Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis

by P. T. Dilloway

  “I had to, Mom. They weren’t going to help. They were going to send you to talk to Isis, to negotiate a peace with her. I couldn’t let them do that to you.”

  “But Renee, don’t you realize what you’ve done? Look at them!”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll change them back. I promise.”

  “You have to change them back now. Give them their power back.”

  “I can’t do that, Mom. I have to save Aggie.”

  “Renee—”

  “I have to try. I can’t just let her die.”

  “But sweetheart, don’t you understand? She gave her life so you could live. If you go back there now—” Mom couldn’t finish this sentence; she broke into tears.

  “I know, Mom, but I can’t leave her. Or Louise and Dr. Earl. She’s going to kill them.”

  Renee heard a soft moan from nearby. A little Asian girl sat up and looked around the room. Though she looked like a toddler, her eyes were much older as they met Renee’s. “Ms. Chiu?” Renee asked.

  “I warned you, Renee. You didn’t listen.”

  Renee hurried over to the little girl’s bed and squatted down to look Ms. Chiu in the eye. “I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice.”

  “Don’t you realize what you’ve done? Even if you survive, even if you give back what you’ve taken, you’ll always be an outcast now. Regina, Glenda, and the others will banish you. They’ll destroy you!” Ms. Chiu looked far more like a toddler when she began to cry.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Chiu. I have to try to save Aggie. She’s my father.”

  Ms. Chiu pulled back, nodding slowly. “I understand. Just be very careful. And whatever you do, do not use this power of yours against Isis.” Ms. Chiu seized Renee’s jaw with her chubby hands to force Renee to look deep into her eyes. “The power of the dark one will destroy you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. Thank you, Ms. Chiu.”

  The girl nodded again and let go of Renee’s jaw. “Go, then. Remember you have the blood of the samurai in your veins.” Ms. Chiu smiled slightly at this and then settled back onto her bed to sleep.

  Renee turned to her mother. “Can you look after them?”

  “Of course,” Mom said. “Be careful, sweetheart. I don’t want to lose both of you.”

  “You won’t lose either of us. Not if I can help it.” Renee gave her mother a brief hug before she took a step back. She tried to fix Aggie’s location in her mind. Her psychic powers had grown stronger with the magic she’d taken from the coven so she could feel Aggie’s presence. She was still alive, in Rampart City.

  Renee opened her eyes to find herself in the dining room of Dan Dreyfus’s house, where she had eaten dinner with him and the Earls just a few days ago. Only now Aggie sat at the table in a highchair, even younger now, barely a year old. Green mush stained her bib and around her mouth. At Renee’s appearance, Aggie began to beat her hands on the highchair tray and kick her legs.

  There was no sign of Isis in the room, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t nearby. Renee hurried towards the table. She’d gotten only a few steps before Aggie’s face turned red and she began to howl.

  This howl saved Renee’s life. She stopped in her tracks just as a black monster appeared before her. The monster wore armor studded with spikes and maces where its hands should be. Its red eyes glowed at her as it raised one of the maces to swing at her.

  Renee didn’t know nearly as many spells as Aggie or Glenda, but she didn’t need to. With the power she’d absorbed, she had only to think of what she wanted and it would manifest itself. In this case, she willed her body to turn as hard as the monster’s armor. Its mace slammed into her; it knocked her to the ground, but she was otherwise unharmed.

  From one knee she hurled a fireball that sent the monster into the dining room table and smashed it in half. Aggie began to wail as the monster landed inches away from her highchair. The monster didn’t stay there long as Renee lifted it with a miniature tornado and then launched it into the ceiling. She hit it with another fireball as it came back down, careful to aim the blast so the monster flew across the room, away from Aggie.

  The monster lay inside a wall, dazed, while Renee strode towards it. As she did, she hardened her right hand until it was like one of the maces on the monster’s arms. This she smashed into the monster’s chest to expose a very human body within the armor. Before the monster could recover, she jammed her other hand into the opening. Her left hand turned white hot and with a flash of light, the man inside the armor turned to ashes. The armor itself did the same moments later.

  As Renee stood up, she heard jeering applause from across the room. She saw Isis at the table, Aggie in her arms. “Well done,” Isis said. “I knew you had potential. That’s why I allowed you to live all these years.”

  “You allowed me to live?”

  “They wanted to kill you. It took a little persuasion on my part to convince them to let you live.”

  Renee took a step towards Isis, her hands raised defensively, though she wasn’t sure what good this would do. “You’ve been controlling the coven?”

  Isis tickled Aggie’s stomach until the baby giggled. “You’ve already seen their power is no match for mine. Even when I was two years old I could manipulate them.”

  “Then why did you let me live?”

  “Because I could use a girl with your talents. You can be at my right hand as I take this world back from the mortals. And then all the other worlds too.”

  “I’m not going to join you. You’re evil.”

  “And you’re not? Look at what you’ve become. You stole their power. You turned the entire coven into a bunch of simpering children.”

  “I only did that so I could stop you.”

  “And then you’ll give it back, right?” Isis stroked Aggie’s tuft of blond hair. “What do you think they’ll do once you do that? Throw you a parade?”

  “I don’t care what they do to me.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Renee. To the mortals and the coven you’ve always been Weird Renee, the abomination. Why give your life to protect them?”

  “It’s not them I’m protecting.”

  Isis nodded and then set Aggie back in the highchair. “I think you and I can do business.”

  “I’m not going to negotiate with you. Give Aggie to me and then surrender yourself.”

  “Or what? You’ll take my power too?”

  Renee thought of what Ms. Chiu had told her. If she tried to take Isis’s power it would destroy her. She shook her head. “I can’t take your power. But that doesn’t mean I can’t kill you the old-fashioned way.”

  “Bold words. I like a girl with spirit. Why don’t you sit down and we’ll talk?” Isis snapped her fingers and an empty highchair appeared next to her. “You can sit in one of those big girl chairs or in this chair. Take your pick.”

  “I’m not going to make any deals with you.”

  “Silly girl, all I want is the book.”

  “What book?”

  “The one your friend found in the desert. The one that her mother took and hid away. Find the book and I’ll let you have your father back just as you remember her.”

  “What about Louise? And her mother?”

  “I won’t kill them unless I have to. Convince Louise to give me the armor and her mother will be cured.”

  Renee stared at Isis for a moment to consider this. Aggie’s life for a book. It seemed too good to be true and with Isis that was probably the case. She looked over at Aggie, whose pudgy face had turned red again as she cried silently. When she looked into Aggie’s eyes, Renee still saw her father, the wise old witch. Though Aggie couldn’t speak, Renee could hear her thoughts say, “Don’t do it. Leave me.”

  With a sigh, Renee shook her head. “No.”

  “How unfortunate. I was so hoping we could be friends.” When Isis clapped her hands, Renee expected to find herself in the highchair, but instead another of the black monsters appeared directly in front of her. Before she could move or ev
en think, the monster swiped at her with a clawed hand. The claws raked across her abdomen and tore through her dress.

  Renee staggered back a few steps and put one hand to the wound. The other went to her head, which suddenly felt as if someone had squeezed it with a vice. She knew Isis wanted to prevent her from tapping into her power.

  The black monster charged forward to finish her off. As it raised its hands to strike, a window behind Renee shattered. A red and gold shape appeared in front of her. Through the pounding in her head, she realized this shape was a woman in red armor with a golden cape. The Scarlet Knight!

  “Get out of here!” the Scarlet Knight shouted to her.

  “I can’t. My father—”

  “Damn it, Renee, get the fuck out of here!”

  “Louise?”

  The Scarlet Knight shoved her towards the wall and the window she’d shattered on her way in. Renee watched, stunned, as the Scarlet Knight ducked beneath a swipe from the black monster. Then she tripped it with a leg sweep. Once the black monster was down on the floor, the Scarlet Knight took out a golden sword from its sheath. The monster tried to get back up; the Scarlet Knight simply brought the sword down in a graceful arc to slice the monster’s head off.

  “Stay down, asshole,” the Scarlet Knight growled. Then she ran towards Renee, who still stared, though now past her to where Isis still sat at the table. Isis took Aggie’s right arm and flapped it to wave goodbye to her. Renee’s headache let up enough to where she could take the Scarlet Knight’s hand and vanish them both to safety, though Renee knew they wouldn’t be safe anywhere for long.

  Chapter 25

  As two city dwellers, Louise and Renee had never had a tree house. Louise had begged Mom for one when they moved, but Mom claimed a city ordinance prevented them from using the old elm trees in front of the house. Aggie’s house didn’t have any trees even potentially tall enough for a tree house, but it did have a spacious attic.

  They had spent hours in the attic when they were kids; they searched through the old trunks full of ancient dresses, some that had gone out of style four centuries ago. They had used these clothes to put on impromptu fashion shows where Louise strutted along their pretend runway while clad in a Victorian corset and Elizabethan gown, neither of which fit properly. “Where does Aggie get all of this stuff?” Louise had asked once.

  Now she knew the answer. She and Renee sat in one corner of the attic, where they had used an antique rice paper screen to provide the illusion of privacy. Only now Louise sat there in the armor of the Scarlet Knight and Renee had aged about fifty years in the last two days. At the moment tears streamed down Renee’s wrinkled cheeks as she explained what Marlin had already told her. “Aggie is a witch. A real witch. She’s over five hundred years old. That’s why she has all of this old junk.” Renee had taken a lace-trimmed handkerchief from one of the trunks and used it to blow her nose. “And she’s my father. She used this potion to make herself a man and she had sex with Mom to make me. That’s why I’m such a freak.”

  “Hey, come on, at least your father isn’t the Sewer Rat.”

  Renee looked up from her handkerchief and for a moment her voice sounded seventeen again as she said, “The Sewer Rat? Are you serious?”

  “Yes. He told me—just before he died.”

  “Oh God, I’m sorry. How did it happen?”

  Louise explained about how she’d heard the Call and found the Scarlet Knight’s armor, which had led her to a confrontation with the Black Dragoon. “I stabbed the fucker right in the heart, but he didn’t die, he just came back to life. And then Daddy saved me. He took the blow meant for me and then his rats distracted the bastard long enough for me to chop his fucking head off.” Louise shook her head. “I couldn’t save Daddy. There wasn’t enough time.”

  “That’s awful.” Renee blew her nose again. “At least now you know.”

  “I wish he’d have told me sooner. Mom said it was because he was afraid I’d hate him. That I’d think he was—you know.”

  “A freak. Like me.”

  “Renee—”

  “It’s true! Just look at me.”

  “So you’re a witch? You said Aggie’s one and she’s not a freak, is she?”

  “You don’t understand. I’m not like Aggie. I’m not like any of them. I’m different.”

  “How?”

  “It’s hard to explain to a—non-witch.”

  Louise tapped the breastplate of her armor. “Yeah, well, I’ve been getting a crash course in magic lately. Try me.”

  “Other witches are born with the ability to use magic. No one really knows where it comes from. It’s just there inside them. But for me, I can absorb magic and use it. That’s how I got like this. I absorbed Glenda’s magic—”

  “Glenda?”

  “The head of Aggie’s coven. She’s the oldest witch, over three thousand years old. She wasn’t going to help Aggie, so I got mad and I took her power and switched bodies with her, so now she’s two years old and I’m like this.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Religion doesn’t have anything to do with it.” Renee stopped to blow her nose yet again. “I didn’t stop at her. I called a meeting and I tried to get them to help Aggie, but they wouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’re afraid. They know they can’t defeat Isis. They figure if they don’t piss Isis off, she’ll let them be.”

  “That seems unlikely.”

  “That’s not the worst part. They were going to send Mom to try to negotiate some kind of treaty.”

  “Why her?”

  “Because magic can’t hurt her. It’s hard to explain.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Louise muttered. “Go on. What did you do?”

  “I couldn’t let them do that to Mom, so I took their power—all of their power. Now they’re all like Aggie and Glenda. Mom’s trying to take care of them back at the archives.”

  Louise pulled Renee close so Renee could cry on her armored shoulder. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You were only trying to save your father.”

  “But I didn’t! She still has her. All that power and it can’t even faze her. What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll think of something.” The phone on her wrist beeped. Louise pulled off her glove with her teeth to see it was a message from Detective Murdoch, the Scarlet Knight’s liaison with the Rampart City Police.

  “Need U Now. Loc 9,” the message said.

  Louise patted Renee’s back and then gently pushed her friend back. “I’ve got to go and take care of something. Just stay up here until I get back, all right?”

  “What if you don’t come back? What if it’s her calling you?”

  “Don’t start getting paranoid on me.” Louise forced a smile to her face. “If I’m not back in a couple of hours, then use that power of yours to vanish yourself to somewhere nice and quiet.”

  “There isn’t anywhere I can go that she can’t find me.”

  Louise thought for a moment and then said, “If you get in trouble, go to the sub-subbasement of the Plaine Museum, all right?”

  “OK.”

  “I’ll see you later.” Then Louise put on the helmet and hurried downstairs.

  ***

  Marlin had already briefed her on the locations set up by Mom and Detective Murdoch. Mom would have a heart attack if she knew Louise was at Location 9. The Plastic Hippo had burned down fifteen years earlier, but as with most things in the neighborhood, the ruins remained long afterwards. “Your mother watched the place burn down that night, just to make sure,” Marlin said.

  He floated ahead of her as she steered Mom’s runabout, which she’d bought ten years ago to replace that motorcycle of hers. She’d always thought Mom had bought the thing to be eco-conscious and to navigate through the terrible Rampart City traffic. She hadn’t ever imagined the runabout might be how the Scarlet Knight traveled around the city when she didn’t leap off rooftops.

  “Of cour
se she spent more time in there than the strippers, so maybe she just felt a touch of nostalgia to see it go up,” Marlin said while Louise struggled to round a corner without flipping over. The armor would protect her from a fall, but she didn’t think it would do the Scarlet Knight’s credibility any good for people to see her take a dive.

  “Mom hung out at a strip club?” Louise asked as she made it onto a straightaway. “My mom? The one who almost fainted trying to teach me how to use a tampon?”

  “It wasn’t as if she was on stage performing. Though she considered it.”

  “I’d have liked to see that.”

  “Really? How very interesting.”

  Louise nearly lost control of the runabout as she realized the implication of what she’d said. “I didn’t mean it like that! I just meant there’s no way she’d have ever gone through with it.”

  “Unlike you, of course.”

  “I’ve been in a wet T-shirt contest or two in my day.”

  “Did they award you the booby prize?”

  She almost lost control of the runabout again as she slapped at Marlin, though her hand merely went through him. “Four thousand years old and that’s the best you can come up with?”

  “Yes, well, I’m a little out of practice. Your mother wasn’t much into the one-liners. Mostly she’d just give me that deer-in-the-headlights look.”

  Louise stomped on the brakes, unconcerned if she dumped herself off the runabout or not. “I told you not to do that,” she growled at Marlin. “Don’t make fun of her.”

  “But it’s all right for you to do it? Is that it?”

  “Yes. Because she’s my mother.”

  “You realize I’ve known her longer than you, don’t you? I daresay I know her better than you do.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe if you’d been a better trainer she wouldn’t have been beaten almost to death by those Dragoons.”

  “Oh, I see. Holding a grudge, are we?”

  “You were supposed to help her.”

  Marlin’s smug look faded as he shook his head sadly. “There was nothing I could do. She knew how to hide them even from me. Believe me, if I could have helped her, I would have.”