The Crimson Brand

by Brian Knight

  “Penny.” It was Michael again, speaking softly. “I need you to move.”

  Penny, who had been staring into the distance, ignoring the curious onlookers drifting up and down the block, looked up at him. She was about to ask why, then she understood. The paramedics were still inside, waiting to bring Zoe’s grandma out.

  She nodded, and he favored her with a pained little smile before stepping past them to the front yard. She saw that he still had dried blood on his temple.

  “Come on, let’s go.” Penny was too small to make Zoe stand. All she could do was apply gentle pressure and hope Zoe would follow her lead.

  “Where?” Zoe dropped her hands and turned to regard Penny.

  But she rose and leaned on Penny as they walked away from the steps. She was unsteady, and Penny knew if she fell, both of them would hit the ground. Penny didn’t think she’d slept at all that night. She wondered briefly if Zoe had been up all night long trying to save her grandma, trying to make her breathe again, or crying over her body, and made herself not think about it.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maybe Susan ….”

  But she didn’t have time to finish before Susan herself arrived, running through the gathering crowd toward them and scattering the people in her path.

  Katie was chasing in her wake, her face a mask of shock.

  That must be how I look, Penny thought.

  Then Susan and Katie were there, and Zoe found herself in the center of a group embrace.

  “I’m so sorry, honey,” Susan said. “I’m so sorry for this.”

  Katie seemed as lost for words as Penny was. She just held Zoe, and when Susan stepped away, Katie moved to Zoe’s other side to help support her.

  Over Zoe’s slumped shoulders, Penny saw the first paramedic backing out through the front door gripping one end of a gurney and guiding it down the narrow steps. She looked away, grateful that Zoe couldn’t see it.

  Where’s Susan?

  They needed to get Zoe away from here. Preferably to some place with a bed.

  She searched the yard and found Susan standing next to Michael, dragging him away from the crowd of busybodies milling around the sidewalks.

  “Do you know what happened?” Susan spoke in a low voice, still guiding him away from the onlookers. Penny could just hear their conversation over the low hum of gossip.

  “I’ll need to talk to Zoe, but it looks like a heart attack,” Michael said.

  “Can’t that wait?” She sounded angry now. “I think she’s been through enough this morning.”

  “Yes,” Michael said. “You’re right. She needs to rest, and I need to talk to social services.”

  Penny grew cold at those words. She remembered her time as a ward of the State of California, the group home. She felt like grabbing Zoe’s hand and running.

  “Social services?” Susan’s voice was weak.

  “She has no family here,” Michael spoke more softly still, but Penny could still hear him, and if she could ….

  She turned to Zoe and found her staring at the ground, the exhaustion and grief on her face now fighting with a blooming fear.

  Katie still looked shell-shocked. She held Zoe’s hand and patted her shoulder but seemed a million miles away.

  “She’s staying with me,” Susan said, and her voice invited no argument. “With Penny and me.”

  A moment of silence followed this.

  Katie seemed to snap out of her daze. She turned her head to watch her brother and Susan.

  Penny saw Zoe’s fear slip away. She fixed Penny with her dark eyes again.

  “She was …,” Zoe couldn’t bring herself to say the word. “She was in pain last night so I stayed with her, but she wouldn’t let me call an ambulance. She said she could wait until morning and drive herself. When I got up this morning to check on her she …. I tried to save her, but it was too late.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Katie said.

  Zoe looked down at her feet again, then her eyes closed.

  “I’m not letting her go to some damn orphanage or group home,” Susan said, her voice at the edge of a shout. “I won’t allow it.”

  Penny turned again and found Susan looking not at Michael but at her. Her eyes were wide, almost insane, her cheeks flushed. When she caught Penny’s glance, her face softened.

  “Oh, no,” Katie gasped.

  Standing across the street, staring at the three of them in their huddle, was her father. He watched them, his face pale and neutral, and for a moment Penny thought he was looking directly into her eyes.

  Don’t you dare! Not now!

  He didn’t. His eyes shifted from Penny to Katie, and a moment later he was striding through the crowd toward Susan and Michael.

  On the other side of Zoe, Katie relaxed visibly.

  “I’m so tired,” Zoe murmured between them.

  She was leaning more heavily on Penny than ever, and Penny was beginning to feel a bit weak in the knees.

  Behind the unlikely cluster of Susan, Michael, and Mr. West, Penny saw the shrouded form of Zoe’s grandma disappear inside the back of the ambulance. Then the door closed, and Susan was walking toward them, side by side with Katie’s father.

  Susan wrapped her arms around all three of them and spoke into Zoe’s ear.

  “Hang in there for a minute. I’ll take you home.”

  “Katie?” It was her father, standing off a little from the four of them. “You should go, too.”

  “No,” Katie said. Her voice was even but defiant. “I’m staying with her.”

  Unbelievably, her father nodded.

  “That’s what I meant, Katie.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “She needs her friends.”

  He met Penny’s eyes again. He didn’t do anything as friendly as smile, but the look he gave her was benign. He took his daughter’s hand from Zoe’s shoulder and squeezed it, then retreated to Michael’s side.

  Susan joined him a moment later, leaving the girls alone.

  “I tried to save her,” Zoe said again, her eyes still closed as if she were talking in her sleep. “I ….”

  “There’s nothing you could have done,” Penny said.

  “Shhh, let her talk,” Katie said.

  Zoe whispered something, and Penny had to lean in closer to make out her words.

  “What good am I? I couldn’t even save her.”

  Then Susan was with them, her arms around them. “Come on, let’s go.”

  She shepherded them toward the sidewalk and Michael’s cruiser.

  Sudden, unexpected laughter rippled from a group of onlookers across the street. Penny, Katie, Susan, and Michael turned in unison toward the sound. A pair of girls from Katie’s old gang stood at the center. The new queen bee, Tori, leaned heavily on her friend’s shoulder making a poor effort to cover up her giggles with a cupped hand.

  “Oh my god, look at her baaaawling.”

  Such sudden hatred rose up in Penny that her skin began to prickle with heat.

  Oblivious to the looks of shock and disapproval from all around, Tori eyed Katie with malicious glee.

  She was also oblivious to the right hook that came at her from the side, until it knocked the grin from her face.

  With a shout of pain Tori hit the ground. Ellen Kelly stood over her with clenched fists. She bent down and cocked her fist back for another punch, and arms grabbed at her from all around, pulling her away from Tori.

  “Let me go!” Ellen screamed, struggling to get away, to get at the cowering, bleeding girl.

  Michael put his arms around Penny, Zoe and Katie, and guided them more quickly toward the car.

  He opened the back door for them, looking like a disheveled chauffer, and they climbed in—Katie, Zoe, then Penny. Moments later they were off.

  It was a quick trip to Susan’s old Falcon, then home.

  By the time they turned onto Clover Hill Lane, Zoe had succumbed to her exhaustion. Susan carried her to the spare bedroom on the second floor—a feat
Penny found impressive given that Zoe was as tall as Susan—and put her to bed.

  Susan waved them away after putting Zoe in the spare room. They met downstairs in time to hear a car pulling into the driveway. When they’d tried to follow Susan out, she’d gently blocked them and redirected them toward the kitchen.

  “Why don’t you make fresh coffee? We’ll be inside in a few minutes.” She turned her back on them but paused on her way to the door, and sighed. “It’s going to be a long day.”

  * * *

  “So, what now,” Penny heard Susan asking from the front porch.

  Penny and Katie sat in the kitchen, Penny sipping at a cup of coffee and Katie drinking a Pepsi, straining to see through the curtains to the porch. It had been more than a few minutes—it was fifteen and counting now—but whomever Susan was talking to were finally making their way to the house.

  Penny expected to hear Michael’s voice. When Mr. West answered, Penny turned to Katie and saw she was just as surprised.

  “It’s not my area. Jenkins handles the custody cases, but as long as she has somewhere to stay, child protection will probably wait until Monday to open a case.”

  Penny felt sick at those words.

  They aren’t going to take her away, she told herself, though she was far from confident.

  Katie grabbed her arm but continued to stare through the narrow opening in the curtains.

  “Michael called them?” Susan didn’t sound alarmed, only resigned.

  “Yeah. He had to,” Mr. West said. “Don’t worry. If you can show she has a good home here, they’ll be happy to let her stay here until her parents come for her. Easier for everyone that way.”

  Her parents … Penny had forgotten about them.

  Easy to do, she thought, redirecting her anger toward Zoe’s long-absent mother and father. They’re never around.

  They’ll be around now. If the state doesn’t take her away, then they might.

  They won’t, Penny tried to comfort herself, knowing she was being selfish but not caring. They don’t want her or she’d already be with them.

  “Has anyone called them yet?”

  “Michael did,” Mr. West said. “He left a message.”

  “What if they don’t come for her?”

  Mr. West harrumphed. “I think she might be better off if they didn’t.”

  “Markus,” Susan admonished.

  “I don’t have anything against them,” he said, “but you know their lifestyle. She needs some stability, and those two have never been stable.”

  Silence. Penny could almost feel the tension outside seeping into the kitchen.

  Mr. West cleared his throat. “If you’re sure about letting her stay here … long term ….”

  “I am,” Susan said.

  “Then you’ll need to become her legal guardian,” he finished. “Keep me in the loop, Susan, and I’ll help out if it comes to that.”

  “Thank you, Markus.” Susan sounded calmer, less likely to snap out or break down. She’d been close to tears again earlier, on Zoe’s behalf rather than her grandma’s, Penny suspected.

  “Are they inside?”

  Katie rose at her father’s question and left the kitchen.

  Penny poured a hurried mug of coffee for Susan and followed.

  She stepped out onto the porch in time to see Katie hugging her father.

  Susan stepped quickly to Penny’s side and relieved her of her burden of caffeine.

  Markus West stepped away from Katie and regarded Penny for just a second before speaking again. “Michael’s bringing some clothes from Zoe’s house. I’ll have him bring some for you, too.”

  He turned away and hurried down the steps to his car, shoulders slumped and hands shoved deep into the pockets of his pants.

  “Thank you again, Markus.” Susan said. Penny thought she heard a touch of her own disbelief in Susan’s gratitude, saw the unasked question in Susan’s eyes.

  Why so suddenly helpful?

  Markus West stopped with his hand on the car door’s handle, then slowly looked up at them.

  “Seeing them,” he nodded toward Katie, but Penny thought the gesture was meant to include her and Zoe, too. “Seeing them today … how they are, just like sisters, it reminded me of how close you all used to be.”

  He opened his car and slipped inside.

  For a moment Penny thought those were his last words on the subject, then his window whirred down, and Penny found him looking directly at her.

  “I remember your grandparents, your mother, and aunt taking Susan in, just like she was one of them.”

  “Dad,” Katie said, blushing, clearly unused to her no-nonsense father sharing his feelings in her presence.

  He smiled at Katie. “I’m a little ashamed of myself and very proud of you. Loyalty is an underrated virtue.”

  Before he could embarrass Katie further, he rolled his window up, started his car, and made a U-turn. A moment later he disappeared from sight down Clover Hill Lane.

  * * *

  Michael arrived an hour later, standing at the open door with two bags slung over his shoulder.

  “Zoe’s still sleeping,” Susan informed him as he handed one bag to Katie. “If you need to see her, could it at least wait until tomorrow?”

  “That’s fine,” Michael said after a brief, distracted glance between Katie and Penny. When Penny tried to take Zoe’s bag, he shifted his shoulder away from her. “I’ve got it.”

  Penny moved back as he stepped inside. He searched the foyer, then found Susan standing at the threshold to the living room. “I’ll just have Kat show me where she’s staying and leave this for her.”

  Before Susan could protest, he was moving down the hallway toward the stairs to the second floor. Katie fell in behind him, and with a quick glance at Susan, Penny strode to keep up with them. She caught up to them on the second-floor landing, where Katie pointed out the spare bedroom.

  “Go ahead,” he said, and Penny felt herself blushing at the close scrutiny he gave her as she followed Katie past him.

  They stopped at Zoe’s closed door, and Katie opened it as carefully and quietly as possible. Penny could have told her the caution was unnecessary. Zoe slept in her usual fashion–sprawled out across the double-wide bed like a gangly, dark-haired starfish, her blankets mostly kicked off, snoring extravagantly.

  Michael passed the bag to Penny, still scrutinizing her as she set it just inside the door, which she closed again to give Zoe her privacy. She could well imagine Zoe’s horror if she found out Michael had seen her in such an undignified state.

  When they started away from Zoe’s door, Michael moved in front of them, blocking their path.

  “What?” Katie crossed her arms and fixed Michael with a look of impatience that only a little sister could manage.

  “There’s more,” he said, and drew something long and slender from inside his jacket.

  Zoe’s new wand.

  The tip glowed slightly as he held it out toward them, drawing his eyes.

  He frowned at it.

  For a moment Penny and Katie were frozen to the spot in shock, then nearly knocked each other down in their haste to grab the wand from Michael’s hand.

  “Michael? Girls?” Susan’s footsteps echoed up the steps and down the hallway toward them, and Katie, who had been slightly quicker in her lunge toward Michael, hid the wand behind her back. A second later Susan’s slightly flustered face appeared around the far corner. “Come back down. She needs to rest.”

  Michael fixed a pained, unconvincing smile on his face before turning. “Okay, Susan. We’ll be right down.”

  When she was gone, he turned back to Penny and Katie.

  “Now is probably not a good time, but sooner or later I’d like the three of you to explain that.”

  Katie was going slightly red in the face and opened her mouth, as if to tell him to mind his own business.

  He shook his head, pressed a finger to his lips, and strode down the hall.<
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  Chapter 16

  Homunculi

  Ronan approached the junkyard on his usual path, cresting the hill overlooking it from the west just after dark to avoid casting a silhouette against the cotton-candy sunset sky. He expected no trouble; even the garbage man’s irritating sniping stopped when the sun went down, as long as Ronan didn’t set off any trap lights. He expected an empty maze and deserted ruins. What he saw in the valley below sank his hopes of sweeping up the last of the pesky avian’s mess without interference.

  Lights and activity.

  There was a smell, too, the same as before but stronger now, alkaline and somehow so electric that it crackled like static in his flared nostrils.

  “Turoc,” Ronan growled, and sank lower into the tall grass.

  If it was Turoc, and Ronan was almost certain that stench could come from no other, their situation would get very complicated. He would have to warn the girls, hope for the best but prepare them for the worst, which meant telling them a lot more than he had wanted to.

  He could only hope they would be ready to hear it.

  “But not tonight,” he whispered, not even aware he’d voiced the thought.

  Despite the new complications in the junkyard, he had work to do.

  He’d expected someone to make the journey long before now, but he’d expected someone who blended in a bit better, someone the red bastard wouldn’t miss. Someone expendable.

  Not Turoc.

  The memory of his last encounter with the old enemy rose from the neglected dungeons of his unhappiest memories, and Ronan forced it back down. He needed to concentrate on the task at hand.

  He crept down the hill, frequently pausing to blend in with his surroundings and observe. Turoc’s scent lingered, but there was no sign of the monster himself. Not yet anyway.

  There were no humans about either, neither the big bald man nor his unpleasant son. The little trailer the garbage man lived in looked dark, abandoned.

  The light and activity focused on the center of the maze, the ruins he had planned on visiting himself. He couldn’t see what was darting in and out of the burned husk, only got occasional glimpses of running, spindly armed shadows. He couldn’t smell them, either. The little monsters mimicked the scents that surrounded them, just a part of their remarkable camouflage. He could hear them, though: plaintive squawks; sharp, chattered replies; and the occasional mad tittering laughter.