Louise looked down at the pavement. “Yeah, I guess. Look, go on ahead and see if she’s waiting for me, would you?”
“Very well. Just try not to splatter yourself all over the pavement.”
She waited until the ghost was gone to ease the runabout back into gear. She knew Mom would say it wasn’t right to blame Marlin for any of it. She was the one who’d taken the risk when she answered the Call, just as Louise had. The ghost was only the messenger and he had been a friend—of sorts—to Mom, not to mention Louise’s babysitter after Becky left. She also knew Mom would apologize, though Mom wouldn’t have lost her temper like that in the first place.
“She’s waiting for you,” Marlin said. “Looks none too happy.”
“Great, more good news. Just what I need.”
She turned a corner to the rundown neighborhood around the ruins of the Plastic Hippo. Despite the strip club’s destruction, a similar business was still being conducted on the corners. The women—most of them at least twice as old as Louise, unable to find work in the more prosperous parts of town—backed away from the street as she approached.
“What’s Mom’s policy on prostitution?” Louise asked.
“She has bigger fish to fry.” Marlin shook his head. “Mostly I think she feels sorry for them.”
“Yeah, I know that feeling,” Louise said. To see the women with their saggy breasts stuffed into tube tops and faces painted with far too much makeup made Louise grateful for her job at the Plaine Museum.
It was easy to spot Detective Murdoch on the street in front of the Plastic Hippo’s ruins in her army jacket and baggy cargo pants. The detective paced back and forth along the sidewalk and smoked a cigarette, which by all rights could have put her in jail. When Louise pulled the runabout to a stop, Amanda spun around and then reached for the pistol in her jacket.
“Who the fuck are you?” the detective shouted. Her cheeks burned a volcanic red and her eyes even more so.
Louise put up her hands as if to surrender. “Hey, easy there. I’m on your side.” She tried to disguise her voice the way Marlin had instructed her to, though it sounded as if she were building up to a massive belch.
“I asked you who the fuck you are!”
“I’m the Scarlet fucking Knight, that’s who.”
Amanda took the safety off the pistol. “Now I know you’re not her. Twelve years and she’s never said so much as a ‘damn.’”
“Yeah, well, I’m the new model. She’s retired.”
“Retired? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I mean she’s out. I’m in. That’s how it goes.”
The pistol in Amanda’s hand trembled as her entire body shook with rage. “No! She can’t ‘retire’ now. Not when I need her the most.”
“Come on, why don’t you put that gun away? All you’re going to do is hurt one of those ladies of the night over there.”
Amanda stared at her and then finally nodded; she put the safety on and then jammed the weapon back into its holster. When her hand came back out of the jacket, she held a computer tablet. She tapped a button and Louise stifled a gasp to see Becky’s corpse sticking out of a dumpster behind a fast food restaurant. “This came in six hours ago. Congresswoman Rebecca Beech. Her staff reported her missing a couple days ago. Went home after a cocktail party and then just vanished.”
Amanda tapped the tablet to show the next picture of Becky on a metal gurney in the coroner’s office. Her pale chest was bare, a hole cut between her flabby breasts. “The killer took her heart. We know he didn’t kill her at this restaurant. The body was moved from somewhere else. We haven’t found out where yet. So far the autopsy isn’t giving us anything helpful in DNA or fingerprints.”
When Amanda tapped the tablet again, her eyes began to tear up. Louise saw why: this photograph was of a girl about her age with long white-blond hair, clad in a ratty mustard yellow sweater. Her face was the same purple as grape soda. Louise barely held in her urge to throw up. “This came in an hour ago. Fiancé found her on the bathroom floor of their condo. Name’s Megan Putnam, senior partner of Putnam and Slater Design Concepts. Turned thirty-nine last week. Now you tell me what’s wrong with this picture.”
“She looks more like nineteen in that.”
“Exactly. We’re running some DNA tests to make sure, but I know it’s her.” Amanda wiped at her eyes. “She was my best friend since college. I’d know her face anywhere.”
“Someone strangled her?”
“No, goddamnit! The coroner is double checking, but I’m one hundred ten percent sure she died of an asthma attack.”
“Asthma? But—”
“Yeah, asthma. Asthma that was cured fifteen years ago.” Amanda slipped the tablet back into her jacket. With one finger she tapped Louise’s breastplate. “I want to know how the hell she ended up on that floor twenty years younger and dying of asthma that had been cured. And I want to know who the fuck is going around cutting out people’s hearts! I don’t care how you do it; burn this whole fucking city down if you have to!”
“I know who did it.”
“You do? What’s his fucking name?”
“Her name is Isis. Also goes by the name Eileen. She’s really bad news.”
“You know who did this shit? Why the hell haven’t you stopped her?”
“I’m trying! What do you think happened to—the last Scarlet Knight?” She narrowly avoided saying “Mom.” “I can’t just wave my hands—”
Most of the streetlights in the neighborhood were already out, but those that weren’t already suddenly burned out. From her vantage, Louise could see lights go out in Robinson Tower and the other major buildings as well. As if that weren’t enough, the moon and even the stars disappeared, to plunge everything into darkness. She tapped the side of her helmet, but that didn’t help much as there was no ambient light. There was no light of any kind.
The streetlights flickered back on thirty seconds later, as did the lights in the buildings. The moon and stars remained obscured, as if a black cloud had descended to swallow up the sky. Louise knew only one person could be responsible for that: Isis.
“Are you just looking or do you want to buy anything?” Amanda asked. Except it was no longer Detective Amanda Murdoch. This woman wore a bright green tube top with a matching skirt that barely covered her privates and spike heels six inches high. She had freed her hair from its sloppy ponytail, to pile into a bouffant and had slathered on enough makeup to completely cover Louise’s helmet.
“Amanda?”
“How the fuck do you know my name?”
“Lucky guess.”
Amanda tapped Louise’s breastplate again. “It’s hard enough making a living down here without you harassing us. Unless you’re here to buy some pussy, why don’t you shove off?”
“Yeah, I think I’ll do that,” Louise said in almost a whisper.
She was about to climb aboard the runabout when she heard a woman cry out, “Get off me, you creep! Not until you pay me!”
Louise ran around the corner to find a man dressed in Amanda’s army jacket and cargo pants on top of a hooker, who clawed at his face with her false nails. “Shit!” the man shouted, his voice familiar.
Louise took hold of his shoulder and flipped him backwards as easily as tossing an empty can of beer. He landed on his back with a groan and lay there with his pants unzipped while she pinned him down. “Look, creep, no freebies. You—”
She stopped as the man looked up at her. Despite the greasy dreadlocks and beard, she recognized the scar on his face. “Tim? What the hell are you doing?”
“I was gonna be doing that bitch til you showed up,” Tim Cooper said.
She didn’t say anything to this, too stunned by the recent turn of events. Dan, Becky, and now Megan were dead. Aggie had been turned into a baby. And now Amanda Murdoch and Tim Cooper had been transformed into lowlife criminals. All of her friends and allies—or more to the point, all of Mom’s friends and allies. Mom!
She started the runabout and twisted the throttle all the way in one smooth motion. As she streaked along the street, Marlin appeared in front of her. “What the hell’s going on here?” he asked.
“It’s Isis. I don’t know how, but it’s got to be her.” Louise almost flipped over as she skidded around a corner. “You go find Renee and see if anything’s happened to her.”
“What about you?”
“I’m going to find Mom.” As the ghost disappeared, she felt a nervous tremor and wondered what condition she might find Mom in now.
***
Louise confirmed her worst fear when she climbed up the side of St. Joseph’s: her mother was not in her room. Not only that but the bed was made up with no cards, flowers, or anything else to indicate anyone had occupied the room. That meant Mom hadn’t just been taken somewhere for tests. Was she dead?
Then again, for all Louise knew, her mother could be a beggar on the street or even a hooker like Amanda. That seemed like Isis’s brand of humor. Or maybe she’d turned Mom into a mob enforcer or even a mob kingpin, the kind of thing she could never have been before.
Louise forced herself to calm down. She was jumping to conclusions. For all she knew, the hospital might have transferred Mom to another room hours ago. It might be something perfectly rational that had nothing to do with Isis or the sudden eclipse.
There were two ways to search the hospital: one was to wander the halls with the cape around her body and hope not to be spotted and the other was to take off the armor and go in as Dr. Louise Earl, concerned daughter. She decided on the latter course of action, though she worried that the moment she took off the armor she might become someone else like Amanda and Tim. From what Marlin had told her, Merlin’s magic was more powerful than Isis’s, so Isis wouldn’t be able to touch her inside of it.
For that reason she decided to keep the yellow boots on. She didn’t know if this would provide any protection, but at least it would make her feel less vulnerable. She rolled her pant legs down to cover up most of the boots except for the toes and soles. To anyone she passed it would appear as if she wore bright yellow shoes, the kind of fashion statement not uncommon in a cosmopolitan city like Rampart.
As she put the armor back into its case, she once again saw the Book of Isis. She quickly covered it up with the cape and then the rest of the armor. With a sigh she closed the case and took a step back so it could disappear, presumably back to the Sanctuary to wait for her to call for it again.
She peeked into the hallway and made sure no one saw her as she stepped out of the room. Then she hurried over to the nurse’s station. She’d gotten to know the nurses pretty well since Mom’s injury, well enough at least that they knew her. But as she approached, Donna Benson, the head nurse on the floor who had let Louise stay past visiting hours, glared at her like a stranger.
“Visiting hours are over, miss. I’d suggest you get on the elevator and go down to the lobby,” the nurse said.
“I’m sorry. I’m looking for my mother. She was up here. Dr. Emma Earl.”
“No one by that name has been here.”
“What? She’s been here for the last four days now! I just saw her about seven hours ago, right in that room over there.”
“I’ve been here since noon, ma’am, and no one by that name has been in any room on this floor. I think you’ve made a mistake.” Nurse Benson crossed her flabby arms over her chest. “I suggest you go home before I call for security.”
“Please, Donna—Nurse Benson—you have to help me. My mother is very ill. I need to see her.” Louise tried to glance over the edge of the desk, but the nurse blocked her. “Maybe she’s on another floor. Could you at least look for me?”
Nurse Benson glared at her for a moment and then sighed. “Let me check.” She tapped a few commands into the computer. A minute went by, during which Louise nearly chewed through her lower lip from nervousness. The nurse finally shook her head. “There’s no Dr. Emma Earl listed anywhere. We got an Emma Earl listed over in Pediatrics though.”
“Pediatrics? But—” Louise stopped herself as she thought of what Renee had told her about what Isis had done to her and Aggie. She took off down the hall. “Thank you!”
The pediatric area was two floors down and located in a separate wing that had been added a few years after Louise had been born in this same hospital. On the elevator ride down, she rubbed her face with both hands as she imagined she would find Mom in a crib or maybe even an incubator. What would she do then?
Even before the elevator doors were fully open she bolted through them. She hurdled an old woman in a wheelchair and then flung herself over an empty gurney being pushed by an orderly. “Watch it, you maniac!” the orderly shouted.
Louise ignored this advice as she rounded the corner to the skywalk that connected the newer addition to the older part of the hospital. At the end of the skywalk were doors covered by colorful balloons to indicate she was about to enter the pediatrics floor. She threw open the doors and then hurled herself inside.
The nurse’s station was unoccupied at the moment. Louise considered trying to use the computer, but she knew from when she had talked to Donna Benson—when the nurse still knew her—that the computer system was encrypted. Given a few minutes she could probably hack it, but she doubted she would have that long before one of the nurses came back. She would have to do this the old-fashioned way.
Louise glided along the corridor and made sure no one saw her as she opened the first door. The problem, she realized, was she had no idea what Mom might look like at this point. “Emma?” she whispered. “Emma Earl?”
She received no response. This was because the two children in the room were asleep. She squatted down so she could make her way over to the first bed. There was a computer tablet attached to the end of the bed to provide the patient’s chart. It didn’t take much effort for her to access this to see the name was not her mother’s. Neither was the other patient’s.
Louise searched a dozen other rooms without any luck. On the thirteenth, Louise was about to check a chart when she heard a tiny voice ask, “Are you the Tooth Fairy?”
Louise saw a little blond girl sitting up in her bed. From the chart, she knew the girl’s name was Madison. “That’s right. And if you’re a good girl I’ll leave a dollar under your pillow.”
“Only a dollar?”
“OK, five dollars.”
“Tooth Fairy usually gives me ten dollars.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Louise reached into her pocket for a ten. She tucked it beneath the girl’s pillow. “Here you go, you little shyster.”
“What’s a shyster?”
“Someone good at getting money out of people.”
“Oh.”
Louise was about to give up the search when she saw a candy striper folding towels near the end of the hallway. Louise forced a smile to her face as she strolled up to the girl. “Hi. I don’t suppose you can help me? I’m looking for someone.”
The girl turned around and smiled at her. Despite that her hair was completely brown and her face unlined and body chubbier, Louise recognized the former Dr. Laura Pavelski. “Visiting hours are over, you know,” Laura Pavelski said.
“I know, but I had to work late and I just wanted to drop in for a couple of minutes.”
“Oh, well, I don’t know. I could get into trouble.”
“Please? It would mean the world to me—and her.”
“As long as you’re quick I guess it wouldn’t hurt. Who is it?”
“Emma Earl.”
To Louise’s relief, Pavelski smiled and nodded. “You must be Emma�
��s sister. I can see the family resemblance.”
“Yeah, right, sister. Which room is she in?”
“She’s in 537, just two doors down to the right.” Before Louise could take off to find her mother, Pavelski touched her arm. “She’s such a little trouper. Everyone here just adores her.”
“That sounds like her all right.”
“I brought her some books from home. I hope you don’t mind. Most of the kids watch the TV, but she said she just wanted to read. Went through our whole library—digital and paper.”
Louise resisted the urge to sigh with relief that at least Mom was still old enough to read, though that meant she could be any age from two on up. “Yeah, our Emma is quite the little bookworm.”
Laura Pavelski finally let her go so she could step over to room 537. She paused at the door for a moment and took a deep breath, not sure what she’d find inside. Then she turned the knob.
As they’d prepared to move from the house they’d shared with Becky, Louise had rifled through some boxes Mom had kept in the attic. These included old school yearbooks from kindergarten on to high school. The little girl on the bed perfectly matched the picture of Emma Earl from first grade: the copper hair down to her waist, the freckles that spotted her face, the oversized plastic-framed glasses that had gone out of style thirty-five years ago, and a body that was rail-thin, all elbows and knees as they said. Though at the moment both knees were suspended in the air as her feet—big even back then—were encased in casts covered in signatures and drawings.
Around the little girl’s bed hung cards, crayon drawings, and balloons. These as well as the decorations on the casts seconded what Laura Pavelski had said: clearly little Emma was a favorite of everyone. Big surprise there, Louise thought jealously. Emma—Louise couldn’t think of her as “Mom” at the moment—wore a red flannel nightgown but had the covers tucked in around her waist. She turned the page of a Nancy Drew book, probably one that Laura Pavelski had given to her. This Louise took as a bad sign as Emma hardly ever read fiction, let alone children’s fiction.
Once she turned the page, Emma reached over to the nightstand for a slip of paper to use as a bookmark. Then she turned to where Louise stood in the doorway. “Hi,” Emma said, her voice so much higher and sunnier than Mom’s. “I wondered when you’d get here.”
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 94
