She couldn’t see what happened next, but she saw one of Don Vendetta’s guards fly backwards, into a wall. Another one quickly followed suit. The one next to Emma grabbed her arm and then spun her down to use as a human shield. He flicked open a switchblade, which he pressed to her neck. She closed her eyes and remembered Jimmy Gates on the playground a decade earlier. The bodyguard was going to do much more than cut off her hair though.
Sylvia stepped through the fog, her weapon pointed at the bodyguard. “You shoot me and I’ll slit her throat,” he said.
“With what?” Sylvia said.
“With this—” the bodyguard said before he realized his knife had turned into a daisy. He shoved Emma away and then tried to run away. Sylvia put up her hand and for a moment it glowed white. An instant later the guard flew into a wall.
Emma didn’t need any prompting to collapse into Sylvia’s arms. She rested her head on the witch’s shoulder as Sylvia carried her outside. “Thank you, Aunt Sylvia,” she mumbled.
“You’re welcome, sweetheart.”
Sylvia set her down outside the club, where Mrs. Chiostro waited to take Emma into her arms. “You’re safe now, dear.”
To Emma’s surprise, her quilt hovered in the alley. Becky sat on this, her face a volcanic red. Emma waited for Becky to slap her and scream at her for being so stupid. Instead, her best friend only held out her arms. Emma gratefully sagged into these. She fell asleep as the quilt floated up into the air.
Chapter 26
By Monday morning, Emma was back to normal. She barely noticed the final transition, there not being much of the armor’s power left by then. She had only groaned in her sleep and then rolled over.
The next thing she knew, someone shook her. Becky said, “Come on, kid. Rise and shine.”
“It’s time already?”
“Afraid so. Unless you want to call in sick.”
“No,” she said. She thought of Dan; he hadn’t called or tried to come over again. She had to see him.
She got out of bed and immediately went to the bathroom, to confirm she was herself again. Everything seemed normal, at least until she looked in her eyes. The left was the same, but in her right eye she saw something that hadn’t been there before—a fleck of gold on the iris. She blinked a few times in case it was a piece of dust, but it wasn’t, it was part of her eye. She leaned closer, until her forehead touched the glass. The fleck in her iris was the same gold as the Scarlet Knight’s boots and cape. She thought of what Mrs. Chiostro had said about the armor bonding with her; had it left a piece of itself behind?
“Come on, get the lead out,” Becky called out.
“I’ll be right there,” Emma said.
Emma nibbled at her toast during breakfast; she felt even more nervous than her first day. The words that had sprung from her mouth after Dan came over continued to haunt her. She loved Dan. Loved him. It didn’t seem possible. They had only gone on one real date and that had gone terribly. She had spent most of the time in the limo and dinner in awe of him. She had tried to work up the nerve to say something, anything that would make him think she was worthy of his attention.
Then she thought of the opera. She remembered the joy of being next to him, their bodies so close as she translated the opera to him. It had felt so right. At the intermission she had been so overjoyed when he returned to rescue her from Don Vendetta’s attentions. If only the Dragoon hadn’t shown up, she might have found the courage to kiss him, to tell him how badly she wanted to see him again.
She blinked as Becky waved a hand in front of her eyes. “You all right, kid?”
“I’m fine.”
“You were thinking about him, weren’t you?” Becky shook her head. “You really do love him.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Only to someone who knows you.” Becky took a gulp of her coffee and then said, “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” In all honesty she didn’t know. Should she blurt it out the moment she saw him? Should she wait until she knew how he felt about her? She didn’t have any experience in these things since she’d spent most of her life with her nose in a book. Those weren’t even the kind of books that could help her in this case.
“I know I’m not the best person to ask, but I think you should wait.”
“You do?”
“Go out on another date or two with him—one that doesn’t end with you going bonkers.”
Emma looked down at her plate. “That makes sense.”
Becky reached across the table to pat her hand. “Whatever you do, I’ll support you. You know that, right?”
“I know. Thanks.”
She thought about this the rest of the way to the museum. Becky followed her this time all the way to the front steps. She gave Emma a hug and then said what Mom had before Emma’s first day of school. “Now you be a good girl and play nice with the other kids.”
“I will,” Emma said with a smile.
“If you’re good, we can go out for ice cream.”
“Oh boy!” Emma gave her friend another hug and then started up the steps. Becky was still there when she reached the top. She waved to indicate she was all right and then reluctantly went inside.
Still unsure of what to do, she hoped to slink over to the elevator and think about it in the subbasement until lunch, when she hoped Dan would be waiting for her to jog as they usually did. Luck wasn’t with her, as when she passed the cafeteria, Dan ran out with a cup of coffee. “Hi,” he said. He fell into step with her. “Got a minute?”
“Sure,” she said. Her brain froze as it had during their date.
“How’s your aunt?”
“Oh, she’s better. She’s back at the nursing home now.”
“That’s good news. I was really worried after you didn’t come back—”
“I’m sorry about that. Things were happening so fast.”
“I guess.” Dan rubbed the back of his neck, his face about as red as hers. Then he reached into his pocket, to produce an envelope. “I bought a card for her. I was going to drop it off with your roommate if you weren’t here today.”
“That’s so sweet,” she said. “Thank you.”
“You can open it now.”
She raised an eyebrow at this, but then decided to do as he suggested. With one fingernail she tore open the envelope. The card was a typical sympathy card with flowers and a poem. Her eyes widened when she opened it.
Inside were two tickets to the Robinson Tower ballroom for something called “Take Back Our City” being held tomorrow night. “What is this?” she asked.
“It’s some big speech my godfather is giving. A lot of important people are supposed to be there. I know it’s short notice, but I thought maybe you’d like to go with me.”
She stared at him in shock for a moment. The Robinson Tower ballroom! Women not just in Rampart City but all over the world dreamed of going there. It was the place where couples went to get engaged and where those who could afford it got married. The thought of being there with Dan made her blush from head to toe.
“I would love to go with you,” she whispered. He didn’t show any reaction to her emphasis on the word “love.”
“Great. Pick you up at six-thirty?”
“Yes.”
He started to walk away, but then turned and asked, “Are you still working in the subbasement?”
“Yes.”
“That stinks. Maybe now that the police have gone they can get it rebuilt.”
“Maybe,” she said.
“I’ll see you at lunch. Unless you’re not up to a run?”
“I’d love to go for a run,” she said. He still didn’t show any reaction to her using “love.” She hadn’t expected him to; she was trying to get her tongue used to saying the word around him.
It was only after he’d gone that she came to her senses and started up the stairs.
***
The police had gone, but the debris was still there. The engine
ers had put tarps over the holes in the ceiling to keep the weather out, though she had to step around a few puddles. It was difficult to figure out which office had been hers since most of the walls had been destroyed and the furniture turned to ash and globs of plastic.
Marlin appeared in the room to sneer at her. “You won’t be getting much work done in here,” he said. “All your rocks probably got blown to smithereens.”
“I’m not here for rocks.”
“What are you here for?”
“I thought he might have left a clue.”
“Who?”
“The Dragoon.” When the ghost stared at her uncomprehendingly, she said, “His armor came from that black box, didn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“The box that was in the closet here?”
“What’s your point?”
“It’s a long shot, but maybe whoever got the box out left something behind. A footprint or hair or something.”
“Oh yes, maybe he dropped his wallet and it survived the explosion.”
“Can you help me look around? It should only take a few minutes to make sure.”
“Fine. Not sure what you expect me to do. I haven’t got any bloody hands to sift through this garbage.”
Emma ignored Marlin’s grumbling; she closed her eyes and steered herself to where the closet had been. She knelt down in the debris and then opened her eyes. As she sifted through the rubble, it soon became clear there wasn’t anything left of the strange black crate. Not a single fragment of that odd black material. This wasn’t a surprise. If the Scarlet Knight’s crate could disappear and reappear, the Dragoon’s could probably do so as well.
She was about to give up when she found a chunk of white plastic on the floor. She held this up and saw part of the Plaine Museum logo on one side. She reached down to her hip and held up her ID badge. “This is it,” she said.
“What? A bit of plastic? What will you do with that? Too small even for a bloody paperweight.”
“I won’t be able to do anything with it. But it will tell me something.”
She went down to the subbasement, where she found crates of equipment waiting for her. There was a note from Ian telling her if she needed any help to call the IT department.
By lunchtime everything was set up. She began to type commands into her new computer. Hacking was illegal, not something covered in any legitimate textbooks. But as the biggest nerd on campus at Berkeley, she had run into a few other nerds. They had shown her a few tricks, none of which she’d ever thought she’d use, especially not against the Plaine Museum. But this was important.
She found it incredibly easy to break into the Plaine Museum security logs. She searched through the system until she finally came to what she wanted. “Here it is,” she said to Marlin.
“What is it?”
“Three people have asked for replacement ID cards since the explosion.” The first name on the list was Dr. Sally Lawrence in the botany department. Since the Dragoon wasn’t a woman, she could rule this name out. The next was Rodney Bailey in accounts receivable. “It can’t be him. Sylvia and I met him and his family at the presentation. They were standing right behind us.”
Then she came to the third name: Dr. Ian MacGregor.
“No,” she said. “It can’t be. Not Ian.”
“Why not?”
She forced herself to think about this logically for a moment. Ian hadn’t been in the museum at the time, had he? But as head of the geology department he certainly had a key and knew his way around. Unlike Rodney Bailey, who had seemed perfectly happy and content with his wife, sons, and three grandbabies, Ian had lost his wife and unborn son. She thought of when the black case had tried to recruit her, how it had promised to tell her who had killed her parents. It could have easily used the same technique on Ian.
“Oh, Ian, how could you?”
***
Becky didn’t make it through the first hour before she needed a break. Not caring if any of her superiors saw her, she went out to the loading dock for some air. She took a Snickers bar from her pocket and tore open the wrapper. She gulped it down in two bites and then reached for another one.
She heard footsteps coming from inside, followed by Lintner’s voice. “They had better show up.”
Becky ducked behind the trashcans, wondering what bug had gotten up Lintner’s ass now. The latest poll showed the lead had widened to nearly thirty points. Barring a miracle, he had a snowball’s chance in Hell of becoming mayor.
As she found out, he didn’t need a miracle. Not when he had the city’s number one crime boss behind him. Becky pressed herself even deeper into the shadows as she saw a very expensively dressed brunette come up the alley, followed by two enormous bodyguards. They were the same kind of bodyguards around the Plastic Hippo when the witches rescued Emma.
“Who the hell are you?” Lintner spat. “I’m not talking to some go-fer.”
“Lydia sent me. She’s had to take some precautions since some crazy bitch shot up her club the other night,” the woman said. “But I’ll pass along anything you tell me.”
“I got a message for her—” When Lintner stopped, Becky’s heart stopped as well. Had someone seen her? She could imagine what those bodyguards would do to her and in this tight alley she wouldn’t have anywhere to run. Nor could she expect the Scarlet Knight to drop out of the sky this time.
Then she heard Lintner’s aide whisper into his boss’s ear. Becky guessed the aide was quoting the latest poll numbers. “All right,” he said. “Let’s hash this shit out. My people are setting up the rally you wanted. What’s this big surprise your boss is planning?”
As the woman spoke, Becky’s heart stopped again. It didn’t start to beat until after the meeting had broke up. Even then Becky shivered from what she’d heard. She ought to run to the museum and find Emma to tell her what Lintner and Vendetta were planning. But if she did that, someone might notice she had left and they might get skittish about the whole thing. Cloak and dagger stuff was not her forte, but she decided to go back to work and act as if nothing had happened. Tonight—provided one of the don’s goons didn’t come after her—she could give Emma the bad news.
***
It came as a surprise to find Becky in the apartment. She had thought Becky would be working late again for the Lintner campaign. “You’re home early,” Emma said. “You want to go out—”
“He gave us the night off so we’ll be fresh as daisies to set up for his rally tomorrow.”
At the mention of the rally, Emma reached into her purse for the card Dan had given her. She showed the tickets to Becky. “Dan asked me to go with him—as his date.” She barely held back an undignified girlish squeal at this.
She had thought Becky would be happy for her, but instead her friend jumped up and with more speed than Emma thought possible, grabbed her by the shoulders. “You can’t go to that rally.”
“What? Why not? If it’s because of what happened, I’m all better now—”
“No, that’s not it. He’s going to be there. That Black Dragon.”
“The Black Dragoon? Why would he be at Lintner’s rally—” she stopped herself. She remembered what Don Vendetta had said; the don had made a big plan for him, something about ruling the world. “He’s working with Lintner?”
“You really are smart,” Becky said. “He’s going to tip the election in Lintner’s favor. Him and the don.”
Now it began to make sense. If the Black Dragoon had the mayor of the city in his pocket, as well as Don Vendetta’s connections, he would be running Rampart City in all but name. He could turn the whole city into a base of operations.
The only question was how he was going to do it. Becky answered this; she explained that as Lintner made a big speech about taking back the city from the criminals, the Dragoon would burst into the ballroom. The Dragoon would then pretend to stab Lintner in front of the city’s most powerful people. “How is that going to help him get elected?” Emma asked.
“You really don’t understand politics, do you?” Becky said.
“No, I guess not.”
“You’re probably better off that way,” Becky said with a smile. “The important thing is for Lintner to come out of this looking like a hero. So after the Dragoon pretends to stab him, he’ll be rushed to a phony hospital room. For a few days they’ll make it sound touch-and-go, enough to keep the newspapers and TV stations on the hook. When they’ve strung it along enough, he makes his miraculous comeback.
“Now when he goes on the campaign trail, stumping about fighting crime, he has instant credibility. He’s suddenly the guy who’s taken on the criminals and lived to tell about it. Everyone sees him as the symbol of hope and justice and all that stuff while the other guy is another tool of Don Vendetta.”
“And he wins in a landslide,” Emma said.
“Now you’re getting it.”
“What about the Dragoon?”
“Oh, that’s the best part. Once Lintner gets in, they’ll stage the police or some of Lintner’s bodyguards killing the Dragoon. That’ll have everyone swooning for him over the next few years.”
“While the Dragoon is still out there, pulling his strings.”
“Bingo.” Becky patted Emma’s shoulder. “That’s why you can’t be there tomorrow night. When that goes down, the whole place will be in a panic. It’ll be even worse than your first date.”
Emma shook her head. “That’s why I have to be there.”
“Emma—”
“This may be my only chance to have them all in the same room. I can’t pass that up.”
“You don’t think he’ll know that too? I mean look what he did to you last time. Next time he could kill you—or that damned armor of yours might do it for him.”
Emma smiled slightly. Her best friend had always looked out for her. That hadn’t stopped even after she found out Emma was the Scarlet Knight. “I know, but I have to take the chance. It’s my job.” She squeezed Becky’s arm. “And I have some ideas how to make sure I stop him this time.”
Chapter 27
When Emma got to Mrs. Chiostro’s house, she found the door already open and the old witch waiting for her. “Hello, dear. Sylvia’s downstairs. I’ve already told her to expect you.”
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Call Page 22