“Calm down, kid,” Becky said as Emma sobbed on her shoulder. “Marie, can you take this order for me? And tell Sam I’m going on break.”
Becky cooed to Emma as if she were a baby and led her out the door, around to the back of the diner, where Becky sat her at a rusty patio table salvaged from someone’s trash. As Emma continued to bawl on Becky’s shoulder, the horrible images ran through her mind. “Oh God, Becky, what am I becoming?”
“Hey, come on, settle down.” Becky held her out at arm’s length to look her in the eye. “Tell me what happened.”
“I was trying to check out some items for Dr. Dreyfus and then he cut his thumb on a box and then—” she broke down into sobs again.
Becky tightened her grip on Emma’s shoulders. “Emma, what did you do?”
“I attacked him! I jumped on him and I held him down and I was going to bite his neck. I was going to kill him!”
“What? Why would you do that?”
“Because—”
“Because what? Spit it out for God’s sake.”
“I’m a vampire.”
She looked down at her feet and waited for Becky’s reaction. The last thing she hoped to hear was Becky snicker at her. “Well, that’s certainly a new one. I got to hand it to you, kid, you really come up with some great excuses. Like the time you said you quit the job at Radio Shack because the manager grabbed your ass. Then the cops found all those iPods in your closet.”
“No, this isn’t an excuse. I really am a vampire. I can prove it.” Emma opened her mouth. “See?”
“See what? You need to get those bleached.”
Emma put a hand to her teeth and felt around; her fangs had disappeared. “Oh no. Becky, I swear—”
“Yeah, whatever. So I suppose you lost this job too, huh?”
Emma thought of what Dr. Dreyfus had shouted as she ran away. As the assistant director, he could certainly make that stick; she would be lucky if he didn’t charge her with assault and battery too. “Yes. I’m so sorry, Becky—”
Becky let Emma go and then stood up. “I don’t want to hear it. Just get the fuck out of here.”
“Becky, please—”
“I’ve been your friend since kindergarten. Even with all the shit you pulled, I always stuck by you. I was always there to be your alibi or bail you out. And what have I gotten for it? What have you ever done for me?”
“I’m sorry I haven’t been a good friend—”
“All you ever do is take. You take and you take and what do you give back? Nothing.” Becky shook her head again. “Do you even know how hard it was to get you that job at the museum? Your mom and I had to twist everyone’s arms. We had to tell everyone from the head janitor on up that you were just misunderstood. You were going straight now. And then what do you do? Three days in you throw it away with some stupid excuse about being a vampire.”
“Becky, please, it’s true.”
“I really wanted to believe that things would be different this time. You were acting so nice and sweet that I thought maybe you had really changed. But you didn’t. You’re still the same selfish bitch who stole my cookies and milk back in kindergarten.”
“Becky—”
“I don’t want to hear it. I’m done with you.” Becky slapped her hands together. “I wash my hands of you. Go find some other sucker to put up with your bullshit.”
Emma shot to her feet and took hold of Becky’s shoulders. She looked into her friend’s eyes to plead with her. “It’s not bullshit. I’m telling the truth. Just look at me. I’m falling apart. I’m so hungry. If you don’t help me, I don’t know what will happen to me. Please, Becky, you have to help me. I don’t know what to do.”
Becky shook out of Emma’s grip. “I told you what would happen if you lost that job. Now get the fuck out of here and don’t ever let me see you again or I’ll put my foot up your skinny little ass.”
“But—”
“Call me when you want to pick up your shit so I won’t have to be there.” With that Becky stomped away and headed back to work.
Emma dropped onto the rusty patio chair and rested her head against the table. As she cried, she heard the shadow woman’s voice as in her dream say, “You’re mine now.”
Part 2
Chapter 17
Akako had never really gone camping before. Back in her world, her family had never been big on “roughing it.” When she was seven her father had driven the family from New Tokyo—her version of Rampart City—to San Francisco. The car had broken down in the Nevada desert, which had necessitated a night huddled together in the backseat for warmth while four-year-old Aiko cried most of the night. That had killed her parents’s interest in anything outdoorsy.
So the last two days had been a new experience for her. Luckily Old Coyote knew plenty about camping, which included how to make a fire. The old trucker also had a fairly comfortable bed in the sleeping compartment of his truck and a trailer full of canned goods. “Not going to deliver this now,” he said. He opened a can of baked beans.
Akako didn’t really want to sit with Old Coyote in the forest outside of Sharonville; she wanted to be in Rampart City to look for Emma, Agnes, and Renee. Her reconnaissance trip through the barrier created by Isis had lasted all of twenty-six minutes, though. That had been enough time for her to get a ride into the city, get out, and get run off by the police. A cop on the corner had taken one look at her and then raised his weapon. If not for the crowded sidewalks, he would surely have hit Akako and killed her.
She had run until she managed to flag down a ride to take her back out of the city. On the way out, she had felt a snake-like tongue in her ear. “You’re too late,” Isis hissed in her ear. “I have them now. They all do my bidding: your husband, adorable little Renee, and darling Dr. Earl. There’s nothing you or anyone else can do.”
When Akako turned to look in the backseat, Isis was gone. Probably the goddess could have stopped Akako had she really wanted to. Akako suspected she had been allowed to escape to deliver a message back to the others that it was a hopeless proposition.
As soon as she crossed the barrier, she heard the voices of the others. They were as pessimistic as her about their chances to stop Isis even if Tim did come back. The consensus was that Isis had become too powerful for them. Despite their resistance to magic they were otherwise mortals; they didn’t have magic armor that could protect them from bullets or other dangers.
Her second panicked flight took place two hours later when the barrier began to move. At first she thought it must be an optical illusion, but as she watched more closely, there could be no doubt that the barrier was getting closer to where she and Old Coyote were parked. “We’d better get out of here,” she said.
They made it out of Sharonville just in time, before the black fog swallowed the entire town and blocked it from view. The town’s ten thousand residents would all belong to Isis now, just like the nine million or more in Rampart City. Just like Emma, Agnes, and Renee.
Akako stared into the fire Old Coyote had made and wondered what had happened to her husband and her baby. She had spent the last ten years separated from them as she had been forced to grow up again. In her childhood bedroom and later the dorms and even later the house she and Aggie shared, she had stared up at the ceiling, thought of Renee, and wondered if she would ever see her baby again. She thought of how Renee clung to her, sought shelter against her body when she was scared; what would Renee do now? She tried to tell herself Agnes could take care of their baby—she had raised several children and grandchildren already—but that didn’t help, especially once Joanna told her Isis had taken them captive.
Now that she had her power back, Isis could do almost anything to them, twist them according to her whims. Even if she could get back into the city, she might never find her family and friends. She would never know if they were the businesswoman who walked down the street, the vendor at the newspaper stand, or the lunatic who raved on the corner. Her baby could be a hun
dred-year-old man in a nursing home for all she knew.
“You warm enough?” Old Coyote asked. “I can get a blanket from inside.”
“I’m fine. I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”
“I reckon so.” The old trucker took a puff on his cigarette. “Must be weird to be in a whole other world like this.”
“Not that much anymore. It’s kind of like riding a bike.”
“So after this is over—if anyone lives through it—you going back to your world?”
She shook her head. “Not if Agnes and Renee are still here. I’d never leave them—at least not willingly.”
“That’s mighty sweet.” Old Coyote leaned back to rest his head against a tire of the big rig. “I ain’t seen my son in twenty-five years, not since he was about as old as your girl.”
“Why not?”
“Me and his mom didn’t get along.”
“Oh. That’s too bad.”
“Probably for the best. I wouldn’t have been much of a father.”
“I doubt that.”
The old trucker smiled at her beneath his mustache. “I was wild as a mustang back in those days. Not like your friend.”
“Tim?”
“Yeah. I reckon he weren’t ever the wild type, was he?”
“Not as far as I know, but I didn’t get much of a chance to know him.” Akako looked into the fire for a moment and then sighed. “His fiancée didn’t like me much.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“She thought I stole her sister away from her.”
“They must have been pretty close then? Know a few folks like that down south.”
“No, they weren’t like that. But for about a century all they had was each other. Then I came along and Sylvia didn’t have anyone—at least until she found Tim.”
“So this Sylvia is the one he’s moping about?”
“Yes. He really loved her.”
“How come he went to jail?”
“He made the weapons that his boss used to blow up some buildings around town. Two hundred people died. Tim didn’t actually make the bombs, but he provided the robots. So when his boss disappeared, Tim and a couple others became the fall guys.”
Old Coyote rubbed one end of his mustache as he thought. “That seems familiar. It was probably in the papers, weren’t it?”
“Yes, before she made the city disappear.”
“And his girl was one of those who got blown up?”
“Not exactly. There was something else Tim was working on. Some kind of antimatter reactor. It was overloading, so Sylvia vanished with it into space. That’s how she died.”
“No wonder the poor kid feels so down about it.” Old Coyote snuffed out his cigarette. “You think he’ll be able to get the job done?”
“I hope so.”
Just as Akako said this, she felt the wind pick up. The fire went out to plunge them into darkness. “Get down!” Akako said.
She lay on her stomach when the night sky exploded with purple light. The gateway formed over where the fire had been. Akako and Old Coyote crawled beneath the tractor-trailer cab as the wind continued to pick up. Then she saw something fall from the gateway.
“It can’t be,” she said. She watched as the Scarlet Knight tumbled out, followed by a shipping net with three olive drab crates in it. These all landed with a clank on the remains of the fire.
Akako heard a groan and at first she thought it had come from Old Coyote. Then she saw the Scarlet Knight move its arms. With another groan the Scarlet Knight got to its feet. Immediately Akako could see that this was not Emma’s armor, the suit too bulky for Merlin’s armor. Her jaw fell open when the Scarlet Knight took off its helmet to reveal Tim’s face.
“Tim?” she asked. She crawled out from under the cab.
“Hi.” He looked around at the truck and then the trees around them. “Where are we?”
“Outside Sharonville. It’s under her control now.”
“Oh, great. I guess we’d better—” Before he could finish, someone else tumbled out of the gateway to land in a heap on the ground. The groan that came from this person was far more feminine. Akako hurried over to see who else had come through with Tim. She put both hands to her mouth to keep from screaming.
It was Sylvia.
***
When he went through the gateway, Tim assumed he would come out at the same spot. He also thought that he would be able to walk out of the gateway. Both of these assumptions turned out to be wrong, as he found himself tumbling through the air, onto the hot ashes of a fire. He came down too fast even to trigger the boosters so that as on the dock he landed on his face.
He had enough experience at righting himself now that he could do it quickly. As he got back to his feet, he saw Old Coyote’s truck. He was relieved to see the truck driver under the cab, along with Akako. She came out from underneath the truck to greet him.
“Tim?”
“Hi.” He looked around at the forest surrounding them. Clearly this was not the same place where he had left. “Where are we?”
“Outside Sharonville. It’s under her control now.”
“Oh, great. I guess we’d better—” To turn in the suit was still awkward, so he didn’t manage to see what else had fallen from the gateway for a moment. From the way Akako reacted, he knew it couldn’t be good. Then he saw it was worse than he thought.
Sylvia lay on her stomach. Akako gently rolled her over to reveal a thin trickle of blood on the left side of Sylvia’s forehead from where she’d hit a rock on her way down. Tim was relieved though to see her chest rise and fall within her white T-shirt. “It’s just a little bump on the head,” Akako said. “She should be fine.”
Akako tried to pick Sylvia up, but the detective was too heavy for her. “I’ll do it,” Tim volunteered. He focused to bend down and then slide his hands beneath Sylvia’s body like a forklift. He knew better than to grab her with the suit’s hands, which could crush her like a walnut.
He rose to his full height and raised her from the ground. She lay limp in his arms, her face so peaceful, just the way he remembered Sylvia’s when he woke up in the morning—except for the blood. “Do you have a medical kit?” he asked Old Coyote.
“Sure, in the truck. Just put her in the back if you can manage.”
Tim nodded slightly and walked over to the cab of the truck, where Old Coyote opened the door to the sleeping compartment for him. He set Sylvia on the bed and slid his arms out again just like a forklift. She didn’t stir at all, her head lolling to one side. There was nothing Tim could do then but watch as Old Coyote tended to her head with his medical kit. The old trucker cleaned the wound with a pre-moistened alcohol swab and then put a bandage over the cut.
“Doesn’t look too bad,” he said. “Should pull through.”
With a sigh of relief, Tim turned away. He then began the awkward process to shed the armor: he removed the helmet, then the breastplate, then the arms, and finally the legs. When it was finished, the armor lay in a heap on the ground; Akako and Old Coyote stared at him.
“What the hell is that?” the old trucker asked.
“It’s a mechanical exoskeleton.”
“A what?”
“Armor. Sort of what the knights used to wear, except this has robotic enhancements to add extra strength,” Tim explained.
“So it’s a robot that you wear?”
“You could say that.”
“You built it?” Akako asked.
“With Renee’s help.”
“How is she?”
Tim rubbed the back of his neck and wondered how much he should tell Akako about his time with Renee. “She’s a little confused, like all kids.”
“That sounds about right. Is she still dyeing her hair?”
“Turquoise.”
“When I was her it was magenta.”
“You were her?”
“When Agnes and I went over there, I ended up in her body for a few days. She’s a very special
little girl.”
“She helped me find the weapons too, just like you said.”
They opened the crates with a crowbar in Old Coyote’s truck. Tim was relieved again to see that none of the weapons appeared to be damaged from the rough landing. He had counted two hundred ninety machine guns similar in appearance to American M-16s, but not exactly. There was also a supply of ammunition for the weapons, though perhaps not enough for what they needed to do.
“Have you heard from Joanna yet?”
“Not yet,” Akako said. She went on to explain her brief trip into Isis’s realm. “She had her people watching for me. I’m not sure if they’ll be looking for you too or not. She might think she’s got you brainwashed.”
“Good, then that should make it easier for me to go in and find Emma.”
“How you going to sneak into this city with that contraption?” Old Coyote asked.
“The same way Emma gets around.”
“The sewers?”
“Should be a line connecting Sharonville and Rampart City.”
“Should be,” Akako said, though she didn’t sound convinced of his plan. “What are we supposed to do about Sylvia?”
“I’m not sure.” Tim reached into his jacket pocket for the scroll. The gateway had already closed and even when he threw the scroll, nothing happened. “I guess we’ll have to keep her until we can send her back.”
“Sylvia? Ain’t she the one—?”
“My fiancée,” Tim said. He looked back towards the truck, where Sylvia recovered from her fall. “She looks just the same.”
“I’m sorry, Tim. I should have warned you.”
“No, it’s all right. I know she’s not the same person. Not really. She’s a police detective. She came through to arrest me.”
“That sounds like the Sylvia I know,” Akako said.
“Yeah, I guess it does.” Tim sighed again. “I’m going to check over the armor. Then I’ll head out before it gets light.” He looked to the horizon and saw the black barrier still there. It was already dark.
***
Sylvia lay on her back and stared up at a brilliant blue sky with white, puffy clouds. Beneath her she felt warm, coarse sand. She remembered she had run through a weird purple gateway to try to catch Tim Cooper. Had she landed on a beach? Or maybe she’d died and gone to Heaven.
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 159
