Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis

by P. T. Dilloway

  “Are you sure? Last time you said I drove like a wheelman fleeing the cops.”

  “I thought maybe you’d like another shot at it. If not—”

  “I can do it,” Louise snapped. Emma sat in the car’s passenger seat and stifled a gasp when a harness clamped automatically around her body. As with the doors, the car came to life at the touch of Louise’s thumb.

  The engine made almost no noise, so Emma didn’t have any trouble to hear when her daughter said, “Dr. Dreyfus asked us to dinner tonight.”

  “Us?”

  “Me and you. I thought Renee could come too, if you don’t mind.”

  “Renee?”

  Louise tapped a button and then took her hands off the wheel. The car steered itself through traffic that also hadn’t seemed to improve in twenty years. “Renee, my best friend since I was two. Aggie’s daughter. Ring any bells?”

  “Oh, right. Sorry,” Emma said. Aggie had a daughter too? She thought back to her conversations with Akako. Maybe they had adopted a child. Or maybe Aggie had found someone else.

  “Are you sure you’re feeling all right? What’s that doctor been giving you?”

  “Just some pills. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Are you still taking those antidepressants? They always make you a little spacey.”

  “I’m fine. I’m just a little tired.”

  “You can take a sick day; the museum won’t fall down if you’re not there.”

  “I’m fine,” Emma snapped. She reached over to pat Louise’s leg and added in a softer voice, “Thank you for your concern.”

  “That Dr. Pavelski is a quack. I don’t know why you keep going to her.”

  “She helped me give birth to you, didn’t she?”

  “Just barely.”

  Emma thought of the Cesarean section scar on her abdomen; no doubt Dr. Pavelski had made that incision to take Louise out. She decided to change gears and maybe find out more about this girl across from her. “So how did things go in the desert? Other than finding those artifacts.”

  “Everything was fine. It was hot and dry and sand got everywhere.”

  “Did you meet any interesting people?”

  “Like who, the camel wranglers?”

  “I don’t know, I just thought—”

  “You just thought maybe I’d pick up some nice young boy while I was over there. I don’t know why you’re so hung up on me finding someone. You never got married.”

  “Maybe I don’t want you to make the same mistake,” Emma said.

  “Are you saying I was a mistake?”

  “No! I just meant—” she didn’t know how to finish that sentence. So she and Jim hadn’t ever gotten married. It didn’t come as much of a surprise, but still she felt a dull ache in her heart to have her girlish fantasies shattered. “I’m sorry.”

  “Let’s just drop it.” Louise commanded the car’s computer to bring up a track from Carmen. Emma smiled a little to see her daughter at least shared her taste—and her mother’s taste—in music. Or maybe Louise wanted to placate her.

  In any event, Emma leaned back in her seat and listened to the music as the car wound its way through traffic to the Plaine Museum. The façade of the museum hadn’t changed in twenty years, just as it hadn’t changed in a hundred years before that. Beyond that, she saw a radical change in a glass tower that spiraled up like the interior of a nautilus shell. Emma had seen a similar design to this in Megan Putnam’s notebook back in her time.

  It didn’t come as much of a surprise to find Megan herself just inside the doors. Though she had to be almost forty by now, Megan still had an innocent, girlish look about her that couldn’t be erased by a suit and grown-up haircut. Her voice retained its softness as well. “Good morning, Dr. Earl. And Dr. Earl.”

  From the way Louise’s eyes narrowed, Emma sensed there was no love lost between her daughter and Megan Putnam. Why, she didn’t have any idea. “Good morning, Megan,” Emma said. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine. When you have a few minutes, there are a couple of issues I need to go over about the addition.”

  “Yes, of course. In a couple—”

  “I was going to go check these into the vault,” Louise interrupted. She brushed past Megan as she practically stomped down the hall, into the main gallery.

  Emma listened to Megan go on about trouble with the overhead light system while they walked through the main gallery. She was relieved to see Alex the mastodon still there; he looked just the way she remembered from when she was three years old and Percival Graves had let her touch the mastodon’s tusk. Megan cleared her throat and Emma realized she had let her mind wander.

  “Are you feeling all right, Dr. Earl? We can go over this later if you want.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just a little tired this morning. How about we get a cup of tea?”

  As they headed for the cafeteria, Emma looked back over her shoulder and wondered where Louise had gone with the Book of Isis and how much more time she had to get it back.

  ***

  In a brief stint as assistant director for the museum, Emma had learned administrative work was not much fun. This was even more magnified as the director for the Plaine Museum. Apparently Megan’s architectural firm supervised the renovation, which generated what in her time would have been a two-foot-high stack of memos, budget reports, and invoices that all called out for her signature. At the moment, she was far more concerned with other matters.

  The computer in her office used the same holographic technology as her newspaper reader, which took up less space on her desk than her cup of tea. The display was interactive, so she could scroll by touching the bottom of the display to zoom into pictures or graphs for more data. None of this interested her, except for a copy of a memo written fifteen years ago, when she had first taken over as museum director. This detailed new procedures for how to handle and remove valuable artifacts. She had probably thought of the case for the Black Dragoon’s armor that had wound up in her lab when she first started at the museum.

  If Louise followed these procedures, then the Book of Isis would be down in a vault in the basement. Louise would fill out a slate of forms that would have to be approved by her department supervisor—Dan Dreyfus in this case. A security officer would then implant a chip on the artifact so thieves couldn’t take it out of the museum. The security guard would then put the artifact into the vault until someone came to remove it.

  By the time she finished the paperwork—most of which no longer used actual paper—the Book of Isis was checked into the vault. She gulped down her cold tea and then left her office. “I’ll be back in an hour,” she said to her secretary, who she remembered as a student in her Geology 101 class back in the day. After twenty years Leslie must have finally retired.

  “Dr. Pavelski called and said she has some test results for you,” the secretary said.

  “I’ll give her a call later. Thanks.” She went down the hall to the elevator. Like much of the building, the elevators were new as well; it whisked her down to the basement in ten seconds.

  When the doors opened, she almost ran straight into Dan Dreyfus. She recognized him instantly, his curly hair a little more gray, face more lined, and an unfamiliar mustache above his lip, but his eyes were still the same. So was the warm smile that had melted her heart when she was nineteen. “Afternoon, Dr. Earl. Did Lou give you my invitation for dinner?”

  “Yes, she did. We’re both excited.”

  “That’s great.” Dan pointed with a thumb over his shoulder to a security guard beside a heavy metal door. “I was just checking in some stuff. Did Lou show you what she found?”

  “Yes. It’s very interesting.”

  “It sure is. It could really help us understand the ancients.” Dan checked his watch. “I’d better get back upstairs. You want to come to lunch?”

  “Sorry, I can’t today.”

  “Right. That’s why I’m glad they never offered me that job.” With someone else she migh
t have suspected some bitterness under the surface, but not Dan. She knew he enjoyed being out in the desert to dig for lost treasures much the same as she had always enjoyed to study a meteor with her microscope, something she doubted she did much of anymore. “I’ll be seeing you tonight, then.”

  “I can’t wait,” Emma said as the elevator doors closed.

  The guard nodded to her as she approached and then held out a plate for her to press her thumb to. The reader came back with a green light. “Afternoon, Dr. Earl,” the guard said.

  “Good afternoon. I’d like to see Item LE-57913-A2.” The guard opened the vault with both a thumbprint and retina scan and then showed her inside. She walked among rows of priceless artifacts from every continent—which included a preserved penguin corpse from Antarctica—until she found the Book of Isis on a shelf near the floor. Even the guard must have sensed something wrong with it as he held it out at arm’s length to her.

  “I’d like to take it upstairs if you don’t mind,” she said. “I think this will really impress the donors.”

  “Not a problem, Dr. Earl. Just need you to sign the form.” She pressed her thumb to the plate again to approve her removal of the book.

  “I’ll bring it back tomorrow,” she said. She didn’t feel any better about lying now than she had in her time, but the guard didn’t seem to notice. He tipped his cap to her before she got on the elevator.

  She didn’t take the book back to her office. Instead, she took the elevator down to the subbasement. The button to the sub-subbasement had been removed during the upgrades and she wondered if she had moved the Sanctuary to another location. That might make things awkward. Then again, she might not even be the Scarlet Knight anymore. Maybe that task had fallen to Megan or Amanda or a complete stranger. That could be, but she doubted it. Joanna wouldn’t have told her about the book if she didn’t have the power to destroy it.

  The subbasement remained the same as she remembered; it contained little more than rows of crates from old exhibits. The desk where she had briefly worked was still propped up in one corner, though the computer and microscope that had been ancient twenty years ago were both gone. She examined the area around the desk and then the walls, not entirely sure what she hoped to find. Some kind of hidden trigger that would reveal a secret set of stairs like in the old stories.

  The answer was almost literally in front of her face. An old radioactivity warning sign hung on the wall over a crate of Victorian teacups similar to those in her kitchen. When she put her hand to it to brush off the dust, she felt a buzz like a live electrical wire. She thought back to the vault and stuck her thumb directly in the middle of the warning sign. A tiny green light above the sign flickered to life, accompanied by the whir of machinery. She didn’t even have time to brace herself before she and the crate of Victorian china were dropped into the sub-subbasement.

  The old bomb shelter looked about the same as she remembered, except the old army crates had moldered away into nothing more than fragments. The floor was still muddy, though she had helpfully left an antique radiation suit nearby with rubber boots. She slipped these on over her flats and stepped off the elevator.

  The hidden entrance was in the same place, though instead of papier-mache, the fake wall was now a hologram backed by a metal wall. Again she used her thumb against a piece of the fake rock to deactivate the hologram. The metal wall lowered so she could duck inside.

  “Well, the prodigal daughter returns,” Marlin said. Twenty years didn’t seem to have improved his attitude at all, but then twenty years to him wasn’t even a blink of the eye.

  “What do you mean by that?” she asked.

  “I thought maybe you’d finally decided to retire.”

  “I would but you won’t let me.” The Sanctuary itself was the same, except the equipment was far more advanced. Instead of television screens she had a holographic display of the city with red points to mark various crimes according to the police scanner. The chair was new as well, with far more padding and a massage setting she figured must come in handy at her advanced age.

  “What’s that you’ve got there?”

  “The Book of Isis.”

  “Isis?” The ghost shook his head. “I knew no good would come from that girl digging around in the desert.”

  “How did you know Louise found it?”

  “Who else would it be? She certainly inherited your knack for getting into trouble.”

  “She’s just doing her job. She’s a scientist.” Emma sat down on the chair and let out a sigh of relief.

  “Why couldn’t you have encouraged her to be a doctor or a lawyer? Even a namby-pamby artist like her father would have been better.”

  “I can’t run her life for her,” Emma said, though she agreed with Marlin that many other occupations would have been far safer than an Egyptologist.

  “It’s all because you never gave her the thrashing she needed. In my day—”

  “I would never hit her,” Emma snapped. “I love her.”

  “That’s why you should have cuffed her a good one.”

  “Leave the parenting to me. You just help me figure out how to get rid of it.”

  “If it’s made by Isis then the armor’s the only thing that can destroy it,” Marlin said. “Just give it a few good whacks with the Sword of Justice and call it a day.”

  “That would only cut it into pieces. Someone could still put the pieces back together.”

  “You could try to feed it your heart. That worked last time.”

  She stared at the jet black cover of the book. Joanna had told her, “Nothing is gained without sacrifice.” Was it really that simple? Could she just cut out her heart, stick it on the book, and it would be destroyed?

  The only problem with that theory was there was no way to test it. Once she did it, she would be as dead as Marlin. If that didn’t work, what then? “I think we’ll keep that as Plan B.”

  “Fine. Coward.”

  She ignored this and tried to think of how else she might dispose of the book. As with the Black Dragoon’s armor, there were plenty of impractical ways: shoot it into space, throw it into a volcano, or drop it into an ocean trench. As with the Black Dragoon’s armor, none of those would work, at least in the long term. Even if she could find a way to shoot the book into the heart of the sun, there was no guarantee it wouldn’t find its way back into her hands.

  Emma turned in her chair and faced the red crate. It hadn’t changed in twenty years; it remained the same as when she’d first reached into it—

  “That’s it!” Emma said.

  “What?”

  “There’s one place she can’t access no matter how hard she tries.” Emma tapped the case with one foot. “It’s made with Merlin’s magic, right? So that means she can’t open it.”

  “I suppose. Of course you could open it.”

  “Are you getting back to Plan B?”

  “Maybe. What happens if one of her minions captures you?”

  “I won’t give them the book.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Look, it’s just a temporary measure until I can figure out a better way to get rid of it. Maybe that stuff Louise and Dan found will have something we can use.”

  “Like an ancient paper shredder?”

  “Maybe.” She grunted a little as she got out of the chair and then went over to the red case. After she set the book down, she pressed both hands to the case. Angelic faces appeared along the sides and the lid yawned open. The scarlet armor looked the same, right down to the plume on the helmet.

  She was about to put the book inside when she saw the chip attached to the bottom corner of the cover. She doubted the signal would keep going inside the case, which would probably trigger an alarm. With a sigh she dragged herself back to the chair and then wheeled over to the computer desk.

  Though her knowledge was twenty years out of date, she was still a quick study. Since she had designed the chip’s systems, it didn’t take her long to figure
out how it worked and how to disable it. With a little reprogramming she set a delay for twenty seconds, long enough for her to pry it off of the book. Then she stuck it onto the cover for a copy of Rampart City’s legal code, the only book in the Sanctuary. This wouldn’t fool anyone, least of all Louise, should they look closely, but it would buy her some time. That was what she needed most right now.

  She dropped the Book of Isis into the case of red armor and waited for something to happen. She thought there might be some kind of scream or an explosion, but there was nothing. The book just sat there on top of the breastplate; the glossy cover seemed to wink at her in the light. Then she closed the lid and it was gone.

  “Well, that’s that,” Marlin said.

  “I guess.” Emma checked her watch. “I’d better get upstairs.” There was still plenty of legitimate work for her to do—and a dinner with Dan to prepare for.

  ***

  Emma could tell right away Renee Chiostro was the daughter of Aggie and Akako. She had Akako’s Asian features mixed with Aggie’s pale skin and blue eyes. Her long mane of brown hair was a compromise between the two, but as with Louise, once Emma began to look, she could see the sources of the girl’s parentage mingled together.

  The obvious question became exactly how they’d done it. Her best guess was that Aggie must have transformed herself into a man, at least temporarily, in order to reproduce. She didn’t think such a thing would be allowed by the coven, but she didn’t really know the coven’s policies. At any rate it would be rude to ask Renee, not that Emma had a chance to ask the girl anything besides, “How are you?”

  Renee met them on the front steps of the Plaine Museum, dressed similarly to Louise in all black. The moment they saw each other, the girls squealed in unison and then ran into each other’s arms to hug. Emma hovered a few feet away like the proverbial fifth wheel.

  “Oh my God, you look so skinny!” Renee gushed, though she was hardly fat herself. “Didn’t you eat anything over there?”

  “A lot of canned shit. If I never eat another baked bean in my life it’ll be too soon,” Louise said. “They gave me worse gas than the camels.”