Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis

by P. T. Dilloway

  “No! I'll never serve Isis!” Yet even as she said this, the room swelled again. In place of the white floral print dress she wore a pink checkered one. She patted waves of frizzy hair that Mom had tried to curl for her before the spring formal in junior high.

  She closed her eyes and tried to imagine herself as an adult, but it didn't work. She continued to shrink. The top of her head now barely came up to Renee's waist. She wore pink overalls and sported an elaborate French braid just as she had her first day of first grade, when she was five. Before long she would be as little as Akako.

  Renee put a hand on Dr. Reed's shoulder. “You don't have a choice, sweetheart. Save your daughter while you still can.”

  Dr. Reed wanted to dispute this, but even as she considered this, she shrunk into a kindergartener like Akako, only clad in a plaid jumper. She looked down at her tiny saddle shoes. What hope did she have? What hope did any of them have? But maybe she could at least spare Joanna some pain. “You win. Ow do it.”

  “I knew you would do the right thing, sweetie. Now close your eyes and say, 'I belong to Isis.'”

  Dr. Reed closed her eyes. She whispered, “I bewong to Isis.”

  Her head swam again for a moment. She opened her eyes and blinked. “Hi, Miss Wenee!”

  “Hello, sweetheart.” Miss Renee patted the shoulder of a little Asian girl with bright red pigtails. “Akako, why don't you and Emma go play?”

  Akako stared at her for a moment and then shook her head. She pressed tighter against Miss Renee's leg. Miss Renee knelt down to look Akako in the eye. “What's wrong, sweetheart? Why don't you want to play with the others?”

  “I don't wanna.”

  “Now sweetheart—”

  “I don't wanna!”

  “All right, sweetheart.” Miss Renee turned to Emma and smiled. “I have an idea. Emma, close your eyes. I have a surprise for you.”

  “Oh boy!” Emma closed her eyes. As soon as she did, her head began to feel funny. She stumbled and fell to the floor. Tears stung her eyes as pain ran through her.

  Miss Renee picked her up from the floor. “It's all right, baby. Mama's here.”

  “Mama?”

  “That's right, baby. I'm your mama.” She held up a golden mirror. In it was a face like Akako's except the cheeks were chubbier, her bright red hair hung loosely, and she wore a pretty yellow dress. “You're my little Aiko.”

  “Aiko?”

  Mama touched the end of Aiko's nose. “That's right. That's your name. Such a smart little girl.”

  Aiko giggled as Mama set her back on the floor. Then Mama patted Akako's back. “What do you think, sweetheart? Isn't your baby sister cute?”

  “She's fat,” Akako said and stuck out her tongue. Aiko's lower lip trembled. She began to cry.

  “Aiko's not fat,” Mama said. “She's just a little chubby. Like her big sister.”

  Aiko giggled again as she watched Akako's cheeks turn pudgier and her tummy get bigger until the end of her pretty necklace rested on it like a shelf. Akako put a hand to her tummy and cried out, “Mama, I'm not fat!”

  “You're not. Neither of you are. You're both just the right size.” Mama put a hand on Aiko's shoulder. “Now, baby, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

  “A fizzyzits,” Aiko said.

  “A physicist? Don't you want to be something pretty like a ballerina or a princess?”

  “No!” Aiko stamped her foot. “I wanna be fizzyzits!”

  “All right, baby.”

  A moment later Aiko wore a white lab coat over her pretty yellow dress. She felt something heavy on her nose and touched a thick pair of glasses, the top of which brushed against Aiko's thick bangs. Mama smiled at her. “There, now you're the cutest fizzyzits in the whole world.”

  Aiko leaned up to kiss Mama's cheek. “I wuv you, Mama!”

  “I love you too, baby. Now, why don't you girls go play?”

  “Yes, Mama,” Akako said. She took Aiko's hand to lead her across the room, to where the other girls played.

  ***

  Akako, Aiko, and Aggie were having a tea party in the castle when there came a lot of noise outside. Akako stuck her head out the window of the castle to see a bunch of people coming down the steps. In the lead was a woman in a black leather coat. Behind her were a bunch of scary people whose faces she couldn’t see because of their helmets.

  Akako grabbed Aiko’s arm to pull her into a corner of the castle. “Be very quiet,” she hissed at her little sister. “We don’t want them to find us.”

  Aggie crouched down with them and asked, “What about Sophie?”

  “Mama will keep her safe,” Akako said. Mama would keep all of them safe.

  Akako heard screams and squeals from outside the castle. Aiko whimpered into her shoulder. Akako wanted to whimper too, but she knew she had to be a big girl right now.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Mama shouted. “You have no right to be down here.”

  “We have plenty of right, toots,” the lady who’d come downstairs said. “The boss sent us down here for two of your brats. A Dr. Emma Reed and an Akako—”

  “You can’t have my children,” Mama said. “Get out of here this instant.”

  “Not until we have them in custody.”

  “I would suggest you get out of here right now, or else.”

  “Yeah? Go ahead and try, freak.”

  Akako held her breath and wondered what Mama would do. Whatever she did made the mean lady laugh. “You can’t hurt us. The boss is protecting us. Find them, boys. Make it quick too. This place gives me the willies.”

  Akako squeezed Aiko’s hand to let her sister know everything would be fine. If they just stayed here and kept quiet—

  Someone grabbed her by the ankles to drag her from the castle. She tried to grab on to something, but her fingers slipped from the plastic walls of the castle. Aiko took her hand, but she was just a baby, much too weak to pull Akako back.

  They both slid out of the castle to look up at one of the mean people without a face. Aiko screamed and then buried her head into Akako’s shoulder. “One of these has to be the Japanese one,” the faceless person said.

  The mean lady stared down at Akako. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

  “Akako.”

  The next thing she knew, the faceless person grabbed her around the waist. Aiko screamed again. She grabbed Akako’s ankle, but again she was too weak to stop the bad people from lifting Akako high up into the air, so that she was level with the mean lady. The mean lady smiled, which only made Akako whimper. “Hello, sweetie. You’re going for a ride.”

  “I don’t wanna.”

  “That’s too bad. Now, where’s the other one?” The mean lady turned to Mama, who stood in the middle of the room. “What’d you do with Dr. Reed?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “When the boss says she wants this Dr. Reed then it is my business, freak. Now where is she?” The mean lady stared at Mama. “Tell us or we’ll have to cart all the little bastards in.”

  “You can’t do that! She promised them to me. They’re mine!”

  “Yeah, well, if you want to keep any of them, tell us which one is Dr. Reed.”

  Mama thought about it for a minute and then said, “Akako’s little sister.”

  “No!” Akako shouted as another of the faceless people grabbed Aiko. “Please, Mama, I don’t want to go!”

  Mama reached out towards Akako, but one of the mean people shoved her back. Mama shouted, “They’re mine. Isis promised them to me!”

  “Too fucking bad, freak. The boss wants them, so we’re bringing them.”

  “You can’t have them,” Mama said. She closed her eyes and lifted her hands. The end of her pretty necklace turned from silver to red, like it was on fire. Mama’s eyes opened and she screamed.

  “Mama!” Akako shouted. She kicked at the mean person who held her, but it didn’t do anything.

  “I told you it wouldn’t do any g
ood, freak,” the mean lady said.

  “I won’t let you take them,” Mama said. The necklace glowed even brighter. Mama fell to her knees. She screamed again and put her hands to her face.

  Akako watched as Mama’s dress became loose. She started to get smaller, to shrink until she was almost as little as Akako. “No!” Mama shouted. “It’s not fair!”

  She shrank until she was littler than even Aiko. Mama sat on the floor, just a little baby with a tuft of brown hair. The necklace was so long now that the end of it rested on the floor.

  The mean lady bent down to pinch Mama’s cheek. This made Mama begin to cry. “How adorable,” the mean lady said. “You can stay here with the rest of the babies.”

  As Mama began to wail, a trapdoor opened in Akako’s mind. Her memories flooded back. It wasn’t Mama on the floor; she was the mama. “Renee,” she mumbled. “Oh, my sweet little Renee.”

  As the memories flooded back, Akako began to grow. The man who held her lost his grip as she swelled back into an adult. Akako seized this opening to snatch his pistol out of its holster. She put one bullet into his knee before she whirled around to hit the female cop in the shoulder. Akako hit the one who held Aiko—Dr. Reed—in the foot. Aiko tumbled to the floor and bawled like a little girl with a skinned knee, which she still was at the moment.

  Akako didn’t have time to deal with her yet. She lunged forward to take care of the rest of the police officers who’d come down into the basement. Once she shot them, she hit them on the head to make sure they went unconscious.

  Only then did she turn back to Renee. Her baby still wailed on the floor. “It’s going to be all right now,” Akako cooed. She took the necklace from around Renee’s neck, which only prompted the baby to cry harder. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I have to do this.”

  Though she didn’t have a lot of experience with guns, Akako managed to toss the necklace into the air and hit it with one shot. The symbol of Isis exploded in a burst of blue-white light. The light swept over the room, to pass through Akako. The others weren’t so lucky. When the light hit the others, they doubled over and screamed in pain. Akako watched as Aggie’s body began to swell. The seams of her princess costume tore open as she grew from a toddler, into a little girl, and then into a young woman.

  It was the same for everyone else in the room. When the light finally faded, Akako saw the coven on the floor, back to their adult selves. So were Becky and Megan. A few feet from Akako lay Dr. Reed, back to herself again as well.

  Renee began to wail again. Akako picked her up from the floor. When she looked into the baby’s eyes, she saw only the blue eyes the little girl had inherited from Agnes. “Oh, sweetie, it’s you,” Akako whispered. Renee only cried in response. Akako rocked her until she finally fell asleep. Akako felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to see Agnes next to her. “Is she all right?”

  “She’s fine now,” Akako said.

  “How about you?”

  “I couldn’t be happier.”

  ***

  Dr. Reed felt someone shake her and Akako’s voice whispered, “Emma, it’s all right now. You can open your eyes.”

  Dr. Reed grudgingly complied and saw Akako back to her adult self; she cradled a baby who had to be that awful woman—her daughter. I guess she got what was coming to her, Dr. Reed thought, but knew better than to say this. A gorgeous young blond woman helped Dr. Reed sit up. “Are you all right, dear?” the woman asked.

  “I’m fine. I guess,” Dr. Reed said. She held up a hand, surprised at how big it was. “This room seems so much smaller.”

  “Don’t worry about that, dear. You just need time to adjust.”

  “Probably.” Dr. Reed looked around to see adults in place of the children; most milled around aimlessly, as confused as she was about what had happened. “Who are all of these people?”

  “Our friends,” Akako said. She put her hand on the blond woman’s shoulder. “This is my husband, Agnes. She’s Renee’s father.”

  Dr. Reed considered herself liberal-minded, but she still gaped at the two women, who leaned against each other like a loving couple. “Her father?”

  “It’s a long story,” Agnes said. “The short version is that I’m a witch. So are most of the women here.”

  “A witch? Like—her?” Dr. Reed nodded towards the sleeping baby.

  “We aren’t going to hurt you. We’re good witches. Mostly.” Agnes followed this up with a shrug. “Besides, we don’t seem to have our powers back anyway.”

  Now that they were both adults again, Akako took charge of the situation. “Emma, go upstairs and keep watch again. Agnes and I will get the others organized. Isis is sure to send more of her minions to find us, especially now that she knows the coven are adults again.”

  “Sure, I can do that,” Dr. Reed said. She was actually grateful to get out of the nursery, back to a somewhat more normal setting.

  The motorcycle remained where she had left it; she ducked down behind the vehicle to watch the streets for signs of trouble. The police had left a van in front of the house; the vehicle was probably not big enough to hold four-dozen adult witches. They would probably have to go on foot until they could find transportation, as they had in the motorcycle shop.

  She nearly fired a shot into the air as she heard the door open behind her. To her surprise it wasn’t Akako or her husband but Becky—or at least a woman who looked very similar to Becky, albeit heavier and younger. “Hey, kid, how are you holding up?” Becky asked.

  “I’m fine,” Dr. Reed said. “What about you?”

  “I’ll make it. I guess.” She put a hand to her head, her hair darker than Dr. Reed remembered from her world. “My head’s still a little fuzzy. I thought some fresh air might help.”

  “You can help me keep watch.”

  “Sure. Sounds like fun.” Becky knelt down beside her, though she was too fat to get herself entirely behind the bike. “I can’t remember everything, but I do remember I wasn’t very nice to you.”

  “That’s all right,” Dr. Reed said. She decided not to correct Becky about her real identity; she figured things were confused enough without bringing parallel universes into it. “It was Isis’s fault, not yours.”

  “But still, I always thought that deep down, nothing could ever really break us apart. I mean, we’ve always been like sisters.” She sighed and then put a hand on her stomach. “When this is all over, do you suppose everything will go back like it was?”

  “I’m not really sure. That’s hard to say.”

  “It’s just that before this happened, I was in the hospital because someone shot me. They had to give me a hysterectomy so I can’t have a baby.”

  “That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”

  “That’s not the worst part.”

  “It’s not?”

  “Napier offered me a job with her nephew. He’s running for Congress. If he wins, then I’d be going to Washington.”

  “And you took this job?”

  “Yes. The pay is good and all that, but mostly I just…I just didn’t want to be around you and Dan and everyone else. I didn’t want to feel like you guys were feeling sorry for me.”

  “Becky, that’s just silly. We’re your friends. We love you.”

  “I think I know that now. At the time I just felt so—I don’t know how to say it. But I thought with so much going on I might not get a chance to talk to you about it again.”

  “I understand.” Dr. Reed thought of her Becky with her job on television, her three wonderful kids, and her adoring husband. She had only now started to understand how she’d taken not just her life, but also those of her friends for granted. “Whatever happens, you’ve always been a good friend to me. You’ve been like my sister. I love you.”

  She hugged Becky and imagined it was her Becky, the one she saw so infrequently anymore. If she and Joanna got back, she would have to find a way to keep in touch better with Becky. Maybe they could move to Washington or the surrounding area; Joanna would
love to live so close to the Library of Congress.

  She was still hugging Becky when she heard the sirens. “Uh-oh. We’re in trouble.” She held Becky back. “Go down and tell the others we have to leave. Now.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll try to draw them off.” Before Becky could argue, Dr. Reed climbed onto the motorcycle and kicked it to life. She roared off towards the oncoming police cars; she gripped the handlebars with one hand and the machine gun with the other.

  In all her life, she had never fired a weapon before. The closest she came was when she and Becky had played laser tag at the arcade when Dr. Reed came home for the summer when she was sixteen. The principles of aiming the gun were simple enough, though it would be easier if she knew the speed of the wind and the oncoming police cars to properly account for all of the variables.

  She’d watched enough movies to know she should try to aim for the tires, that way she could possibly disable the vehicles without badly injuring anyone inside. The police officers might work for Isis, but they were still innocent people. With a deep breath, she pulled the trigger. The kick of the gun nearly tore her off the bike, but she managed to hold on to both motorcycle and weapon.

  Her shot hit its intended target; the first police car skidded as its left front tire blew out. Dr. Reed didn’t have time to congratulate herself as an officer in another car leaned out the passenger’s side window to fire at her. She ducked as the bullet whizzed past her ear and then she sprayed a random burst of gunfire over the cars to keep their heads down. This caused two more cars to slam into each other. Dr. Reed brought the bike around to the right and saw at least five more cars on the way.

  She thought of what the other Emma had told her about the courage she showed in being the Scarlet Knight; that she did it because it needed to be done. That was the same way Joanna felt about what she did, ever since that first day in the sandbox; she did it because it needed to be done, even if it meant her life. Dr. Reed had questioned whether she could do this. She had her answer as she flicked the throttle up to the maximum, to charge at the oncoming cars. This needed to be done to buy time for Akako, Agnes, Becky, and all the others to escape.

  Just as she was about to fire, the roar of the motorcycle’s engine went silent. The bike disappeared to leave her grasping at air. She flew through the air and screamed with rage not pain at being duped by Isis. The pain came as she smashed into the street and heard several bones snap. Her skin burned as she slid across the pavement to finally come to a stop at the curb, one broken arm dangling uselessly in the gutter.