“Not yet, dear. I’m taking you to your new home.”
“I don’t want a new home. I want Mommy!” Katya tried to free herself, but the old woman’s hands were like vise grips.
The old woman hissed into her ear, “You keep fighting and you’ll be a baby like Renee. Is that what you want?” Katya shook her head; she didn’t want to be so tiny and helpless. She stopped fighting as the old woman adjusted her into a more comfortable position. As she vanished in a flash of white light, Katya knew she would never see Mommy again.
***
The helicopter set down in the town square. It was a civilian helicopter, probably one Ivan’s father had used for business trips. The people of the Latvian village peeked out their windows, but made no attempt to get near the helicopter or the two armed men by the doors. Emma shoved Ivan forward towards the helicopter. “Leave the guns here,” she said to the guards. They looked ready to contest this until Ivan snapped at them to do as she said.
The guards sat across from her and Ivan; they glared at her the entire time. They probably waited for an opening so they could knock her out or push her out the door. She wondered what sort of surprise they would have for her at the air force base. The fighter wouldn’t start or else it would blow up on the runway. Or maybe they would shoot her down the moment she took off.
She tightened her grip on Ivan’s arm. “You’re coming with me.”
“You said—”
“I know what I said. I need you for insurance.”
“But the plane only has one seat.”
“Then get another one. Unless you want to ride in my lap.”
Ivan snarled at this but then told the guards to get a radio signal through to the base. He instructed them to make sure to have a plane with two seats waiting. “I will be going too,” he said. Emma suspected this was in part a code to make sure they didn’t sabotage the plane.
The helicopter headed across the Russian border, to an air force base like the one she and Jim had seen on their way in, when their flying carpet had been shot down. If not for that, she could have already gotten Louise out of here, back to America. As Marlin would say, trouble always seemed to find her.
The ghost appeared on cue; he looked even grimmer than last time. “She’s gone,” he said.
“Gone? What do you mean?”
“The witch took her somewhere else—without the turtle.”
“No!”
“I’m sorry.”
Emma had to fight not to cry in front of Ivan and the two guards. She didn’t want to appear weak in front of their eyes. Instead, with one hand she tucked her hair under her helmet, to allow the Scarlet Knight to take over. She couldn’t afford to let her grief ruin things.
The Scarlet Knight tightened her grip on Ivan’s arm. She would have liked to pull it off, but she couldn’t. She and Emma were in agreement that they still needed to get to Prague. That would be the only way to find these people who had taken Louise. Then, even if she had to pull off a few arms, she would get them to say what they had done to Emma’s daughter.
The helicopter touched down on a runway, next to a line of MiG-29 fighters like the ones that had helped down the flying carpet. That wasn’t the plane they would be taking. A colonel led her and Ivan over to a plane on the tarmac, a Su-30 Flanker that had two seats: one for the pilot and one for the gunner.
Neither the Scarlet Knight nor Emma had ever flown before. She had read books on jet aircraft. She hoped that would be enough. Otherwise it would be a very short trip. She led Ivan to the fighter and used the armor to toss him into the backseat. She hopped up to the front seat, and turned around to strap Ivan in properly. “You really think this will work?” Ivan asked. “They will shoot us down as soon as we take off. If we can take off.”
“They won’t shoot us down with you on board. Unless your standing is really that low.” She sat in the pilot’s seat and then strapped herself in. She didn’t have the G-suit or other flight paraphernalia, but she figured her armor would protect her well enough. As for Ivan, he would have to hope she didn’t need to make too many sudden maneuvers.
To get the canopy down proved to be the first challenge. The Scarlet Knight searched the controls for a good minute until she finally found it. With a sigh she began the rest of the preflight checklist. Once she was sure everything was in working order, she pushed the throttle forward. The Flanker roared down the runway. The Scarlet Knight could see the end of the runway approach, a green field ahead. “Here we go,” she said. She pulled back hard on the stick.
To her relief, the Flanker climbed into the air; it rose higher and higher until it was at five thousand feet. She leveled it off and then began the search for the landing gear controls. “It’s not much different from a magic carpet,” she said.
“What?”
“Never mind.” The Scarlet Knight brought up the landing gear at last. She programmed the autopilot to take her on the most direct route to Prague. This would require violating the air space of numerous foreign countries; she would have to hope none of them had itchy trigger fingers.
Once the autopilot was set, the Scarlet Knight brought the plane up to full speed, which was over Mach 2. Even at this speed it would take a few hours to reach Prague, much slower than if she could vanish there as the witch who’d taken Louise had. A traitor witch who worked for enemies of the coven. The Scarlet Knight still couldn’t figure why they had taken Louise and Renee. Maybe Renee was insurance in case they hadn’t been able to get Louise. She shook her head; there were too many questions.
Somewhere around Warsaw the Flanker’s radio came to life. The Scarlet Knight’s Polish wasn’t quite fluent, but she could tell they wanted to know why she was violating their sovereign air space. On the plane’s radar, she could see two blips rapidly approaching from the southeast, no doubt fighters sent to escort her back from whence she came.
To figure out the radio controls wasted a few precious seconds. She finally got it to work and said in English, “My name is Dr. Emma Earl. I am an American citizen. I am on a mission of mercy to retrieve my kidnapped daughter. Please let me pass.”
Apparently the air traffic controller didn’t speak English. He repeated his demands in Polish again. With a deep breath, the Scarlet Knight did her best to repeat the message in Polish. This did not appease the man, who demanded she leave Polish air space before they shot her down.
The blips on the radar screen were close enough now that the Scarlet Knight could see they were a pair of F-16 fighters, American-designed jets. The Scarlet Knight smiled slightly at the irony that she, an American citizen, would be shot down by the hardware her country had sold to Poland. She could possibly escape from the F-16s, but they were smaller, faster, and flown by trained pilots. They also carried Sidewinder missiles while she had nothing but fuel tanks.
“You’d better hold on to something back there,” she said to Ivan.
“They’re going to shoot us down?”
“Possibly. Unless we can slip them.”
“Can you do that?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure?”
“Let’s say I wouldn’t put any money on it.”
Ivan rumbled a string of curse words under his breath. In a slightly more reasonable voice he said, “Turn on the radio and put me through to them.”
The Scarlet Knight thought to question this, but decided whatever Ivan had in mind was worth a shot. She set the radio to the channel the air traffic controller had used and then nodded to Ivan. He cleared his throat before he said in Russian, “Attention you Polish worm, this is Ivan Bykov. Unless you want your feeble country wiped off the map, you will escort my plane to the border. Is that understood?”
For a moment there was no sound but the steady tone of the F-16s locking their missiles onto the Flanker. Finally, the air traffic controller came back on. “Acknowledged. We will escort you to the border. Do not deviate from your present course or you will be destroyed.”
&nbs
p; The warning tone stopped and the F-16s settled behind the Flanker, where they would still have a clear shot if the Scarlet Knight tried to break away. Not that she had any thought of doing so. They went like this for an hour, before they reached the Czech border. Perhaps word of the incident had spread as no one tried to challenge them. When they were fifty miles out from Prague, another air traffic controller came on to invite them to land at the city’s airport.
The Scarlet Knight had no intention to land at the airport. She could imagine Bykov’s people would be there to ambush her and get Ivan back. Instead, she flew low over the city; she banked to line the Flanker up with the Vltava River. Then she cut back her speed to a crawl and leveled out over the river.
“What are you doing?” Ivan asked. “Where is the airport?”
“We’re getting off here,” the Scarlet Knight said as she pulled the eject handles. The plane’s canopy flew off; rocket engines beneath the seats threw her and Ivan into the air. With his hands tied, Ivan didn’t have any way to pull the cord for his parachute. To take care of this, the Scarlet Knight unstrapped from her chair and then swam over to him. She freed his hands before she let him go.
As he fell towards the river, she tossed him a salute. She could hear him scream curses at her even as his parachute opened and he began to drift towards the water. The Scarlet Knight ignored these; she used her cape as her parachute and guided herself towards dry ground. She found an unoccupied portion of the riverbank and steered towards it. She tucked in her knees and landed with a thud on the ground.
The Scarlet Knight got to her feet and dusted herself off. She saw the city of Prague around her. Now she would have to find the people who had taken Louise and get her back once and for all.
Chapter 25
Fear was always a part of any assassin’s life. The fear of being discovered before the operation. The fear that something would go wrong during the operation. The fear of being caught after the operation.
Over a hundred fifty years, Cecelia had learned to control her fear. Her first assignment for the Headmistress had been to assassinate an Austrian prince. Her knees had shaken so much that she was grateful she wore a long skirt so no one could see. It had taken every ounce of effort not to wet herself as she approached the kitchen. Once there, she had to think before she spoke so as not to reveal anything. In the end, the job had gone off without a hitch. The prince had eaten his poisoned pudding and then collapsed facedown into the bowl. The pastry chef had taken the blame; he was led away by the palace guards while Cecelia, disguised as a lowly scullery maid, completed her shift and then disappeared into the night.
With that first job under her belt, she had found it easier after that to rein in the fear. Experience had given her the confidence to believe she could handle any difficulties that might arise during a job. That confidence had saved her on more than a few occasions.
She didn’t feel that confidence anymore. Instead she felt sixteen years old again; her knees quivered and her bladder threatened to release at any moment. Unfortunately she didn’t have the benefit of a skirt to disguise this—and her partner was a very perceptive witch.
They had vanished into another narrow alley in the Old Town of Prague. This was across the river from where they needed to be, but it was the only part of the city Aunt Agnes had visited. As they made their way to a more crowded—but still narrow—street, the jitters had set in as Cecelia thought of what they were about to do.
The Headmistress waited for them at the safe house. Worse yet, the Headmistress had Shelly. Her poor granddaughter who had been turned into a kindergartner again because Cecelia hadn’t gone to find her and make sure she was safe.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that the organization had been able to kidnap Shelly. No mortal police could protect her. Cecelia should have gone after her, taken her along to Rampart City. Shelly could have gone with Aunt Agnes’s wife and child, where she might be safe. Instead, the girl she had known and befriended was gone.
“Where is this safe house of yours?” Aunt Agnes asked as they entered the Old Town Square to melt in with the crowds of tourists.
“The National Museum,” Cecelia said in a hoarse whisper. She had never liked crowds for the operational reason that you couldn’t see who might come at you with a gun or knife or some other weapon in a crowd. Though crowds did often make it easier to escape, as long as you could blend in.
Except now as they entered the square, Cecelia began to tremble. Despite that she knew she was a grown woman—one hundred seventy-five years old—she couldn’t shake the feeling everyone towered over her. She hadn’t felt so weak and vulnerable in her own body since she’d fled from her foster parents that wintry night in France.
She cried out when she felt someone put an arm around her shoulders. Usually her survival reflexes would have kicked in, but this time she whimpered. She looked up for a moment to see only the sun and clear blue sky before she turned her head down to see Aunt Agnes beside her. “Come on, dear, let’s go sit down.”
They found a coffeehouse along the square, where Aunt Agnes ordered tea for both of them while Cecelia glanced over at the window to make sure she didn’t see a caged bird in the glass. Her aunt took her hand, and patted it gently. “It’s all right, dear. You’re back to normal.”
Cecelia nodded slightly; she watched her reflection do the same. “What’s happening to me?” she asked.
“It’s the aftereffects of the spell. It can take a little while to feel like yourself again.”
Cecelia forced herself to look away from the glass. Instead she stared down at her hands, to make sure they were still hands. If she turned her head for a moment, she thought she could see feathers. She put these hands to her head. “I’m not going to be any good to you. Not like this. You should go without me.”
“Nonsense, dear. I’m going to need your help to get in there.”
“You haven’t really needed my help so far.”
“I wouldn’t have known where to look if it weren’t for you.” Aunt Agnes touched Cecelia’s hair. “I need your help—so do Shelly and Renee.”
It wasn’t until she felt moisture on her palms that Cecelia realized she was crying. She lowered her hands; she made no attempt to wipe the tears away. “I’m scared.”
“I’m scared too, dear.”
“Why should you be scared? You’re a witch.”
“That doesn’t make me invincible. Far from it.” The waiter discreetly left their tea on the table and then hurried away. Aunt Agnes slid her chair over so she could put an arm around Cecelia’s shoulder and pull her close. “I don’t suppose I ever got a chance to tell you this story. About twenty years before you were born, I met my future husband, Alejandro—your father. I made him think I was a young woman, about the age I look now.
“Then I made an awful mistake. I told him that I had a little sister—your mother. He saw a painting of us and I had to tell him she was twelve years old. When your mother came home, she was furious with me, but she played along. She let me make her twelve years old again when she met Alejandro for the wedding.
“I was going to change her back after the wedding, but she ran away. I suppose it was because she loved Alejandro too and she couldn’t bear to see us together. Anyway, she ran away and she grew up all over again. It was twice as difficult because she had to grow into her powers again, relearning how to use them. But she did it.”
“But she was a real witch. I’m not a witch. I’m not anything.”
“You’re her daughter and from what I’ve seen, you’re as strong as she is. Not in magic, but in here,” Aunt Agnes said. She tapped Cecelia’s chest. “So I know you can shake this off and get back on your feet like she would.”
Cecelia nodded. She knew Aunt Agnes was right. Her mother would never let something like this stop her from doing what needed to be done. She could hear her mother’s voice say, “You’re only weak if you act like it. It’s time to get back to work.”
Cecelia pu
lled away from her aunt and then wiped at her eyes with a napkin. “Thanks, Aunt Agnes.”
“It’s not a problem, dear. Now, why don’t you drink your tea and we’ll see about how to get inside this museum.”
Cecelia didn’t have the same sense of double-vision as she reached out for her cup. Her stomach felt less nervous now as she drained the teacup. She still didn’t feel a hundred percent, but she didn’t feel nearly so weak and vulnerable either. She would get Shelly back. Even if the girl didn’t remember her, she wouldn’t let the organization keep her and turn her into an assassin. That was no kind of life for a sweet little girl like Shelly. Maybe when all of this was over, she and Shelly could find someplace safe and Cecelia could be the girl’s foster mother.
She was still thinking of this when she heard a collective gasp from the square. Cecelia turned her head in time to watch a Russian Flanker jet screech overhead; it barely cleared the rooftops. Cecelia’s first instinct was to throw herself under the table for protection in case the thing crashed, but she saw Aunt Agnes on her feet and following after the plane.
“Where are you going?” Cecelia asked.
“It’s Emma,” Aunt Agnes said.
“What?” Yet even as Cecelia said this, she watched as the plane’s canopy flew off; two seats shot into the air. The pilot’s seat dropped away to leave a red-and-yellow shape suspended in the air. The Scarlet Knight. Cecelia watched in shock as the Scarlet Knight freed the other figure from his seat and pulled his parachute for him. Cecelia thought the other figure was too big to be Emma’s boyfriend, the Sewer Rat. Had she left him behind?
“Oh dear,” Aunt Agnes said. “I fear something terrible has happened.”
“I feel that too,” Cecelia said as they began to run towards the riverbank.
***
Aggie hadn’t expected Cecelia to fall to pieces on her. She supposed it wasn’t really a surprise. Aggie had never been all that comfortable to take the shape of an animal; she could imagine the horror to have such a shape thrust upon her. If Aggie hadn’t rescued Cecelia when she did, her niece’s mind would have been lost forever.
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 133
