Then she pounced on Officer Morgan the way she had on Dr. Dreyfus at the museum. The baton flew out of the policewoman’s hand as Emma knocked her to the ground. Officer Morgan attempted to shake Emma off, but Emma’s muscles, fueled by the scent of blood in the area, kept a tight grip on her.
“Get off me, you fucking junkie!” Officer Morgan shouted.
Emma opened her mouth and her fangs extended. “I’m not a junkie,” she hissed. She turned to the girl, who had scrambled to her feet. “Get out of here.”
Then she turned back to Officer Morgan, whose eyes had gone wide behind her glasses. “What kind of freak are you?”
“What kind does it look like?”
Emma leaned down so her fangs could brush against Officer Morgan’s neck. This time it was not the beast in control, but her as she tried to rattle the policewoman. As expected, Officer Morgan said, “Don’t kill me, please.”
“Why not? You were going to kill that innocent girl.”
“I wasn’t going to kill her. Just rough her up. She violated curfew. Those are our orders. I’m just doing my job.”
“That’s what the Nazis said.” Emma pressed her fangs tighter against Officer Morgan’s flesh.
“Hey, come on, I’ve got a kid. A little boy. Don’t do this.”
Emma backed away slightly, her fangs just millimeters from the policewoman’s cheek. “I’ll let you live, if you give me what I want.”
“What’s that: blood?”
“No. James Rizzard. I want to know where he’s being held.”
“I’d have to use the computer for that. It’s in my car.”
“Then let’s go.”
***
While she walked the two blocks to where Officer Morgan had parked, Emma was grateful this section of the city was so unpopulated. The last thing she wanted at the moment was to try to explain why she dragged a police officer along the pavement, the officer’s machine gun slung over her back. Of course anyone who saw her would take one look at her fangs and run the other way.
“Who’s this Rizzard guy?” Officer Morgan asked. The body armor she wore protected her from any injury while she was dragged along the road. “Another freak like you?”
“No. Jim isn’t like me at all.”
“So what do you want with him? Going to use him as a chew toy?”
Emma suspected Officer Morgan wanted to rattle her with questions like that, to get her angry so she might make a mistake that might let the policewoman escape. What Officer Morgan really had to fear was that the smell of her blood would drive Emma to the point where she could no longer control herself. “It’s not your business.”
“You’ve kind of made it my business. Come on, you going to bite him on the neck? Make him your love slave for all eternity?”
“I wouldn’t do that to him. I love him.”
“Sure, love him as a snack.”
Emma saw the police cruiser up ahead. She picked Officer Morgan up by the front of her body armor and took a small amount of pleasure to jam the policewoman roughly into the car. “Don’t try anything funny. Just hurry up and find Jim.” She bared her fangs to let Officer Morgan know what the consequences of betrayal would be. She felt another small amount of pleasure to see Officer Morgan gulp slightly.
The policewoman typed Jim’s name into the computer. Emma watched over her shoulder as the report came up. Apparently it wasn’t the first time Jim had been in trouble with the law. All of the arrests were minor crimes: shoplifting, vagrancy, and vandalism. At the end of the file was what Emma wanted. The police had taken him to the 21st precinct.
“Where’s that?”
“About five miles east of here. Not going to do you any good, though.”
“Why’s that?”
“That’s where the Specials hang out.”
“Who?”
“You just pop out of your coffin or something?”
“Just tell me.”
“The Specials are the boss’s hand-picked troops. The toughest, most loyal bastards. If your boyfriend’s in there, he ain’t coming out.”
“We’ll see about that,” Emma said with a confidence she didn’t feel.
“Yeah, right. I’m sure they’ll just let you walk right in and bail him out.”
Emma thought about this for a moment. “You’re right. But I bet they’d let you walk in there, wouldn’t they?”
“Like I’d help you, freak.”
“You won’t have to. Take off your clothes.”
“Hold on. I don’t do that until the second date.”
“You can do it yourself or I can do it for you.”
Officer Morgan stepped out of the car and then began to strip.
***
Officer Morgan’s glasses were thicker than Emma’s, which gave her a headache when she looked through them. She considered going back to her own glasses, but she didn’t want to take the chance someone might realize she wasn’t Officer Morgan. Besides the glasses, the shoes were the most uncomfortable part of the uniform. Each step sent a wave of pain from Emma’s feet up through her back.
In a way the pain from the shoes and headache from the glasses were a good thing; they helped her not to focus on her bloodlust. After she strapped on Officer Morgan’s body armor, she frowned at the pants that looked more like capris on her. Why couldn’t she have found a taller officer to mug?
“Comfy back there?” Emma asked Officer Morgan, who lay in the trunk, her hands cuffed.
“Sure, I think I’ll spend my vacation here. So now what, you’re going to walk into the station looking like that?”
“No, there’s one more stop to make first. Keep your head down,” Emma said as she closed the trunk lid.
She stopped at the gas station and browsed the aisles until she found what she needed: a can of black shoe polish. She paid for it with some of Officer Morgan’s money and then went to the bathroom. The shoe polish stained her hands, the top of her ears, and along her hairline, but when she finished, her red hair had turned black. While it was darker than Officer Morgan’s, the difference shouldn’t be all that noticeable. The smell would be far more noticeable; she would have to say that she had chased someone into the sewer.
On the drive to the 21st precinct, Emma tried not to press her head against the headrest so the shoe polish wouldn’t rub off. The last thing she wanted was to go in there with a streak of red visible. As she drove, she tried not to think about how hopeless this was. From what Officer Morgan had said, these Specials were people to be reckoned with; even with her vampire strength she might not be able to stand up to them.
With a lot of luck, though, she wouldn’t have to fight. She could walk into the precinct, get into Jim’s cell, and then take him out of there. If she had more time she could maybe find a way to fake some transfer papers, but she wouldn’t have that much time. For now the transfusion Jim had given her was keeping her strong, but as soon as that wore off, she would be back to a dried-up husk.
She had hoped the precinct would be a relatively small building, so she might have an easier time to find Jim and get him out. Instead, she saw a thirteen-story art deco building complete with ominous gargoyles on the roof. Well, here goes nothing, Emma thought as she pulled the stolen cruiser into the parking lot.
The shoe polish was still a little tacky as she gathered her hair into a ponytail like Officer Morgan’s. She wiped the polish on her hands off as well as she could; if anyone asked she would say that the car had broken down and she’d gotten some grease on her hands.
No one paid her any mind until she got up to the front desk. She tried to slip past the sergeant, but he called out, “Morgan, where you been? You were supposed to report in a half-hour ago.”
“Sorry, car broke down,” Emma said. She tried to make her voice sound tougher and more authoritative, like Officer Morgan’s.
The desk sergeant’s nose wrinkled. “What the hell is that smell? You been down in the sewers or something?”
“Chased some punk
out after curfew into an alley.”
“Where’s he at?”
“I let her off with a warning. She’ll be wearing it for a few days.” She and the desk sergeant snickered at this. “I’m going to go hit the showers.”
“Good idea.”
Emma hurried away and breathed a sigh of relief. Now she just had to find Jim. The obvious place to start was the holding cells. She sauntered along the corridors until she found what she wanted on the third floor. The guard looked up from a magazine at her approach. She smiled thinly at him so that he couldn’t get a good look at her teeth. “Hi,” she said. “I’m looking for a punk name of Rizzard. He been brought in here yet?”
“The Rat? Nah, the Specials took him. Poor bastard.”
“Yeah, poor bastard,” Emma echoed. Her stomach cramped more out of nervousness than hunger this time.
“If you want, you could always interrogate me.”
Emma tried to think of a suitable insult. “Why, your mom busy tonight?”
She turned on her heel and stormed out; she continued to walk briskly until she found the bathroom. There she sagged onto a toilet to take a few deep breaths. Was she already too late for Jim? She doubted these Specials messed around; they had probably already tortured him. The only question was: why did they want him? He was just a squatter—and a gift shop clerk, an artist, and the man she loved.
Emma stood up and her fists clenched again. She wouldn’t stop now. She would find him no matter what it took. She stomped out of the bathroom and looked for the stairs. Though she couldn’t be certain, she figured the Specials would be located somewhere near the top of the building.
This hunch proved to be correct, as at the twelfth floor she ran into an armed guard. “Who are you?” the guard asked.
“Officer Darlene Morgan. I’m here about the Rizzard case.”
“I haven’t received any orders about letting an Officer Morgan in. You’ll have to—” Emma didn’t give him time to finish; she lunged forward and with one hand hurled him down the stairs. The guard lay unconscious but not seriously injured. Emma sized him up and decided his clothes would be a better fit, not to mention she could fit in easier with the Special’s uniform.
After she tucked her slimy hair into the guard’s helmet, Emma opened the door to the twelfth floor. On the surface it didn’t seem much different from the rest of the precinct with various offices, conference rooms, and cubicles. The main difference came in the men and women who occupied these offices, conference rooms, and cubicles; they all wore a strange symbol of a stick figure with its arms curved down; some even had this tattooed on their arms. It must be like a unit badge, she thought. It was also noticeably quiet on this floor; no one so much as breathed heavy.
Emma kept her head down and hoped no one would notice her as she discreetly searched for Jim. When she didn’t find him on the twelfth floor, she went upstairs to the thirteenth, which mercifully did not have a guard.
It was there that she found Jim. They had him in an interrogation room, tied to a chair. Two burly men occupied the room with him; one stood in the back of the room and the other just a few inches in front of Jim. From the way Jim’s head lolled and the scent of blood that wafted under the door, Emma knew they were working him over.
She felt the beast stir inside of her at the smell of Jim’s blood. This time she let the beast out of its cage. She kicked the door open and then burst into the room. The nearest of the two Specials took a swing at her, but she easily ducked under this and then seized the front of his shirt. She threw him hard enough that he went through the wall; a pile of drywall formed on top of him.
She opened her helmet and bared her fangs at the other man. “I’m taking him out of here,” she said. “You have a problem with that?”
“Go ahead,” the man said. Emma smiled a little to see the wet stain on his pants.
“Thank you.” She snapped the handcuffs that held Jim to the chair like twigs and then helped him stand up. His right eye was swollen shut and blood stained his nose. Emma wanted to lick up the blood, but there wasn’t time for that now.
His good eye focused on her; when he opened his mouth, she saw teeth missing. “You came for me.”
“Of course. I love you.” She took time for the briefest of kisses; some of the blood in his mouth seeped into hers to reenergize her. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
That was easier said than done. The moment Emma stepped out of the interrogation room, she saw fifty Specials between her and the stairway. Most of them had guns drawn and aimed at her.
She pushed Jim back into the interrogation room and then handed him the gun of the Special who’d wet himself. “I’ll be back soon,” she said. “I promise.”
She decided it was finally time to put her immortality to the test. Without a word, Emma charged forward. She closed her eyes as she heard the guns open fire. The body armor absorbed most of the bullets, but one did get through to hit her in the right hip. She grunted in pain but kept going.
A bullet struck her in the helmet to crack it open. Still, she plunged on; this was the only chance for her and Jim to escape. Another bullet found an opening in her left shoulder. Emma cried out in pain, but pressed on.
When she finally reached the Specials, she unleashed the pent-up fury of the beast within her. Her fingernails turned to claws that raked through body armor, clothes, and flesh. Her muscles swelled until the body armor she wore felt tight. She hurled the Specials around like rag dolls; at one point she used a man’s body like a baseball bat to take down three others.
Throughout it all, she managed to keep her bloodlust in check. She didn’t kill anyone. She didn’t bite anyone’s neck, despite how much she desperately wanted to. The beast pleaded with her to let it take just one little bite to keep herself invigorated. She denied this as it wouldn’t stop there.
When it was over, Emma stood amongst a pile of unconscious bodies, the smell of blood so overpowering that she had to scream. Jim stuck his head out of the interrogation room and then hobbled over to where she stood. “Holy shit,” he said.
“Come on,” she said. She took his hand and her fingernails retracted back to their normal length. She was about to lead him downstairs when the room began to shake. Emma recognized the sound of rotors.
Instead of going downstairs, she took him up to the roof. The police helicopter had just touched down and let out a trio of Specials. Emma led Jim over to an air conditioning unit. “Wait here.”
Since she’d already taken down so many others, these three Specials were anything but. She lunged at one and spun him into the other two. A punch to the solar plexus of each made sure they would stay down. The helicopter pilot saw what was happening and tried to take off, but he was too late. Emma jumped on board and stuck a clawed finger to the pilot’s neck. “I think it’s time you took a break,” she hissed before she tossed him out of the vehicle, onto the pad.
As she stepped out of the vehicle, she saw Jim was not alone. A woman with a pale, vaguely Asian face and blue eyes held Jim up by the collar. The wind blew her brown hair into her face and wrapped her black skirt around her legs. A silver necklace shaped like the symbol the other Specials wore glinted from around her neck.
“Emma, get out of here!” Jim shouted. He tried to break free of the woman’s grip, but she held on to his collar with only one hand. She held up her other and Jim’s body went slack, though his eyes were still open to plead with her.
The woman grinned at Emma. “Hello, Emma. I’m glad we could finally meet in person.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Renee Chiostro. You probably don’t remember me. Last time we met I looked very different.”
“Let Jim go.”
“I’m afraid not.”
Emma opened her mouth and bared her fangs. “I said let him go.”
“You’re finally becoming what the master hoped for. But I think you’re going to need a little motivation to get the rest of the way.”
With that, a knife appeared in Renee’s hand. Before Emma could react, Renee stabbed the knife into Jim’s heart. He screamed as blood spread across his chest. Renee cackled madly as she let him drop to the rooftop.
Emma’s eyes met Jim’s; his eyes pleaded with her to help, but there was nothing she could do for him, not now. “I love you,” he whispered before he went still.
“No!” Emma’s fingernails elongated again as she leaped forward. The beast came free from its cage and this time she wouldn’t stop it. She had finally found someone worthy of killing. She knocked Renee to the ground and raked a claw across the woman’s smiling face. Renee only laughed at this, that smug grin fixed on her face.
Blood filled Emma’s vision; the whole world turned red as she smacked Renee’s head against the rooftop. Renee made no attempt to fight back as Emma turned the woman’s head to the side and exposed her long, pale neck. Her fangs lengthened, ready to plunge into that beautiful neck, to suck the life out of the one who had taken Jim’s life from her.
As she was about to bring her fangs down, something stung her neck. Emma reached up to find a dart sticking out of her neck. She turned to see a man in bulky red armor with a yellow cape that flapped in the wind like a flag. “Emma, you don’t want to do that.”
“Yes I do! She killed Jim.” Tears bubbled up in Emma’s eyes. “I loved him.”
“You can’t kill her. If you do, Isis will win.”
“I don’t care!” She turned back to Renee, who still grinned like a maniac. There was one way to wipe that smile off her face—
A second dart hit her in the neck. Her claws retracted and her eyelids drooped. The world around her began to grow dark. She fought to stay awake, to finish her revenge for Jim. I failed you again, Jim, she thought as she pitched forward onto Renee and descended into sleep.
Chapter 23
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 165
