“Is that what all this is about? You think I don’t care about you? I cried for days after she told me you were dead. I didn’t sleep for a week.”
“What an inconvenience for you.”
“Sylvia and I were going to go over there. Glenda talked us out of it. She said it would only cause more trouble.”
“You believed her?”
“No, but I remembered what Mother said about not using our magic against the mortals.
“‘Blood begets more blood,’ that’s what she used to say.”
“So you decided to forget about me, is that it?”
“I never forgot about you. You’re my sister, Sophie. I love you.”
Sophie sneered again at this. “I’m not your sister.”
“What?”
Sophie gestured to the portrait over the mantle, painted just after they moved into the house. Aggie, then twelve years old, stood next to Mother while nine-year-old Sophie hunched in front of them next to three-year-old Sylvia. It was the only image of the four of them together since Mother had died nearly two hundred years later and Sophie supposedly had died soon after that. “Haven’t you ever really looked at that portrait?”
“Many times.”
“No, I mean, have you really looked at it?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Sophie sighed and rolled her eyes. “Look at the three of us. We don’t look anything alike. We don’t have the same hair color. Your eyes are even a different blue from mine. None of our facial features are anything alike. And none of us look anything like Mother either. Why do you think that is?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
“Because she’s not our mother and we’re not sisters. That’s what I was starting to learn before I went to America.”
“You mean Mother adopted us?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Sophie gestured to Renee, who for the moment had fallen asleep. “Do you remember being her age?”
“No, of course not. Most people don’t remember being a baby.”
“True, but what do you remember from your childhood?”
“I don’t know. It was so long ago.”
“Think about it, Agnes. You don’t remember anything before we moved here, do you?”
Aggie closed her eyes and tried to think back to life before they had moved here. She could see only vague images, nothing as solid or concrete enough to be a real memory. She opened her eyes again to find Sophie smiling at her. “What does it mean?”
“We were never children. At least not here. You, Sylvia, and I were older than anyone else in the coven. We’re older even than Glenda. That’s why she had to do this to us, because we were too powerful. She wanted to make the coven in her image, but she couldn’t do that with the three of us around. So she got together with ‘Mother’ and some of the others who were jealous of us. They used something like an inner child potion on us. They made us children. Then they gave us to ‘Mother’ for her to raise as good little witches.”
“That doesn’t make sense. If we were so powerful, how could they use a potion on us? Why not kill us?”
“We had too much value to them yet, so they reprogrammed us to be good little witches like the others. As for the former, I’m still not entirely certain, but when I finally get my hands on Glenda, you can be sure I’ll find out.”
Aggie took a step back from the woman she had thought was her sister, who now might not be related to her at all. “So that’s why you’re doing all of this, so you can destroy Glenda and the coven?”
“It’s long overdue. I’ve been waiting over three hundred years for the right opening to come along. And now you’ve given me the key.” Sophie’s eyes fell upon Renee. Aggie took another step back. “I always thought you were a fool for becoming so attached to mortals. I never thought it would give me what I needed to teach Glenda a lesson.”
“Renee isn’t a weapon. She’s a baby.”
“Right now she’s a baby, but with the right training, she’ll grow up to become more powerful than all of Glenda’s feeble witches put together. The three of us then can rule this entire world the way we were meant to. We won’t have to hide from the mortals any longer. We won’t have to pretend we’re ordinary.”
“Sophie, this is madness.”
“No, Agnes, this is perfectly logical. In the animal kingdom, the strongest is the one who rules. By working together, we can recover the power that we lost and with Renee we’ll be unstoppable. We’ll be the strongest and that means we should be the ones who rule. Not Glenda, not even Merlin could stand in our way.”
“Sophie, please, stop this. Whether we were really sisters or not, we loved each other like sisters. I still do. We can be a family again. It can be like it used to be.”
“I don’t want things to be like they used to be.” Sophie took a step towards her. “I was blind back then. Now my eyes are open. I see the possibilities, what I can become. I can’t go back to being a meek little slave to Glenda.”
“We were never slaves to her or the coven.”
“Poor Agnes, still so blind with your loyalties and your morals. But you never have really fit in with the coven, have you? You’ve always chafed under Glenda’s rules. You and Sylvia both, whoring around with mortals every chance you got. You don’t have to live by those rules anymore. We can make new rules. We can make the world however we want it.”
“By murdering and enslaving people? What kind of world will that be?”
“I’ve tried, Agnes. Really I have. Now, give me Renee or I’ll take her from you.”
“I won’t give Renee to you.”
“Very well then.” Sophie held up both of her hands. An instant later, a static charge spell threw Aggie back against the wall. She managed to keep hold of Renee with one hand while she raised the other to unleash a static charge of her own. Hers wasn’t quite as powerful; it only knocked Sophie back a couple of steps.
Still, that was enough time for her to scramble back to her feet. Renee woke up and began to cry. “It’s all right, sweetie,” Aggie said. “Everything’s going to be all right.” She started to take a step forward, but found her feet wouldn’t move. She looked down and she saw they had turned to blocks of ice. She held her hand over her feet and used a low-powered fireball to unthaw herself.
By then Sophie’s entire body glowed with white light. She shuddered like a rocket about to take flight. From within this glowing body came two blue spheres of blue light. A demonic voice came from her mouth to say, “Give me the child.”
“No. She’s my daughter.”
A wave of white light poured from Sophie’s body to slam into Aggie. This time she flew through the doors, out into the corridor. Still she managed to keep hold of Renee. Aggie tried to summon enough magic to vanish the two of them somewhere, but she couldn’t. Before she could get back to her feet, the monster that was Sophie appeared in front of her. The blue lights that were her eyes glowed more brightly as she looked down at Aggie.
“Give my regards to Sylvia on the other side.”
As Sophie raised her hand, Aggie felt Renee squirm out of her grasp. There was nothing she could do as Renee toddled right at Sophie. “No. Hut. Agga,” Renee said. She reached out with her pudgy hands to grab one of Sophie’s legs.
Aggie could only watch in shock as the glow around Sophie’s body began to dim. At the same time, Renee’s body began to glow white as Sophie’s had. Even stranger, Renee began to grow. Aggie’s eyes went wide as she watched her baby daughter suddenly become a toddler and then a little girl, a teenager, an adult, and finally an old woman. While Renee’s body grew, Sophie’s shrank at the same rate.
When it was all over, they had switched places. Renee was now an elderly woman with a bun of gray hair and glasses while Sophie sat on the floor, a chubby baby with a tuft of brown hair. Sophie held up a pudgy hand, her face red. She began to wail like a baby and collapsed into a heap on the floor.
As for Renee, she
turned to Aggie; tears fell along her wrinkled cheeks. “Agga, what happen?” she asked, her voice lower but still that of a baby.
Aggie pushed herself up to her feet; she wobbled for a moment until Renee steadied her. “I’m not sure, dear.” She looked down at the baby who a minute ago had been a grown woman. “I think you somehow channeled Sophie’s power into yourself.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.” It occurred to her that this was why Sophie had wanted Renee all along. She had known somehow that Renee would have this ability to siphon magic from a witch, to take it upon herself. Such a power would make her very dangerous to Glenda and the coven.
Before they could discuss this any further, Renee put a hand to her head and closed her eyes as if in pain. “Emma,” she said. “Trouble.”
Aggie thought better than to ask how Renee knew this. Instead, she nodded to the daughter who now looked much older than her and stood a good six inches taller as well. “Stay here with your aunt. I’ll go help her.”
But before Aggie could vanish herself to Sylvia’s bedroom, she saw a little girl run down the steps. Aggie recognized the child from the photograph Emma had shown her of her daughter. To her surprise, the little girl wrapped her arms around Aggie’s leg. Through sobs she said, “The mean lady has Mommy.”
“What mean lady?”
There was a flash of light and then Aggie saw the answer for herself.
***
Five years ago, an evil goddess named Isis had married Dan Dreyfus and come to Rampart City, to unleash the Heartbreaker Killings. Only by letting Isis take her heart had Emma been able to defeat her. While Isis had seemed to die, a bit of her host body remained in the form of a baby given the name Eileen. Aggie’s coven had arranged for a family to raise Eileen and in theory they had kept an eye on her to make sure she didn’t show any signs of Isis lingering within her.
Except now Eileen hosted a tea party in Sylvia’s old bedroom on the Joubert estate with Louise. Just by looking into those black eyes, Emma knew this wasn’t some sweet little kindergartner but a goddess who subsisted on the hearts of others for life. An evil goddess who had her daughter.
“I’d ask you to sit down, but you’re much too big for that,” Isis said.
“I’m taking Louise and we’re going home,” Emma said. “Don’t try to stop me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Emma knelt down beside the table; she reached out to pick Louise up from her chair. The second her hands touched Louise, the little girl began to thrash around. She continued to kick and claw at Emma; all the while she made animal-like noises from her throat. Emma lifted the visor of the helmet with one hand so Louise could see her face.
“Baby, it’s me,” Emma said. “It’s Mommy.”
Louise turned to face her and Emma saw her daughter’s eyes had gone black—like those of Isis. She hissed like a wild thing at Emma and bared teeth that had become pointed fangs. She snapped with these at Emma’s face and nearly took off the tip of Emma’s nose. Emma dropped her daughter to the ground; she watched in shock as Louise scampered off on all fours to press herself against Isis like a pet.
“What did you do to her?”
“She belongs to me now. As you can see.” Isis stroked Louise’s hair as she said this and Emma thought she could actually hear her daughter purr like a cat. “Isn’t she sweet?”
Emma had the Sword of Justice out and pointed at Isis’s throat before she knew it. “You change her back this instant.”
“Or what? You won’t kill me. Otherwise you’d have done it years ago.”
The sword trembled in Emma’s hand. She had never killed anyone before, not even Bykov, who had stolen Louise from her, to rob her of the first two years of Louise’s life. She remembered what Jim had said, that she wasn’t a killer, that she couldn’t change who she was. But as she watched Louise nuzzle Isis like some kind of animal, she very much wanted to change who she was. “I can kill you.”
“You won’t. If you do, precious Louise will stay like this forever. She’ll have to spend the rest of her days in the loony bin.” Isis leered at her, an expression far too adult for a five-year-old girl. “Maybe you two can go to the same shrink.”
Emma brought the point of the Sword of Justice to Isis’s throat. Louise turned to growl at her; she raised one hand, which had grown black claws like those of the Black Dragoon. One thrust and Isis would be dead. That was all it would take. And yet, Emma knew Isis wouldn’t really be dead, merely this host body. And Louise would be stuck as this feral creature for the rest of her life.
Emma dropped the sword to the floor. “What do you want?”
“A simple trade: your life for your daughter’s. I’ll return Louise to normal and in return, you take her place.”
The Scarlet Knight part of her brain screamed at her that she had a higher duty to uphold. She had a duty to all people, not just Louise. No, Emma answered back. My duty to her comes first. She was a mother first and foremost.
As she looked into Louise’s wild black eyes, Emma said, “I’ll do it.”
“Very good.”
Emma stepped back over to the table. “Could I say goodbye to her first? To the real her?”
Isis grinned again in that adorable yet horrible way that made Emma want to kill her. “I’m not heartless. You have one minute.”
Isis snapped her fingers and Louise straightened; her eyes reverted to their natural blue. She looked around the room and focused on her mother. “Mommy? Where am I?”
“You’re at my friend Aggie’s house. She’s downstairs with her baby. She’ll take care of you.”
“I don’t want her to take care of me,” Louise said and began to cry. “I want you to take care of me.”
Emma bent down to pick up her little girl and give her a hug. “I know you do, baby, but I can’t. Not right now. Mommy has to go away for a little while.”
“Like Katarina?”
“Yes, like Katarina.”
“Why?”
Emma brushed hair away from Louise’s face and then smiled. “Because I have to make sure you’re safe.”
“Thirty seconds.”
Emma nodded and then looked into her daughter’s eyes. “Whatever happens, I want you to remember that I love you very much. And I always will.”
“Mommy, don’t go. Please.”
“I’m sorry, baby. I don’t have a choice. You be a good girl for Aggie, all right?” Louise was too choked with sobs to answer, so she nodded instead. Emma gave her a hug and then whispered, “Go downstairs now. I love you.”
Louise stared at her for a moment, but she did as she was told; she raced out of the room. When Emma turned back to Isis, the evil woman leered at her again. “That was so adorable,” she said. “To think you’d throw everything away for that brat.”
“Of course you can’t understand. The only one you’ve ever loved is yourself.”
“Gods don’t need to be loved. Gods only need to be feared. Now, take off that infernal armor.”
Emma hesitated for a moment. Once she took off the armor she would be as vulnerable as Louise to Isis’s magic. Yet it was because Louise was vulnerable that she had to go through with this. She began to fumble with the straps; the armor fell in pieces around her. After the last piece was gone, she stepped aside. “I’m ready to take her place now.”
“Good. Take my hand.”
Emma reached out and took the little girl’s hand. At first nothing happened. Then she felt an electric shock as if Isis had the world’s biggest joy buzzer on her palm. Isis’s hand became larger in her own; the bedroom swelled in size as well. After less than a minute, it was Isis who held her hand, no longer the other way around. She looked up at Isis, who had once again become an adult, like when Emma had first seen her.
Still the room continued to grow until Emma was nearly at eye level with the miniature table in the room. Her legs buckled beneath her to dump her to the floor. She flailed around, caught up in her own clo
thes. That was until Isis reached down to pluck her from off the floor with what seemed like giant hands. Emma tried to scream, but all that came out was a gurgle.
Isis took her over to a mirror and confirmed what Emma had feared: she was a baby. Not two years old like Louise, perhaps not even a year old like Renee. She was a squirming infant with a head of red fuzz; her face turned magenta as a scream escaped from her lips. “Oh there now, sweetheart,” Isis said. She turned Emma around to pat her back gently. “There’s no need to cry. I’m not going to hurt you. Not until we’ve had some fun.”
A cradle appeared from nowhere; Isis set Emma inside of it. There was nothing Emma could do but continue to shriek as Isis pulled a pink blanket over her tiny body. One giant hand stroked the fuzz on Emma’s head. “You stay right here. Mommy will be back soon.”
In a flash of light Isis disappeared and Emma was alone.
***
The moment she saw Louise ran down the steps, Aggie already had a bad feeling that something terrible had happened. But this was even worse than she had imagined. Isis stood in front of her, back to her adult form, though with any luck not back to her full strength yet.
There might still be time to stop her. Last time, when Isis had not reached her full power yet, Tabitha had died, Sylvia lost her hand, and they still hadn’t been able to stop her. But Aggie had to try. For her daughter and Emma’s daughter.
“You’re behind all of this,” Aggie said.
Isis smiled that smug grin of hers. “Of course. You should never have left that poor little baby alive.”
“We couldn’t kill her. It wouldn’t have been right.”
“No, of course not. She was much too good of a prison.”
“We didn’t know you were still in there. We hoped you were gone.”
“That’s not a very nice thing to say, Mrs. Chiostro. Oh, right, it’s Aggie now. You’re so young now.”
Aggie closed her eyes and concentrated on maintaining her control, but she could feel Isis begin to overwhelm her. No, it couldn’t be. She couldn’t be at full strength yet. Not this soon. She hadn’t even begun to harvest hearts yet, had she?
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 138
