Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis

by P. T. Dilloway

  “Thank you so much,” the girl said.

  Amanda patted the back of the girl’s head to soothe her. “You have somewhere to go?” The girl shook her head. “We’ll find someplace then.”

  As she walked the girl back to her cruiser, Amanda tried to coax a name out of the girl, but the young woman was still too busy sobbing to think coherently enough for that. She didn’t have a purse either; that had probably been taken either by those men or someone else. “I’ll drop you off at the station and someone there will be able to help you, all right?”

  Near her car, Amanda saw the girl’s attackers again, only this time they lay unconscious in front of the vehicle. A third person—a middle-aged blond woman with her hands wrapped in duct tape—was piled on top of them. On the hood of the car was the Scarlet Knight. “Hello Officer Murdoch,” the vigilante said. “I come bearing gifts.”

  There were plenty of stories around the station about the Scarlet Knight. Even when she had worked in traffic, her older coworkers would talk about how they’d be writing someone a ticket and a red motorcycle would speed past at a hundred miles an hour. While the Scarlet Knight was wanted by the department, nobody ever tried to go after her on the bike; they knew it was futile. Even if they managed to get her off of it they’d have to fight her and everyone knew what happened to those who tried to fight the Scarlet Knight. Most of the cops Amanda had met didn’t like the Scarlet Knight—they hated being shown up by some crazy woman—but none of them had the guts to fight her.

  Amanda sat the distraught young woman on the curb and then turned back to her car to see the Scarlet Knight still sat on the car like some bizarre hood ornament. “What do you want? A thank you?” Amanda asked.

  “That would be a first.”

  “Who the hell is that woman?”

  “You must be a rookie.”

  Amanda put a hand to the radio on her shoulder. “You got three seconds to give me an answer or I call for backup.”

  “That woman is Lydia Vendetta. You might have heard of her.”

  “Don Vendetta? Why the fuck are you bringing her to me?”

  “I need you to make sure she gets to Captain Donovan intact. And be sure to give this to Donovan. I’m sure she’ll find it interesting.” The Scarlet Knight flicked something tiny to Amanda, who caught it in her cupped hands. She recognized the object as a portable storage drive for a computer.

  When Amanda looked up, the Scarlet Knight was gone. The young woman on the curb sniffled and asked, “Was that really her?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Amanda mumbled. She turned to the woman and said, “I guess you’ll be riding up front with me.”

  By the time she got to the station, word had already spread. Amanda found herself in front of a swarm of reporters and photographers, as if she were on the red carpet at the Oscars. She turned to the backseat, where the don had regained consciousness but hadn’t said a word yet. “Are you ready to meet your adoring public?”

  “I’d suggest you enjoy the moment while it lasts, Officer,” Don Vendetta said. “I’ll be walking out of here by this afternoon.”

  Amanda only shrugged at this. “Let’s get to it.”

  In the newspapers that morning was a shot of Amanda with her hand on the don’s arm, as she led the woman inside. Behind them was the young woman Amanda had rescued, her eyes as big as saucers in wonderment. Amanda cut out this photo to mail to her mother in the hopes she’d realize Amanda’s leaving school might not be such a bad decision after all.

  Chapter 4

  Despite her mild case of schizophrenia as the Scarlet Knight, Emma always remembered what she did while she wore the armor once she took it off. She didn’t always approve of her actions, but usually she couldn’t argue with the results. Last night especially, she couldn’t approve of using the rat torture technique on Don Vendetta, but she couldn’t deny that it had worked. Nor could she deny a perverse thrill to watch the don squirm and scream as the rats swarmed around her.

  Usually once she put the armor away, she would go home for three or four hours of sleep before she got up to head off to the museum. Tonight was a different case. Once she put the armor away, she drove off to the Rampart Gardens Cemetery. She checked her watch every few minutes. She wanted to make sure she was at the grave at exactly 3:32am, the time when Louise had been born.

  To meet this deadline required some illegal driving more suited to the Scarlet Knight and a mad dash up the hill, to the oak tree under which Louise was buried. She arrived as her watch—adjusted to match the same one Dr. Pavelski had used in the hospital that night—showed 3:32. She put a hand on the red granite marker, too exhausted to speak right away. “I made it, baby,” she said. “I’m here.”

  Then she sank down to sit next to the tombstone with her daughter’s name on it. “I’m so sorry about what happened,” she said. “I’m sorry you never got a chance at life.”

  She told her daughter about Renee’s birthday party, about the little girl Louise would never get to meet. “She’s so shy she can’t stand to be away from her mother for long. Aggie says that Akako is going to spoil her.” Emma sighed. She knew she’d never get the chance to spoil her daughter. “I know you two would get along like when I saw you in the future.”

  She had spent hours describing to Louise the life she would never lead. Louise would never get to advance even more quickly through school than Emma. She would never go to Northwestern for her bachelor’s degree and Berkeley for her PhD. She would never go to the Egyptian desert with Dan. She would never work with Dan and Emma at the Plaine Museum. She would never befriend Renee Chiostro. And she would never take up the mantle of the Scarlet Knight after Emma.

  She curled up against the tombstone, something she hadn’t done since Louise’s last birthday. With her hand against the stone, she closed her eyes. The stone was cold, too cold for her to imagine she held Louise in her arms. She could only imagine a corpse in her arms. “I’m so sorry, baby,” she whispered.

  It was a small comfort to her that on Louise’s birthday she had finally caught Don Vendetta. The don’s capture was only the beginning. There would be power struggles as the remains of the organization fought for control. New organizations—like Bykov’s—would try to move into town. Still, for the first time in decades there was the hope things might get better, that the city might not belong to criminals anymore. “That’s the best I can do,” she said. “I’m sorry it isn’t anything more.”

  A cold wind blew across the hill, which prompted Emma to shiver. She wished she’d brought a blanket or at least a heavier jacket to keep herself warm. She wouldn’t leave, not until sunrise. She would watch the sun come up from the hill with her daughter. Maybe Louise couldn’t see or hear her, but it didn’t matter. It only mattered that Emma felt Louise’s closeness.

  Her body stiffened as she heard a twig snap at the base of the hill. She heard footsteps approach. A caretaker come to shoo her away? Or maybe some kids playing in the cemetery at night. Or maybe another lunatic who wanted to watch the sunrise with her dead daughter.

  “Dr. Earl?” a woman’s voice whispered.

  Emma recognized the voice. She looked up and saw a woman with bags under her eyes as if she hadn’t slept in days, her tangled blond hair blown into her face by the wind. The woman brushed this hair away so Emma could see her eyes. “Katarina?”

  “It is me,” Katarina Markova said in her flat, vaguely Scandinavian accent.

  Emma clenched her fists. Markova was Sergei Bykov’s right-hand woman, his adopted daughter who remained loyal even though she didn’t like what Bykov did. “I should have known after I saw his goons here. Are you here to warn me to get out of town?”

  Markova shook her head. “I have come on a most urgent mission. About your daughter.”

  “My daughter?” Emma patted the tombstone. “What about her?”

  “Your daughter is alive.”

  ***

  They went to a nearby diner, where Emma gulped down a cup of coffee t
o give her system a shot of caffeine while she listened to Markova’s unbelievable tale. It was something ripped from a soap opera: babies switched at birth. “The moment Mr. Bykov knew you were carrying a child, he recruited someone at the hospital,” Markova said.

  “Who?”

  “A nurse. One with parents still in Russia. He threatened to kill her unless she did as he commanded.”

  Emma signaled the waitress for another cup of coffee while she glared at Markova. “And who gave this woman her orders? You?”

  “I can understand your anger, Dr. Earl—”

  “No you can’t!” Emma shouted and pounded the table, which startled a drunk two tables away. In a lower voice she said, “You can’t possibly understand what it was like.” For emphasis she took a handful of her white hair. “You see this? This is because of what happened.”

  Markova looked down at her untouched cup of coffee. “I am truly sorry for what you have suffered, Dr. Earl. I know things between us went badly, but I always considered you my friend.”

  “How could a friend do that to another friend? You kidnapped my child.”

  “I know. It has shamed me greatly. If it is any comfort, you should know Katya—”

  “Katya?”

  “That is the name Mr. Bykov gave her.”

  “He renamed my daughter?”

  “Yes.” Markova reached into her pocket. Emma’s body tensed as she waited for the woman to take out a gun or hand grenade, but it was only a photograph. A photograph of a chubby little girl with curly red hair, the same as Emma remembered from the future—the same as her mother, whom she’d named Louise for. Except now her baby didn’t have Mom’s name; she had the name of a stranger. “I took this shortly before I left. I wanted you to know she has not been harmed in any way. I have tried to raise her as you would.”

  “Except you’re raising her for a monster.” Emma looked more closely at the photograph, at the sharp nose the little girl had inherited from Jim. She couldn’t tell from this if the girl had Jim’s buckteeth as well—or Emma’s feet for that matter. Still, when she looked into the girl’s blue eyes, she knew it was her daughter. “Why? Is it revenge?”

  “Not entirely. Mr. Bykov thinks having a daughter of Katya—”

  “Louise. Her name is Louise Gladys Earl.”

  “Very well. Mr. Bykov thinks having a daughter of Louise’s intelligence—of your intelligence, Dr. Earl—would be beneficial for the organization.”

  “Oh no.” Emma buried her face in her hands, but again she didn’t cry. He wanted her daughter to become a mob kingpin, to serve at his right hand as Markova did and then perhaps even to succeed him. What could a girl with Louise’s intelligence do in such a position? How much damage could she inflict on the world? The even more terrifying thought was that Emma—or some future Scarlet Knight—might have to stop her. “Where is she?”

  “At Mr. Bykov’s estate—or she was.”

  “Was?”

  “I am afraid that Mr. Bykov knows I am here. He will probably have moved Kat—Louise—by now to another location.”

  “Where?”

  “That I do not know. It could be most anywhere.”

  “Why didn’t you bring her with you?”

  “I could not. Mr. Bykov’s security forces make certain she stays within the compound at all times.”

  “She’s a prisoner?”

  “Perhaps, but she is still too young to understand.”

  Emma downed her second cup of coffee. She looked down again at the photograph of Louise. Her daughter. Her beautiful daughter.

  When she looked up, blood was spreading across the front of Markova’s shirt.

  ***

  As someone well-versed in math and crime fighting, Emma knew at once the exact angle of the shot. The bullet had come from behind the counter, from someone who had come in through the kitchen. Emma bolted out of the booth and hurdled the counter to race into the kitchen. She pushed aside a cook and a dishwasher as she headed for the back door.

  The back door of the diner opened onto an alley, the kind that wound all through the heart of the city like intestines. Though she still hadn’t seen the shooter, she could hear footsteps. Emma ran in the direction of the footsteps; she wished there was time to put on the armor so she might have a chance to catch up. Or that she could use her motorcycle to chase down the killer, but there wasn’t time for that either.

  She heard the clank of a fence as someone jumped over it. Around the corner, Emma saw a chain link fence across the alley. Even without the armor, it didn’t take her long to scale the fence and jump down to the other side.

  As she ran, she began to worry she might be heading into a trap. Whoever had shot Markova might be leading Emma into an ambush. In the alleyways were plenty of places to hide: behind trash cans, dumpsters, or even the sewers, as she knew from her experiences with Jim. One of the bums she passed might be a killer in disguise.

  She ignored these hypothetical scenarios—and perhaps common sense—to follow the footsteps. Whoever had shot Markova obviously worked for Bykov and thus might know what he’d done with Louise. Was she still at Bykov’s estate outside of Moscow or had he moved her to some other location? If she caught up with the shooter, she wouldn’t need the armor or a swarm of rats to find out; she would beat the answers out of the assassin herself.

  All at once the footsteps stopped. Emma heard the growl of a motorcycle engine. She hardly had time to flatten herself against a wall, beside a dumpster, as a black motorcycle eerily similar to her own screeched past. The driver kept his or her head straight ahead, unconcerned with Emma. She watched the motorcycle’s lights slide from view; her fists clenched as she again wished for the armor or her own bike.

  For that matter, where was Marlin? The one time she needed the ghost and he wasn’t around. He was probably floating around the Plaine Museum to torment the security guards. She punched the dumpster.

  By the time she returned to the diner, Markova lay on the floor; the waitress had stuck a purse beneath Markova’s head in a futile attempt to make her feel comfortable. “Did someone call an ambulance?” Emma asked.

  “I did,” the waitress said. “Cops are coming too.”

  Emma saw they would be too late. Markova’s flesh had turned pale—deathly pale. Her eyes were already glossing over. She managed to move her head slightly to one side; her eyes met Emma’s. “I am sorry.”

  “Don’t try to talk,” Emma said. “Help is on the way. Just hang on.”

  Markova shook her head. “He was like my father.” Her body shuddered. “I did not want to betray him. I betrayed you.”

  “It’s all right, Katarina. I forgive you,” Emma lied. Even now a part of her—the part that put on the Scarlet Knight’s armor and tortured criminals—wanted to strangle what remained of Markova’s life from her body.

  “She is good. Like you. Don’t let him have her.”

  “I won’t. I promise I’ll get her back.”

  Markova nodded at this. Then she closed her eyes and her body went still. Emma heard Markova’s last breath rattle out of her body. She was dead.

  But Louise might still be alive.

  Chapter 5

  Captain Donovan had been flipping through brochures on her desk when all hell broke loose. She had been staring at one for a group of condos in Scottsdale, to try to imagine herself on the tennis courts or the manicured golf course designed by someone named Jack Nicklaus. She had never played either of these sports, or really any sports for that matter since one stint on the precinct softball team when she was a rookie. They had forced her off the team when she slid into second base with her cleats up and nearly broke the ankle of someone from the vice squad.

  What really caught her attention was the pool. She had always enjoyed the pool at the academy, where she did laps every morning before anyone else showed up. She hadn’t been in a pool since then; it might be nice to take a nice leisurely swim in the cool water. What she really wanted was to sink to the bottom, w
here she couldn’t hear anyone, where she could be absolutely at peace. No Anti-Vigilante Task Force to stalk her or crazy superhero to create more problems than she solved. She wanted to stay there and never come back up, to live in the deep end of the pool.

  Right on cue, the circus came back to town. Donovan checked her watch; it had been a couple weeks since the last really good media circus. We wouldn’t want things to get boring, she mused as she dropped the brochures and pushed away from her desk.

  She already knew what this would be about. She remembered what that maniac in red armor had told her about going after Don Vendetta. There was only one place the don would end up—in her custody. The damned fool had probably wrapped her up with a bow and left her on the doorstep with a note to deliver the don to her personally.

  On the first floor, at the front desk, she found her fears realized. Reporters pushed and shoved each other, some with microphones and others with tape recorders. Don Vendetta was cornered against the desk; she stared back at the reporters with a smug grin. It was the expression of someone who knew she would be out of here soon enough.

  Any other time Captain Donovan would have tried to take some of the smugness out of that grin, but she didn’t have the energy anymore. She knew the don would walk free in less than twelve hours no matter how many delays Donovan tried to create. And the don wouldn’t give away any information, not to them. She shook her head and badly wished she could smoke in the precinct.

  “Let me through, you jackals,” she growled. She pushed her way through the throng. Of course the moment she began this process, the reporters turned to her to ask her to comment. “I don’t have anything to say to you assholes.”

  She managed to shove her way through to the desk, where she saw a beat cop’s face brighten for a moment. Captain Donovan recognized the young woman from almost three years ago. Then the girl had been a student at Rampart State; she had surprised Donovan when she came to the dorm to interview someone. Donovan had pulled her gun and instead of backing down, the girl had dared Donovan to pull the trigger. Donovan had made the offhand suggestion the girl should join the police force.