***
Becky tore a leg off the man’s pants and then used this to tie his hands behind his back. “When they let you out of jail, you might want to consider a new line of work,” she hissed into his ear.
“I will,” the man said.
Becky had literally caught him with his pants down as he tried to rape a young girl in the parking lot of a truck stop. The Scarlet Knight had wasted little time to tear off the door of the tractor-trailer and then punch the would-be rapist in the face.
She turned to the girl who cowered in the truck’s sleeping compartment. She couldn’t be more than fifteen, much too young to hang around a truck stop in Rampart City after dark by herself. “What were you doing here?” Becky asked the girl.
“I was trying to get a ride,” the girl said.
“You’re running away from home?” The girl nodded. Though the Scarlet Knight’s helmet didn’t have any way to check for bruises beneath the girl’s clothes, Becky could tell from experience that this girl was a victim of abuse—just like her and her sisters. Becky had often wanted to run away, but that would have left her sisters at her mother’s mercy. “There’s a place over on Welch Road that will help you.”
The Scarlet Knight didn’t carry any money, so she reached into the man’s pocket for his wallet. She pulled out the cash inside to give to the girl. “That should get you there and help you get started.” Becky put a hand gently on the girl’s shoulder. “Good luck.”
The girl had run back into the truck stop to call for a cab to take her away. Becky waited until she heard an approaching siren before she awkwardly bounced onto the roof of the truck stop. Before she left, she whispered into the man’s ear, “You had better confess everything to the cops. If you don’t, you’ll be seeing me again and next time I won’t be so nice. Get it?”
“Yes.”
Becky gave him a punch to the stomach as a final goodbye. She scrambled across the roof and launched herself over a line of trucks and onto the sidewalk. She landed right next to a man as he negotiated with a scantily-clad woman. Becky had only to glare at the man for him to run off.
“Hey, you can’t just—”
Becky silenced the hooker when she put a hand on the Sword of Justice’s hilt. “I think you ought to find a new line of work too.” She didn’t give the prostitute time to respond; she scampered into a nearby alley and then climbed up the side of a building. By now she would have keeled over dead in her real body; with Emma’s body she felt as though she could climb Mt. Everest.
Marlin waited for her at the top of the building. “I must say it’s refreshing to see someone who isn’t so concerned with tact.”
“Thanks—I guess. So what do we do next?”
Marlin pointed to the east, where Becky could see the sky around the harbor lightening. “I think we’ve done enough for tonight.”
“There has to be more I can do.”
“That’s the spirit,” the ghost said. “But I don’t think we should press our luck on your first night.”
“Hey, I think I’ve done pretty well.”
“Certainly—for a beginner. You haven’t really faced any of the toughest blokes yet.”
“Oh yeah? Just tell me where they are.”
“Don’t be such a hothead. You’re as bad as Graves.”
“He did pretty well for himself.”
“Right up until he nearly lost his leg.”
“Fine, point taken.” She ran across the roof to leap across to the next building. Her landings hadn’t improved much in her first night, but she did manage not to come down on her face so much. Instead, she landed on her right side and then rolled to her feet to repeat the procedure until she was all the way to the historical district.
Her house didn’t have a convenient fire escape for her to use to sneak inside. She would have to hope no one watched the front door. She paused in the foyer to listen for any sound of Emma inside. It would be just like her to come back here even after Becky told her to stay away.
The house was empty. Becky searched each room right down to the closets to make sure. Then she dropped onto the bed in the master bedroom to take off the armor. The moment she pulled off the helmet, she felt as if someone had smacked her over the head with a sack of doorknobs. By the time it was over she barely had the strength to pull off her boots. As she collapsed onto the mattress, she felt as if she weighed three hundred pounds again. She had to drag herself up to the pillows.
Although her body felt exhausted, her mind refused to sleep. How could Emma do this night after night? She must be some kind of masochist. Becky closed her eyes and saw the faces of the criminals and the victims float up before her. The abused girl from the truck stop stayed with her the longest. What would happen to that girl? Would she get the help she needed? Would she make something of herself or would she end up whoring herself out on a corner?
She opened her eyes and saw Marlin beside her bed. “Does it really make a difference?” she asked him.
“Yes.”
“But it’s not enough. There are still going to be people suffering. Not even the Scarlet Knight can fix everything.”
“We do what we can. That’s all we can do. Now get some rest. You’ve done some good work tonight.” She wanted to say something, but fell asleep.
Chapter 21
The staircase ended with a heavy door. Someone had carved a warning into the door in the language of magic. In English the words translated as: Warning, Dangerous Magic Levels. Red gulped before he faced the two witches. “Only one of you can go in there.”
“What are you talking about?” Sylvia said. “We both go or neither of us goes.”
“Now, Sylvia, let’s not be hasty.” Ms. Chiostro put a hand on Red’s arm. “Why can only one of us go in there?”
“Glenda doesn’t like having too much magic down here. Some of the spells are very…volatile,” Red said.
“She never had any problem with both of us going down there before,” Sylvia said.
“She thought it’d be a good idea after what happened to the last archivist. She—” Red looked down at his feet; his face turned green. Ms. Chiostro decided it was best not to press him on the issue.
Ms. Chiostro put a hand on Sylvia’s shoulder. “Why don’t you check up on the girls and I’ll go in there to find the spell? It’ll go a lot faster that way, trust me.”
Ms. Chiostro imagined her sister would take out the hunting knife of Artemis or some such thing to hold at Red’s throat. “I’m sure it won’t take very long to find what we’re looking for.”
“Right.”
Ms. Chiostro put a hand on the door handle. She turned to Red. “I suppose you ought to go back upstairs. Magic like this is dangerous for mortals.”
“Magic can’t hurt me,” he said. He put on a smile as he said, “I’ll go down with you. It will take less time that way.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Red, but—”
“It’s all right. I said magic can’t hurt me. That’s why Glenda brought me here.” He turned to Sylvia and Ms. Chiostro could see a bit of a mischievous grin on his face. “You should go upstairs. Magic can still hurt you.”
It came as no surprise when Sylvia reached to her hip with her good hand to pull out a thin silver dagger. “You’d better make it quick, boy, if you ever want to be a man.”
Red’s already pale skin went several shades paler. Ms. Chiostro squeezed his arm. “It’ll be all right. Come along, Red.”
“I’ll be right here waiting,” Sylvia said. Her voice dripped with menace. Ms. Chiostro pulled open the door to the vault.
***
The interior vault had not changed much since the last time Ms. Chiostro had ventured into it. The vault was like a larger version of the spiral staircase, only in this case the steps were rocky paths that wound deeper into an abyss. Why Glenda and the other founders of the coven had made the vault so ominous Ms. Chiostro didn’t know.
Pigeonholes were carved into the walls of dark gray rock, each
hole sealed with a cap made of clear crystal. Runes carved above the pigeonholes identified the spell inside. The first one they came to was a spell to transform lead into gold. While the spell seemed powerful, it was only good to con someone out of money as the gold would turn back to lead within twenty-four hours when the spell wore off.
“Sylvia’s used that one a few times for people who try to cheat her,” Ms. Chiostro said.
Red looked back to the door in case Sylvia had decided to follow them. Ms. Chiostro doubted her sister would do that; despite her tough exterior, Sylvia remained a loyal and obedient baby sister. The only reason she would go through that door would be if there were some kind of danger.
“Let’s keep looking,” Ms. Chiostro said. She examined a few more of the pigeonholes, but found nothing that would help with Emma and Becky.
As they descended farther into the bowels of the vault, Red had yet to say anything. The way he glumly stared at his feet indicated he would have preferred to be anywhere else at the moment. “Don’t worry about Sylvia. Everything will be fine,” Ms. Chiostro said.
“I suppose.”
Ms. Chiostro felt a sort of psychic vibration. She turned and saw one of the spells try to escape from its pigeonhole; the scroll banged against the crystal cap like a caged animal. The one next to it did the same thing.
“Perhaps you should go back—”
“They can’t hurt me.”
“Why not?”
“My body is resistant to magic. Glenda says it’s because my body is out of phase.”
“Out of phase? You mean you’re from another dimension?”
“I don’t know about that. It’s probably more accurate to say that I’m in a kind of limbo between dimensions.” He shook his head. “I’m not really sure what happened. I don’t remember much from before that day. It was Halloween about five years ago. I got this really bad headache. There was this blinding light. When I came to, Glenda was there. She brought me down here and told me that I’d be safe because magic couldn’t hurt me.”
“Because you’re not really here, nothing can hurt you.”
“Pretty much.”
Now Ms. Chiostro understood why Glenda had put Red down here. With his unique condition, he could work with the spells without fear they would hurt him or try to attach themselves to him. She put a hand on his arm just to verify he was still there. “But I can feel you.”
“This me.”
“There’s more than one of you?”
“Two hundred twenty-seven of us by my count. There are more I don’t know about. Probably an infinite number.” He shook his head again. “I started hearing them after that day. Just a few at first, but there have been more of them since then.”
“My goodness,” Ms. Chiostro said. She wished again Emma was here to help explain it to her. “And these two hundred twenty-six other versions of you—are they the same?”
“No. Some of them are even female.” Red’s face turned the color to match his name. “It’s kind of like being schizophrenic I guess, except we all live in different worlds.”
“That sounds awful.”
“It’s not so bad once you get used to it.”
Ms. Chiostro could sense the boy didn’t want to discuss his situation any further. She let him plod along behind her as they continued into the bowels of the vault. The spells continued to react to her presence; they flung themselves futilely against the caps that held them into the pigeonholes. She could understand now why Sylvia hadn’t been allowed to come along too; with two witches around the spells might have gone into an even greater frenzy.
She bent down to examine the label on one pigeonhole. “Mirror Image,” she read. She reached out to pull the cap off the pigeonhole.
“No!” Red shouted. But it was too late. The spell leaped from the pigeonhole. It changed from a scroll of paper into a ball of white light. The ball of light slammed into Ms. Chiostro and threw her against a wall.
As the world evaporated into white light around her, she laughed at the irony of being killed by a spell from her own coven. She doubted Sylvia would appreciate that. Poor Red, she thought. Soon there would only be two hundred twenty-six of him.
***
Her first surprise was that she came to. The second was to see that Red stood over her. Apparently she had not dissolved and Sylvia had not murdered Red. From the look of it, they were still in the vault. “What happened?” she asked.
At least she thought she’d asked that. Red stared at her for a moment and then spoke in gibberish. “I can’t understand you,” she said. He spoke again in gibberish. “I don’t know what happened to you, but I suppose it’s time we got out of here.”
She tried to get to her feet. She intended to push herself up with her right hand, but her left responded instead. It worked just as well, at least until she tried to correct her balance. She meant to take a step with her right foot, but again her left foot responded. She stumbled and would have fallen if Red hadn’t caught her.
With irritation she tried to tear herself away from him. She wanted to shake her left shoulder, but this time her right shoulder moved. She did manage to escape Red’s grasp, but she ended up on the ground.
She stamped her right foot, though she’d meant to stamp her left. “What happened to me?” she shouted at Red. He spoke to her in gibberish again. “I can’t understand you, you idiot!”
He stared at her for a moment and then he nodded. He reached beside Ms. Chiostro for her purse. “What are you doing with my purse? Stay out of there!” She tried to stop him, but only flailed around uselessly.
At last he took out her address book and compact. He scribbled something in the address book and then held it up to her. She couldn’t make sense of the symbols—until he held the compact up next to them. In the mirror of the compact she saw he’d written, “It’s the Mirror Image spell.”
Ms. Chiostro put a hand to her mouth—her right when she meant her left. It all made sense now. She had hoped Mirror Image might have been able to help Emma and Rebecca, but now she understood what it really did. Like a mirror, it had reversed her brain so when she meant to move left, she went right. From the looks Red had given her, it must also have reversed her speech and even her hearing.
She closed her eyes and then concentrated as hard as she could to move her right foot. Her left moved instead. She tried again and again, but the result was always the same. She felt Red’s hand on her shoulder. He held up the book and compact again.
“It will probably take some time to wear off. Stay here and I’ll look for a spell.”
She flailed at him again until she managed to grab the address book. She usually wrote with her right hand, but decided now to try with her left. She scribbled out a message for him. When she held it up to the mirror, it appeared in English. “I can still walk! I’m not an invalid!”
He took the book from her again. “It would be faster by myself.”
She didn’t bother to write a message; she just glared at him until his cheeks turned magenta. He nodded to her and then offered his right hand. She initially tried by instinct to grab it with her left hand only for her right to move. Then she told herself to move her right hand and found her left moved to take Red’s hand. He yanked her back to her feet and then put his arm around her slender waist to support her.
With one hand he managed to scribble, “Right foot.”
She tried her right foot, but of course her left moved. Red kept hold of her and managed to keep them both upright. He tapped the message again. She nodded and then told herself to move her left foot. This time the right moved.
Red wrote down, “Left foot.” From there he tapped to whichever foot he didn’t want her to use. That made it easier for her to tell her brain to do the opposite. Eventually they managed a few yards along the vault’s path. Ms. Chiostro had to admit Red was right that it would have been easier for him to go alone. But she was the witch here; she would know better what spell to use, wouldn’t she? With what had h
appened to her, she began to doubt that.
They neared the pigeonholes again. This time the spells backed away from her as if afraid. She nudged Red and then motioned to the scrolls with her head. He shrugged in response. He pointed to a pigeonhole that was empty. Then he held up the compact so she could read the words: Mirror Image. The spell was gone.
She flailed until she grabbed the address book. “Where did it go?” she wrote.
“Probably disappeared until the effect wears off,” he responded.
“How long will that be?”
“I don’t know. Could be hours or days or forever.”
“Forever?” She couldn’t possibly live like this for the rest of her life; it would be like she was an invalid.
“I’m sorry,” he wrote. “Maybe Glenda will think of something.”
Ms. Chiostro nodded. She hoped someone in the coven could solve this if the effect didn’t wear off on its own. Then she nudged Red to motion they should move forward.
One step at a time they made their way back to the door to the vault. Sylvia would probably be furious with them, but she also might be able to help. If nothing else, Sylvia could help Red to find a spell to change Ms. Chiostro back. That would be less laborious than if she and Red had to do it alone.
But when Red pulled on the door handle, nothing happened. She clawed furiously at him until she grabbed the address book. “Why won’t it open?”
“Contamination alert,” he wrote back. “It will stop when the spell wears off.”
“If it doesn’t?”
“Then we’re stuck.”
She clawed at him again, this time with no intention to grab the address book. He glared back at her. “This is your fault. You’re the one who triggered the spell. A witch should know better.”
She grabbed the book to write a nasty response, but as she took the pen, she realized Red was right. No witch, especially not one more than five hundred years old, would ever use a spell if she didn’t know what it did. She looked down at her body. These last nine months as a young woman had made her feel younger and as such she’d taken risks like a young woman.
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 18