Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis

by P. T. Dilloway

  To get to Parkdale, Tim figured it would be easier to take the sewers. Pepe led the way again, at least through the city. Once they got back to the narrower pipes of the suburbs, Pepe climbed back onto his shoulder. The suburban rats didn’t show Pepe the same deference as the city’s rats, but his sheer size intimidated them enough that they ran away.

  There was no waste pipe for Tim to use, but with Pepe’s help he did find a storm drain big enough to accommodate the suit. Pepe scampered down onto the pavement and sniffed at it like a bloodhound. Tim had stopped being surprised at the rat’s capabilities; he wondered if Pepe was some kind of rat genius in the way Emma was a human one. Provided someone made a maze big enough, he doubted it would take Pepe more than a few minutes to find his way out.

  Tim let Pepe take the lead again and followed after him along the empty streets of Parkdale. Tim didn’t see any people, or even any cars until an ambulance screamed by. He tried in vain to hide himself behind a tree, but the ambulance was going too fast for anyone to notice him. With a sigh of relief, he continued to follow Pepe.

  They finally arrived at a trailer park. Tim shook his head; this was wrong. Of course Emma’s mother wasn’t supposed to be alive in the first place; she had died when Emma was a little girl. Even if she were alive, she wouldn’t live in a trailer park. This had to be more of Isis’s handiwork.

  Pepe didn’t pay attention to any of this; he wandered along the dirt paths, past the darkened trailers. Tim hoped the heavy footsteps of his suit wouldn’t disturb anyone, or else he would probably end up with the police on him. If he were lucky, anyone who woke would just think it was a truck or someone with a loud stereo.

  No one bothered him all the way to a green trailer with white trim. There was no car in the driveway and no lights on inside. Probably no one was home. Still, he had to check and make sure. How to do that was the problem. He couldn’t fit through the windows; for that matter he wasn’t sure he’d be able to fit through the front door.

  The solution was right in front of his nose—or at his feet. Pepe squeaked at him, and pointed towards a window with his snout. Though he thought Pepe couldn’t surprise him anymore, the rat did just that when he stood up on his hind legs and clawed at the side of the trailer. He looked back to Tim and squeaked again.

  Tim finally understood. He bent down so the rat could climb up into his hands. Someone had left the window open, so Tim just had to lift up his hands to let the rat slink inside. Tim waited outside for Pepe to return and squatted down to make it harder for anyone who passed by to notice him.

  A woman’s scream told him something had gone wrong. Tim decided there was no more point in subtlety; he ran over to the front door and used the armor’s strength to tear it off its hinges. He turned sideways and managed to squeeze inside.

  A woman ran straight at him. She was an older woman with curly gray hair, both shorter and fatter than the Emma he remembered. Her blue eyes did look familiar, though at the moment they had a wild look to them. The woman fell to the floor in front of him and put a hand to her mouth as she screamed again.

  “Are you Emma’s mother?” he asked. He hoped this was the case.

  “Yes. Whatever she’s done, it’s not my fault. I tried to raise her right. Lord, I tried.”

  Tim lifted the visor so she could see his face. “I’m not with the Specials, Mrs. Earl. I’m here to save your daughter from them.”

  “Who are you?”

  “You can call me the Scarlet Knight.”

  The woman crawled backwards, at least until she saw Pepe at the other end of the room. She gasped at the sight of the huge rat. She dragged herself over to the television. “What’s that thing?”

  “His name’s Pepe. He’s a friend of Emma’s. Do you know where she went?”

  “No. I don’t know where she went.” Mrs. Earl began to cry. “Gladys and I tried to help her. We tried to get the demon out of her, but it was too strong.”

  “Demon?”

  “She had these awful fangs and her blood—it was black! Like the devil’s soul!”

  More likely it wasn’t the devil—it was Isis. He decided not to try to explain this to Mrs. Earl. “Do you know what way she went?”

  “I don’t know. She threw Gladys against the wall and then she went out the window.”

  That at least explained why the window had been left open. “We’ll try to find her. Thank you for your help.”

  “God bless you, young man.”

  Tim nodded; right now he could use all the help he could get.

  ***

  Pepe didn’t need long before he picked up the scent again. This time he led Tim to a bus stop that at the moment was unoccupied. She must have gotten on a bus. But to where? Tim shook his head. They were at a dead end.

  He turned to the schedule posted beneath a map of the bus routes. If Emma had been at the trailer park a couple of hours ago and then come here, there had been only two buses she could have taken. Both of them went back to Rampart City. “Well, I guess you’re going home,” he said to Pepe.

  Pepe led him back to the pipe they had used last time. From there they walked around seemingly in circles while the rat tried to pick up the scent. When Pepe did get something, the rat became agitated; his fur stood up. He pointed emphatically with his snout towards the south. Tim wondered what the rat had picked up, but had long ago decided it was best not to question Pepe’s senses.

  The rat scurried along so fast that Tim had to run to keep pace with him. The streets in this part of town were deserted, except for the occasional flaming barrel that indicated a group of homeless people. They would probably think he was one of the Specials and leave him alone.

  Pepe didn’t stop for a break as he ran along the streets and finally stopped in front of a thirteen-story building with ominous gargoyles on its roof. The sign on the building indicated it was the 21st Precinct of the Rampart City Police Department. “Oh no,” Tim mumbled. The police had already picked her up.

  Pepe turned to him; he shrieked at him and then gestured towards the building. “I know, but we can’t just go stomping in there.” He’d already tangled with the police and seen what they—and Isis—could do. Last time he’d been lucky to escape. Now he would have to break into one of their strongholds.

  Tim studied the buildings around him. An abandoned apartment building across the street was about as high as the police headquarters. If he could get onto the apartment building’s roof, then he could get a better look at the police headquarters. He could probably fly over to the precinct’s roof from there and maybe sneak in; it had to be a better idea than to smash through the front doors.

  He picked Pepe up and the rat settled onto his shoulder as he broke down the front doors of the apartment building. From the dust and garbage in the place, no one had lived here legally in half a century. The stairways were rotten and creaked dangerously with his every step. The stairs held for the first five floors. From there he had to stop; water damage had turned the stairs to mush.

  The only way up from there was to use his boosters. He jumped through a window and hit the boosters. He figured it was better to use them outdoors than to risk a fire indoors. The boosters propelled him up to the roof; a warning light flashed before he came down. If he survived this, he would have to make the boosters more efficient, but then he’d never intended them for extended use.

  The roof at least hadn’t become too rotten, so he could stand at the edge and look down at the police precinct. There didn’t seem to be any open windows he could use. If he tried to break through a window the precinct was sure to have an alarm system. The last thing he wanted was to try to fight an entire precinct of cops.

  He heard the sound of rotors and managed to turn off his night vision equipment before the helicopter’s spotlight blinded him. For a moment he worried that the police were looking for him, but then he realized the helicopter was just coming in to land on the precinct’s roof.

  Once the helicopter turned off its spotlight
, Tim turned his night vision gear back on. He was just in time to see two figures emerge from a door on the roof. One was a young man with tangled hair. The other was a tall, gawky young woman. Though he couldn’t see colors through the night vision gear, Tim was certain this woman’s hair was red.

  He had found Emma.

  Chapter 24

  As Tim prepared for his jump, three Specials emerged from the helicopter and headed straight for Emma, who had left the man behind an air conditioner. By the time Tim lit his boosters, Emma had already disposed of the Specials. She disappeared into the helicopter while Tim burned towards the precinct roof and relaxed for the briefest moment. He should have known Emma could take care of herself.

  The same could not be said for her friend. As Emma stepped out of the helicopter, a strange woman appeared on the rooftop, right next to the air conditioner where Emma’s friend was hidden. The woman grabbed the man’s collar and then hauled him to his feet.

  The jump seemed to take forever to complete. Tim willed the boosters to go faster, but he couldn’t push them too hard or they’d seize again and he’d tumble thirteen stories, almost certainly to his death. He could only watch as Emma and the woman exchanged words. He still watched as the woman stabbed the man in the heart.

  Tim finally touched down at the same moment Emma leaped on the woman. There was something wrong with Emma; she was like an animal as she clawed at the woman and then leaned down as if to bite her. Tim rushed across the rooftop and saw why Emma acted this way, though he couldn’t believe it: she sported not only claws like a grizzly bear, but fangs like a snake—or a vampire.

  Tim didn’t have any time to try to reason with Emma. He raised his right hand and launched a dart at her. The dart embedded itself into her neck before she could bite the woman. Emma looked up at him and bared those horrible fangs.

  “Emma, you don’t want to do that,” he said.

  “Yes I do! She killed Jim,” Emma said. While her voice was the same as ever, the rest of her face looked different. It wasn’t just the fangs or the greasy black hair; her face looked smoother, younger. What had Isis done to her? “I loved him.”

  Pepe scampered down off Tim’s shoulders and hurried over to the man on the rooftop. The rat poked the man with his snout to sniff at him. The rat then began a keening wail that chilled Tim to the bone. He knew then that the dead man was Jim Rizzard, the Sewer Rat—and Emma’s lover. Her animal fury made sense now. Still, he knew he couldn’t let her kill this woman. He couldn’t let Emma betray her values—betray herself. “You can’t kill her. If you do, Isis will win.”

  “I don’t care!” She turned back to sink her fangs into the woman’s neck. Tim forced himself to keep his eyes open as he fired a second dart into her neck. He thought this still might not work, then Emma’s eyes rolled back into her head and she pitched forward, on top of the woman.

  Tim hurried over to her. As he did, he awkwardly reached back for his cape to tear it loose. He laid the cape out next to the woman and then gently rolled Emma over on to it. He even more gently folded the cape around her like a blanket. While he did this, the woman got to her feet. He looked up at her and saw the symbol the other Specials wore around her neck. “You’re one of the Specials,” he said.

  “Not just one of them. I’m the head of them.”

  “I thought Isis was the head of them.”

  “The master oversees everything. I oversee the Special Police to make sure her will is done.”

  “Did you do this to Emma?”

  “Of course not. Only the master could do something that brilliant.” The woman shook her head. “It would have worked, too, if not for your interference. Now we’ll have to start all over again with her.”

  Tim raised one hand and pointed the dart guns at her neck. “I’m taking her out of here. Back to the real world.”

  “You’ll never make it out of here alive. This is the master’s city.”

  “I’m not afraid of your master.” Tim slid his free hand beneath Emma to scoop her up the same way he’d gotten Sylvia into Old Coyote’s truck. He rose slowly to his feet, but kept his free hand trained on the woman. “Pepe, get over here. It’s time to go.”

  “Before you go, maybe you’d consider making a deal for Emma’s life.”

  “I’m not making any deals with you or your master.”

  “You might want to reconsider that. I happen to possess something very valuable to you. Or I should say someone valuable to you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  The woman snapped her fingers and Sylvia appeared in her arms. Not Sylvia as he’d left her, but a curly haired toddler in a sailor suit. Her eyes were the same green; they opened wide as she saw Tim before her. “Cooper?”

  “Sylvia? You can’t be here. You were safe, inside the truck.”

  The woman patted Sylvia’s curly hair. “She followed you into the city, not realizing what she was getting into. You were always so hotheaded, weren’t you?” The way the woman said this last sentence was with the same tone as Renee Kim talked to Mr. Snuggles.

  “I wanna go home!” Sylvia blurted out.

  “You hear that, Mr. Cooper? You give Emma back to me and I’ll give you Sylvia. And if you turn over the armor, I’ll let her grow up again.”

  Tim shook his head; this was a trick. The moment he turned the armor over, he would be as vulnerable to Isis’s magic as Emma or Jim Rizzard or anyone else. But why wasn’t Sylvia protected? She came from another universe, like the metal of his suit, like Akako and the other Reds. Shouldn’t she have been immune too? “How did you do this to her?”

  The woman twirled one of Sylvia’s curls around her finger and then shrugged. “The mind believes what it sees. She sees herself as a baby and she convinces herself she is a baby. It’s mind over matter, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”

  Sylvia turned her head and buried her face in the woman’s bosom. There had to be some way to get her out of here. Once she was free of Isis’s world, he could help her realize she wasn’t a toddler. He sighted his dart gun and made sure it was lined up with the woman’s neck.

  As he did, the knife appeared in the woman’s hand again. She pressed it to Sylvia’s neck. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Let me make this easy for you: give Emma to me or I’ll slit the little brat’s throat.”

  “I can’t give Emma to you.”

  “What a shame.”

  “No!” Tim shouted, but the woman didn’t stab Sylvia with it. The knife disappeared again as the woman laughed at him.

  “Of course I’m not going to kill her. It’s so much more fun to watch her suffer.” The woman waved her hand and a moment later she no longer held a toddler but a baby with wispy red pigtails who wore only a diaper and a pink T-shirt. The baby’s face turned red and then she began to wail through her pacifier. “So, do we have a deal yet?”

  Tim shook his head as he thought back to Becky’s apartment. He’d let the Specials take her too because Emma was too important. His mission was to bring her back. That’s what he would do, no matter the cost. “I can’t. I’m sorry, Sylvia.”

  “Suit yourself,” the woman said.

  Then she and little Sylvia disappeared—along with the rest of the building.

  ***

  It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that if Isis could change people, she could change buildings too. In this case, where the precinct had been was now a very large hole filled with metal spikes that could easily shred Tim and the suit of armor—and Emma. He saw an example of the fate that awaited him as Jim Rizzard’s body was skewered by the spikes. Pepe hissed at this but clung to Tim’s back.

  “Just hold on,” he told the rat as he cut in the boosters. He knew better than to fly; that would seize the boosters up and leave him to plummet just like the Sewer Rat’s corpse.

  Instead, he eased himself towards the ground and waited for Isis to pull some other trick. She didn’t disappoint him; she pulled the ground away to leave more metal spikes to impale him
. He suspected this would be the case until he reached the edge of the barrier. By then his boosters would have seized and he would be dead—and so would Emma.

  Except Isis clearly didn’t want Emma to die. Otherwise she could have done it long ago, when she had Emma under her thumb. That woman, the head of the Specials, had tried to bargain with her for Emma’s life. You didn’t need to be a genius to figure out that Isis still had plans for Emma.

  “You kill me and Emma will die too!” he shouted into the void. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  A pair of glowing red eyes appeared in front of him along with a shadowy form shaped vaguely like a woman. “You wouldn’t do that. You’re too much like her.”

  “To keep her out of your hands I would.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “You want to take the chance?”

  A set of white, fanged teeth smiled at him. “Very well. It won’t matter in any case. She will return. I still have what she treasures the most.”

  Tim glanced down at Emma’s sleeping face and remembered what Akako had told him. Emma had given herself to Isis to save the life of her daughter. “Louise.”

  “Yes. When she comes to her senses, tell Emma that Louise and I will be waiting for her. She’ll know where to find us.”

  Before Tim could hurl any insults at Isis, the red eyes disappeared to leave only darkness for a moment. Then the city reappeared exactly as it had been, the pits of metal spikes gone. Tim touched down on the sidewalk and heaved a sigh of relief. “Let’s go,” he said to Pepe. “It’s going to be a long walk.”

  He made his way through the sewers back to Sharonville. The hole he’d made was still there to allow him to pop up in the middle of the ghost town. Emma was still unconscious; she didn’t so much as stir throughout the long trip. Tim looked up at the sky and saw the sun rising. He had never watched many horror movies, but he did know that vampires were supposed to be allergic to sunlight. He had better get her under cover before the sun came up.

  He paused in front of the black barrier, which seemed to have swelled while he was away to swallow more ground. “This might not be fun,” he said to Pepe. With a deep breath he stepped through the barrier.