Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis

by P. T. Dilloway

  She got out of the car and then knocked on the door. As she expected, no one answered after two minutes. No one answered when she tried to knock again. With a sigh, she reached into her pocket for one of the Scarlet Knight’s gloves. When she pressed her hand to the doorknob, the front door yawned opened.

  There was no sound inside the house. Not a television or a radio or anyone’s footsteps but her own. She poked her head into the living room and saw her first positive sign in a scorched log in the fireplace. Another sign came in the kitchen, where she found breadcrumbs on the counter. She had definitely been here; the question was if she were still here.

  The second floor was just as deserted as the first. The bedrooms were unoccupied, the beds all neatly made up. The bathrooms were equally tidy, all except for a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste with the bottom rolled up properly. Emma touched the bristles of the toothbrush and felt moisture there. She must have brushed her teeth a half-hour or so ago.

  The third floor was the attic, which was nearly empty except for old skis and cardboard boxes of winter clothes. Emma knew she was in here. “Megan, please come out. It’s Dr. Earl. I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk.”

  Emma waited for a minute and then heard a shuffling from behind the skis. Megan’s white-blond head appeared, as pale as she remembered when she’d seen it in the mirror. “Dr. Earl? What are you doing here?”

  Emma pushed aside some boxes so she could sit down on one. “People are very worried about you, Megan.”

  “No they aren’t.”

  “Your father is very upset.”

  “No he’s not. Daddy doesn’t care about me.”

  “Megan—”

  “He never even sees me.” From the whistle at the end of this sentence, Emma knew she had better not press things much further.

  “Let’s go downstairs. It’ll be easier to talk there without all this dust.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “If that’s what you want.” Emma listened for a moment, but she couldn’t hear Megan wheeze, which was a good sign. “I’m not here to take you back unless you want me to.” When the girl said nothing, Emma continued, “I only want what’s best for you, Megan. I hate to think someone with so much talent is going to throw it away.”

  “I’m not talented. I can’t do anything right.”

  “That’s not true. I’ve seen your drawings. Some of them are very good.” Megan said nothing to this. She had at least come out fully from behind the skis so Emma could see the girl sit with knees tucked beneath her chin while she looked down at the floor. “You could be a great architect if you applied yourself.”

  “I don’t want to be an architect.”

  “Then what do you want, Megan? Whatever it is, I want to help you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I understand what you’re going through.”

  “No you don’t.” Megan’s voice whistled again and Emma could feel her own chest tighten at the memory. “You don’t know what it’s like to be the butt of everyone’s jokes. To be a freak.”

  “I do understand, Megan.” Emma slipped off her box to sit beside Megan. “When I went to college, I was only fourteen years old. All the other kids there made fun of me because of it. They thought I was a freak.”

  “What happened?”

  “It hurt every day, but I didn’t let it stop me. I finished school and I earned my doctorate and then I worked at the Plaine Museum, where I always dreamed of working. Whatever you want, you can have it, but you can’t let what other people think of you get in the way.”

  “I can’t go back there. Not after what happened.”

  Emma nodded. She’d talked to Amanda Murdoch in the hospital, where she’d learned about the cabin Megan’s father owned. A cabin in the mountains had seemed to Emma like the perfect place for a girl with asthma to hide, where no one could bother her and the air was free of pollution, to let her breathe. “It might be hard, but you can do it. Your friends will help you.”

  “I don’t have friends.”

  “That’s not true. I talked with Amanda and she’s very sorry for what happened. She wants to make things up to you—if you’ll let her.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Megan, you can’t let this one thing ruin your life. You can’t just give up and hide here because of what happened. You’re too smart and too talented for that.” She had given this same lecture to Tim Cooper the day before, but he was still reticent; he believed it was his rightful punishment for Sylvia’s death.

  She had better luck with Megan, whose face had returned to its usual pastiness to indicate she felt much calmer. “You really think I’m talented?”

  “Not just me. I have a friend in city hall and she passed your drawings on to someone in the city planner’s office. They have an internship opening up next semester if you’re interested.” It hadn’t taken much persuasion to get Becky to pass copies of Megan’s work on to the city planning office, who according to Becky had licked their collective chops at the thought they could get hold of her to help rebuild from the RAT Bombings.

  “Really?”

  “I wouldn’t lie to you.” Emma wasn’t prepared for Megan to throw herself against Emma in a hug. Emma could hear Megan’s chest rattle slightly; she patted the girl on the back. “Hey, settle down. Don’t get too excited.”

  Megan pulled back, her face red, though perhaps not entirely from the asthma. “Thank you, Dr. Earl.”

  “You’re welcome.” Emma took the girl’s hand to help her stand up. “One more thing: I expect you in class on Monday morning. You’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

  ***

  Harry Ward sat down at the bar and signaled the bartender for a beer. As he waited, he caught his reflection in the mirror. He supposed he could have done a lot better than the body of a sixty-five-year-old man, a retired dockworker with a dull little house and equally dull little wife, their dull three kids out to lead their own dull little lives. Still, it could have been much worse too. At least he was still a man, not a baby sucking at mommy’s teat. And at least he didn’t have the police after him—except for one.

  He’d seen her every day for the last week. She came in a minute or two after he did and took a seat in a rear booth. She didn’t seem to care that he knew she was there. She sat there for hours to nurse a beer while he drank and talked with some of his dull “friends” and otherwise tried to live this Harry Ward’s life.

  His friends had noticed her and the bartender. At first they gave him shit for having a much younger woman eye him. That was until they saw the way she looked at him, her face red with barely-contained rage. “Who is that broad?” they’d ask him.

  “I don’t know,” he lied.

  He’d never given much thought to quantum mechanics, but he supposed it was a pretty damned big coincidence that in two completely different universes two Sylvia Jouberts hated him. The weird thing was that while he looked completely different, she was exactly the same as the last time he’d seen her. The only difference was that instead of a green tank top and camouflage pants she wore jeans, a white T-shirt, and a black leather jacket—beneath which she carried a gun and a badge.

  Detective Sylvia Joubert. That’s who she was here. A fucking police detective who stalked him like a crazy ex-girlfriend. Didn’t she have anything better to do?

  At the end of every night he’d waddle outside to get in his dull old Buick and drive home. She’d follow him and park by the curb in her unmarked car. She’d sit there for a few more hours, to the point where his wife asked, “Who is that?”

  After a month of this, Harry finally decided to waddle out of the house and lean down beside the car. She had the window down but didn’t seem to notice him at all. “Would you mind parking somewhere else? You’re scaring my wife.”

  She produced her badge; the gold shield glittered in the dim light from the streetlamps. “I’ll park where I want. Go fuck your wife.”

  “Listen, Detective, what
ever you got against me—”

  She lowered the badge and he thought she’d go for the gun, but she only held up an accusatory finger. “Maybe you think you’ve gotten away with it, but you haven’t. Not yet.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t done anything.”

  “Lottie Donovan. That name ring a bell?”

  “No.”

  The way Sylvia glared at him, Harry thought for sure she’d pull out her gun this time. “You killed her. You and your friends.”

  “If that were true I’m sure a jury would have found us guilty.”

  Her laugh chilled him more than her glare or even the thought of her gun. “Yeah, right. The juries work for cheaper here than the hookers.”

  “Look, Detective—”

  “I’ll be watching you, Ward. You remember that. If you or any of your ‘retired’ buddies get up to anything, I’ll be there.” She didn’t give him a chance to respond, just pressed on the accelerator to knock him onto his rear in the middle of the street.

  He sat there and watched the taillights fade from view. Of all the rotten luck to have her stalk him for a crime he couldn’t even remember because he hadn’t actually committed it. As long as he didn’t do anything else, though, she couldn’t touch him. Maybe he could convince that wife of his to move to Florida or Arizona.

  When he stood up, he found a little girl in front of him. She was probably in her early teens, with wild black hair and her face painted white like those freaks he’d sometimes see around the mall. “Can I help you, little girl?”

  “Eileen says hi,” the girl said. He didn’t know how she got the knife in so fast; one moment she just stood there and the next he had a knife stuck in his chest.

  The girl disappeared before Harry hit the pavement. He tried to call for help, but couldn’t muster the strength. As his life faded, he couldn’t help but smile. That Eileen was a real professional, to tie up all her loose ends. Not bad for a three-year-old, he thought as he lay dying on the street. He wondered what Sylvia Joubert would find to do with her free hours now. His laugh turned to a hacking cough and then a wheeze as he slipped away.

  ***

  They sat at their favorite table in Coeur de la Mer; Dan ordered the escargot while Becky stuck with the roast chicken. “Are you sure that’s the last we’ve seen of those guys?” he asked her.

  “I’m pretty sure,” Becky said.

  “What did they even want?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe they hoped to take advantage of all the chaos to do a little bit of looting.”

  “Well, whatever, I’m glad you were there.” He rubbed his temple and grimaced. “I wish I could remember more about it. One minute I was in Chicago with you and the next I was in bed back home. I don’t even know how I got there.”

  “You weren’t feeling good, so I took you home,” Becky lied. With her so busy in the wake of the RAT Bombings and Dan still needed in Chicago, this was the first chance they’d gotten to see each other since the day of Sylvia’s memorial in France. That had been over a month ago. “Then those guys showed up.”

  “And you and your friend Emma saved me. There was someone else, too, wasn’t there?”

  “Her boyfriend, Jim.”

  “There was something odd about him. He looked kind of weird.”

  “He’s an artist,” she said as if this explained everything. At least this was only a half-truth instead of a lie. The Sewer Rat did make art, most of which featured Emma.

  “Oh, I see.” Dan smiled at this and Becky resisted the urge to sigh with relief. Then his face turned more serious again. “I had these weird dreams about me and her.”

  “Who, Emma?”

  “Yeah. We went on these dates, but they all turned out horribly. I was so in love with her and I wanted so badly to impress her. I even bought this diamond necklace for her, but I never got to give it to her.” He shook his head. “Isn’t that weird? I hardly know her and I’m dreaming about her.”

  “Right. Weird.” Becky gripped the edge of the table with one hand to steady herself. She knew those weren’t dreams but actual memories of Dan’s dates with Emma before she attempted to wipe his memory with one of Aggie’s potions.

  He leaned forward to take her free hand and his smile returned. “Then you were there and I woke up.”

  “I must be your good luck charm.”

  “I think so.” They were in public, so he only gave her a light peck on the cheek. The real kiss he saved for when they arrived at her place. The force in his kiss probably came from their long time apart, or maybe he wanted to convince himself he really did love her more than Emma.

  After they said goodbye, she stood on the front doorstep for a while. She loved Dan as much as she’d loved Steve, but was it a sham? Not just because of his previous relationship with Emma, but because she’d won him when Emma had inhabited her body. It could be said he’d really fallen in love with Emma, had loved her all along.

  She shook her head. They had been together for more than a year now. Maybe he’d started out falling in love with Emma in her body, but now it was her that he kissed and her that he’d made love to in Chicago. If someday they got married, it would be her at the altar, not Emma. She’d earned his love.

  That was why she’d been able to kiss him awake. She’d earned her place in his heart as his true love. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough. As for Emma, she’d moved on to her own true love.

  This prompted her to shake her head again. Emma and the Sewer Rat. She still couldn’t believe this. When they’d been growing up, Becky had always assumed Emma would get the handsome, rich man—someone like Dan—while she would end up with the first weird, ugly freak to come her way.

  She supposed the Sewer Rat—Jim—wasn’t all that bad. He practically worshiped her; he hung on her every word. She in turn was so relaxed around him, so at ease in a way Becky hadn’t seen before. With Jim, Emma could just be herself—all of herself. She didn’t have to keep secrets from him because he already knew them.

  Becky was the one who had to keep secrets now. Maybe that was some kind of cosmic justice at work in that by winning Dan from Emma, she inherited Emma’s problem with him. Well, she would make it work. She loved him too much to ever let him go.

  The moment she opened the door, she sensed something was wrong. All of the lights were off, but there was music on the stereo. Some kind of opera—Emma’s music. This was a bad sign as she only listened to music when she was too distressed to read anything, which was hardly ever.

  “Emma?”

  She paused in the foyer and heard a sniffle come from the living room. Becky called her friend’s name again and felt a sense of déjà vu. Seven years ago she’d heard Emma crying and then found her eyes glowing gold before Emma knocked her through a wall. What would she find this time?

  “Emma, are you all right?”

  She heard another sniffle. She caught an outline of Emma beside the bay window as she stared out at the street. Had she seen Becky and Dan kiss? “Emma, if it’s about Dan and I—”

  “No,” she said, her voice eerily tiny.

  “Did something happen to Jim? Is he all right?”

  “He’s fine,” she said.

  “Then what is it?”

  Emma turned the light on and Becky could see her friend had been crying for some time. In her hand she clutched a piece of paper. When she threw herself at Becky and sobbed on Becky’s shoulder, the piece of paper fell to the floor. Becky tilted her head and made out the name of the doctor: Laura Pavelski, OB/GYN. “A baby doctor?”

  Emma nodded and then sniffled again before she said, “I’m pregnant.”

  VOLUME VI

  Future Shock

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  To the untrained eye, the white blobs against the black background of the screen might look like so much noise. In the last four months Dr. Emma Earl had become well versed in how to interpret these white blobs, to pick out a head here and a hand
there. She knew even before Dr. Pavelski said it that she looked at her daughter.

  “You’re sure you want to know?” Dr. Pavelski asked. “Some people don’t.”

  “I’m not superstitious.”

  “It’s a baby girl. And from what I can tell she’s perfectly healthy.”

  Emma breathed a sigh of relief at the second statement. For many sleepless hours she had imagined all sorts of terrible things might happen to her baby. The baby might be deformed or have a lifelong condition like Down’s Syndrome or a heart defect that would kill her shortly after birth. Her encyclopedic knowledge turned out to be a curse in this area, as she knew all of the terrible things that could happen. But so far, six months in, everything seemed fine.

  “That’s good news. Thank you, Doctor.”

  “I wish you would call me Laura. We’re going to be seeing a lot of each other over the next three months.”

  “Sorry—Laura,” Emma said. She started to get up off the examination table, but Dr. Pavelski put a hand on her arm.

  “Not so fast. I want to run some tests to see how Mommy is doing too.”

  “I feel fine,” Emma said.

  Dr. Pavelski shook her head. She turned on a miniature flashlight to shine into Emma’s eyes. “Have you been getting much sleep?”

  “About the same as usual.” This came to about three hours a night between when she came home from a night fighting crime and went off to her first class at Rampart State.

  “What about the morning sickness?”

  “It’s better.” She had found after two months she could no longer tolerate the protein shakes she usually drank in the morning. Red Bull irritated her stomach as well, but after she switched to tea and toast she found she only threw up half her breakfast.

  “Feeling any dizziness? Diarrhea? Joint pain?”