Since she’d exhausted other means, Louise set the book on top of the red case. She squatted down to line up the tip of the Sword of Justice with the side of the book. She tried not to use too much of the armor’s augmented strength as she scratched at the side of the book. Nothing happened. She pushed the sword a little harder, but still it did nothing. “What the fuck is this thing made of?” she wondered.
She sheathed the Sword of Justice and then stared at the book again. The material on the cover looked like jet, but it might not be. She thought back to what Marlin had said in her orientation, that the Sword of Justice could only cut through materials of this world. If the ancients had found a meteor from another planet, maybe they found a way to refine it and use it to hide their most precious secret. The only way to test that theory would be to take a sample of the cover and study it, something Mom would be far better at than Louise. Of course to get the sample would be the tricky part.
She picked up the book and studied the glossy black surface. There was no way to tell just by looking if it was a material from Earth or not. With her finger she traced the hieroglyphics on the cover. She’d learned to read ancient Egyptian by age six thanks to so much time at Dan’s house. The hieroglyphics on the book were similar, but varied slightly. The figures were a little cruder, which made sense if the book was older than the ancient Egypt she and Dan and others had seen.
Having tried everything else, Louise decided to trace the hieroglyphics onto the Sanctuary computer. Maybe there was some hidden code that would allow her to open the book, a secret phrase like “Open Sesame.” The first set of glyphs seemed straightforward enough; they indicated the title: The Book of Isis. There was another set of glyphs that she had assumed were just decorative as they didn’t seem to form any words.
When she saw these glyphs presented on the holographic display of the computer, she realized why she hadn’t been able to translate them: they were backwards! She commanded the computer to flip the image around so she could read the glyphs in their proper order. When it did, her mouth went slack. “Only one whose soul has been cleansed may open this text.” That was the gist of the backwards glyphs.
What did it mean? She closed her eyes to think of how someone cleansed their soul. This might be a question better suited for one of the witches. Better yet, a priest. She had never gone to church much, but Becky had taken her to a Christmas Mass one year. She had pointed to the confession booths and asked, “Are those potties?”
“No, silly, that’s where people go to tell the priest all the bad things they did.”
“Why?”
“So God will forgive them.”
“God is in there?”
“No, just the priest. People tell him what they did and then he tells them how to say they’re sorry.”
It wasn’t later until Louise understood exactly what Becky meant. By then she was glad not to be Catholic and have to confess all the things she did that Mom didn’t know about—or she at least had thought Mom didn’t know about. She would have had to say a lot of Hail Mary’s to make it up to Jesus.
Acts of contrition—that was it! Of course the ancients didn’t use prayers or beads like modern Catholics. They were far more old school about that. If you wanted a god’s forgiveness, you had to offer up some sacrifices. “Nothing is gained without sacrifice,” Mom had said. Now Louise understood what she meant.
The only question became: what kind of sacrifice? Back in ancient times, people had often slaughtered animals or burned a share of crops to try to appease an angry god. But she didn’t have a bull or goat or sheaf of wheat handy.
She read the inscription on the computer again to make sure she hadn’t read it wrong. “Only one whose soul has been cleansed may open this text.” That was the message. She looked back at the book. The Book of Isis. Isis didn’t give a shit about calves or sheep or anything like that. She ate souls—people. Maybe I should cut out my heart, Louise thought. Except if she did that, how would she read the book?
She retraced her mental steps and thought again of her visit to the Christmas Mass. There had been—and probably still were—those Catholics who believed the only way to cleanse the soul was through physical pain. Through blood. Like tumblers in a lock, everything finally came together in her mind.
Louise took the Sword of Justice from its sheath again. Then she removed the glove on her left hand. She tossed the sword into the air and closed her eyes so she could guide it. She imagined the Sword of Justice scraping along her upturned left palm, just enough to draw blood. She winced in pain as the tip of the sword raked across her flesh.
Then she heard what sounded like a sigh. She thought maybe Marlin or Renee had returned. Instead, she saw the Book of Isis had yawned open. Louise gaped at it for a moment in joy—at least until she looked closer. The cream-colored pages were blank!
She flipped through the entire book to find every single page blank. Not so much as a single hieroglyphic. Not even one to mock her for opening the stupid book. “This is it?” she screamed. This was the book her mother had nearly died to protect? Was this all some sick joke perpetrated by Isis?
In frustration she slapped the book with her left hand and then shook her head. What an idiot she had been. What an idiot Mom had been. Someone had played them both for fools—
Her eyes widened as she looked back at the book to see in the bloody print of her hand a symbol roughly shaped like a bird. A hieroglyphic! Louise began to laugh, quietly at first and then much louder. “Invisible ink,” she said. “You clever motherfuckers.”
She ran her left hand over the page to smear blood across the papyrus and thus reveal more hieroglyphics. Then she shook her head. “I just hope this book isn’t too long,” she mumbled. Otherwise she would need a transfusion when this was over.
***
Louise still hadn’t gotten any sleep when she climbed on the runabout to head back to St. Joseph’s. She hadn’t changed her clothes, showered, or eaten anything either. She did manage to down a quick cup of cold coffee when she darted into Mom’s office for a stack of journals. She figured Mom would enjoy these far more than Nancy Drew—if Mom was still Mom. By now she might actually think she was six years old, or she might be even younger, a baby like Aggie.
The same sense of dread that had fallen over her the last time she went to the hospital returned. This time at least she knew to go up to Pediatrics on the fifth floor. She looked around for Laura Pavelski in some form, but the doctor-cum-candy striper must have gone home or was working on another floor.
She paused at the door to Room 537, not sure if she wanted to go inside or not. She wasn’t sure she could handle seeing what Isis might have done to Mom. But she had to go in. What she had to say was far too important for her to chicken out now. With a deep breath, she turned the knob.
For the most part Mom looked the same as last time. The main difference was that her long red hair had been fashioned into an elaborate French braid. The difference in Mom’s attitude was far more noticeable. Instead of calmly reading a book, Mom clutched a stuffed giraffe to her chest the same way Louise had used to clutch Slowey the turtle when she was scared. There were tears in Mom’s eyes and she sniffled softly.
“Hi, Emma,” Louise said. “How you feeling?”
Little Emma turned to her and sniffled again. “Hi. I’m OK. I guess.”
Louise held up the journals she’d brought along, still unsure of if this was Mom or six-year-old Emma Earl. “I brought you some reading material.”
“Thanks.”
Louise set the journals on the nightstand, beside Emma’s glasses and a Nancy Drew book—a different one than she’d been reading last night. Then Louise sat on the chair beside the bed. She reached over to touch the French braid. “Your hair looks really pretty. Did Laura do that for you?”
“Mommy did it.”
“Mommy? But—”
It was then little Emma finally lost it. “She brought them back!” she wailed and then buried her head in
the giraffe while she sobbed. Louise could only stare at the little girl in shock. After two minutes with nothing but the sound of Emma’s sobs, the little girl finally said quietly, “They were just the way I remembered. Mommy did my hair like back in first grade and Daddy brought me Gary. He was always my favorite. Daddy even did the voice just like he used to.”
“Holy—cow,” Louise said. She barely stifled the curse word.
“Mommy kissed me on the forehead and it was just like when she used to tuck me in. They’re exactly the same as I remember.”
Louise didn’t know what to say, but she could feel rage build within. Isis had found Mom’s most vulnerable point. It might have been almost forty years ago, but Mom had never gotten over their deaths. Louise had learned quickly not to mention Grandma and Grandpa, not after she saw the sad look that would come to Mom’s face when she did. The wound was as fresh now as it was when it had happened so many years ago.
“I’m sorry,” Louise finally said.
“She’s tempting me,” Emma said. “You remember that story in the Bible? The one where Jesus goes into the desert and Satan tries to tempt him? That’s what she’s doing to me. If I help give the book to her, she’ll let me have them back. We can be a happy family—all four of us.”
“Four of us?”
“You’d be my sister, like the one I wished I always had.” Emma sniffled again; her tiny fingers kneaded Gary the giraffe’s body. “It’d be my dream life. All for that book.”
Louise put a hand on Emma’s narrow shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Mom, it’s all right. You don’t have to worry anymore. I read the book. I know what we have to do.”
“You did? How?”
Louise held up her left hand, which she’d bandaged with a first aid kit in the Sanctuary. “I just had to donate some blood.”
When Emma put on her glasses and then leaned forward to look at it, Louise saw not a little girl, but her mother ministering to her when she’d scraped her knee when she’d tried—unsuccessfully—to ride a bike. “Are you all right, baby? Maybe you should have someone take a look so it doesn’t get infected. Dr. Pavelski—” Mom stopped herself as she no doubt remembered there was no Dr. Pavelski here anymore. “I’m sure someone could look at it for you downstairs.”
“I’m fine, Mom. It’s just a little cut. I’ll put the armor on and it’ll heal right up.”
“I guess so.” Mom didn’t sound sold on this, which almost prompted Louise to smile. After all they’d been through, her mother was still worried about a little cut. “So what does the book say?”
“I guess you could say it’s a storybook. The story of Isis.” The story wasn’t extremely long, but very insightful. Some time before the Book of Isis was written, Isis had been an ordinary woman. She was heralded as being the most beautiful woman in the land.
As happened with all women eventually, she began to get old. Her looks began to fade. Those who praised her beauty turned their attention to another—Isis’s daughter. Isis became jealous. She sought out the advice of priests, mystics, and magicians on how to restore her beauty. She made sacrifices to Ra and various other deities to no avail.
Then a beetle, an emissary of Anubis, the god of the underworld, greeted her at the well one day. The beetle told her if she gave her daughter to Anubis, she would be given the power of a goddess, with which she could keep herself young and beautiful forever.
Mom lay back in bed and clutched her giraffe as if this were a bedtime story. “She did it, didn’t she? She sacrificed her daughter to the god?”
“That’s right,” Louise said. “And he came through on his end of the bargain. She became a goddess. But in order to maintain her power, she needed to ingest souls of the living.”
“And that’s why she made the Dragoon,” Mom said. “As her enforcer in case the people didn’t want to give their souls willingly.”
“Exactly.” Louise took a deep breath. “So what I figure is that if she got her power from Anubis, he can take away her power too.”
“Sic a god on another god and hope for the best,” Mom said. “That’s what Dan said.”
“He always knew what he was talking about.” Louise took her mother’s hand and looked into her eyes. “She gave her daughter to Anubis, so—”
Mom’s eyes widened behind the glasses. “No! You can’t do that.”
“Mom, think about it. It’s the only way.”
“Absolutely not. I won’t let you.”
Mom flashed The Glare, but this time Louise didn’t back down. “The first time Isis showed up you gave her your heart. You sacrificed yourself to stop her. How can you ask me not to do the same?”
“Because you’re my daughter, that’s why. It’s not your sacrifice to make.”
“Mom—”
“I’ll do it. Give me to him.”
“I couldn’t do that, Mom. I couldn’t kill you.”
“Then I’ll do it myself.” She motioned to her feet, still encased in plaster. “You just get me to the altar and give me the knife.”
“I won’t do that. You’re my mother for—crying out loud!”
“That’s why I have to do it.” Mom squeezed Louise’s hand. “That’s my job, to protect you. Just like my mother protected me.” Louise braced for her mother to cry again, but Mom only looked sadly down at the floor. “I never told you how they died.”
“I heard most of it from Dan and Becky—and the newspapers.”
“They probably never told you how she saved me that night.” Mom hugged the stuffed giraffe tighter to her chest. “This car hit us. Daddy was killed on impact. We didn’t all have cell phones back in those days, so Mom got out to get help. Before she left, she told me to lie flat on the seat and to not make a sound no matter what happened. I think she knew what was going to happen.
“She got out of the car and ran. I lay down just like she told me. I heard the gunshots. I wasn’t much older than I look right now, but I knew. I knew they’d shot her. But I kept my hands over my mouth, to be quiet just like she’d told me. That’s what saved my life. If I had screamed or made any kind of sound, they’d have shot me too.
“She saved my life that night. Because she loved me. Because she’s my mother. Do you understand?”
Louise wiped at the tears in her eyes. She had heard most of the story of how Grandpa and Grandma died, but she’d never heard about Grandma telling Mom to stay quiet and out of sight, as if she knew someone wanted to kill them.
“Don’t you see, baby? I’m the one who has to do this, because I’m your mother and I love you.”
“I love you too, Mom, but maybe there’s another way? Maybe it doesn’t have to be one of us—”
“It has to be this way, Louise. You know it.” When Mom smiled, a pair of dimples showed on her cheeks, which only made the smile seem even creepier to Louise. “I’m just a useless old woman anyway. It’s better this way.”
Louise began to cry as Mom had when Louise first came into the room. “Don’t talk like that. You’re not a useless old woman. You’re my mother.”
“I know, baby. That’s why I have to do this.” Mom squeezed Louise’s hand again. “Now, come on, the Scarlet Knight shouldn’t cry like that. Not when we have work to do.”
“Mom—”
“Find Renee and bring her here. I’m going to need her help to get out of here.”
“Why Renee? I can do it.”
“I think it’d be a lot easier for her to vanish me than for you to carry me out.”
Louise wished her mother wouldn’t be so goddamned pragmatic at a time like this. Here she planned to sacrifice her life in some harebrained scheme and she worried about logistics. “I’ll find her,” Louise said.
“Make sure you hurry. We might not have long if Isis finds out.”
“OK, Mom.” Louise stood up, and then leaned down to kiss her mother on the cheek. “I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too, baby.”
Louise stopped in the doorway to take
one last look at her mother, who had picked up one of the geology journals and begun to flip through it. Louise couldn’t help but smile at this image. Then she turned and ran for the runabout to head back to the Sanctuary.
There was a lot of work to do.
Chapter 28
Renee had never been so alone in the archives before. A few times—after Aggie told her about her parentage and she could visit the archives—Mom had left her alone on the first floor while she went down to check on something in the vault. The first time this happened when Renee was twelve; she asked to go with Mom into the vault. Mom’s face turned as angry as Renee had ever seen it. “You are not ever to go down in there, do you understand? Never.”
“But why?” Renee had whined.
“Because it’s too dangerous.”
“But you’re going down there. How dangerous can it be?”
Mom had sighed and then put both hands on Renee’s shoulders to look her in the eye. “The magic down there can’t hurt me, but it can hurt you. Understand?”
“No.”
“You will someday. Now go upstairs and wait for me.”
Now that she was older—much older, at least on the outside—Renee still didn’t really understand it. The concept of alternate universes and parallel worlds made far more sense to Louise than to her. She couldn’t really get her mind around any of that stuff, or how Mom could stand to live in this drafty hole most of the time.
“It’s perfectly safe,” Mom had told her about two hundred times the first time Renee stayed overnight.
Like that first night, Renee listened to water drip and rocks shift above her. She tried to tell herself she was perfectly safe, just as Mom said, but still she expected the roof to cave in on her at any moment, to bury her under tons of limestone and dirt. The way things had gone, that might not be such a bad thing.
Renee tried to push these thoughts aside to focus on finding anything helpful in the archive computers about Isis or the Final Reckoning Marlin had mentioned. She stopped to take a deep breath and try to quell the trembling in her hands that wasn’t from being an old lady on the outside so much as being a frightened child on the inside. She tried to tell herself Louise was counting on her, as were Aggie, Mom, and the rest of the coven, but this wasn’t true. No one was counting on her to do anything more than stay out of the way.
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 97
