“I’ll go. Just make sure not to let any escape.”
“I won’t,” Emma said. Then she lowered the visor and leaped up to the third floor.
Cecelia took off through the archway to her right to search for a back stairway. The safe house had been built while the National Museum’s main building had been repaired after World War II. With all the damage and confusion, it had been easy enough to include an underground lair similar to the one in Rampart City.
She walked through an exhibition of petrified plants and bones that she supposed Emma Earl could lecture her about. She didn’t give a shit about any of these; she focused on making sure none of her former comrades lurked nearby. At the back of the display, she found a door that led to the service stairs. Given her experience in Barcelona, she wasn’t about to take any elevators.
Back on the first floor, she walked among an exhibition of old silver pieces, her guard up. By now the Scarlet Knight had probably dealt with most of the assassins, except maybe for those who’d taken off. Cecelia didn’t see anyone as she made her way to the cloakroom.
She began to pull at various hangers to search for the right lever to open the hidden wall in the cloakroom. It was sort of a cliché, like something out of a haunted house movie. Maybe that was the Headmistress’s sense of humor. Was the Headmistress dead by now? Cecelia had no idea what Aunt Agnes would do to the woman—her sister and Cecelia’s other aunt. She couldn’t imagine that Aunt Agnes would kill her; she was too much like Emma that way.
At last Cecelia found the coat hanger that served as a lever to open a door hardly big enough for her to squeeze through. This of course led to a stairway that went down to the rooms beneath the museum. Cecelia had an apartment in these rooms, though she’d never spent much time there. Mostly it was where she’d kept her trophies from various jobs.
Her greatest trophy waited for her in her old apartment. As Emma’s ghost friend had said, a little girl with dirty blond hair lay on the floor of what had been Cecelia’s bedroom, a box of crayons next to her as she colored on a piece of paper.
“Shelly? Is that you?”
The little girl looked up and Cecelia could see in the girl’s eyes that it really was her granddaughter. She let out an audible sigh of relief. Even if Shelly’s mind had reverted back to that of a child, at least she was safe. If Aunt Agnes couldn’t help the girl, then Cecelia would raise her as her own daughter, someplace nice and quiet, safe from the evils of the world.
“Stephanie?”
“That’s right, it’s me. You remember me?”
“You sat for me. At Mommy and Daddy’s house.” Shelly sat up but looked shyly down at the floor. “Are we going home now?”
“Soon, sweetie. Very soon.”
Cecelia looked around the room and saw the old four-poster bed that she’d slept in probably twenty times in sixty years. Beside this was a white crib. Cecelia stepped over to the crib; her cousin slept peacefully on her belly with her thumb in her mouth.
“Who’s that baby?” Shelly asked.
“That’s your cousin Renee.”
“My cousin?”
“I think so. She’s my first cousin, so I’m not sure what exactly that makes you two.”
“Absolutely nothing,” a voice whispered in her ear. Cecelia managed to duck in time to avoid a dagger in the back. She rolled across the floor, into a defensive position.
Where Shelly had been was no longer a little girl, but a black woman. “Raven,” Cecelia cursed. “The Headmistress used a spell didn’t she?”
“Very good, Artemis. You haven’t gone completely soft in the head yet.”
“What did you do with Shelly? Where is she?”
“By now she’s probably in the stomachs of a few fish.” Raven indicated the picture she had been coloring when Cecelia came down here. On the paper was a grotesque image of a little girl’s blond, pigtailed head, below which were scattered bits of meat. “You wouldn’t believe the mess that little brat made—”
Cecelia let out a scream and then threw herself forward. Raven was taken by surprise, but recovered enough to deflect Cecelia’s dagger. Cecelia had expected this; she stuck one leg out to sweep Raven’s from beneath her. Before she could stab her dagger into Raven, the woman somersaulted backwards, into a defensive stance.
“Is that the best you can do, Artemis? You’re pathetic.”
“Maybe I’m tired from how many of you bitches I killed on the way here.”
“You’re lying.”
“It’s over, Raven. The Headmistress is finished. My aunt is taking care of her now and the Scarlet Knight is mopping up the rest of your friends. You might as well make it easy on yourself and surrender.”
“Not a chance, fat girl.”
“Fine. I’d rather do it the hard way.”
Cecelia had never been that into sports, but her training had given her an affinity for football—or soccer as they called it in America. While she talked with Raven, she lined up the box of crayons on the floor. As she finished speaking, she swept the box of crayons off the floor with her left foot. It was the kind of shot that would have made David Beckham blush; the crayons streaked towards Raven’s face.
When the assassin batted these away, it gave Cecelia the opening she needed. She threw the dagger with her right hand to hit Raven in the chest. She was getting soft, as the dagger didn’t pierce the bitch’s heart; it missed by probably an inch or two. It did at least make Raven scream.
Cecelia followed up the dagger to land a kick to Raven’s face. The assassin toppled backwards, but she recovered quickly; she sprung backwards to get back on her feet. Despite the blood that came from her nose, mouth, and chest, Raven grinned. “Bring it,” she said.
When they had practiced hand-to-hand combat against each other, it had been said they moved so fast no one could see them. Cecelia knew that would be the case this time as well. She and Raven executed a series of kicks, flips, and punches so quick that she didn’t have time to think about anything, only to react.
They fought their way across the bedroom, until at last Raven gave Cecelia an opening. She kicked the assassin in the midsection to knock Raven back into the nightstand. Her head smacked against it. From the way Raven’s body went limp, Cecelia figured she’d knocked her out—or at least Raven wanted her to think that.
Before she could decide whether to risk getting in close to finish Raven off, she heard the closet door squeak. She was in mid-turn when the shot rang out. The bullet tore into Cecelia’s left shoulder. She screamed and then dropped to her knees as Shadow stepped into the light.
“I should have known,” Cecelia said. “She never goes anywhere without you.”
“I’m her backup,” Shadow said. “That’s what partners do.”
“What else have you been doing in here?” Cecelia asked while her right hand slipped down to her boot, where she had a dagger concealed. If she could keep Shadow talking a few seconds more, she could reach it.
Shadow wasn’t stupid. She fired another shot; this one hit Cecelia in the chest. Her hand slipped away from the dagger as she pitched forward. Shadow stepped closer to her, the gun aimed down at Cecelia’s head. “This is for Raven,” she said.
Before she could pull the trigger, an ear-splitting scream came from the other side of the room. Shadow turned in surprise, which gave Cecelia the opening she needed. She batted the gun from Shadow’s hand, to send it skittering across the room. At the same time, she forced herself to lunge forward, squarely into Shadow’s midsection. As the assassin hit the floor, Cecelia took the dagger from her boot. She didn’t waste any time to plunge it into Shadow’s neck. “That was for Shelly,” she whispered.
Cecelia staggered across the room for the pistol. She wouldn’t make the same mistake this time. She pumped three rounds into Shadow and another three into Raven. Then she let the gun slip from her fingers, onto the floor.
She ignored the pain in her shoulder as she picked Renee up; the baby stirred in her arms. “Thanks
, kid,” Cecelia managed to say, though her words slurred. “Time to go home.”
She shuffled across the room; her vision began to dim as she reached the stairs. Cecelia forced herself to keep going, one step at a time. The hardest part was to bend down to squeeze through the hidden wall again. She slid Renee through first and then collapsed on the floor to drag herself through the opening.
As much as she wanted to get up, she couldn’t. Her vision had dimmed to two narrow tunnels, one of which focused on Renee. The baby crawled over to her to plant a pudgy hand on Cecelia’s cheek. “Cece,” Renee said.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“No go.”
Cecelia smiled tiredly at this. She didn’t really have a choice about it, not anymore. Raven had been right that she had gotten soft. Two years ago she wouldn’t have fallen for such an obvious ruse. She wouldn’t have been so reckless as to instantly trust the little girl coloring on the floor. But back then she hadn’t loved anyone; she hadn’t been a mother to anyone. All things considered, she decided it was better to go this way than to go on living as she had.
She sagged to the floor and closed her eyes. Renee let out another scream, a plaintive wail for her to come back. But it was too late. Cecelia began to drift away. In the distance she could see a pair of figures. One tall and strong—her mother, whom she’d met only briefly a couple of years ago. The other was shorter and skinny—Shelly, the girl who’d become like a daughter to her. They waited to welcome her.
Chapter 26
By the time Donovan arrived at the scene, three-quarters of the department was already there. Nothing drew police to a scene faster than word of a cop killing. The number of police cars and news trucks meant she had to park a block away and then push her way through a crowd of nosy reporters and slack-jawed onlookers. She held her badge up and then knocked aside anyone not smart enough to get out of her way.
Two of her fellow captains had already arrived on the scene, no doubt to take credit for apprehending the killers. “Didn’t think you’d ever get here, Lottie,” said Captain Martin, who ran things over on the east side.
“Don’t you think you’re a little out of your jurisdiction?” she asked as she lit a cigarette.
“When it comes to someone killing a cop, this whole city is our jurisdiction.”
She conceded the point, in no mood for a departmental pissing match at the moment. Technically Alameda Avenue and the waterfront in general was part of her area of operations, but as Martin said, when it came to a cop killing, everyone wanted in on it. She gestured with her cigarette towards the elderly brick warehouse where the killers were holed up. “Any ID on them yet?”
“No. They got masks on.”
“Smart.”
“Not going to do much good when SWAT shows up.”
“Any hostages?”
“Not that they’ve said.” Martin lit up a cigar to take a puff on it. “So far all they’ve done is fire a couple of warning shots.”
“Anyone try going in?”
Martin smiled slightly at this. “Yeah, your girl Supercop tried going in there. You really need to get a leash for her.”
“Hey, in three weeks she’ll be Cielo’s problem.”
“Yeah, I heard about that. Finally had enough of this place?”
“Just sick of smelling your cigars.” Donovan tossed her cigarette to the ground and then began to search for Amanda. It didn’t surprise her that Amanda had tried to go inside. She probably would have gone through the front door so she could die a hero.
What did surprise her was to see Amanda sporting a shiner on her left eye. She sat dejectedly on the hood of her cruiser, her cap off and hair disheveled. Beside her sat Darlene Morgan, who at the moment had a fat lip. “What have you two been up to?” Donovan asked.
“She punched me,” Amanda said.
“Only after you elbowed me in the face,” Morgan said.
“It was a reflex. You grabbed me from behind.”
“Because I was trying to keep you from getting killed.”
“OK, children, why don’t we take it easy. Officer Morgan, tell me what happened.”
“We arrived at the scene and appraised the situation. My partner here decided she wanted to go for a closer look. I attempted to restrain her and she elbowed me in the face. At that point I used necessary force.”
“You sucker punched me,” Amanda said.
“From what I’ve heard, I think Officer Morgan did you a favor. They’d have probably put enough lead in you to make a statue.”
“No, ma’am. I was going to go around and swim underneath them. The floorboards in there are probably rotted enough that I could have broken through and gotten the drop on them.”
“Or gotten your head blown off,” Morgan said.
“They’re a lot more focused on the hundred cops outside. They aren’t going to be paying attention to what’s beneath them.”
“You really need to stop with this hero complex before someone gets killed.”
“I’d rather have a hero complex than be sitting on my fat ass like a pussy.”
Donovan had to get between the officers before they tried to finish what they’d already started. “Both of you stand down right now. Get your asses back to the precinct and punch out—the time clock, not each other. Is that clear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” they said in unison.
“Good. Now get moving.”
From the way Amanda’s fists clenched, Donovan thought her subordinate might try to hit her. Instead, Amanda used common sense for once and stomped over to the passenger’s side of the cruiser; Officer Morgan had already taken the driver’s seat. Donovan lit a cigarette and then watched the cruiser leave; she waited until the taillights had faded from view before she returned to where Martin stood.
“Too bad. We almost had ourselves a catfight,” he said with a snicker.
“We might have another in a minute.” Donovan didn’t have any doubt that she could take Martin down and shove that cigar up his ass. Despite that he was two years younger and thirty pounds heavier, all that extra weight was in fat, not muscle. She held back, much too old for those kind of shenanigans. Those kind of dust-ups were for the young.
She endured Martin’s cigar smoke as she waited for the SWAT team to show up. This came only a few minutes later, the team already suited up and ready to go in. For not the first time since her promotion to captain, Donovan felt useless, little more than a spectator as the SWAT team began to split up to encircle the building.
A couple of the SWAT team fired at the front of the building to draw the attention of the killers inside. They returned fire with AK-47 machine guns, but didn’t hit anything. It didn’t surprise Donovan they used Russian guns; they were probably related to the Russians she had in her holding cells.
The end came a minute later in a burst of machine gun fire from inside. At first she wondered if the guns were the SWAT’s M-16s or the AK-47s of the killers. Then she saw one of the SWAT team members wave to give an all-clear signal.
Things didn’t stay all-clear for long. The lieutenant in charge of the SWAT team trotted over to where his superior officers stood. “We’ve got a problem,” he said.
“Casualties?” Martin asked.
“No, sir. That’s the problem. There are no casualties. We didn’t find any dead cops in there.”
“Maybe they dumped the bodies in the harbor,” Martin said.
Donovan shook her head; she felt like an idiot. “No. They didn’t kill anyone. It was a ploy to draw us here. Probably hacked into our comm system to fake that call.” She turned to the SWAT lieutenant. “Get everyone packed up and then follow me. I think we’ve got a jailbreak on our hands.”
***
To ride with Darlene Morgan felt like riding with Mom all over again. By the time she was old enough to be out of a car seat, Amanda had never enjoyed her mother’s driving. Even when Mom was still in her early fifties she drove like a little old lady. To ride with her brothers was muc
h more enjoyable. They usually went at least fifteen miles over the limit. They ran stop signs and red lights if they could. And they let Amanda ditch the booster seat to sit up front with them.
Amanda squirmed in the passenger’s seat of the police cruiser as if she were still strapped into a booster seat. “Are you planning on getting there sometime tonight?” she asked.
“The speed limit is thirty-five.”
Amanda snorted at this. She motioned to the cabs that went by them as if they stood still. “No one does that here.”
“Well maybe as the law we should set the example.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“If I don’t then what’s the point?”
“The point is to bring the bad guys in. That’s what we’re supposed to do.”
“You watched way too many movies as a kid, didn’t you?”
“Hey, I know it’s not like on TV, but we have to do something.”
“Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing.”
“Yeah, I bet you’re good at that. How’d you get your decorations for valor: shoot yourself in the foot a couple of times?”
Officer Morgan never took her eyes off the road or her hands off the steering wheel during the conversation. She waited until she stopped at a red light to look over at Amanda. “I don’t have to prove myself to some mental case. You’re the one who has to prove yourself. Not to me or Captain Donovan, but to the whole department. You want people to stop riding you and take you seriously, then you start acting serious. Start acting like you want live through your shift. Until then, no one is going to want to be around you.”
Officer Morgan accelerated—slowly—once the light changed. She looked straight ahead again while Amanda crossed her arms over her chest. Her eye throbbed from where Officer Morgan had hit her; she had to admit the bitch had a mean left hook. She closed her eye and sighed. She asked, “Can I ask you a serious question?”
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 135