Becky didn’t have a key to this nice little house and Emma was far too security-conscious to leave a key under the mat. She hoped she wouldn’t need a key; she hoped Louise would let her in. That was if Louise were even at home and not running more errands for the funeral. There was no way for Becky to know since Louise wouldn’t take her calls.
The steps groaned beneath her weight, which she took as a bad omen. As she stepped onto the front porch, she tried to think again of what she could say to Louise to make the girl understand Becky still loved her. She had wanted to come back so many times, but she couldn’t because of the pain over what had happened to her. “I never meant to hurt you,” Becky whispered, to practice.
She took a deep breath and then knocked on the door. No one answered after a minute. She tried again with a similar result. “Louise? Are you in there? It’s me. I just want to talk.”
The door finally opened a crack. Through that crack, she could see one of Louise’s eyes glare at her as in the waiting room. “What do you want?”
“Just to talk. I want to straighten things out between us. For your mom’s sake.”
“It’s too late for that. Go away!”
“Louise, please. I’m sorry for what I did. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“But you did anyway.”
“Yes, I did. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It was just after what happened, I needed some time to be alone. To think things over.”
“Why? We loved you. Mom and me and Dan.”
“I know and I loved you. I still do.”
“You have a funny way of showing it.”
“I’m sorry about that, Louise. I’d give anything to go back and change things.”
“Anything?”
“Yes—” The door burst open and Louise seized Becky by the front of her shirt, to yank her inside with far more strength than Becky thought possible. She landed on her back in the foyer and stared up not at Louise, but a young Arab woman with eyes so black they seemed to suck light into them. The woman held up a knife made from black crystal.
“How about your heart, Becky? Would you give that to me?”
“Who are you?”
The woman smiled, which prompted Becky to shiver. “You already gave your heart to me once. Twenty-two years ago. Do you remember?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Your friends never told you. They wanted to spare you the pain of remembering what you did.”
“What I did?”
“All those people you murdered.”
“Murdered? I didn’t murder anyone!”
The woman knelt down and aimed the point of the knife at Becky’s heart. “You’re the one who cut out all those hearts the first time. You were so distraught after poor Steve died, so easy to manipulate into wearing the black armor.”
Becky’s entire body had gone numb; she could do nothing but stare as the woman touched Becky’s hair and cooed, “You weren’t the best Dragoon, but you were what I needed: someone close to Emma Earl, someone she couldn’t kill.” The woman leaned down even closer to whisper into Becky’s ear, “If I hadn’t underestimated just how pure she was, you’d still be my pet.”
“No, you’re lying. You’re lying!” Even as she said this, though, Becky could see the faces rise up before her of the people she had killed. She felt the knives plunge into their chests, the warm blood splatter the armor, and then the hearts tumble into the container. She heard their last breaths rattle out. “No.”
“Would you like to know a secret before you join them, Becky?” The woman leaned back to smile at Becky again. “I’m the one who arranged the hit on Steve. And I’m the one who killed Dan.”
Becky wanted to bellow with rage at this and then lunge forward to strangle this horrible woman to death, but the knife plunged into her chest. Her entire body tingled as if it had fallen asleep and then went completely numb. The woman let her fall back to the floor and then appeared in Becky’s fading vision. “Don’t worry, Emma and Louise will be joining you soon. I’ll make sure of that.”
As Becky’s world turned black, she knew she would never see Emma or Louise or Dan or Steve again. Not after how she’d betrayed them all. I’m sorry, she thought, but knew it wouldn’t do any good. Not anymore.
Chapter 20
For the funeral, Louise had to borrow a black dress from Renee. Though she wasn’t the seamstress Aggie was, Renee managed to alter the dress so that it fit Louise’s shorter, skinnier body but didn’t look like a tent. “It should last long enough,” Renee said.
Aggie had not come back for Dan’s funeral. According to Renee, she had met some unexpected delays with customs in Ireland and might be delayed another day or two. Her absence wasn’t all that noticeable as she hadn’t really known Dan.
Far more noticeable was Becky’s absence. Louise checked over her shoulder several times for the fat bitch to make her appearance, but as the service began, she still hadn’t shown up. Must have lost her nerve, Louise thought. To cover her triumphant smirk, she pretended to blow her nose.
There were over fifty mourners at the funeral, to the point where the funeral director had to borrow chairs from a coffeehouse across the street to accommodate everyone. Besides Renee, Louise recognized her colleagues from the Plaine Museum, Megan Putnam, Amanda Murdoch, and Eileen, Dan’s “daughter.” The latter sat at the end of the row, in a black dress that fit much better than Louise’s, with a veil to cover her face. On occasion Eileen would stick a hand beneath the veil to wipe at her eyes; the sound of her sobs emanated from beneath it as well.
Though Mom would have chided her for being immature, Louise intentionally sat at the opposite end of the row and let her colleagues take up the space between them. Renee seemed like she wanted to move even farther away; a grimace crossed her face every time she glanced over at Eileen. From Renee’s reaction to Eileen in the Brass Drum, Louise knew there was something odd between them, but Renee refused to elaborate.
The rest of the mourners Louise didn’t recognize. There were the cousins who wanted to show their support to get their piece of the will. There was the disgraced councilman exiled to the very back. And there were various college and high school friends—several of whom were female with kids of their own now.
As someone who’d studied Egyptian deities most of his life, Dan didn’t have a formal religious affiliation. His will stipulated that in lieu of the traditional funeral service, his friends and family should share their memories of him. With Becky gone, Mom in the hospital, and his parents dead, only three people would speak.
First was an old childhood friend, a chubby middle-aged man who wore what was obviously a toupee. He made an awkward speech about how he and Dan had snuck into the premiere of Raiders of the Lost Ark and the unhealthy obsession Dan developed towards Karen Allen. There was polite laughter, though Louise remained quiet. As the laughter faded, the man broke down into tears. “Danny was a great kid. Nicest guy you’d ever meet.” He touched the coffin and added, “I’ll miss you, buddy.”
After he sat down to be comforted by some of Dan’s other friends, Eileen stepped up to the podium. She lifted the veil to reveal black eyes tinged with red from her tears. She cleared her throat softly before she said, “I did not get a chance to know my father for very long. I only wish I had. He was very kind to me, taking me into his heart when others might have turned me away. I will miss him, always.”
Throughout this speech, Louise saw from the corner of her eye the way Renee glared at Eileen, as if to destroy her with a Glare of her own. Renee’s eyes narrowed to the point where Louise put a hand on her friend’s shoulder, which seemed to snap her back to reality. As Eileen returned to her seat, Renee’s eyes followed her; her fists clenched and unclenched slowly.
Louise was leery to leave Renee in such a state, but it was her turn to go up to the podium. All night she had tried to write something down while Mom slept, but her thoughts were far too tangled to put anything down on paper. In the
end, she decided she would speak from the heart.
“I never knew my real father,” she said and then cleared her throat, which had suddenly turned as dry as the Sahara. She wished for a glass of water, but there wasn’t one. She looked down at the podium and then plunged on. “But Dan was always the next best thing. I remember when I had the flu when I was eight years old. He stayed up all night, putting a washcloth to my forehead and feeding me soup and stuff like that. I was so out of it that I kept calling him ‘Daddy’ and he took my hand and he said, ‘Don’t worry, Daddy’s here. Everything’s going to be all right.’”
She had to stop to dab at her eyes. “When I told him I wanted to become an Egyptologist like him, he told me that he was sure I’d be even better than him. He wrote me letters of recommendation and told my schools how I was the best student he’d ever known and that he knew even though I was young, I’d be successful.” She stopped again, to force some moisture into her throat. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that he always believed in me, even when I screwed up. I owe him so much for helping to make me what I am today. I just hope that someday I can repay him for all the kindness he showed me.”
There was so much more she wanted to say, but she couldn’t find the words. So she staggered back to her chair and planted her face on Renee’s shoulder. When she looked up later, everyone else had filed out except for her and Renee. The coffin was still at the front of the room; later Dan would be taken to be cremated, the ashes slated to be scattered in the Egyptian desert once Louise could arrange a flight over there.
She didn’t have to ask Renee to give her a moment; her friend nodded to her and left in silence. Louise approached the coffin slowly, still unable to find words for what she wanted to say. Beside the coffin, she noticed how unnatural his face looked, as if they’d put a wax dummy in there to impersonate Dan. Though she’d handled fossils and mummified corpses, she still felt squeamish to touch his skin; she shivered at how cold he felt.
“I’m so sorry, Dan,” she whispered. She dropped to her knees before the coffin and rested her head against the stand. As she did, the days of little sleep finally caught up to her. She couldn’t fight off the sleepiness anymore; she finally gave in to it and closed her eyes. If she was lucky, maybe she would wake up and this would all be a terrible dream.
***
As a witch, Aggie could vanish herself nearly anywhere, so long as she had a good idea about where to land. She could easily have transported herself onto a Canadian ice floe or a mountaintop in the Alps or a remote jungle in Brazil. But when she really wanted to be alone, there was only one place to go: home.
Not her home in Rampart City but the Joubert family estate in southern France. Over five centuries ago the estate belonged to her mother. After Mother died, it passed to Agnes, Sophie, and Sylvia. Now she was the only one left. She and Akako had discussed passing control of the estate on to Renee once she was old enough. A nice secluded spot could be just the place for the girl, and France would be much easier for Akako to visit than America.
Aggie doubted that would happen now. Not with Isis back. Not with Emma crippled. And certainly not with the coven content to sit on the sidelines while evil threatened to cast the whole world into darkness.
She had tried in vain to counteract the latter. Over the last three days she’d vanished herself everywhere from Paris to Moscow to Beijing to Los Angeles. She’d talked to—or tried to talk to—four-dozen witches, some of them her oldest friends. Not one of them would help her try to defeat Isis. She had even gone to Regina Milton; she’d hoped some of Renee’s teachers might be predisposed to help her find a safe place for Renee and Louise.
“I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do for you,” Regina said.
“For me or for Renee?”
“Both.”
With that, Aggie had vanished herself home. She left orders with the caretaker—one of the Devereaux clan who ran the estate’s winery—to leave some logs by the fireplace in the parlor and a bottle of wine in the kitchen. She sat in front of the fireplace to sip at a glass of burgundy from the winery. Appropriately the vintage was from twenty-two years ago, the last time Isis had threatened to destroy the world.
She had just finished her second glass when she saw a flash of white reflected in the clock on the mantle and heard footsteps in the foyer. “Did you save a glass of that for me?” Glenda asked. She took the armchair next to Aggie.
“There’s plenty to go around,” Aggie said. She didn’t bother to fetch a glass from the kitchen; she handed the bottle to Glenda. The head of the coven had never put much stock into manners; three thousand years ago in Germany to chew with your mouth closed was the height of sophistication.
“I suppose you know why I’m here.”
“So you can tell me you’re not going to help me. That you’re going to let Isis run rampant while you all sit around and do nothing.”
“I came to try talking sense into you.” Glenda took another hit from the bottle and then set it aside to lean forward and look Aggie in the eye. “I want you to stop this nonsense about Isis. Vanish yourself to a nice tropical island somewhere and take some time off. I’ll even let you take Akako with you.”
“How generous. And meanwhile the streets will run red with blood. Is that what you want?”
“You’re always so overly dramatic when you’re young.” Glenda leaned back in her chair and sighed. “Even if it is Isis, she has nothing against the coven. She’ll leave us alone if we leave her alone.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“There’s nothing else we can do. You remember what happened last time, to Tabitha—and your sister.”
“I remember.” Sylvia had lost her left hand while poor Tabitha had died in the last battle with Isis. And that was when Isis hadn’t been anywhere close to full strength yet. If she was at full strength, then Glenda was probably right. No one could stop her then except perhaps for Merlin—if he decided to appear. “I can’t do nothing. You know that.”
“Then you’ll be on your own. I’ve protected you this long because your mother was my best friend for thousands of years. Even after everything you’ve pulled: recklessly using magic, marrying another woman, and of course creating that abomination.”
Aggie threw her wine glass into the fireplace, her hands raised as if to slap Glenda. “Renee is not an abomination! She’s a very special girl.”
“She’s a freak of nature, Agnes. You’ve seen what she can do.” Glenda shook her head. “I had hoped Regina could help control her, but she’s only become more powerful. Most of your sisters wouldn’t bat an eyelash if I had her put down.”
“Put down? You’d do that?”
“I might be less inclined to do so if you’d stop this nonsense about Isis.”
Aggie shot to her feet; her entire body began to glow white. She had never used magic against one of her sisters in the coven, at least not in this dimension. In another dimension she had inadvertently used magic against that universe’s Glenda. She very much wanted to do the same right now. “Get out of my house. Now.”
“Agnes, think about what you’re doing. Think about what happened to Sophie. And Sylvia. Is that the road you want to go down?”
Aggie considered this for a moment. Sophie had given her life while on an expedition to America to investigate new sources of magic to cure their mother. As for Sylvia, she’d sacrificed herself to save millions of lives and to avert a likely world war. “I couldn’t think of anything better.”
Glenda nodded and then stood up. “I’m sorry, Agnes. I wish I could help you, but I guess this is where we part company.”
“I guess so.” Glenda offered her hand, but Aggie refused to shake it. After five hundred years of friendship, it had all come to this. When she looked the older witch in the eye, Aggie could see the fear; she knew she didn’t have the power to face Isis. None of them did. The only one who did was Emma Earl and now the poor dear lay paralyzed in a hospital bed after the ambush in the Plaine
Museum. “Goodbye.”
Glenda nodded to her and then vanished in a flash of white. Aggie clenched and unclenched her fists a few times to calm herself down. They didn’t understand; none of them understood about Renee. They all saw her as a monster, some hideous, deformed creature who would one day turn on them like a wild animal. Renee was just a sweet, innocent young girl still trying to understand herself. She didn’t need killed; she needed loved.
She would have to find a safe place for Renee—and for Louise. Without the coven’s help there was nowhere she could hide the girls where they would be safe from Isis. There was another option, one Aggie had hoped she would never need to call upon.
With a sigh, Aggie left the parlor and walked along the dusty hallway to the study. The fireplace in this room wasn’t lit; she shivered from the cold. She hadn’t brought a flashlight with her, but that wasn’t anything a glow in the dark spell couldn’t cure. Her body glowed with pale blue moonlight as she approached the fireplace.
The fireplace itself didn’t interest her; it was the picture over the fireplace that concerned her. It was the only image of the entire Joubert family; it dated from shortly after they’d moved into the house. There had been no cameras in that time, so they had been forced to stand perfectly still while a local artist painted their portrait. Aggie, twelve at the time, had little difficulty with this, as did nine-year-old Sophie, who had always been obedient. As always the problem was with Sylvia, then just three years old. Mother had been forced to use a freeze frame spell to keep Sylvia still.
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 86