Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Call

by P. T. Dilloway

  I go up to the nearest man, a barrel-chested blond man probably descended from the Vikings who used to terrorize the northern country. “Have you seen Henri Devereaux?” I ask him. “I need to find him.”

  The man laughs and then glances down at my stomach. “Henri’s been busy, has he?”

  I need a moment before I realize that he thinks I’m carrying Henri’s child. No, not yet, I tell myself. But soon I will. Not just one, but many. “Have you seen him?”

  The man shakes his head. “Not for about a month. Not since the lord came here to gather men for the war.”

  “The war?”

  “With the Italians. That bastard of a pope in Rome.”

  None of my teachings have given me a primer on current political tensions, so I have no idea about any of this. What I do understand is that the lord of the manor has conscripted Henri into the army to fight for him. At last Henri is getting his wish to be a knight.

  “Where are they going?”

  “No idea, mademoiselle. I’d guess to the east. If I were younger I’d go with them. Teach those bastards a lesson.”

  The man is still ranting as I run for the forest. Once I’m deep into the trees, I vanish myself to Mama’s stables. I’ve watched Henri work with the horses enough that I can hitch up the team to the carriage.

  Aggie meets me at the front gates. “Sylvia, where are you going?”

  “Henri’s in danger. I have to find him.” I turn to her. “Is there a spell that can help me find him?”

  “I don’t know one, but there might be one in the archives—”

  I don’t listen to the rest. Instead, I flick the reins, prompting the horses to gallop forward, through the gate. I expect Aggie to follow, but she doesn’t. I’m on my own.

  Chapter 8

  I’ve never left the grounds of the estate without Mama or one of my sisters before. Mama did teach me a little about geography, enough that I know Italy is to the east of France, as the man in the fields indicated. I take the road in that direction, having no idea if it will really take me to Italy or not.

  I’ve never had a feeling like Aggie before, at least until this moment. It’s not so much a tingling like when I can feel my powers; it’s more like a leaden weight in my stomach that makes me shiver from cold. I know that Henri is in trouble; I know that I need to find him as soon as I can and bring him home.

  Part of this is probably not a psychic vibration so much as guilt at the way things ended between us. I desperately want the chance to make things up to him, to tell him how much I love him. I want to tell him that I will gladly give up everything so long as I can spend the rest of my life with him.

  I have to stop after a couple of hours so the horses can rest and drink some water. As I’m sitting beside the river, I see a ragged man approach. From the bits of plate mail dangling from his tattered, bloody clothes, I assume he’s a soldier. At first I worry that this is Henri, but as he gets closer, I can see his beard is blond where it’s not covered with dirt or blood.

  Without a word he collapses beside the river, cupping water into his mouth. I watch the man for a few minutes, working up the courage to approach him. I wait until he’s finished drinking and lying with his back on the grass, staring up at the sky.

  I kneel down beside him, helping him to sit up. “Who are you?” he snaps.

  “My name is Sylvia Joubert. I’m looking for my fiancé, Henri Devereaux.” I don’t know why I call him my fiancé, except that maybe it will make the soldier more sympathetic to think we’re going to be married. “Have you seen him?”

  The man breaks my heart by shaking his head. “Things are so confused,” he says. He breaks it a second time by adding, “People running everywhere. They broke our lines.”

  “Where?”

  “Novara.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Italy. In the north.”

  I wish I had some money or food to give him, but I left in too much of a hurry for that. I have no choice then but to leave him at the river and then hitch up the horses.

  I have never ridden on a horse before, but after six hours of relentless driving, the carriage breaks an axle. I turn one of the horses loose, the older of the two. The younger one I climb aboard, needing three tries before I can jump onto its back. Even then it’s difficult for me to adjust my body into a somewhat comfortable position. I take the reins and then prod the horse into galloping away.

  As evening falls, I come across more survivors of the battle. They look just as ragged as the first man I saw. None of them know Henri either. They beg me for food and water, but I still have nothing to offer. “I’m sorry,” I say before hurrying onward.

  I want to ride all night, but the horse is tiring. I see a farm nearby and trot the horse up to the house. An old man comes out to greet me, holding up a saber. He brandishes it for a moment before lowering the weapon. “My God, what are you doing out here? This is not a safe place for a young woman,” he says.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I’m looking for my fiancé, Henri Devereaux. He’s a soldier.”

  “There’s a bunch of soldiers out in the barn. Can’t be sure he’s among them.”

  I feel that leaden weight in my stomach again. I know that Henri is here, in the old man’s barn. I thank the man before running as fast as I can towards the barn. I throw open the doors only to have another saber pointed at me.

  “Who are you?” a man in a ragged uniform asks.

  “My name is—”

  “Sylvia?” I hear Henri’s voice call out.

  “Henri?” Not caring about the danger, I shove the man with the saber away. I race over to the ladder going up to the hayloft. There I find the rest of the survivors—and Henri.

  “Oh no!” I can’t help gasping as I see that Henri has a gash across his midsection. The rags pressed against it have turned red from blood—Henri’s blood. I sink down beside him, taking his hand. “Henri, what happened?”

  “Too many of them. They overran us.”

  “Who?”

  “Swiss.”

  “The Swiss? I thought you were fighting Italians.”

  “Working together.”

  “It doesn’t matter now. I’m going to take you home. Agnes and Mama will be able to cure you.” I wish at that point that my specialty was making potions like Aggie so I could help Henri right here. Instead, I’ll have to vanish him back home, to Aggie.

  “It’s too late,” he says.

  “No it’s not!” Even as I say this, his eyes close. He’s dying. I shake him, whispering, “Henri, please don’t go. I love you. I want to marry you. I want to be with you forever. Please don’t go. Stay with me.”

  I clutch him to my chest and then vanish from the barn. I’ve never gone this far before, but at that moment it doesn’t matter. My love for Henri gives me the strength to vanish us into the sun if need be. We reappear in the living room, where I hear Aggie gasp.

  I set Henri down on the couch. His eyes are still closed. His chest is still. He’s dead.

  ***

  I shake Henri furiously, trying to wake him up. “Please, Henri. Please. Wake up. I love you. I love you.” I keep whispering this and shaking him until Aggie pulls me away.

  “He’s gone, dear,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

  I fling her away, into a wall. My body glows with white light just as it did back in the forest when Henri and I first kissed. “He’s not dead! You can bring him back! Give him a potion or find a spell in the archives, or—”

  Aggie stands up, taking me into her arms again. “I’m sorry, Sylvia. He’s gone. We can’t raise the dead.”

  “Maybe Mama or Glenda—”

  She seizes me by the arms, looking into my eyes. “Sylvia, please, you have to understand. We could bring his body back to life, but his soul is gone. He’s moved on. Whatever we bring back wouldn’t be Henri.”

  “No!” I push her away again, throwing myself at Henri’s side. I take his hands, my body still glowing with energy. I close
my eyes, concentrating on bringing him back to life. “You’re not gone. You’re not. You wouldn’t leave without me. I love you.”

  I feel Aggie’s hand on my shoulder, but I ignore this. “It wasn’t his choice, dear. I’m sure he loved you, but it was his time to go.”

  I put my head on his chest, sobbing. I don’t have any words left to say. There’s nothing more I can say. Henri is dead. I waited too long to come back to him, to tell him how I felt. Now it’s too late.

  Aggie helps me up to my bedroom. I collapse onto the mattress, continuing to sob. Aggie remains there with me, keeping a hand on my back. She doesn’t say anything, just stays close to me, so I can feel her comforting touch.

  Much later, after my sobs have turned into dry sniffles and hiccups, she tucks me into bed as if I’m still a child. She brings me a cup of water, forcing me to drink some of it. “You did everything you could,” she says. “There was nothing more you could do.”

  I shake my head. “I could have told him right off that I loved him. If I had, we could have gone away together, we could have started a life—”

  “That’s not for any of us to say. Not even a witch has the power to control destiny.”

  “Then who does?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe this god of the Christians. Maybe no one. Not even Glenda knows and she’s three thousand years old.”

  “It’s not fair,” I whine. “I was going to marry him. We were going to be together for the rest of our lives.”

  “I know, dear. I know.”

  I insist on taking Henri’s body to his family. Aggie sends word to Clare in the archives that her brother is dead. She’s there to meet me when I bring Henri up to the front of the little houses where his family lives. Aggie and I have cleaned him up, dressing him in new clothes instead of his bloodstained uniform.

  His mother weeps even harder than I did. His father screams, swearing revenge on those responsible. I want to tell him that it’s my fault, that Henri would still be alive if I hadn’t put being a witch ahead of our happiness. I can’t say this, because I remember what Clare said about the men of the family not knowing the secret. I don’t want to endanger her, her sisters, or her mother by saying anything.

  I feel even worse when his father thanks me for bringing Henri back. “Such a brave girl,” he says, but I know that I’m not brave. I’m a coward. A brave girl would have told Henri that she loved him that day in the pasture, not worried about the coven or what they might do.

  I stay there all night, until Clare takes me outside. “Thank you for bringing him back to us,” she says, echoing her father. “I know how much you cared about him.”

  “I didn’t care enough, did I?”

  “You shouldn’t blame yourself. You did what you could.”

  “I didn’t tell him how I felt when I had the chance.”

  “I’m sure Henri knew.”

  “No, he thought I didn’t love him. He thought I didn’t want to be with him. He hated me.”

  “He never hated you, Sylvia. He never hated anyone.”

  I nod at this. Henri was a good man, a gentle man. He should never have been a soldier. He should never have been there, to die in some pointless war between power-hungry mortals. He should have been with me, in that little cottage, with our children.

  Instead, he’s gone. With it is my life among the mortals. There’s only the coven now.

  Part 2

  Chapter 9

  I hate when Glenda sends me to Italy. Nearly two hundred years later and I still haven’t forgiven them for the war that took Henri from me. I thought the pain would dissipate after a year, or at least a decade; after a century I thought I would forget what his face looks like. I haven’t. If anything, I can remember it better than in those days because my witch powers sharpen my memory. I remember every curve, every line, and every mole on his face. I remember the taste of his lips when they touched mine. Mostly, I remember his eyes. I still see them sometimes in my dreams. Almost two centuries and I still see them.

  So my heart always feels heavier when I have to go to Italy, the country that helped to murder him. I could probably refuse the assignment. As a senior witch I have that right. I never do, because it’s my job and Mama always brought me up to take responsibility.

  I sit on a rooftop in Venice, squatting next to a pigeon. I hate all these damned canals; they make it much more difficult to track anything. That’s probably why it came here; it knew I was on its trail.

  I have a pair of nightcrystal lenses on my eyes so I can see through the darkness. Despite the difficulty posed by the damned canals, I’ve tracked the beast to this neighborhood. From my vantage, I can see through the window, to where its hiding, lying in wait for the coast to be clear so it can take off.

  Not all stories about bogeymen in the closet or monsters under the bed are untrue. That might be why the creatures are drawn to the bedrooms of children; if the child runs to his or her parents, who’s going to believe the kid? I would, but then I’ve been in this position often enough to become a believer.

  I watch the door to the bedroom open, a heavyset, middle-aged woman entering. She says something as she bustles over to the bed, where her chubby daughter lies in bed. I snort as the mother forces her child to get out of her comfy bed to pray to a god who doesn’t exist. After the prayer is over, the mother at least helps her daughter back into the bed, tucking the girl in just the way Mama did almost two centuries ago—some things never change.

  After bending down to kiss the girl on her forehead, the mother takes the candle from beside the bed. The light in the room begins to fade until it’s completely dark. Through my lenses it still looks as bright as daytime, so I can see the closet door open slightly. The creature is watching the girl, waiting for her to fall asleep before it climbs out the window to complete its escape. This might take a while if the girl senses the creature’s presence.

  While I wait, I inventory my supplies. I reach into a pocket of my jacket for a Class-4 charm. I have a dozen of these on my person, ready for when I need them. As Hisae taught me, the charm can’t actually destroy this creature. For that I need the silver-tipped crossbow bolt in the interior pocket of my jacket.

  The crossbow itself is on a sling, within easy reach. I take it out as well, checking to make sure the strings and mechanisms haven’t been damaged by the humidity or all of my running around. Everything looks fine; I stash the crossbow back into the sling. There’s nothing to do now but wait for the creature to make its move.

  It would be easy enough to simply go in, shoot the thing in the heart, and then vanish out. I can’t do that. The coven’s rules forbid us from using magic in front of the mortals unless absolutely necessary. This isn’t an emergency—at least not yet. If the creature decides it wants to snack on the little girl before heading out, then it will become an emergency.

  The girl still hasn’t fallen asleep. I can see her leaning up, the blankets pulled up to her chin. She knows it’s there, but she can’t see it like I can. If the creature is patient, this could go on for hours. My first few assignments this was always difficult; after almost two hundred years, it’s only irritating.

  The creature isn’t patient. It opens the closet door. The girl screams loud enough that my eardrums ring. The creature dashes for the open window. Its leathery wings unfurl so it can fly up to the roof.

  By the time it gets there, I’m waiting for it, vanishing myself across the gap. I only need a few seconds to take the crossbow out and load it. Silver crossbow heads are expensive while bits of rope are cheap, so once the demon lands, I throw the charm at it. I’ve done this enough times that I’m able to hook the charm onto one of the creature’s horns.

  It howls as if I’ve burned it, collapsing to the roof. I give it a good kick to its insect-like midsection so it’s lying flat. I don’t say anything, having done this too long to care anymore about witty quips. The silver crossbow bolt pierces the creature’s black shell, into its equally black heart. It shrieks fo
r a handful of seconds before the red glow in its eyes fade. It’s dead now, its evil spirit gone back to whatever dark plane birthed it.

  Another rule is that we aren’t supposed to let the mortals see any evidence of our work. The crossbow bolt has dissolved, leaving only the charm and the corpse. I pluck the charm off of the horn, tucking it back into my pocket. As for the corpse, an Ashes to Ashes spell disintegrates that to leave only a pile of black ash to be scattered by the winds.

  Then I vanish back home.

  ***

  Mama and Sophie are at home. Aggie is still gone, probably in some jungle to look for new ingredients for her potions. No one greets me as I vanish into the foyer. Mama is probably sleeping since it’s after midnight. Sophie is probably in the library yet; she hardly ever sleeps.

  This hunch is correct. Sophie is sitting in an armchair, using a Glow in the Dark spell so her entire body glows with blue light, allowing her to read without a candle or lamp. She hardly looks up from her book as I enter the room.

  “Did you kill it?” she asks.

  “Of course.” I sit down in an armchair next to hers, remembering not to put my feet up on the table so I don’t incur Sophie’s wrath. Out in the world I look like I’m twenty-seven, but back home I’m always thirteen again, the awkward youngest child.

  “I don’t know why Glenda doesn’t find you something more challenging to do,” Sophie says without looking up from Plato’s The Republic.

  I snort at this, which prompts Sophie to look up and glare at me for a moment. “What would you consider more challenging?”

  “The Black Dragoon. There’s been a sighting in Edo.”

  “You remember what happened the last time a witch tried to go up against that? Tabitha nearly lost her leg.”

  “You’re better than Tabitha, aren’t you?”

  “Are you trying to get me killed?”

  She closes the book to stare at me with those cold blue eyes. As I thought back when I became a novice, Sophie did wind up looking like Regina Milton, except her hair was completely gray and dull even with the glow from her spell. “I only want you to be happy. You’re my sister.”