Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis

by P. T. Dilloway

  “Stop it!” Sylvia shouted. She watched the fat little girl’s lips move in sync with her words.

  “You’re right, enough playing around. I brought you here to discuss serious business.”

  Sylvia leaned back onto the couch and tried not to breathe too hard out of fear her dress might explode. “What business?”

  “I want you to work for me.”

  “Work for you?”

  “Is there an echo?”

  “I don’t understand. What could I do?”

  “Like this, nothing. But I can make you strong again. I can make you stronger than anyone except me and the master.”

  “The master?”

  “Isis.” Renee held up a silver necklace shaped like the stick figure on the sign she’d seen on the way into Rampart City. “That’s her sign. If you wear it, that means you’re one of the Specials.”

  “Specials?”

  “If you don’t stop repeating me, I’m going to take your voice away.” Renee glared at her for a moment and then continued, “The Special Police. We’re the ones who make sure Isis’s will is carried out. This is her city—and soon her world. We could use someone like you, someone who isn’t afraid of doing some dirty work.”

  “I’m not dirty.”

  “I’m not talking about petty corruption.” Renee leaned back in her chair. “I can give you command of hundreds of cops—including your friend Charlotte. You’ll be free to do whatever you want, so long as you don’t violate Isis’s wishes.”

  “Who is Isis?”

  “She’s our leader, the goddess. We do as she wills. Everyone here does, whether they know it or not.”

  Sylvia’s fat little body shivered at this thought. “She’s a real goddess?”

  “That’s right. From Egypt. Every day her power grows. Soon she’ll rule the entire world—once a few loose ends are tied up.”

  “What loose ends?”

  “Your friend Tim Cooper for one.”

  “He’s not my friend.”

  “Well, no, of course not. He’s a boy and boys are yucky, right?”

  “Right,” Sylvia said before she could stop herself. “I mean—”

  “I’ll put you in charge of apprehending him. It’s what you came here for, isn’t it? Only now you’d be giving him to us instead of trying to cart him back to your world.”

  Sylvia thought about this. She leaned forward and gazed at her reflection. What choice did she really have? With a wave of her hand, Renee could turn Sylvia into anything she wanted: a frog, a butterfly, or even a boy. She shivered again and put a hand to her turquoise hair. If she stayed like this much longer, she would become a fat little Asian girl.

  Still, from what Renee said, someone called Isis ran things here. From the sound of it, this Isis didn’t seem like a very pleasant person to be around. She was probably the one who had erected that barrier. She was the one Tim had come here to stop.

  “No,” she said. “I won’t help you.”

  “Think carefully about it, young lady. If you don’t accept my offer, you’re going to the retraining facility.”

  “I don’t care. I won’t help you find Cooper.”

  “Very well then.”

  She waved her hand. Sylvia could no longer see her reflection in the coffee table, not because of any change to the table, but because she was too little to reach it. Her body was still chubby, though no longer rotund, and clad in a sailor dress, her shoes smaller but otherwise unchanged. Sylvia put a hand to her head to feel the mop of curls there. The curls and sailor dress marked her Shirley Temple phase—back when she had been three years old.

  Tears bubbled up in her eyes. “No!” She leaped off the couch, which had become a substantial drop. She ran for the door as fast as her tiny legs could carry her. She should have known it wouldn’t do any good. Renee appeared in front of her at the door to stare down at her with a smug grin.

  “How cute. But pointless.” Renee bent down to snatch Sylvia. The witch hefted Sylvia and held her up to the mirror. In it, Sylvia saw a little girl with adorable red curls and equally adorable apple cheeks that had turned red at the moment as she cried. Renee seized one of Sylvia’s arms to wave it at the mirror. “Time to go bye-bye.”

  Sylvia wailed as she disappeared in a flash of white light.

  ***

  The “retraining facility” looked about like any day care center. From Renee’s arms, Sylvia could see the entire room with its mats on the floor, toys scattered around, art supplies in a corner, and indoor playground equipment in an opposite corner. The occupants of the retraining facility were all girls, none much older than her; Sylvia counted about four-dozen altogether. All of these came to attention when Renee appeared in the room. “Gather around, children.”

  The girls shuffled forward to gather in front of Renee; they all looked down shyly. Renee set Sylvia down on the floor, where she was at eye level with the other little girls. “Girls, this is Sylvia. She’s our newest friend. Everyone say hi to her.”

  “Hi.”

  “Everyone be nice to her, since she’s new here. OK?”

  “Yes.”

  Renee bent down to whisper into Sylvia’s ear, “Play nice, sweetie.”

  The other girls drifted back to what they had been doing. All except two of them. Sylvia recognized the girl with the brown bun and comically oversized glasses as Sophie. The shorter girl with golden curls like hers and dressed in a princess costume wasn’t as recognizable, not at first. Then Sylvia looked into the girl’s eyes and realized this was Agnes. “Aggie? Sophie?”

  Sophie took a step forward and glared down at Sylvia. “Babies play over there,” she said. She pointed towards a corner that was empty except for a tiny girl with white-blond hair. This in spite of the fact that Sophie wasn’t any older than her.

  Agnes gave Sylvia a slight shove that nearly toppled her over. “Yeah. Babies can’t play with our castle,” Aggie said. She indicated a pink castle playhouse.

  “Now, girls, be nice to your sister,” Renee said.

  “Yes, Miss Renee,” Sylvia’s sisters said as one, though they still glared at her.

  Sylvia decided it would be best not to antagonize her sisters; she shyly edged away towards the corner they had indicated. With a huff she sat next to the little girl with the white-blond hair. The girl didn’t look up from the wooden blocks she used to construct a castle far more elaborate than the one Sophie and Aggie had. “Hi,” Sylvia said. The girl said nothing as she continued to work with the blocks. “What’s your name?”

  “That’s Megan. She’s autistic.”

  Sylvia turned to see a girl shorter than her but with nearly the same shade of red hair, albeit in tangled waves instead of pretty curls like hers. “Hi, I’m Sylvia.”

  “I know. Miss Renee said.” The girl seemed to project authority despite the red footed pajamas she wore with a yellow towel tied around her neck, as if she pretended to be a superhero. She held out her hand for Sylvia to shake. “I’m Katya. Don’t mind those girls, they’re bullies.”

  “They’re my sisters.”

  “That’s too bad.” Katya smiled at her. “Your hair’s pretty.”

  “So is yours.”

  “You want to finger paint with me and some of the others?”

  Sylvia thought about this for a moment. She didn’t really want to do anything as babyish as finger painting, but her only other option was to sit in a corner with Megan. “OK,” she said.

  Katya took her hand and the two of them skipped across the room to where the art supplies were. A half-dozen girls lay on the mats with pieces of paper in front of them. Katya pointed to a pasty-skinned girl with long black hair dressed in a black dress and pointed witch’s hat. “That’s Glenda.” Katya introduced the others to her. “This is Sylvia. She’s my new friend.”

  The other girls simply nodded to her. “Does anyone else here talk?” Sylvia asked as she lay down on a mat next to Katya and set to work on smearing paint across a piece of paper.

/>   “They’re still adjusting.”

  “Adjusting to what?”

  “To being little. Like you.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I can see it. Megan was like that. But now her mind’s broken. That’s why she’s autistic. Some can’t handle it.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ve always been like this.”

  Sylvia raised an eyebrow at this. “You talk like a grown-up.”

  “That’s because I’m smart. Almost as smart as Mommy.”

  “Which one is your mommy?”

  “She’s not here. She’s going to come and rescue us one day.”

  Sylvia said nothing to this; the girl was probably delusional. She concentrated to draw a primitive house with trees and a sun. She hated herself for how babyish it looked. She saw Glenda had painted an oblong shape with a long neck and oval head that could be a horse or giraffe. Another girl’s looked as if she’d simply dumped her paint on the paper and then smeared it around.

  Katya’s looked nothing like these. Somehow with only finger paint, she had managed to draw a beautiful woman with orange hair. The woman wore bulky dark red clothes and a yellow cape that reminded her of what Katya wore. It also reminded her of Tim Cooper’s suit. “That’s Mommy,” Katya said. “She’s the Scarlet Knight.”

  “Scarlet Knight? But—”

  “She’s going to come back and save us and make all the bad people go away.”

  A high-pitched wail interrupted their conversation. Sylvia looked up to see a woman in a black leather uniform wrestling a fat little girl with uneven brown pigtails down the stairs. “Let me go!” the little girl shrieked. The woman finally complied and dumped the girl to the ground. The girl’s face turned red and then she began to cry.

  “Shut up, you little brat!” the woman screamed.

  Renee turned to face the woman and even from her vantage, Sylvia could sense Renee’s glare. “Do not talk to my children like that, Captain.”

  The captain stared back at Renee for a moment and then nodded. “Sorry, ma’am. She’s been giving me and my men nothing but trouble since we took her.”

  “Well, don’t worry, we’ll take care of her now.” Renee bent down and put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. She whispered something Sylvia couldn’t hear. “Children, come here. We’ve got another new friend.”

  Sylvia stuck close to Katya as they shuffled over to where Renee stood next to the little girl.

  “Girls, this is Becky,” she said. She patted the little girl’s shoulder. “She’s our newest friend. Everyone say hi to her.”

  “Hi,” the girls said. Sylvia joined them this time.

  “Everyone be nice to her, since she’s new here. OK?”

  “Yes.”

  Renee gave Becky a nudge forward, towards Sylvia and Katya. As she had done with Sylvia, Katya put a hand around Becky’s shoulders. “Hi,” she said. “My name’s Katya. That’s Sylvia. She’s new too.”

  “I don’t wanna be here,” Becky whined. “I wanna go home.”

  “I know, but we can’t. Not yet.” Again it impressed Sylvia how mature Katya seemed for her age. Yet she had said she had always been a baby. “You want to finger paint with Sylvia and me? It’s really fun.”

  Becky considered this for a moment and then nodded. “OK.”

  As with Sylvia, Katya introduced Becky to the others, who only nodded to her. Sylvia returned to her painting, while at the same time she tried to think of a way to get out of here. They were in a basement, which wouldn’t make it easy. Not to mention that she was three years old and this Renee character seemed to be able to do whatever she wanted on a whim. Still, the alternative was to sit around here and become like her sisters, Megan, and the others, to become a little kid.

  She looked over at Katya, who’d started another painting similar to her first. Maybe if she could find Katya’s mother, she could get them out of here. Katya could probably help her with this; she was pretty smart for a baby.

  Before Sylvia could ask, a shadow fell across her piece of paper. “That’s such a pretty picture,” Renee said. She squatted down to stroke Sylvia’s curls. “Could I hang it on the wall with the others?”

  “I guess.”

  Renee took Sylvia’s drawing and tacked it up on the wall with a row of others. Then she bent back down and smiled at Sylvia. “Would you like to go on a trip, Sylvia?”

  “No,” Sylvia whimpered.

  “But we’re going to have so much fun.”

  “She doesn’t want to go,” Katya said. She glared up at Renee, not intimidated by the older, bigger person. “Leave her alone.”

  “Katya, it’s not nice to talk to adults like that.”

  “You’re not an adult. You’re just a baby. I still remember.”

  “Now, sweetie, we’ve been over this. Not everything you think is real actually is. Like this Scarlet Knight you keep drawing.”

  “She is too real! She’s my mommy.”

  “She can’t be your mommy, sweetheart. She’s not real.”

  “That’s what you say.”

  “Young lady, if you don’t start behaving, I’ll have to give you a time out.”

  “I don’t care. Mommy is real and she’s going to come save us.”

  Renee took her hand away from Sylvia to put it on Katya’s shoulder. “I’m afraid that’s not possible, dear. Your mommy has gone up to Heaven.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I’d never lie to you, Katya. I love you very much, like I love all of my children.”

  “Mommy is alive. I know it,” Katya said, but there was a quiver of uncertainty in her voice.

  “I wish she were, sweetheart, but she’s not.” Renee rubbed Katya’s back. “But you’ve still got me. And Isis. We’ll love you just as much as your mommy did.”

  “I don’t want your love,” Katya said. Tears began to run down her cheeks. “I want Mommy.”

  Katya ran and pressed herself into the corner over by Megan, who continued to work on her castle, oblivious to events around her. Sylvia wanted to go over and comfort her new friend, but Renee put a hand on the back of her dress. “It’s time for us to go,” Renee said.

  “I don’t want to go!”

  In a lower voice, Renee hissed, “You’ll go one way or another. You can go as a toddler or as a baby. Take your pick.”

  As much as she hated to admit it, Sylvia knew Renee was right. She looked down at the floor. “Let’s go,” she said.

  With that Renee scooped her up from the floor and pressed Sylvia to her chest. Then they disappeared in a flash of white light.

  Chapter 22

  It soon occurred to Emma that she had no idea where the police would take Jim. She doubted she could just walk up to a policeman on the street or go to a precinct to ask about it. From the trouble she’d already run into with Rampart City’s cops, she knew they wouldn’t be all that helpful—at least not by choice.

  The train station was deserted this time; apparently there were no raves tonight. She paused at the doors for a moment and thought of her brief time in there, how happy she had been when she’d danced with Jim—when she’d kissed Jim. If only she weren’t a vampire, they could have gone on being happy. She wouldn’t have had to run away from him that night; everything would have been different then.

  She thought back to that night after she had run away from Jim. She retraced her steps as she galloped along the darkened streets. There were so many alleys she couldn’t be sure which one was the one where she had found Megan. Emma doubted she would run across the girl again anyway; it was unlikely Megan would return to where she had nearly died.

  Emma tried to remember the route she had taken after Megan ran away. She had stayed away from the main roads then, afraid of a repeat of the incident with Megan. Emma walked briskly along the deserted roads and focused on any sign she was on the right track.

  Inevitably her thoughts turned back to Jim. Had they thrown him in jail? Would they torture him fo
r information on other squatters who used the Rat’s Nest? Would they ask him about her?

  Though she knew she should focus on where she was going, she thought of those last moments as he searched for her on the stairs. He must have thought she had abandoned him, that despite the gift he’d given her—the gift of life—she had left him when he most needed her. She saw him being dragged away again while she cowered beneath the steps, too afraid to come out and fight them.

  Now she had to break him out of jail. She still didn’t have much of an idea how she would do that. She was just a nineteen-year-old kid and by all evidence not a very bright one at that; even if she was a vampire, she still wasn’t cut out to bust someone out of jail. But she had to try. She had to do it for Jim, because she loved him—and he loved her.

  She stopped at a gas station; she had come here after the incident with Megan. From there she had continued towards home—Becky’s apartment—until she ran into Officer Morgan. That would be a partial solution to her problem, if Officer Morgan were on her beat tonight.

  Not far from the gas station, Emma heard the woman’s voice echo through the night air. “You think you can ignore the curfew whenever you want?”

  Another, smaller voice cried out, “I was getting medicine for my mama!”

  “Yeah, well, maybe your mama should get it herself next time.” A thud accompanied this, followed by a whimper. Emma figured Officer Morgan was probably beating a young girl out past curfew.

  This assumption turned out to be correct. Emma peeked into an alley to find a girl facedown in the alley, Officer Morgan crouched over her with a baton in hand. Emma flattened herself against the wall and tried to think of what to do. If she was careful, she could probably get close enough to Officer Morgan to pounce on her before she reached her gun.

  Emma slid along the wall and kept to the shadows as best she could. The girl no longer protested; she whimpered and groaned instead. Officer Morgan seemed to have run out of talk herself; she let her baton do the talking. The look of glee on the policewoman’s face gave Emma a chill.

  As Emma closed in, her nose began to twitch. The smell of blood assaulted her nostrils; the blood no doubt came from the girl. The beast clawed at its cage; it yearned to tear open the arteries of both policewoman and victim. Emma inched closer, close enough that she could see the girl look at her with terrified eyes. Emma put a finger to her lips.