“You can’t tell me what to do. You’re not my mother.”
“I’m the eldest and at the moment I’m also the only one who seems to be thinking clearly. Now sit down.”
Sylvia glared at her sister for a moment, but then she sat back down. She slouched down in her seat and crossed her arms over her chest. “So what’s she doing here? She need a dress for her honeymoon or something?”
“No. Emma’s husband was attacked by some nasty creatures. They nearly tore him to ribbons.”
Sylvia sat up in her chair, her sullenness gone. “What sort of nasty creatures?”
“They had claws and sharp teeth and yellow eyes,” Emma said.
“Demons,” Sylvia said. “Sounds like Class-4s.”
“Class 4s?”
Sylvia explained, “There are five classes of demons. The first two classes are more like babies than anything. They can’t take animal or human form. They’re too weak to do more than whisper nasty thoughts in your head.
“The Class-3s can occupy simple animal forms. You remember that snake in the Garden of Eden? That’s like a Class-3. They’re more spies than anything. The ones you ran into sound like Class-4s. They can take more complex animal shapes, including humans, at least for a short time. But they don’t have the ability to possess a human. That’s your Class-5s. They’re the nastiest ones. They can do everything the others can do, but they can possess any living creature to occupy its body for as long as they want. And they don’t have tells like those yellow eyes either. Makes them a real bitch to hunt down.”
“So Dan and I were attacked by demons?”
“Sounds like it.” Sylvia leaned back in her chair and smiled. “That really takes me back. That’s how I cut my teeth in the coven, back when I looked about like this the first time. Hisae and I used to go on demon hunts. Vampires too. Those were the days. Haven’t had much call to do that in the last couple of centuries. The monsters have gone to ground for the most part, but I guess now they’re up to something.”
“What do we need to do?” Emma asked.
“Kill them. Hunt all the little bastards down and wipe them out.” Sylvia sneered at her. “Sorry, princess, I know how you feel about that, but these aren’t people. They’re monsters. Think of them like rats or cockroaches.”
“But you said the Class-5s can possess people. Could one have possessed Marie?”
“It’s possible. Don’t know why they’d want her, even with that eye of hers.”
“You said they’d gone to ground for centuries. Why would they come out now to try and kill Dan and I?”
“Beats me. You’re the genius. You figure it out.”
“Sylvia, be nice,” Mrs. Chiostro snapped. “Just because you look like a teenager right now doesn’t mean you have to act like one.”
“Whatever.”
Emma took a sip of her tea and then sighed. “I guess the first thing is I need to get the armor. I can’t fight any demons like this.”
“I don’t know, I think it’s an improvement. At least with your hair,” Sylvia said. “If we change things back, you should let me curl it like that for you. It’s cute, in a Little Orphan Annie kind of way.”
“I’ll think about it,” Emma said. She stood up and then went into the parlor. “Mekka lekka weep ninibaum,” she whispered to summon the magic armor.
Nothing happened. The red case didn’t appear in the parlor. She tried it again, but still the armor wouldn’t appear. “Just great,” she grumbled.
She returned to the kitchen. “No luck with the armor?” Mrs. Chiostro asked.
“I don’t know what’s wrong. I said the words. Marlin said I’m still the Scarlet Knight.”
“I suppose you’ll just have to go there yourself. Would you like a lift to the museum?”
“Actually I think I should go underground for this. I don’t suppose I could borrow some boots?”
“I doubt we have anything that’ll fit those feet,” Sylvia said.
“I can make do.”
“Fine.” Sylvia got up and then took Emma’s hand. “Come on, we’ll go get you fixed up. I’ve still got some of my old demon-hunting supplies in the vault. You’re going to need them from the sound of it.”
***
Officer Lottie Donovan crammed another donut into her mouth. These nighttime patrols were always the worst. All the loonies in the city came out at night, especially in the park. As bad luck would have it, she and Lois had drawn the short straw tonight and been assigned to patrol Robinson Park.
Not that anyone ever went into the park. That would be suicide. Between the gangs, the bums, and the freaks, any cop who went into Robinson Park would be outnumbered ten-to-one. Donovan wouldn’t have lasted this long on the force if she’d gone up against those kind of odds.
She reached into the box for another donut, but came away empty. “You up for some coffee?” she asked Lois.
“You eat that whole dozen already? You’re not going to fit in the car before much longer.” For emphasis, Lois patted Donovan’s gut. “The lieutenant said they’ll fire you if you get over two hundred.”
“I’d like to see him try,” Donovan grumbled. “And it’s not even two hundred yet.”
“It’s got to be damned close. You eat like a goddamned whale anymore. Did you even chew that last one or just inhale it?”
“Yeah, maybe I should try your weight loss secret.” Donovan breathed in deep through her nose. “If you’re getting a little strung out we can probably find a dealer in the park.”
“Shut up. I haven’t been on that junk in months.”
“More like hours from the way you keep wiping your nose.”
“Oh yeah? Maybe we should get out of the car and settle this. If you can even get out of the car.”
Donovan had to swallow her reply as a body landed in the road in front of them. Lois stomped on the brakes to bring the car to a stop just in front of the body. Despite what Lois had said, Donovan bolted from the car with no problem. She waddled over to the body and knelt down beside it.
It was obvious from the paleness of the man’s body and the glossiness of his eyes that he was dead. The gashes across his neck and midsection made the cause of death obvious as well. The real questions were who had done it, why they’d done it, and why they’d chucked the body in the street, in front of a police car.
From the red warm-up jacket and baggy pants, Donovan knew this man had belonged to one of the gangs in the park. A gang war maybe? She reached to her hip for her gun and then looked up at the wall of the park just as another body flew over it.
The body landed about two feet away from her. The young man had the same lacerations as the first one. His jacket was blue, which meant he belonged to another gang. There must be something big going on in the park. Much bigger than her and Lois.
Even as Donovan considered this, another body flew over the wall. It slammed into the windshield of the car. Lois screamed from inside and then turned on the lights, as if that would do any good. “What the hell is going on?” she shouted.
“I don’t know,” Donovan called back. “Get some backup here, ASAP.”
While Lois got on the radio, Donovan hurried back to the car. She tugged the body free from the windshield. From his shabby attire, he was one of the bums. An innocent bystander caught in the crossfire?
Something else came over the wall, but it wasn’t a dead body. This one was very much alive. At first Donovan couldn’t see more than a vague outline of it from the darkness of its skin and clothes. When it landed about a yard from the cruiser, she got a better look at it in the car’s blue-and-red lights. It was a man, but he had six-inch claws and teeth like a tiger or some other predator.
Donovan tried to raise her pistol, but the man batted it away. He pointed a clawed finger at her. “Consider this a warning, Tubby. The park belongs to us now.”
“Who are you?”
“You’ll find out. Until then, if you don’t want to end up like these fools, you best stay
far away from this place.”
Donovan didn’t need to be told twice. She dropped into the passenger’s seat of the cruiser. She hadn’t even closed the door when Lois floored the accelerator. “What was that?” Lois asked.
“No idea, but I sure as hell don’t want to find out.” Let the SWAT team deal with it; she had two years left until she could retire and she planned to make it.
By the time they made it a block away, the radio came to life with reports of clawed freaks all over the place: Executive Plaza, the financial district, the harbor, and even in the old industrial section of the city. “What the hell is going on?” Lois asked.
“It’s an invasion.”
Chapter 21
Mrs. Chiostro left Emma a block from the Plaine Museum. There was a storm drain nearby that would lead into the main sewer. That sewer would lead to the sub-subbasement of the museum. It would be simpler if she could wait until morning to go through the museum, but by then these demons might have destroyed the whole city.
“Good luck, dear,” Mrs. Chiostro said.
“You too.” Then Emma covered her eyes as the witch vanished.
Her feet screamed with protest when she ran over to the storm drain. She had managed to cram her feet into a pair of Sylvia’s combat boots, but they were about five sizes too small for her huge feet. Sylvia had also let her borrow a green tank top and pair of camouflaged pants, both of which were too baggy on Emma’s shorter frame. Mrs. Chiostro had supplied Emma with a handkerchief to tie over her mouth and nose, for which she was grateful as she descended into the sewers. Once she reached the bottom, Emma turned on her flashlight. She almost dropped the flashlight at what she saw.
It was another statue. This one was much different from the ones in her timeline. Instead of being made from garbage or scrap metal, it was composed entirely of bones—human bones. The bones varied a little in their color, which meant they had been scrounged from different bodies at different times. Joined together, the bones depicted a screaming man with one hand raised as if to claw at her.
She realized this was not a statue; it was a scarecrow. Like the rag dolls left in fields to scare away crows, this figure was meant to scare away humans who might intrude on the Sewer Rat’s domain. Emma took a deep breath of the foul air to steady herself. She only needed to go a hundred yards or so and then she would reach the ladder up to the sub-subbasement. Given the size of the sewers, she doubted the Sewer Rat could intercept her in that amount of time.
The Sewer Rat wouldn’t need to intercept her. When she shined her flashlight down the sewer, she saw a dark mass—some of his “friends.” There had to be hundreds of them. She doubted they would be friendly either.
Emma broke into a run, or as fast as she could run through the sewage in the tight boots. The dark mass separated into numerous shapes. She recognized one of the rats by the silver stripe along its back. The striped rat raced ahead of the others, its teeth bared.
She didn’t have anything to use as a weapon. All she had were two cans of air freshener Mrs. Chiostro had given her. Perhaps that would be enough if these rats were as sensitive as their master. Emma dropped the flashlight to take one can in each hand. She lowered the cans and then depressed the button on each.
Immediately the scent of flowers pervaded the air. The striped rat let out a screech. It scurried back a few feet. The others followed suit, repelled by the floral smell of the air freshener.
That delay was all the time Emma needed. She raced towards the ladder to the sub-subbasement. She leaped up to grab one of the rungs and then began to climb up. As she did, the rats regrouped. One of the rats nipped at the sole of her boot as she climbed up the ladder. She kicked at it, but the rat remained on the ladder. She saw it was the striped one. “Persistent, aren’t you?” she grumbled. It clawed at her foot again. She knew one way to shake it free; she opened the hatch.
The moment she did, a mudslide roared down into the sewer. Emma had already gone through this before; she knew to flatten herself against the ladder, hold her breath, and wait for the mud to stop. The striped rat didn’t know this. With a screech it tumbled away from her, back into the sewer.
After a couple of minutes the flow of mud stopped. Emma wiped some mud away from her eyes. She looked down, but couldn’t see the rats. They had hidden themselves, but in a few minutes they would regroup. She wouldn’t give them that much time. Emma climbed up the ladder the rest of the way, into the sub-subbasement.
There was still plenty of mud up there, just like the first time she came down to the sub-subbasement to find the armor. She hoped everything else would be the same. She closed the hatch to make sure none of the Sewer Rat’s friends could follow her and then began to slog over to what she hoped was a fake wall.
She pressed her hand against the wall. Just as it had the first time, the wall gave way to reveal an opening. Emma bent down and then crawled through it.
The Sanctuary looked the same as the first time she’d entered it, right down to Marlin, who hovered over her. “About time you got here,” he grumbled.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m going to fix things.”
“Well you’d better hurry. We haven’t got all night.”
“I know.” She found the red case in the corner. As she bent down, angelic faces appeared on the case to welcome her. At her touch the case opened. She reached inside and felt the armor. She found the helmet and removed it from the case. This was it; as soon as she put the armor on, there would be no going back. She would be the Scarlet Knight again, which meant she would have a duty to stop the demons and Marie. Then she thought of Dan with his stomach nearly torn open. She couldn’t let them finish him off or do the same to anyone else.
“Are you going to keep dawdling?”
“No,” she said and began to don the armor.
***
Veronica stirred but didn’t wake up. Marie bent down to feel the little girl’s forehead. It felt cooler than before, but still warm. With a sigh she sat back down on her chair. There had to be something else she could do besides sit here and wait.
The door to the bedroom opened. The fat man the Watchmaker had called Douglas came in with a tray of food. “Dinner is served,” he growled as he dropped the tray on the top of a dresser.
“I’m not hungry,” Marie said.
“What do I care? I ain’t supposed to be no goddamned maid.”
Marie saw an opportunity to escape. She shook the hair back from her special eye and then focused on Douglas. “You should have been part of Don Vendetta’s organization, but you fouled up your initiation. It was supposed to be a simple convenience store robbery—”
Douglas seized her by the throat with one meaty hand. He pressed down on her windpipe. “They told me about you, kid. Said you can use some kind of hocus-pocus with that freaky eye of yours.” With his other hand he held up a switchblade and popped out the blade. “Won’t do you any good if I cut that thing out, will it?”
“You…can’t,” Marie said.
“Yeah? Why’s that?”
“He…needs me…alive. With…the eye,” she managed to get out as Douglas continued to press down on her windpipe.
“Maybe I don’t care so much about that. Maybe I can find some other freaks to pay me.”
“They’ll…kill…you.” Her vision began to dim as she ran out of air. Another minute and she would pass out, if he didn’t kill her first with the knife.
“That’s enough, Douglas,” the Watchmaker said from the doorway.
“Little bitch tried to hypnotize me.”
“That’s not unexpected. I think you’ve made your point. Hasn’t he, my dear?”
Marie nodded slightly. Stars exploded in what remained of her vision. She didn’t have much longer. What would happen to Veronica then?
The grip on her throat eased. Marie collapsed into a heap on the floor. She heard another thud beside her. “Veronica?” she wheezed.
“Your little friend is fine,” the Watchmaker sa
id.
Through the bright dots that obscured her vision, Marie saw Douglas on the floor beside her. Blood gushed from his throat to pool around him. The Watchmaker squatted beside the corpse and held up a hand with bloody claws at the end of it. “I do not tolerate disobedience,” he said. “From anyone. That includes you. Perhaps you think you are too valuable for me to hurt, but your friend there isn’t. One little cut and she’ll be dead again. Do you understand?”
Marie nodded. The Watchmaker took her hand to yank her back to her feet. “You’re…one of…them?”
“Not just one of them. I’m the CEO of this little enterprise. I trust you’ll keep that in mind for the future.”
Marie nodded again. Her vision had cleared and her breath came easier. The Watchmaker helped her to sit on the end of the bed. Marie turned to make sure he hadn’t hurt Veronica yet. The little girl continued to sleep as if nothing had happened.
“What do you want from me?”
“I’m going to need your help with one last thing. Then you and Veronica can go wherever you please.”
“What is this thing you want?”
“I need you to unlock a door for me. A very special door.”
“What door?”
“I’ll explain in time. For now I trust we won’t have any more problems?”
“No.”
“Good. I can have Dr. Torrence come in to examine you if you’d like.”
“I’ll be fine.”
The Watchmaker nodded and then stood up. He stepped over Douglas’s body. “I’ll have someone come in to clean up this mess. We wouldn’t want darling little Veronica to wake to such a horrible sight.”
Marie waited until the door closed before she curled up in the leather armchair and began to cry. What had she done? She had only wanted to help Veronica, but she had inadvertently made a pact with the devil. The nuns had been right about her: she was a child of Satan. This eye of hers had brought nothing but trouble. She ought to tear it out herself.
Then she heard Veronica whisper her name. Marie uncurled herself to leap off the chair. Veronica stared up at the ceiling, her eyes unfocused. “Marie?”
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Call Page 45