“I’m not sure I should—”
“Please. I need to know what he said. It’s important.”
The nurse cleared her throat and then read, ‘“Dear Emma, I’m sorry I won’t have the chance to speak with you again, but some old business has come up. Before I go, I wanted you to know how proud I am of you and how you’ve turned out. I hope someday you can be as proud of yourself. I have greatly appreciated your friendship over the years. You’ve in many ways been the daughter I always wanted. Love, Percival.’ Oh my. That’s beautiful.”
Tears stung Emma’s eyes at this. “Thank you,” she said to the nurse. She hung up the phone and then wiped at her eyes. Marlin hovered over her shoulder, still glaring at her.
“Well?” he said.
“I’ll do it.” She began to put on her running sweats instead of her nightgown and the waterproof work boots she had worn while doing her fieldwork in Montana. As she did, she came up with something of a plan. “Try and find out where he is. I’ll go to this Sanctuary of yours and get the armor. If you find him, come back and tell me.”
“Sure, give yourself the easy job,” Marlin grumbled before he disappeared through the wall, but Emma knew it wouldn’t be that easy.
***
The last place Emma wanted to go in the city were the sewers. Parts of these dated back from the turn of the century and it showed from the brick walls on the sides. These had become smeared with mold and muck over the years and possibly other substances as well. She adjusted the bandana over her nose and mouth, not that it seemed to do much good. At least she hadn’t eaten anything before she had come down here.
She hadn’t memorized a map of the sewers, but she figured it would be the only way to get back into the sub-subbasement until morning. After the explosion, the Plaine Museum would be on high alert, with a couple uniformed police officers there to guard the crime scene. She could try to bluff her way past them by saying she had forgotten something, but she didn’t trust herself to lie that well.
That left her to try to navigate the old sewers and hope there would be a connection to the sub-subbasement. If she didn’t find anything, then she would have to try to sneak into the museum. In that case she would need to think of a good excuse for why she stank like raw sewage.
Emma had never been afraid of mice or rats before. She had worked with quite a few of these in her science classes, which included building a maze for a mouse to run through in her senior year of high school. The rat she caught in her flashlight beam was far different from those cute little white-and-pink rodents. This rat had to be at least two feet long before the tail with matted black fur. It hissed at her before it skittered back into the darkness.
She played the flashlight around her and caught glimpses of more rats, all of them near the size of the first one. This certainly wasn’t impossible as some varieties of rats did grow to be quite large, but she hadn’t thought the average sewer rat would be that size. She slowed her pace for a moment and wondered if she would encounter even larger rodents.
There was an urban legend about the city’s sewers. This involved a creature known as the Sewer Rat. It was said he was a half-man, half-rat who lived in the sewers. Emma had never really believed these stories, but until today she had never believed those about the Scarlet Knight either. For that reason, she had brought along two cans of air freshener—one lilac and one potpourri—from the apartment. According to the urban legend, the one thing the Sewer Rat hated more than people was the smell of flowers. She didn’t expect to see him down here, but it didn’t hurt to be prepared. She only wished she’d brought something to keep the real rats away from her.
As she resumed her journey, she thought she heard soft splashes behind her. But when she turned around, she didn’t see anything, not even a rat, just the river of sewage in which she waded. She chided herself to stop fooling around and hurry towards the museum. Mr. Graves was in danger and she was the only one with a chance to save him. Given her track record in this area, she didn’t like the odds of success, but it was this or he would die for sure.
As soon as she started forward again, the splashes behind her resumed. She pressed ahead, one hand on the flashlight while the other slipped down to her pocket and the lilac air freshener she kept there. Even if it wasn’t the Sewer Rat following her, she doubted her pursuer would enjoy being sprayed with air freshener.
She counted to three and then turned off the flashlight. She spun around in the darkness and then pushed down on the top of the air freshener. The hiss that accompanied this sounded more animal than human, but it was definitely a human voice that shouted, “Bitch!”
Emma turned the flashlight on and then nearly dropped it. The stories were true, though like any urban legend they had been exaggerated. Indeed it was a man in front of her, but a man wearing a fur coat that appeared to be made from a number of different rat pelts. His hands were dirty but definitely human as he wiped at his eyes. He didn’t look particularly intimidating, standing at least six inches shorter than her and rail thin.
She leaned forward and dropped the air freshener to take out a bottle of water she had brought along as well. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Did I get you in the eye?”
He swatted at her with one hand, but with his vision impaired, the blow missed by several inches. Emma grabbed hold of his wrist to keep him from trying to hit her again. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she said. “Let me help.”
“No need,” he hissed at her. “You go.”
“Please, let me help you.” She let go of his wrist to push aside his tangled brown hair and tilt his head back. She managed to get a few drops of water in each of his red-brown eyes before he wriggled out of her grasp.
She watched as the Sewer Rat scampered away a few steps, into the shadows. His breathing sounded heavy, but after about a minute became more normal. “Are you feeling better now?” she asked.
“Yes. You help,” he said. “After you hurt.”
“I know and I’m sorry I got it in your eyes. Why were you following me?”
“You invader. Invaders bad.”
“Oh, I see.” The way he spoke was like in those old Tarzan movies. How long had he been down here? “I don’t want to be down here but my friend is in trouble and I have to save him.”
“You go. Now.”
“I can’t. I haven’t found what I’m looking for yet.”
The Sewer Rat responded with a series of shrieks and hisses that were definitely not English. She heard splashes all around her and then felt something brush against her legs. She shivered at this. She played the flashlight around and saw dozens of rats, most of them as big as the first one she’d seen. They all stared at her, some baring sharp yellow teeth. “You go. Now,” the Sewer Rat repeated.
Emma took a deep breath and then tossed the bottle of water away. She pulled out the potpourri air freshener from her pocket. It always paid to be prepared. “I’m not going to leave until I find the museum.”
“Go. Now,” the Sewer Rat commanded.
“No.”
The rats began to stir, tensed like trained dogs for the command to attack. With their sheer numbers they would be able to devour her, which would make for a particularly grisly death. Emma shivered again but held her ground, as she thought of Mr. Graves. She wouldn’t let him down the way she had everyone else.
“You can kill me, but before I die, I’m going to spray this entire can of air freshener. You’ll be trying to get the smell of potpourri out for weeks,” she said and then paused to let him consider this. “Or you can let me go in peace to the Plaine Museum.”
He didn’t say anything for a few moments. Some of the rats began to edge closer to her. She could see their beady eyes staring at her like a piece of fresh meat. She was going to fail Mr. Graves like everyone else—like Mom and Dad. “Please,” she said. The tears that began to seep into her bandana were not an act. “My friend is in trouble. Someone’s going to kill him. I have to get to the museum so I can stop him. Yo
u have to help me. Please.”
She thought she was doomed when the Sewer Rat began to shriek again. But then the rats started to back away from her. They slithered away into the darkness, though she knew they wouldn’t go too far. The Sewer Rat stepped into the beam of her flashlight. His face had a rat-like quality to it with a pointed nose and buckteeth. But his eyes had a very human quality to them when he brushed his hair away so she could see them again. “You friend at museum?”
“Not exactly. I’m not really sure where he is. I have someone out looking for him. But to save him I need to get something from the museum, except it’s too late to go in the front door. That’s why I came here.” The last sentences came out in a rush. From the way the Sewer Rat stared at her, she doubted he understood.
“I help find.”
“You? I doubt he’s in the sewers.”
“Friends all over.”
“Friends?”
He answered this with a sharp hiss. A rat much smaller than the others swam over to him. The silver streak that ran along the rat’s black fur gave it a skunk-like appearance. The Sewer Rat bent down to squeak and hiss to the rat. It squeaked back at him. The Sewer Rat looked up then at Emma. “Who friend?”
She needed a moment to decipher his meaning. He wanted to know what Mr. Graves looked like. “He’s an old man, very tall and a little heavy—”
“No need look. Need smell.”
“Oh. I see. I don’t really have anything with his smell on it,” she said. She felt a wave of nausea that wasn’t from the sewers. “The one holding him is hard to miss. It’s black with metal claws and red eyes—like a monster.”
She seized upon an idea and lifted up the hem of her shirt and then peeled away the bandage from her abdomen. “He clawed me there. Maybe some of his smell is still there.”
The Sewer Rat leaned close enough that the tip of his nose touched her abdomen. She was surprised by how warm that nose felt; for some reason she had expected it would be cold from the dark and dampness. The Sewer Rat grabbed his little friend and held it up so it too could smell at her wound. The rat squeaked and then bolted from the Sewer Rat’s hand.
“Did I scare him?” she asked.
“No. Scouts find him.”
“Oh.” The Sewer Rat stood up and Emma pulled her shirt back down. “Are we going to wait here?”
“No. We go. Find museum.”
“Lead on,” Emma said.
Following the Sewer Rat wasn’t too hard. Even if he got out of sight, she could still smell him. She kept the flashlight down around her feet, so the bright lights wouldn’t bother him. That would make sense if he spent a lot of time down here. There were so many questions she wanted to ask him, such as where he had come from and why he lived down here. At the moment she couldn’t risk angering him again; she needed his help to get into the museum.
They wound their way around the sewers for what seemed like miles. The Sewer Rat didn’t volunteer anything about himself or try to engage her in any small talk. She didn’t imagine he got many guests down here other than rodents or possibly the occasional stray cat. That he could seemingly speak to them was something else she found fascinating. With her interactions in the lab with mice and rats she’d never considered trying to talk to them.
When he came to a sudden stop, she nearly ran into his ratskin coat. “We here,” he said.
“We are?”
He pointed in front of him and she saw a ladder on the side of the wall. “That will take me to the Plaine Museum?”
“Yes.”
“Have you been through all these sewers?”
“Most.”
“That’s amazing.”
Before she could try and climb up the ladder, the rat with the silver stripe returned. The Sewer Rat picked it up to listen to its report. He squeaked something back and then gave it a friendly pat on the head before he released it. “You friend at meat plant.”
“Meat plant?”
“Sausage plant,” he said, though it sounded like “sow’s age plant.”
“Oh, the sausage plant. I know where that is.” Before she knew what she was doing, she had her arms around him in a hug. The ratskin coat felt coarse, but not as slimy as she feared it would be from being worn around the sewers. “Thank you so much for your help.”
She left him standing in silence as she climbed up the ladder. She couldn’t be positive in the dim light, but she thought he was blushing.
Chapter 14
She almost didn’t make it up to the sub-subbasement. At the top of the ladder, she found a hatch like in a submarine. Twisting this open took a considerable amount of effort, almost enough to throw her from the ladder. All this got the thing to open with a creak that sent the Sewer Rat’s friends running for cover. With that, the hatch was loosened enough so she could open it the rest of the way.
The moment she did, she found herself in the middle of a mudslide. She held on to the ladder for dear life and pressed herself as tightly against the wall as possible. Years of jogging had given her enough lung capacity that she could hold her breath while the mud continued to shower down. It went for what must have been at least three minutes, by which point she saw stars bursting in her vision. With her body on the verge of letting go, the mud finally stopped.
She sucked in a few greedy breaths before she looked back down at the river of mud being carried away by the sewers.
The sub-subbasement didn’t look much different, except the level of mud had sunk to only cover her feet. She stomped through this in her boots, to the false wall she had stumbled upon earlier. Then she entered the Sanctuary as Marlin had called it.
Mr. Graves had built this. It made sense then why he had worked at the museum, where he could be close to his lair—her lair now. Not for long, she thought. Only until she stopped this Black Dragoon. Then she could quit.
The red case remained where she had left it. She opened it without preamble this time. Now that she knew where Mr. Graves was, she would have to hurry to rescue him—if she could rescue him. How she would do that she didn’t know.
She sorted out the various pieces of the armor, far more than she would have liked. She had never actually tried to put on plate armor before. It involved a lot of buckles and straps to fit onto her body. She had strapped on the greaves when Marlin appeared.
“You finally got here,” he said. “Made it past the Sewer Rat even.”
“You knew about him? Why didn’t you warn me?”
“You already seemed to have it well in hand.”
“Thanks. I think.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t found Graves yet. He could be anywhere—”
“He’s at the Dibbler Sausage plant.”
“What? How do you know that?”
“The Sewer Rat told me.”
“And you’d believe a man who dresses like a rat?”
“He doesn’t dress like a rat,” she said as she finished with the leg armor. “He wears a coat made of rat fur.”
“That certainly makes it better.”
“He’s not evil.” She thought of him blushing at her hug. “He’s harmless.”
“Maybe you should move in with him.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. She shivered at the thought of being around raw sewage and rats all the time. She pulled the front of the breastplate up and held it to her chest. It clearly had been designed for males, a male with a big bulky torso like Mr. Graves. “Is this going to fit?”
“It will adjust itself to fit you. It is magic armor after all.”
To her relief this was true, the armor shrank in width while it added a bit of depth for her breasts—a little more depth than she thought necessary. Plenty of room for padding, she thought.
Besides the color, the armor had two major differences from traditional armor. One was the gold-colored boots that slipped over her feet and beneath the greaves so only the feet were visible. Like the breastplate, the boots swelled to accommodate her larger feet, though they were a
bit snug—apparently even magic had limits. The other difference was a pair of gloves the same color as the boots that slipped over her hands and beneath the wrist guards.
She saved the cape and helmet for last. The cape was easy enough to latch onto special hooks on the armor. She swirled around the gold-colored fabric with a translucent sheen to it; Mrs. Chiostro could probably make a very nice dress out of it.
She reached into the case then for the helmet. This she stared at again for a moment. Once she put this on there would be no going back. For better or worse she would be the Scarlet Knight. “Are you going to be all night? We’re in a bit of a rush here,” Marlin snapped.
“I’m doing it,” Emma said. She took a deep breath and then slipped the helmet on. Her entire body tingled for a moment as if she’d given herself an electric shock.
“Congratulations,” Marlin said. “Now get your sword and let’s move out.”
“Sword?” She looked in the case and saw a red scabbard striped with gold. She had never buckled on a sword belt before. “Which side do I put it on?”
“Whichever one is easier for you,” Marlin said, which she did not find helpful.
She tried it on the left and reached across her body to pull the sword free. The blade was entirely gold, thinner and more curved than a traditional European long sword. “It looks Japanese,” she said.
“Because it is. We had a Japanese sword master rework it in the 17th Century. Less clumsy than the old one. It’s the Sword of Justice, the Scarlet Knight’s primary weapon.”
“The blade can cut through anything and if I throw it, I can guide it with my mind.”
“Who told you that?”
“Mr. Graves,” Emma said and then looked down at her armored legs.
“That will save us some time. What else did he tell you?”
She closed her eyes and remembered the stories Mr. Graves had told her in the museum when she was little. “The cape lets me become invisible and the soles of the boots let me bounce really high and the gloves allow me to climb up walls.”
“True on all counts. Anything else?”
“The armor protects me from just about anything—except magic items.”
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Call Page 10