“Let me send you some bodyguards—”
“I don’t need bodyguards.” With that Ivan hung up the phone and then woke the girls up. “Get out of here.” When the ungrateful sluts refused to leave immediately, he grabbed them both by the hair and dragged them naked outside.
“Our clothes!” one of the girls said.
“You don’t deserve clothes.”
“But—”
Ivan took a step towards them; they cowered with fear. “Leave before I get angry.” They needed no further warning. He watched with a grim smile as their skinny bodies disappeared over the horizon.
After a hearty breakfast of sausages and coffee, Ivan packed up his supplies to go out to the blind. If anyone wanted to find him, he figured the blind would be a good place to stay. Not only was it hard to see from the ground, but also he would be able to see anyone coming and put a bullet in them.
Even as he thought this, he heard the crunch of footsteps in the snow. He looked through the sight to see an animal weaving as if it were drunk. At first he thought it must be a wolf out there from its grayish fur. Then the animal straightened to stand on two legs and Ivan realized it was a man. A scrawny little man with wild hair in a fur coat. The man’s pointed nose seemed to sniff the air, as if he searched for something. Ivan froze as the man turned towards the blind and stared up at him.
Ivan was too surprised to pull the trigger on the rifle. Was this who his father meant was coming for him? This scrawny man wouldn’t be a match for Ivan even if he were armed, which it didn’t look like he was. The man continued to look at him, as if he could see Ivan up in the blind.
A moment later, Ivan heard something crash down behind him on the blind. He turned, but didn’t see anything—at least not at first. Then a woman appeared, a woman in red armor with a golden cape. Again Ivan froze and stared at her in shock. He had seen this woman before, or someone like her. Try as he could, he couldn’t remember where or who she was.
She batted the rifle out of his hands and then took a step forward. “You’re coming with me,” the woman said. The last thing he saw before he blacked out was the woman’s golden fist coming towards his face.
***
The cabin was where the girl at the bar had said it would be. Emma had imagined something on par with Megan Putnam’s family cabin back in the United States, three stories with a Jacuzzi and satellite dish. Instead, it was a very ordinary two-room cabin, something akin to what pioneers had lived in.
They had parked the SUV a kilometer away from the cabin so Ivan wouldn’t spot them. Emma called for the armor and put it on quickly. She figured Ivan would have some kind of weapon in the house, plus with the armor she could approach undetected to get the drop on him. She could also use the gloves to unlock the front door, though this proved unnecessary, as the door had been left unlocked.
Ivan was not in the cabin. The bed was unmade and dishes still in the sink. From the mold on the dishes, she figured he had left a few days ago. Maybe he had gone back into town to a bar they hadn’t been to yet. Emma took off the helmet and sighed. “I guess we’re too late.”
Jim said nothing to this. He sniffed Ivan’s sheets like a bloodhound. “He here with two girls,” Jim said.
“Yes. The one at the bar last night was here with him.”
Jim nodded and then wandered outside. Emma followed him and watched him sniff first at the air and then at the ground. There were no tracks in the snow except for theirs, but Jim’s nose still picked something up. “Girls go that way. To town. He go other way. To forest.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.” Jim took his rat friend out of his pocket so the rat could confirm his findings. “He think so too.”
“Great. Let’s go.”
She knew Ivan Bykov liked to hunt animals in addition to women. Maybe that’s what he was doing out in the forest. Emma used the cape to turn invisible. She made sure to stay behind Jim and step in the same place as his tracks. If Ivan—or anyone else—were watching it would seem as if Jim were alone.
Jim walked through the snow in a low crouch so that he could find the scent. It seemed impossible to Emma that he could actually smell Ivan’s trail through the snow, but Jim’s nose was no ordinary nose. He’d learned to harness his natural talent in the sewers with the rats, where it was often so dark that smelling was about the only way to see.
They’d walked for an hour and covered five miles at least before Jim stopped. He sniffed the ground more intently and then stood up. When his head turned to face a tree, Emma followed his gaze. There, shaded among the branches of an ancient pine, was a hunting blind. “He there,” Jim whispered from the side of his mouth.
Emma did nothing to acknowledge this so she wouldn’t give her position away. Instead, she bounced on her feet a couple of times to charge for a jump. Then she leaped into the air and came down through the branches, onto the deck of the blind. Ivan Bykov looked the way she remembered, a burly man with dark hair and eyes—like one of Don Vendetta’s goons on steroids. Ivan had a rifle pointed at her as she dropped the cape.
He stared at her in shock; a nerve in his left cheek twitched. She took this opportunity to bat the rifle out of his hands and then take a step forward. “You’re coming with me,” she said. Before he could protest, she punched him in the face; she took no small amount of pleasure in doing so. She waited until she was certain he was unconscious before she slung him over her shoulders and then jumped to the ground.
“That him?” Jim asked.
“That’s him.”
She had brought some rope from the SUV to tie his arms and legs. With him trussed up, she began to laugh. “Why you laugh?” Jim asked.
“Remember that story I told you: Peter and the Wolf?”
“He wolf,” Jim said. “We bring him in.”
“Exactly.” Emma hefted Ivan over her shoulders; the augmented strength of the armor made this as easy as to lift a pillow. She carried him all the way back to the cabin, where she rooted around until she found some of the chains he used for his victims. She used these to bind him to a chair.
There was nothing to do then but wait. She took the helmet off to brush back hair that was sweaty despite the cold outside and in the cabin. “I don’t suppose you can smell a cell phone?” she asked Jim.
“No.”
“Too bad. Guess we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.” They rifled through the drawers and cabinets until Jim called out to her. He held up an iPhone that had been in the nightstand beside the bed. Emma smiled and then kissed Jim. “I love you.”
“You call his father?”
“I hope so.” Emma doubted Ivan would have his father listed on the phone, a hunch that proved correct. She got lucky, though, in that Bykov had left several messages on his son’s phone. Emma heard Bykov’s growing desperation as he tried to warn Ivan that she was in Russia to look for Louise.
“Call me back by noon or I’m sending someone to drag you out of there,” Bykov snarled in his last message from nearly two hours ago—not long after they’d left the cabin to find Ivan.
Before she hit the button to call Bykov back, she used the phone’s camera feature to take a picture of Ivan chained to the chair. She sent this photo along with a text message that said, “Ur child 4 my child.”
It didn’t take long for the phone to ring. Bykov didn’t bother to say hello. “Your daughter is dead.”
“If she is, then Ivan dies.”
“You wouldn’t do that. I know who you are. Or more importantly, I know what you are. You can’t kill him.”
“I wouldn’t have to. Her father would be more than happy to do it.” Emma held the phone up to Jim. “Say hello, dear.”
“You Bykov?” Jim asked.
“Who’s this?”
“I Louise’s father. You give her back or I kill your son. Slow.” From the menace in Jim’s voice, even Emma was convinced of his sincerity.
She pulled the phone away from Jim. “Now, I think we can
come to an arrangement. You give us Louise and we’ll give you Ivan back.”
She waited for a heart-wrenching moment for Bykov to respond. “Very well,” he finally said to her relief. “Name your time and place.”
This Emma had considered since they’d left Bykov’s estate. She was at the obvious disadvantage in not being a native, but she couldn’t very well ask to make the exchange in Rampart City. “There’s an overpass on M-20, about fifteen kilometers from the turnoff for Pskov. You and your men park on the west side of the overpass with Louise. We’ll have Ivan on the other side. Midnight. Got it?”
“That is acceptable. Do you have any other demands?”
“Only that you not try any double-crosses. If I get wind of anything, I’ll let my boyfriend kill Ivan.”
“I’d say the same of you, but I know the Scarlet Knight wouldn’t dream of such a thing.”
Emma wondered how he’d found out about this, but pushed that aside for the moment. “I want to know Louise is alive and unharmed. Send me a picture of her.”
“I can do better than that.” There was a pause and then she heard Bykov say, “Katya, come here. Your brother’s on the phone.”
A moment later Emma’s heart leaped into her throat as she heard Louise’s tiny voice say, “Ivan?”
“No, baby, it’s not Ivan. I’m Ivan’s…friend. My name is Emma.” She thought it better to wait until after the exchange to explain to Louise who her real parents were.
“Oh. Hi, Emma. My name is Katya,” the little girl said in flawless Russian.
“It’s nice to meet you, Katya. How are you?”
“Fine. Papa took me sailing. He caught a big fish. It was silver and it smelled funny.”
“Are you still on the boat?”
“No. We’re at Papa’s sea house.”
“Oh. That’s great, baby.”
“I’m not a baby. I’m two years old.”
“Right. I’m sorry. You’re a big girl.”
Bykov’s voice cut into the conversation. “Say goodbye to the nice lady and then go play.”
“Goodbye, Emma,” Katya said.
“Goodbye, sweetheart,” Emma said. She choked back a sob. “I’ll see you tonight.”
After she hung up the phone, she dropped to her knees and buried her face in her hands. For the first time since she’d thought Louise had died in the hospital, Emma cried. Jim knelt down beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. “You talk to her?”
“Yes.”
“She all right?”
“She’s happy. A happy little girl. He took her fishing.” That was as much as she could get out before she began to sob again. She pressed her face against Jim’s coat, not sure if she cried because she was happy to hear Louise’s voice or sad that Louise seemed so happy and content with an evil man like Bykov.
It took her nearly an hour to exhaust her tears. Only then did she finally stand up with Jim’s help. She said, “I’ll take him to the car. We’d better get there early to make sure he doesn’t send someone to tamper with the area.”
Along the way to the overpass Emma kept the CD player off, the memory of Louise’s voice on the phone the only sound she needed. She only hoped that within a few hours that voice would finally get to call her “Mommy.”
Chapter 18
Ivan Bykov woke up as they reached the center of Pskov. Emma heard the rattle of the chains from the backseat, followed by muffled cursing. Emma pulled over in front of one of the bars Ivan frequented, put the car into park, and then turned to face Ivan. “We’re not going to hurt you. Unless you try to escape.”
Despite her feelings about guns, she’d let Jim take a pistol from Ivan’s cabin to aim at him when he woke up. The safety was still on. Jim knew as well as she did that they couldn’t do anything to Ivan until they got Louise back.
“Who are you?” Ivan asked.
“We’re Katya’s parents. Her real parents. We’ve come to bring her back home.”
“Go ahead. Take the little brat. I don’t care.”
“We’re going to exchange you for her. Your father is on his way with her.”
“He won’t give the girl to you. Not for me. She’s too valuable.”
After Emma translated this, Jim gestured with the pistol. “We not give him choice.”
“As soon as Papa has me, he’ll hunt you down and take the girl back.”
“He has a point. Once we’ve let Ivan go, he’ll send his people after us to get her back.”
“That why we kill him first.”
“Jim—”
“No choice. That or run forever.”
As the Scarlet Knight she could use her cape to turn invisible, but she couldn’t keep it around her, Jim, and Louise for the rest of their lives. Jim was right that no matter where they went, Bykov would find them. He had the money and resources to track them down even if she asked Aggie to find someplace safe for them. For the rest of their lives they would have to look over their shoulders for Bykov.
She already knew what the Scarlet Knight part of her brain would tell her to do: let Jim kill Bykov. Once they had Louise, let Jim pull the trigger. It was probably the same thing that Bykov thought about Ivan. She held back a sigh; she didn’t have any experience with hostage exchanges.
As if he read her thoughts, Ivan said, “You aren’t prepared for this. You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Emma said. She tried to sound more confident than she felt.
With that she turned around to pull away from the bar. It took another hour to reach the overpass she’d chosen. She found a stand of trees on the east side that would provide some camouflage for the stolen SUV while they waited. Once she’d turned the engine off, she looked over at Jim. “Stay here and watch him. I’m going to take a look around.”
She summoned the case of armor and then began to dress. As she did, Marlin showed up. “A little early for that, don’t you think?” he said.
“I’m going to check the bridge and make sure he hasn’t tampered with it,” Emma said.
“Who?”
“Bykov.” She nodded towards the SUV. “Jim and I have his son. We’re going to trade him for Louise.”
“And I’m sure he’ll give her to you and let you go on your merry way.”
“No, I don’t suppose he will.” She looked up at the ghost, surprised to see that for a change he didn’t glare smugly at her. “I’m going to need your help too. Keep an eye out for any sign of trouble.”
“I’ll try,” Marlin said. She knew something must really be wrong for him not to make a smart aleck comment or to whine about being overworked.
She put the helmet on, but again left her hair down to resist the urge to sink into the Scarlet Knight’s personality. “How are things back in the city?”
“Going to hell in a hand basket. The don’s people are fighting each other. Maybe some new elements in there as well.”
There was something in his voice, the way he tried overly hard to sound nonchalant, that tipped her off that he had left something out. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing.” She glared at him until he finally backed down with a sigh. “Someone shot Becky at a city council meeting.”
“What? Is she alive?”
“Yes. For the most part she’s fine.”
“The most part?”
“The bullet nicked her uterus. She’s not going to have any children.”
“Oh no.” Emma collapsed to the ground and rested against the base of a tree. She took the helmet off. “This is my fault.”
“Don’t start with that,” Marlin said. “You always try to blame yourself for every little thing. Just once couldn’t you blame the bad guys?”
“No. If I hadn’t been so gung-ho to bring Don Vendetta in, Becky would be fine.”
“You did the right thing for the greater good. That’s your job.”
“But we’re talking about Becky. My best friend. How could I do this to her?”
<
br /> “It’s not like you put the gun in the woman’s hand and pulled the trigger.”
“I might as well have.”
“If it makes you feel better, the doctor said something about freezing her eggs.”
“They saved some of her eggs?”
“That’s what she said.”
“Then there’s still a chance that she could make a baby.”
“In a lab? How quaint.”
“Shut up. This is serious.” Emma already knew what she would do: as soon as she got back to Rampart City, she would go to Becky and volunteer herself as a surrogate mother. If they could fertilize one of Becky’s eggs, Emma would carry the baby to term for her friend. It was the least she could do to atone for what she’d done.
“Are you going to mope about this all day? That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I knew you’d make yourself feel guilty and then nothing would get done.”
As much as she hated to admit it, Marlin had a point; there was no time for her to worry about Becky right now. She would have plenty of time to make up for that later. In the meantime she put the helmet back on; this time she tucked in her hair and took a deep breath. Right now she needed to be the Scarlet Knight, not Emma Earl—Louise needed her to be a superhero, not a concerned mother.
“Let’s get to it,” the Scarlet Knight said to Marlin.
***
The Scarlet Knight didn’t really care about Louise Earl. The child was Emma Earl’s problem, not hers. To deal a blow to Bykov, was a cause she could get behind. He was an even greater menace than Don Vendetta; his evil occupied a far more global stage than the don’s. Once the girl was safe, the Scarlet Knight would be more than happy to let the Sewer Rat take Bykov down. She would do it herself, but that was a line the Emma Earl part of her brain refused to let her cross.
She used the gloves of the armor to climb down the overpass and then underneath it. It was still plenty light enough for her to see without a flashlight. Any cars that passed by could have seen her, but at the moment there wasn’t much traffic. It wouldn’t surprise her if Bykov had closed the highway down to make things easier for the exchange.
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 125