“You’re probably kicking yourself for that one.”
“I wouldn’t say that. Can’t remember the last time I had so much fun that didn’t involve getting drunk or bedding some nice young lady.” The old trucker smiled at Tim. “It’s been like something from one of those matinees I saw when I was a kid. All we need is a fifty-foot ant or lizard or something like that.”
“We might get that before it’s over.”
“I hope not.” Old Coyote shook his head. “I just wish I could be there with you all when it goes down. I’d love to see the look on that bitch’s face when she gets what’s coming to her.”
“You’re not going?”
“Someone’s got to stay here and look after Napoleon there. Like your friend Akako told me, I ain’t going to be of much good in there anyway. Not without a fancy suit like you got.”
“Well, maybe we should trade.”
“I reckon I’m a little too long in the tooth for being a superhero. That’s best left to kids like you and your friend.”
“Emma’s the real superhero. I’m just a guy with a suit.”
“I wouldn’t sell yourself short. You saved her, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I guess so. I don’t really feel much like a hero, though.”
“You’re a damned sight more of a hero than I was at your age, I tell you what.”
“Thanks.”
“Now look, son, you go and make sure that nice young lady comes back in one piece.”
“I will.”
“Good. I reckon I best go and get the truck ready. Lucky for us one of them fellas is a trucker too. I’m going to miss the old gal, though. I been driving her for ten years now.”
“We’ll bring it back in one piece.”
“Let’s hope so.” Old Coyote took Tim’s gauntleted hand and shook it. “You be careful, son, and I’ll see you when you get back. Maybe then we can tie one on.”
“It’s a date,” Tim said. He gave Old Coyote’s hand a slight shake back, careful not to break it.
It took another hour to make the preparations for the trip. To fit all fifty of the Reds—which included Joanna’s mother—was a tight squeeze, especially with the weapons too. They managed to do it, but Tim hoped they didn’t get delayed in reaching the city. As for he and Emma, they rode on the top of the trailer, Pepe curled up nonchalantly on Emma’s lap. Once they reached Sharonville, the three of them would go into the sewers and walk to Robinson Tower, where Isis waited for them.
Joanna’s mother was the last to board the truck. Emma and Akako had tried to convince her to stay behind, but she refused. “I have to do my part,” she said. She bent down to hug her daughter. “I love you, baby. You be careful and stay with Old Coyote. No fooling around in the woods. You understand?”
“Yes, Mommy.”
“Good girl. And make sure you get something to eat. You need to keep your strength up if you’re going to send everyone home again.”
“I will.”
Joanna’s mother nodded to her and then kissed her cheek. “Whatever happens, you remember Mommy loves you very much.”
“I love you too, Mommy.”
Joanna’s mother finally stood up and walked slowly to the cab of the truck, where she sat next to Akako on the front seat. The little girl stood beside Old Coyote and the fort of crates, to wave to them as the truck pulled away. As Tim watched them fade away, he wondered if he would ever see either of them again.
Part 4
Chapter 34
The barrier had grown enough that the truck only had to go a half-mile before they reached it. Akako took a deep breath as the driver, a heavyset black man from South Africa named Rooi, edged the truck closer to the barrier. “Is there really anything beyond that?” Rooi asked.
“A whole city,” Akako said.
Rooi looked skeptical, but he put down the truck’s accelerator, to power the big rig into the black wall. Akako felt the same electrical tingle again, the signal that they were crossing from the real world into Isis’s playground. She wished at this point she were more religious so she might have someone to pray to for help but her parents had never shown any interest in religion and obviously Aggie didn’t believe in anything. The closest she could come was to look up at the roof, where Emma and Tim rode in their armor. Emma was the closest to an angel she had ever seen.
A moment later the tingling stopped and Rooi let out a gasp. He of course had access to her thoughts and memories, but she knew it was still a shock to see it in person. How a city so large could completely disappear was beyond comprehension for most people.
Beside her, Dr. Reed had shown no reaction to this. She hadn’t stopped crying since she’d said goodbye to her daughter. Akako thought for the hundredth time that it would have been better for Dr. Reed to stay behind with Joanna, but the woman wanted to help. Akako and the other Reds were already in silent agreement that she would stay with Rooi to guard the truck once they reached the city. That would keep her out of the way enough that they could do what Joanna had tasked them with.
Others might have felt skeptical of a plan devised by an eight-year-old girl, but Akako didn’t have those reservations. She knew Joanna was no mere child. It was Joanna who had led Akako across the void to this world, to Agnes. At that time Joanna had only been a toddler, and yet she’d had the foresight to send Akako to where she would be happy and needed. So if Joanna thought this plan could work, then in Akako’s mind it could.
She was less certain about her role in the plan. Joanna had tasked her to go to Renee, to try to reason with her. “If you have to, knock her out and bring her back. Once she’s free of Isis she might be more willing,” Joanna had said.
Akako didn’t know about this. Renee had always been a good girl, shy but sweet in the right company. That didn’t mean she couldn’t have a dark side beneath the surface. It was that potential dark side Glenda had warned her and Agnes about when they had tried to conceive Renee. Ms. Chiu had also tried to warn Akako that in the wrong hands Renee could be a powerful evil. Those fears had come to pass now. Much as she wanted to deny it, she couldn’t doubt the word of Joanna, Emma, and Tim, who had all described the same thing: Renee had changed their friends into children and basked in their humiliation. As much as Akako wanted to deny it, her baby was evil.
While Joanna had suggested Akako try to reason with Renee or at least bring her back across the barrier, Akako thought of a different mission. Her real mission might be to kill her only child, this dark abomination she had birthed. She didn’t know if she could do it; she thought of Renee putting her head on Akako’s shoulder to fall asleep in her arms. How could she kill that?
The truck ground to a stop as they neared a giant pothole in the main street of Sharonville. Emma appeared at the door, her visor up so Akako could see her eyes. “I guess this is our stop,” Emma said. Her eyes belied the smile she wore.
“I guess so.” Akako put one hand out the window to take Emma’s gloved hand. “Take care of yourself.”
“You too.” They nodded to each other and then Emma bounced away; Tim followed her along with Pepe the rat. They disappeared into the pothole, from which they would gain access to the sewers and then walk all the way to Robinson Tower.
Akako sighed and then turned to Rooi. “I guess we’d better get moving. We don’t have all night,” she said, to sound strong and brave. She couldn’t fool the others, but she might be able to fool Dr. Reed.
It hadn’t taken Akako long to note the resemblance between Dr. Reed and Emma. Joanna’s mother was slightly older and a little heavier in the midsection, but they were the same in every other way: big feet, slightly big nose, shy smile, and deep blue eyes. Emma had already told her about meeting Dr. Reed and Joanna in their universe, where she had learned the origin of how Akako and those like her gained their strange bond with each other.
In a way, Dr. Reed was her mother. Not her biological mother, but as the co-creator of the experiment that had formed the bond between Akako and the
others, Dr. Reed had helped give birth to Akako’s new life. That was part of the reason Akako and the other versions of Dr. Reed’s husband Red didn’t want her on this mission—to lose her would be akin to losing their mother. For Akako that would be even worse because it would also be like losing her best friend.
There was nothing Akako could do about it at the moment. They couldn’t very well leave Dr. Reed here to walk back to camp, especially not in the state she was in. Akako patted the woman’s back and stroked her red hair. “Joanna’s going to be fine. Old Coyote will take care of her.”
“I know. But what happens if we don’t get rid of Isis? What’s going to happen to her then?”
“I don’t know,” Akako said, though she did know. If they failed, then eventually if Joanna didn’t die she would become like Renee, a twisted, evil creature who served Isis. Akako was grateful then that Dr. Reed couldn’t read her mind or the poor woman would probably become inconsolable.
“And even if we do win, how is she going to send everyone home? You saw what happened to her last time. She would have died if Dr. Earl hadn’t saved her.”
“If we do win, we’ll have plenty of time for her to rest.”
“Maybe.” Dr. Reed looked up and flashed that shy smile through her tears. “That speech she made, I wasn’t sure if I should be proud of her or angry with her. Sometimes I just wish she could be an ordinary little girl, but I guess it’s my fault. She is just like me—only tougher. But then I guess she had to be with her father dying. I guess that’s why I’m so much weaker than her or Dr. Earl; nothing bad happened to me until Red died.”
“You’ve raised a smart, beautiful little girl on your own. Shouldn’t that mean something?”
“Dr. Earl said that too. I don’t know. I think Joanna raised herself mostly. I just changed her diapers and bought her clothes and food—and books.”
“You gave her love too. Don’t forget that.” While this seemed to cheer Dr. Reed, it did little for Akako. She had given her daughter all of her love, to the point that Agnes accused her of spoiling Renee, and it didn’t seem to matter.
Or maybe it would. Maybe there was still a bit of that sweet little baby left in her, a part she could still reach. Akako felt the barrel of the gun again. If not, she would have to do what needed done.
The truck rumbled over the Mackenzie Bridge, into Rampart City. Akako shivered at the sight of Isis’s symbol on the sign—as much a warning as a welcome. They had entered the heart of Isis’s new domain now; Robinson Tower loomed ominously over them. That would be where Emma and Tim would go. She didn’t envy them.
At the first corner they passed, Akako saw the police officer in his black armor, armed with a machine gun just as lethal as the ones the Reds carried. Of course from the look of him, the cop probably knew how to use his weapon.
She tried not to look directly at the police officer; she stared straight ahead through the windshield. Once they had coasted through the intersection, Akako glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the cop turn to watch them. He was probably getting a look at their license plate—
“I think we’re going to have company in a minute,” Akako said.
They didn’t have even that long. Old Coyote’s truck disappeared just seconds later, to spill the Reds and Dr. Reed onto the pavement in a heap. Akako was the first on her feet; she grabbed her gun with one hand and Dr. Reed’s hand with the other. “Everyone move out!” she shouted, though this was largely unnecessary. “Pair up and scatter, just like we planned.”
Because of their psychic bond, it didn’t take long for the Reds to carry this out. They ran off in all directions, Rooi with young Rosita. “We’ll see you back at camp,” he said before he took off to the east.
The police officer who had spotted them ran towards them and screamed for them to stop. He raised his weapon, brought it to bear on Rosita—
Akako’s shot hit him in the shoulder. She had aimed for the man’s chest, but this worked well enough to slow him down. She adjusted her aim to fire another shot that hit him in the left leg. The policeman dropped to the ground and screamed in pain. Maybe Isis could heal him, or maybe not. She wasn’t about to stand there long enough to find out.
She took Dr. Reed’s hand again to lead her to the west. “Where are we going?” Dr. Reed asked.
“To find my family.”
***
Despite all the time she had spent in Rampart City’s sewers, Emma had never ventured into the suburban ones. Neither had Pepe gone this far from his home territory, so that they both let Tim lead the way. His armor had trouble fitting in some of the pipes, but he managed to get through. She didn’t have as much of a problem, her armor less bulky.
Still, she couldn’t help but marvel at Tim’s suit of armor, how it moved almost as fluidly as her own. He had done this on his own, without any help from wizards or gods—just an eleven-year-old girl. Maybe he had more than one drop of Heph’s blood in him. She wished she could get a picture of him in the suit to mail to that parole board so they could see Tim’s genius on display. Of course if they did see it, they would send him back to prison for violating the conditions of his parole.
Other than the size difference of the pipes—and the rats—Emma distinctly felt the absence of Jim in the suburban pipes. There were none of his sculptures to give a unique human touch to the sewers that always made her feel as if she had entered his home. These were simply utilitarian waste pipes, nothing more.
Once the pipes widened, Pepe took the lead with Emma following after him. As they neared an intersection, Pepe came to a stop. He sniffed at the fetid air for a moment and then shrieked the rat equivalent of a scream. Emma saw what had prompted this.
There was a sculpture at the intersection. Though effigy might be more appropriate. It looked like one Jim had made of her, only there was a rusty piece of metal run through the chest with red spray paint around it. The face of this sculpture hung open in a look of torment. It was about as good of a warning as if she’d written, “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter.”
“What’s that?” Tim asked.
“A warning. She knows we’re coming.”
“So what do we do?”
“We keep going.”
They plunged on, more ghastly sculptures along the walls. One featured Emma dangling from chains, her body sliced in half. Another had her severed head crammed into a very uncomfortable place. The worst, though, featured her bent over with an effigy of Jim behind her.
“Jesus,” Tim whispered. “That’s grotesque.”
“She’s trying to rattle us,” Emma said. It worked to some extent; Emma’s hands involuntarily balled into fists at this mockery of her and Jim’s love.
She forced herself to keep moving, to try not to let Isis’s tricks get to her. But she couldn’t once they came to the next sculpture. This one had Emma on a rocking chair, a bundle wrapped in a pink blanket cradled in her arms. Except that it wasn’t a baby—it was a rat.
Before she knew it, Emma had torn the new Sword of Justice from its sheath and chopped off the arms that held the baby rat. It was one thing for Isis to mock her, but it was another for her to mock Louise. Emma stood in front of the horrible sculpture, the Sword of Justice poised to strike again. Then she heard the splash at her feet.
The rat baby was alive. Not only was it alive, but it was growing. Emma took a step back to watch in disbelief as the rat became a bipedal creature as tall as the sewer pipe, each tooth as big as her head. Its tail, as long as she was tall, lashed out to fling her against the wall of the sewer. The Sword of Justice dropped from her hand to clatter to the concrete side of the pipe.
She sat dazed for a moment, to watch as Tim fired three darts from his right hand into the rat. It roared with rage; its tail smacked him as well. He landed in front of her, sewage up to his waist. The rat charged forward to finish them off—and then collapsed.
“I think that got it,” Tim said.
“I think so. Good work.” She got to her feet and
then helped him up. “How many more of those do you have?”
“Not nearly enough.”
Even as he said this, Pepe shrieked again. The reason became clear as she saw his body begin to swell as the other rat’s had. He screamed again; this time he called to her in ratspeak and pleaded with her to kill him. “I can’t,” she said.
Tim put four darts into Pepe, enough tranquilizer to put him to sleep in seconds. His body went back to its normal size and floated on the surface of the sewer. Emma put a hand to the rat’s neck, to feel for a pulse. “He’s dead,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry,” Tim said. “I must have used too much.”
She shook her head. “No, it wasn’t you. It was her.” She sighed as she stared ahead at the miles of sewer, populated by millions of rats who could all be turned into hideous monsters like that baby and Pepe. As Tim had said, he wouldn’t have nearly enough darts for all of them. “We’d better go up to the surface.”
“You go ahead. I can’t fit through those manhole covers.”
“Tim—”
“I’ll join you later.”
She lifted her visor to smile at him. “Actually, I think I have a better idea.” She raised the Sword of Justice and then tossed it into the air. Heph had done a good job to keep the same aerodynamic properties so she didn’t have much of a problem to guide the blade.
The bigger problem was the rumble that came down the sewer. Emma imagined dozens of rat monsters swarming along the pipe to devour them. She closed her eyes to concentrate on the sword and tried to keep her mind off their impending doom. At last the sword created a hole big enough for Tim to fit through.
“Go,” she said as the blade returned to her hand. She saw a horde of red eyes approach and heard the low growl of the monsters.
Tim didn’t argue with her; he hit his boosters. He blasted off into the air, to arc out of the manhole cover, onto the street above. “The coast’s clear—for the moment,” he said.
Emma jammed the Sword of Justice into its sheath. Before she jumped, she looked back down at Pepe. He had been as good of a friend to her as any human she’d ever known. She hoped that like Jim, Pepe would go to the astral plane to wait for her. “Goodbye,” she whispered and then leaped.
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 176
