In all likelihood Aggie would soon join Mother and her two sisters in the Great Beyond. Before that happened, she had one last thing to do. She took the portrait gently down from the wall and set it against the desk her mother had used to balance the estate’s books. Behind where the portrait had been was a safe.
This wasn’t any safe that could be purchased at a hardware store or even an elaborate one available from a security company. This safe had been handcrafted by Emma and then flown commercially to France. The reason was because this safe could not be vanished or even loaded onto a magic carpet. It used metal from an alternate dimension to exist out of phase with the rest of this universe the same way Akako did.
Inside, Aggie kept her most precious possession: the spell Sylvia had used to open the gateway to the dimension the metal of the vault came from. Aggie had told everyone, including Glenda, the spell had disappeared, but she’d found it in the wreckage of TriTech and concealed it for the day when she might need it—a day like this.
Aggie knew magic didn’t exist in that dimension, at least not magic as it worked here. The last time she’d gone over there she’d been a chubby fifteen-year-old, the youngest of the Joubert family. There was no telling what effect the gateway would have on Renee or Louise, if any at all. What Aggie did know was that if Isis went to that dimension, she would have no more power than any other mortal. That would at least give Renee and Louise a chance.
She unlocked the safe to find the scroll inside, encased in a glass tube. She had only to break open the tube and the scroll would open the gateway and suck anyone nearby inside. She took the glass tube out of the safe and tucked it into her purse. All she had to do was go back to Rampart City, find the girls, and then break open the scroll to carry them to safety.
She vanished herself back to her other house. The moment she appeared in the parlor, she knew she was too late. She had run out of time. So had Renee and Louise.
“Hello, Agnes,” Isis said from an armchair by the fireplace that roared like the one back at the Joubert estate. “I must say you look so much younger than last time.”
Aggie closed her eyes and tried to fight against Isis’ magic. She focused on Renee, her beautiful daughter. She had to resist, to hold out long enough to deliver the spell to Renee. Then Renee could be safe and in a world without magic she would probably be happy at last.
Despite these thoughts of love, Isis’s magic was too strong for her. She could feel her power slip away; it dimmed until there was nothing left, not even a faint glimmer. “No!” she squeaked. When she opened her eyes, she found it still dark; fabric pressed all around her face like a hood.
The hood was torn away; the light of the parlor almost blinded her. Then she found herself looking up—and up—at Isis.
***
Aggie had made herself young many times before over the last five hundred years. When she’d met her future husband Alejandro Chiostro, she’d turned herself from a woman in her fifties to one in her twenties. She’d done this again after her first battle with Isis, when she’d decided to seize life by the throat. Not long after she’d inadvertently become a teenager because of the spell in her purse.
For obvious reasons she’d never made herself into a baby. Any age younger than thirteen and she would lose all of her powers and have to age naturally until she regained them.
Now she faced the image of her two-year-old self, her pudgy body clad only in a cloth diaper at the moment. She squirmed in Isis’s arms and the baby in the mirror did the same. At the sight of this, the little girl’s apple cheeks turned red and her lip trembled as if she were about to cry. Isis grinned at this and patted Aggie’s mop of golden curls. “You should consider yourself fortunate you’re only two,” Isis said. “You’re not an infant like I was, unable to walk or talk.” She pinched Aggie’s right cheek until Aggie cried out in pain. “The latter is the only reason you’re not a newborn right now.”
“What you want?” Aggie asked in her suddenly tiny voice.
Isis hefted Aggie higher in the air and spun her around to face her. “I want you to tell me where she put the book.”
“I don’t know! Let me go!”
“I think you do know. Unless you want to be in the terrible two’s forever, I’d suggest you tell me.”
“She didn’t tell me.”
“Is that so? I’m sure she said something about it to you. After all, she looks up to you.”
“She didn’t tell me! I swear!”
“Perhaps we’re going to need more motivation.” When Isis raised one hand, Aggie prepared to find herself even younger, a newborn perhaps. Instead, Isis snapped her fingers and in the middle of the parlor appeared the antique wooden playpen Aggie and Akako had used for Renee when she was two. Renee’s stuffed toys and her favorite blanket were still inside.
Isis set Aggie gently into the playpen and then leaned down to grin evilly at her. “While you’re in there, I want you to think about that shiny black book and where it might be. If you’re a good girl and tell me, I’ll give you a treat.”
“I won’t help you!”
Isis turned away and went over to the closet where Aggie kept her sewing projects. She returned a minute later with a frilly blue dress that had once belonged to Greta Hummel, the famed poet—and that had belonged to Renee. “This looks about your size.”
Aggie put up no resistance as Isis pulled the dress down over her head; to be clothed even in a baby’s dress was better than to be almost naked. Once that was done, Isis bent down again to leer at her. Aggie backed into a corner and clutched a stuffed chick Renee had named Yolkey after Aggie told her that baby chickens came from egg yolks.
“You can already feel it, can’t you?” Isis said. “The fear of being so small in a world that’s so big, everyone looking down at you, so much taller than you. And the worst part is knowing that once you were so big you could do anything you wanted, go anywhere you wanted. Now you can’t even get out of this cage unless a grown-up helps you.”
Isis reached over the edge of the playpen to stroke Aggie’s hair; Aggie whimpered, but as Isis had said, there was nothing she could do. She was a powerless baby now. Ten minutes ago she could have vanished herself anywhere in the world and now her whole world was a three-by-three foot square.
“Imagine being like this for five hundred years. Maybe even a thousand.” Isis’s hand slipped down to pinch Aggie’s cheek. “Or maybe for eternity if you’re a naughty girl.”
It was only semi-intentional on Aggie’s part that she began to wail at this. There was still a chance she could get the scroll to Renee, but first she had to get out of this playpen. She allowed the tears to flood down her cheeks. Her sobs became so violent that she nearly choked with each one. “I don’t wanna be baby! I wanna be big girl!” she shouted.
“Tell me what I want to know and you’ll be a big girl again. I promise.”
“I want Mommy!”
Isis patted Aggie’s back and cooed, “That’s too bad, dear, because your mommy is long dead. But I think I can arrange a play date for you.”
***
After the funeral, Renee had seen Eileen get into a cab. Though she badly wanted to follow, she figured Louise would need her more at this point. Renee watched the cab disappear around the corner to take Eileen away so she could kill again.
While Louise might not fully believe Eileen had killed Dan Dreyfus, Renee knew. She didn’t need to be somewhat psychic or have any insight into magic to know this. Just one look at those black eyes told Renee all she needed to know. In those eyes, Renee saw the pure evil she had felt at the Brass Drum.
As she went back inside the funeral home, she tried to think of a way to explain this to Louise. Her friend had focused on Becky as a suspect, no doubt because of how much Becky had hurt her when she’d left so many years ago. Once Louise calmed down a little, maybe Renee could convince her to think rationally and see it was Eileen at fault. Then together maybe they could go to Amanda Murdoch and ask for her help to
find some evidence. Or Renee and Louise might have to do it alone, like they’d done in Louise’s backyard when they were kids and pretended to be police detectives.
Inside, Renee saw she wouldn’t be able to talk to Louise right now. Her friend was curled up against the stand for the coffin, eyes closed and mouth open to snore slightly. Renee gave Louise a shake, but as she expected, her friend didn’t respond. With a sigh, Renee gathered up the ball that was Louise to carry her out to the car.
Once again Renee carried her friend up the stairs to her bedroom. Renee considered whether or not to take off the ill-fitting black dress, but decided they were too old to see each other naked. She pulled the blankets up to Louise’s chin and then watched as her friend turned onto her side. Before she left, Renee set the alarm beside the bed to wake Louise—or at least try to—in six hours for her nightly hospital visit.
Then Renee went back out to the car. She didn’t like to leave Louise alone, not with Eileen out there doing who knew what. But the idea of sleep appealed to her at the moment. It would give her a chance to recharge and think things through; maybe then she could find a way to prove Eileen’s guilt.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up when she pulled into the garage. Something was wrong. She could feel it, but she couldn’t specify what. As she got out of the car and started for the door, the feeling became stronger. There was definitely something very bad going on nearby.
The moment Renee entered the kitchen, her head spun. She collapsed to the floor and found herself blinded. Something heavy pressed down around her like a blanket. She flailed away at it until she finally managed to free herself. Only then did she realize the blanket was in actuality her dress from the funeral.
Before Renee could contemplate this mystery, a pair of hands seized her. She was hefted into the air, out of the dress that had become far too big for her. For a moment she saw her chubby legs kick at empty air and then she looked up to see Eileen with a smug grin on her face. It was then she realized Eileen had scooped her up from the floor.
“Hello, Renee. How good of you to join us.”
“What happen to me?” Renee asked.
The answer to this became clear when Eileen carried her out of the kitchen. In a mirror along one wall, Renee saw the face of a chubby toddler with skimpy brown pigtails. She had seen this face before on Mom’s desk in the archives; it was a picture of Renee as a baby. Her face turned warm at this thought. She began to sob.
“I’m not baby!” she wailed. For emphasis she punched and kicked at Eileen, but it did no good. She was too weak to free herself.
Eileen held Renee’s head close to her chest. “It’s all right, sweetheart. There’s nothing to worry about. We’re going to see Daddy now.”
Renee nodded slightly to herself. Good, Aggie was a witch; she would be able to stop Eileen and find a way to change Renee back. This thought comforted her until she saw the little blond girl in the playpen. Despite the tiny body clad in a frilly blue dress, Renee recognized her father. “Agga!” she shouted. As a baby she had never been able to say “Da-da” or “Daddy” or even “Aggie.” Instead she had always referred to her father as “Agga” despite numerous attempts by Mom and Aggie to break her of the habit.
“Renee?” Aggie squeaked. Then she threw herself against the side of the playpen. “Let her go! Make her big girl again!”
“Is that any way to speak to your elders, young lady?”
“Please let her go,” Aggie begged. It pained Renee to see her father reduced to such a pitiful state. “She not part of this.”
“She is now,” Eileen said. She patted Renee’s head again. “Tell me where to find the book or darling Renee will suffer.”
“What book?” Renee asked. “Agga, what book?”
“It all right, dear,” Aggie said, though the endearment sounded ridiculous in her babyish voice. “Everything fine.”
“Where is the book?”
“I don’t know. I swear!”
Eileen paused as if to consider this. Then she set Renee on the floor. The moment her tiny feet touched the carpet, Renee tried to run. She didn’t get far before she slammed into something heavy and tumbled to the floor.
She looked up to see Katie Fields, who could have been Aggie’s sister with her blond hair, blue eyes, and porcelain skin. Other than her looks, she was unlike Aggie in every way; she was far more like Eileen. All through elementary school Katie had teased Renee because of her family, her race, and even her homemade clothes.
Katie smirked at Renee as she so often had on the playground. “Where you going, Weird Renee?”
“You not real,” Renee whispered. Katie Fields had moved to Arizona when Renee had been in the fourth grade, over seven years ago. “You not real!”
Yet when she tried to run again, Katie grabbed hold of Renee’s hair; the pain felt real enough. Katie tossed Renee down. When she hit the floor, it turned to dust. Instead of Aggie’s house, Renee was on the playground of Coolidge Elementary. The rest of her first grade class stood around her in a circle. They chanted, “Weird Renee!”
“It not real. It not real!” Renee shrieked. She curled up on the ground and pressed her hands to her ears. That couldn’t drown out the chants and the whispered insults from her childhood that came back to haunt her.
Over the din she heard Aggie’s voice shout, “Leave her alone!”
When she felt a hand on her shoulder, Renee swatted at the assailant. Then she heard Aggie whisper, “It all right. It me.”
Renee looked up to see Aggie was still a toddler, but there was something strange about her: her body glowed with white light. “Agga?”
“I love you, Renee.”
Aggie put a hand to Renee’s shoulder and then the world around her exploded in white light.
When her vision cleared, she stared up at a stone ceiling. She blinked a few more times to clear the last popping flashbulbs away. Then she sat up.
“Hello? Is someone there?” called a familiar voice.
“Mommy!” Renee squealed. She pushed herself to her feet and looked around. The archives seemed so much bigger now, but she recognized the walls and the lift.
“Renee?” Mommy called out.
Renee toddled off in the direction of the voice. Her steps were unsteady at first, but became more certain when she saw her mother on the horizon, in front of her desk. Renee broke into a run; she galloped towards the desk that still seemed so far away. “Mommy!” she shouted again.
Mommy knelt down and held out her arms to receive Renee. Renee jumped the last few inches, to hurl herself into Mommy’s arms. She buried her face in Mommy’s shoulder and began to cry. As Mommy stroked Renee’s hair, she said, “My God, Renee, what’s happened to you?”
Chapter 21
Louise heard his voice call to her. “Lou? Where are you?”
“I’m here!” she shouted, though she wasn’t exactly sure where here was. A sandstorm whirled around her, but she stood untouched in the center like the eye of a hurricane.
“Lou?” Dan’s voice called to her again.
“I’m here!” she screamed back. She reached out with one hand into the sandstorm, but couldn’t feel anything beyond it. “Dan?”
“You have to find it, Lou. It’s important.”
“Find what? I don’t understand.” She staggered on; the sandstorm moved with her, as if it were centered entirely around her. She had been through enough actual sandstorms to know they didn’t center themselves around an individual and follow her around. “Where are you, Dan? Why can’t I see you?”
The winds of the storm began to die out; the sand fell in a pile to the ground. As this veil of sand was lifted, Louise saw she wasn’t in Egypt or her bedroom but rather the Plaine Museum, in the main gallery. Dan stood beside the ticket counter, clad in the same clothes he’d worn during their dig—the ones he’d worn in his coffin as well.
He shuffled forward like a zombie in an old horror movie. She wanted to back away, but like when she was
seven, she found her legs wouldn’t work. The hand that touched her arm was cold as a corpse. With his other hand, Dan lifted up his T-shirt so she could see the cavity in his chest where his heart had been. “You see what she did to me?” he said.
“I know. But what can I do?”
Though the rest of his body was dead, his eyes were still full of life. “You have to find it, Lou. It’s the only thing that can stop her.”
“Find what?”
“You’ll know.”
“Dan—”
“I can’t tell you more. I’m sorry, Lou.” His cold hand gave her warmer one a squeeze. “Just remember the tombs in the Sudan.”
As he backed away from her, the sand at Louise’s feet began to fly again, only this time it centered itself around Dan. She lunged forward to pull him out, but the sand became as hard as a wall to keep her hands out. When it faded, there was nothing left—no sand, no Dan. She looked desperately around the main gallery, but there was no sign of him anywhere.
She sank down on a bench and buried her face in her hands. The tombs in the Sudan? What did he mean by that? She thought back to that first dig with him, when she was sixteen. Mom had refused to let her go at first, until Dan talked her into it—Mom could never say no to him. Louise hadn’t earned her PhD yet; if successful this fieldwork would allow her to finish her thesis on Egyptian culture in the southern Nile region.
Dan had already explored the area in the Sudan where they planned to visit. Besides the usual researchers and support staff they also had a squad of mercenaries along because of rebel activity in the region. Before Louise left, Mom fixed her with a Glare and said, “Whatever happens, you stay close to Dr. Dreyfus, understand? No wandering around alone.”
“Come on, Mom, I’m not six anymore.”
“Just promise me you’ll be careful.”
“I will, Mom,” Louise said with a huff.
She had fully intended to be careful and to stick with Dan. But once they got into the cave, she somehow got separated from the others. The cave was old and unstable enough that she didn’t want to scream for help and bring the whole thing down on her. Besides, this way she might make a discovery entirely on her own. That would really be something to impress her faculty advisor at Berkeley.
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 87
