Becky couldn’t disagree with this point. Still, she probably would have rejected the offer like she’d rejected others for local, state, and Federal politicians, all of whom promised a quick path to stardom, maybe even a Cabinet position eventually if she played her cards right. She turned all of those offers down for three reasons: Dan, Emma, and Louise. They needed her, and she needed them.
At least that’s what she’d told herself until the night her life in Rampart City ended. For as long as she could remember, her relationship with her sister Brandi had been strained. It didn’t come as a huge shock to find out it was Brandi on the line when Louise trotted into the living room and announced, “Aunt Becky, there’s a crazy lady on the phone.”
Becky tousled Louise’s hair and said, “Why don’t you go upstairs and play?”
Louise wasn’t as amiable as her mother at that age; she crossed her arms and asked, “Why?”
To say, “Because I said so” would only make Louise more defiant, Becky had learned from experience. Instead, she said, “I’ll take away your homework so you get an ‘F’ tomorrow.” To another child this would be a ludicrous threat, but Louise dutifully marched up the stairs.
Becky took the call in the kitchen and sat at the table.
“Becky?” Brandi said.
“How much do you need this time?” she asked.
What took her by surprise was the shakiness of Brandi’s voice as she cried into the receiver. “You’ve got to come get me. Before he comes back. Please!”
“Who?”
“This guy I’ve been seeing. He’s gone nuts. I don’t know what’s going to happen when he comes back. I’m scared, Becky.”
She’d never heard Brandi talk like this before; even as a little girl she’d always tried to project a tough image. For her to sound so vulnerable meant something terrible had happened. “OK, I’ll come get you. Where are you?” Brandi gave an address in the Trenches. “I’ll be there in five minutes. Just stay there.”
The part of the story that never made sense to her was why she elected to go alone. Her best friend was the Scarlet Knight. Another friend was an actual witch. Still another friend was a police officer. Maybe she thought it was her sisterly duty to do this alone. Or maybe she thought this was too small potatoes for any of her friends to help with. Or maybe she wanted to be the hero this time around.
In any event, she called upstairs, “Lou, I’m going out for a few minutes. Don’t throw any wild parties while I’m gone.” Then she was out the door.
From the historical district to the Trenches ordinarily took a half-hour in Rampart City traffic. To make it in the promised five minutes, Becky drove her city-owned car as recklessly as Emma drove her motorcycle. She drove up on the curb, unconcerned that she might smash a few sandwich boards and some patio furniture. Brandi needed her.
The building was as seedy as the one where Becky had first lived with Emma long ago. There of course was no elevator, so she had to run up six stories. At this point she was in the best shape of her life, down to one hundred forty pounds. Between that and the thought of her sister in trouble, Becky made it up to the sixth floor in two minutes.
She practically broke through the front door; Brandi launched herself at Becky a moment later. They hugged in a way they never had before, like sisters. It was only when she felt a stomach press against her that she realized wasn’t her own that she found out Brandi was pregnant. So pregnant she was probably due any day now, and yet she’d never mentioned it.
“Are you all right?” Becky asked. Brandi nodded, but Becky could see the beginnings of a shiner forming around her right eye. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”
They didn’t make it. As Becky yanked her sister towards the door, they ran into Brandi’s boyfriend. He had the size to be one of Don Vendetta’s goons, the kind Emma routinely beat up and threw into prison as the Scarlet Knight. But Becky didn’t have any magic armor or a golden sword, so she could only plant herself in front of Brandi as the man said, “What the hell is this?”
“I’m taking my sister home,” Becky said. “She’s not feeling well.”
“The hell you are. This bitch isn’t going anywhere.”
“She’s sick. She needs to go somewhere quiet to rest.”
The man poked her in the chest. “I told you she ain’t going nowhere, Fatass, so why don’t you get out of here before I cave your goddamned face in?”
“I’m not going anywhere without my sister.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” Becky said. She stood close enough to the man that she could smell stale beer and nachos on his breath.
“Becky, it’s all right,” Brandi said. Her voice sounded so different, so much meeker than Becky had ever heard it. “Sal and I will work things out.”
Becky could imagine how they would work it out; in the end Brandi would sport more bruises and maybe a few broken bones. She might even go into premature labor right here in this dirty apartment. “I’m not leaving Brandi. Now, if you’ll excuse us—”
Sal reached into the waistband of his pants for a pistol. Becky had had someone point a gun at her before. This came in an alley not too far from here. A group of men had threatened her, when Emma showed up with the Scarlet Knight’s armor to rescue her. But Emma wasn’t here this time. No one would save her.
“She ain’t going nowhere, Fatass. But you’ll be going to the morgue if you don’t get out of here right now.”
“No,” Becky said.
The rest of it happened in a blur. Brandi slipped around Becky to put a hand on Sal’s arm. “Take it easy, honey—”
He turned to point the gun at her. Becky reached out and jerked Sal’s arm up. One shot fired into the air. Brandi screamed. “Get out of here!” Becky shouted to her. “Go!”
The irony was that if she hadn’t lost so much weight she might have been able to take Sal to the ground; her weight would have pinned him down. Instead, they staggered around the floor as she tried to rip the gun away.
The gun went off again. Becky fell backwards. She put one hand to her stomach and found the hand covered in blood. She heard Sal’s heavy footsteps retreat while Brandi screamed again. From there everything went dark.
She woke up later to find Dr. Pavelski over her. Since Emma’s pregnancy, the doctor had become a trusted friend, another member of the inner circle, who personally saw to Emma’s various injuries that came from her life as a crime fighter.
“It’s going to be all right, Becky,” Dr. Pavelski said. “They managed to stop the bleeding in time and it looks like no major organs were hit. You’re very lucky, all things considered.”
“Brandi?”
“She’s fine. So’s her son.”
“Thank God,” Becky said with a sigh. Then she realized Dr. Pavelski’s expression was still grim. “What’s wrong?”
“The bullet didn’t hit anything vital, but I’m afraid there was some damage to your ovaries. We had to go in and do an emergency hysterectomy.”
Becky stared at her for a moment in shock. She wasn’t a scientist like Emma, but she knew what a hysterectomy meant. “You mean I can’t have kids anymore, don’t you?”
“I’m sorry, Becky. We didn’t have a choice.”
“I understand,” Becky said, her voice much calmer than she felt. She wanted to scream, she wanted to tear the room to pieces, but she couldn’t find the strength to move.
“Your friends are waiting outside. I’ll tell them you’re awake.”
“No. I’d like to be alone for a while if you don’t mind.”
“Becky—”
“Please. I don’t want to see anybody right now.” She looked Dr. Pavelski in the eye. “I’m not going to do anything. I need time to think.”
“All right, but you know they’ve been here for sixteen hours. They care about you a lot.”
“I know.” She thought of them in the waiting room: Dan, the man who loved her despite her flaws; Emma, her best friend and surrogate sister; A
ggie, the mother she’d always wanted; and Louise, her adorable surrogate niece. She could see the worry on their faces as they waited to hear news about her condition. They loved her.
And as she lay in bed, she knew she didn’t want their love, not now. She didn’t want their kind words and gestures. She didn’t want their tears. She wanted them to forget her, to let her go, because their love and kindness would only remind her of what she had lost.
So she had taken Napier’s offer without telling Dan or Emma. She waited until Louise was asleep before she called for the cab to take her to the airport. She had covertly packed a bag; the rest of her belongings—the rest of her life—could be shipped to her.
They tried to call and write, but she ignored them. Like Emma after her parents died, Becky threw herself into her work. As Napier had said, Rampart City’s dirty politics had prepared her for the big stage. On the whole she found it the same as the city council, only on a much larger scale. In political circles she became known as a dealmaker, the one who knew how to make things happen.
Then another accident propelled her into the spotlight. In this case it was a heart attack that felled Ryan Napier as he teed off at Pebble Beach. He died on the ninth hole, in the arms of his caddy. Becky was still at the office when the call came in. A week later, she was sworn in as a member of the House of Representatives. She hadn’t asked for the appointment, but her former boss in Rampart City had lobbied on her behalf, to assure the party that Becky was the perfect choice as someone who could get things done and who could also project a new image.
Becky didn’t like to think of what that image might be. Ever since she’d been sworn in, she’d returned to her bad old eating habits and blown up like a balloon to almost three hundred pounds. There were already jokes about how she was the fattest thing in D.C. since William Taft. A few more cocktail parties like this and she wouldn’t even be able to fit into a bathroom stall anymore.
Her size made it impossible for her to sneak out of anywhere, so she had to endure a whole litany of pleasantries as she made her way to the door. Once there she managed to escape to the safety of her car. “Take me home please,” she told the driver.
Home was a condo in Virginia, a place smaller than her house in Rampart City but far more expensive. Aggie stood in the doorway; her body glowed white so that she looked like one of the ghosts come to visit Ebenezer Scrooge. “Aggie? What are you doing here?” she asked.
“You have to come home, Rebecca.”
“This is my home now.”
“Emma’s dying. She’s in surgery right now. They aren’t sure she’ll make it. She needs you, Rebecca. So does Louise. She’s nineteen, but in many ways she’s still a child. She’s going to need your help.”
For the last twelve years Becky had made excuses not to go back to Rampart City. Most of these involved her being too busy with bills and committees to go back and see the people who loved her. This was largely a dodge as her assistants did most of the real work with the bills and for the committee hearings she usually sat on the far end and tried not to fall asleep.
The real reason was that as the years went by, she didn’t know how to go back. She knew Dan and Emma would forgive her, as would her sisters. Louise she was less certain about, though in the end she figured the girl had enough of her mother’s DNA that she would. The problem was she still wasn’t sure she could handle their love.
Now the choice had been made for her. They needed her love now and despite everything she still loved them all. So in the end there was no decision to make. She snatched a jogging suit rarely used for its real purpose and then took Aggie’s hand. “Let’s go.”
***
Dan’s house had over a dozen bedrooms, only one of which was used on a regular basis. Eileen could have chosen any of these bedrooms, but she opted for the one nearest to the master bedroom. “I won’t feel so lonely then,” she had said. Then she had kissed him on the cheek and closed the door.
He went to his room, but he couldn’t sleep. In less than two days he had become a father. He thought of all the things he’d missed in Eileen’s life: her first steps, her first words, her first kiss, and her first boyfriend. He hadn’t changed her diapers, driven her to dance lessons, or chaperoned her at the prom. Nothing he could do would ever allow him to have those moments back.
He tried to console himself with the thought that he still had plenty of time to love her. There would still be her college graduation and to walk her down the aisle for her wedding. That would lead to a whole new slate of firsts: her first home, her first real job, and her first child. Maybe in a few years he could be a grandfather and take part in all those other firsts he’d missed with Eileen.
He thought he had already gone through those firsts with Louise. He’d been in the delivery room when she was born. He was at Emma and Becky’s house the day Louise learned to walk. He was in the audience when she played Little Red Riding Hood in her first grade play. He was at all of her graduation ceremonies from elementary school to when she earned her PhD. And he had been there during her first dig in Egypt.
He remembered how proud he’d been when she uncovered the statue of Isis. The excitement in her voice and the sparkle in her eyes reminded him of why he’d wanted to be an Egyptologist. She’d broken protocol when she leaped into his arms and planted a kiss on his dust-stained cheek, but he didn’t mind.
In most ways, then, Louise was more his daughter than the product of his own flesh and blood. While not his daughter by procreation, she was his daughter by shared experiences. He had watched her grow up to become a wonderful young woman.
The phone next to his bed flashed that he had a call from Renee Chiostro. He hadn’t spoken a lot with Renee over the years, just polite conversation when she came over to visit Louise. That she was calling so late, he knew could only mean one thing: something had happened to Louise.
As he reached over to answer the phone, he felt a sharp pain in his hand. He looked down to find the obsidian blade he and Louise had found sticking out of his hand. More than that, some kind of sticky substance coated the wound.
He was about to call to Eileen for help, but his entire body had suddenly gone numb. He sagged onto his side, unable to move. The phone continued to ring, but he couldn’t answer it, couldn’t find out what had happened to Louise.
His vision started to darken around the edges when he saw Eileen squat in front of him. “It’s ironic that you’re my first sacrifice, Dad,” she said. Then she rolled him onto his back and took the knife from his hand. As his vision faded to black, he saw the blade hover over his heart.
He saw Louise’s face in his mind. He would never get a chance to see his surrogate daughter grow up now. I’m sorry, Lou, he thought as his world went dark.
Chapter 17
She thought she had died again when she found herself looking up at a brilliant blue sky with puffy white clouds. The last time she had died when she had given her heart to Isis. Instead of a real afterlife, she wound up in what Marlin called “the astral plane,” where Merlin lived. That had looked like ancient Britain, with a sky similar to this. She wondered if he would bring her back again or if she would stay dead this time.
Then she saw Joanna’s face look down at her with an amused smile. “Are you planning to lie there all day?” she said.
“Is this Heaven?” Emma asked.
“No, it’s my backyard.”
Joanna took Emma’s hand to help her stand up. Once again Emma found herself in the sandbox, the grass still overgrown and the swing set rusty. “I thought after what had happened, maybe—”
“Not yet. But soon.”
“You know when?”
“I have a pretty good idea.”
“What about Louise? Do you know what’s going to happen to her?”
“I have a pretty good idea about that too.”
“But you’re not going to tell me.”
“I can’t.”
Emma grabbed a handful of the front of Joanna�
�s dress. “I don’t care about your rules! What’s going to happen to my daughter?”
“She’s going to die. Maybe soon or maybe late.”
“Just tell me!”
“It’s not up to me. It’s up to her. You should know that.”
“Please, I have to know.”
“Why?”
Emma let go of Joanna to sag onto the grass and buried her head in her hands. “Because I failed her. I failed everyone.”
“It was bound to happen eventually. Did you think you could be the Scarlet Knight forever?”
Emma shook her head. In the back of her mind she’d always known one day it would all end for her, just as it had ended for Percival Graves, just as it had for every other Scarlet Knight for the last three thousand plus years. She knew one day she would become another footnote in the lore for Marlin when he wanted to harass future members of the Order. Still, she hadn’t thought her defeat would leave a bloodthirsty maniac to go after her daughter. “No,” she said. “But I never wanted it to end like this.”
Joanna sat on the edge of the sandbox and put a hand on Emma’s shoulder. “It’s not about what we want. You should know that.”
“Isis is going to kill her. Because of me. Because of that book.” Emma began to sob. “I killed her because of a book. What kind of mother am I?”
“You remember what I told you last time? Nothing is gained without sacrifice.”
“But I never wanted to sacrifice her.”
“Do you remember the story of Abraham?”
“Yes.” Though she had never been part of organized religion, Emma had read the Bible—as well as the Koran and a number of other religious texts. “He was willing to sacrifice his own son to prove his faith.”
“There’s something to think about.”
“I thought you said we couldn’t live in a deus ex machina universe?”
“That’s what Mom said.”
“Don’t you believe that? Isn’t that why you have your rules?”
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 82
