer, Sylvia. You’re like me.”

  “You’re wrong about that. I already killed Aggie and her friend.”

  Though it was dark and Emma couldn’t see much of Sylvia’s face, she could still tell the witch had lied from her tone of voice. “You didn’t kill them. And you’re not going to kill me or Becky or Dan.” She paddled forward a few inches closer to the pipe. “Put down the crossbow and we can talk about how to save Tim.” She paddled a few more inches forward.

  “No! I already told you I’m not going to risk his life on one of your half-baked plans.” While Sylvia snorted derisively, Emma moved forward a little more. Her feet could now touch the bottom, but she kept her body hunched so it wouldn’t show.

  Sylvia held up the hook on her left arm. “It was your plan that cost me my hand. If we’d just killed that bitch Isis instead of trying to exorcise the demon, Tabitha would still be alive and I’d still have my hand.”

  “I’m sorry about that, Sylvia, you know I am. But it wouldn’t have mattered. You couldn’t have killed Isis.” The pipe was now only two feet away from Emma. She just needed to distract Sylvia long enough to make her move.

  The distraction she needed arrived a moment later in the form of Marlin. “What’s going on here?” he asked. “Why are you pointing a weapon at her, you loony old conjurer?”

  “This isn’t your business,” Sylvia said. She kept her finger on the crossbow’s trigger, but took her eyes off Emma just long enough for Emma to rise up and dive into the pipe.

  “You can’t run from me!” Sylvia shouted from behind her. “You’ll have to come to me eventually if you ever want to see Becky and Dan alive again.”

  As she scurried along the pipe, Emma knew Sylvia was right.

  ***

  She stopped at an intersection of sewer pipes to rest for a moment. From what she could tell, Sylvia had not tried to follow her. As the witch had said, Emma would eventually have to come to her if she wanted to get Becky and Dan back. She closed her eyes for a moment.

  After she caught her breath, she summoned the red case again to retrieve the helmet. When she dropped it over her head, she could see in the darkened sewers. By now some of Jim’s friends had probably spotted her and would relay her position to him. She could always find one and send word to Jim that she needed help. But an army of rats wouldn’t be much good against a witch like Sylvia. With a wave of her hand, she could turn the rats into earthworms or confetti or something even worse.

  She tried not to think about what Sylvia might do to Becky and Dan. Like the rats they wouldn’t have any protection against her magic, which left them vulnerable to whatever spell or potion she chose to use. Emma just had to hope Sylvia really didn’t want to hurt anyone, other than perhaps whoever had captured Tim Cooper.

  The easiest solution would be for her to spring Tim herself. Then Sylvia wouldn’t need the red armor and she wouldn’t need to do anything to Becky or Dan. The problem came in that she didn’t know who held Tim, where he was, or for what purpose he was being held. Without any of those pieces of the puzzle, she was blind.

  If she had more time, she could find a way into TriTech. Whatever was going on, she knew TriTech had something to do with it. If Sylvia would just calm down a little and see reason, then Emma might be able to get some information from her.

  Emma knew that wouldn’t happen. Sylvia loved Tim; she would do anything to save his life, just as Emma would do anything to save Becky or Dan—or Jim. This last realization struck her like a punch in the gut. She thought of that moment in the tunnel when Jim had said he loved her. She had been about to answer—what? That she liked him? That she valued him as a friend? Friends didn’t kiss like that, she could hear Marlin tell her.

  Maybe it had been a moment of weakness. Or maybe she really did feel about Jim the same way he felt about her. She had only ever loved one man and that was Dan Dreyfus, whom she had loved so much she sent him away to keep him from being involved in her dangerous life. With Dan she had always felt a certain amount of apprehension, of awkwardness. Part of it had been she was only nineteen when they met and had spent most of those years in classrooms and laboratories. The other part was that Dan was so perfect, he made her feel inadequate, so she tried not to say or do anything that might lower her stature in his eyes. With Jim it was different. She didn’t feel any need to impress him or to
be careful; he lived in the sewers, after all. She thought back to their dinner together and how relaxed and comfortable she’d felt after he made that joke. She’d never got the chance to feel that way around Dan and she wasn’t sure she ever would have.

  “There you are,” Marlin said. “How long are you planning on cowering down here?”

  “I’m not cowering. I’m planning,” she lied.

  “Whatever you’re planning, you’d better do it quickly.”

  “What’s she done?”

  “Nothing yet. But she said if you don’t meet her in the gravel yards in fifteen minutes she’s going to do something to Becky.”

  Chapter 13

  The gravel yards were on the waterfront, near the cement plant. While many industries in Rampart City had moved overseas or closed down entirely, the cement plant remained as vital as it ever had. People always needed cement for roads, buildings, and so forth. Ships would bring in the gravel, which would then be taken to the cement plant and come out as bags of dry mix or loaded into mixer trucks.

  If Emma were going to lay a trap for the Scarlet Knight, the gravel yards would be as good of a place as any. The mounds of rock made for ideal cover, behind which Sylvia could ambush Emma. Or she could bring one of those mountains of rocks down on Emma to bury her. To go there would be suicide, but at the moment Emma didn’t see much choice.

  “You can’t actually go there,” Marlin said. “It’s obviously a trap.”

  “I know. And I’m sure she knows I know.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “That she’s not going to do anything so obvious as hide behind a pile of rocks or rig one to fall on me. She’ll probably stand right out in the open to ask me for the armor.”

  “And when you say no, then she’ll bring down a mountain of rock.”

  “If I say no.”

  “You can’t give her the armor. You don’t have any idea what she’ll do with it.”

  “She’ll barter it to get Tim released from whoever at TriTech is holding him.”

  “TriTech? That place you were watching last night?”