Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Read online

  VOLUME IV

  Change of Heart

  By PT Dilloway

  Copyright 2013 PT Dilloway

  VOLUME IV

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part 2

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part 3

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Part 4

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  VOLUME V

  Prologue

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Part 2

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Part 3

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  VOLUME VI

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Part 2

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part 3

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Part 4

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Epilogue

  VOLUME VII

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Part 2

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Part 3

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  VOLUME VIII

  Prologue

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Part 2

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Part 3

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Part 4

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

  Also by P.T. Dilloway

  About the Author

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  The bus nearly threw Emma Earl to the floor as it slammed on its brakes. Only her finely-tuned reflexes from nearly six years as the Scarlet Knight kept her upright. She braced herself against a pole for a moment and then made her way past a few passengers to the doors in the back.

  Once on the curb, she ran her hands over her turquoise suit to smooth out the wrinkles. There wasn’t much she could do about the frayed fabric along the seams. She might have retired the suit, but it was the best one left in her closet. If she didn’t get this job, she might show up to her next interview in rags.

  She took out her compact to check her makeup and hair. The makeup had survived the bus trip, but her hair needed smoothed down. She did what she could with her hands; she would need to visit Sylvia at some point to get it cut.

  Now that she looked as good as she could manage, Emma opened the front door. She strode up to the front counter and forced herself to smile at a girl with acne and braces who was probably still in high school. “Hello, I’d like to speak to the manager,” she said.

  “Hold on a second.” The girl hurried away, which left Emma to stand alone at the counter. She peered behind the counter to watch the employees work. She tried to imagine herself among them. It certainly was a long way from the Plaine Museum, but at this point she couldn’t be picky.

  The girl finally returned with a boy not much older than her. The nametag on his blue shirt identified him as Cody. Emma stuck out her hand for him to shake. “Hello, Mr. Zale.”

  “Um, hi,” he said. “We can do this over there.”

  She followed him to a corner, where they sat in a booth away from anyone else. Cody opened a folder and looked through her application. “You’re a doctor?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I earned my doctorate six years ago from the University of California-Berkeley. I graduated at the top of my class.”

  “Uh-huh. So you cut people open and stuff?”

  “I’m a geologist. I specialized in the study of meteors.”

  “Really? So why do you want to work here?”

  “I’m looking for new challenges,” she said. She hoped her voice didn’t waver too much for him to pick up on the lie. In reality she needed a job—any job—after the director of the Plaine Museum had fired her nine months ago.

  “Challenges?” Cody said. “A monkey could work at this place. I mean, most of the people here are idiots.�
��

  “I promise I’ll work as hard as I can, Mr. Zale.”

  “Uh-huh—”

  Another boy, this one armed with a bucket and rag, paused from cleaning the tables to stop at theirs. He stared at Emma for a moment and then the recognition kicked in. “Oh, wow, it is you, isn’t it?” The boy put down his rag to pull out a receipt. “Could I get your autograph?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You are her, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Emma said, albeit weakly. This had happened on every one of her interviews so far. If they didn’t recognize her from the start, it would occur to them at some point.

  Cody looked up at the interloper. “Aren’t you supposed to be doing something?”

  “Dude, it’s the Heartbreaker Killer!” He slapped Cody on the shoulder. “She was all over TV for killing all those people. She cut their hearts out. It was sick!”

  Cody stared at Emma for a moment and then his eyes widened. “Holy shit! It is you. I thought I’d seen you before. Shouldn’t you be in jail or something?”

  “The police cleared me of all charges.”

  The boys snorted in unison. “What was it like to cut out those hearts? I mean, all that blood—”

  “I didn’t kill anyone!” Emma shouted. Heads all over the restaurant turned in her direction. Most of them would probably recognize her as well. She took her purse off the table and stood up. “I’m sorry to waste your time, Mr. Zale.”

  “Wait!” he reached for her arm. Emma allowed herself a moment to hope this time things would go differently. “What’d you do with all those hearts?”

  She shook his arm away and then stomped outside. She marched to the bus stop to wait for the next bus. As she waited, she covered her face with her purse so no one would see the Heartbreaker Killer cry.

  ***

  The day got worse when she arrived home to find her apartment door padlocked shut and a notice pasted up. She took down the notice to study it. “I’m being evicted?” she said to herself.

  “That’s right,” said a harsh female voice. Emma spun around to see an old woman behind her with arms folded across her saggy chest. “You’re three months behind in the rent. I ain’t putting up with no deadbeats.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Lang. If you could just give me more time—”

  “I’ve given you enough time.”

  “Could I at least get some of my things?”

  “You want me to let you in there so you can barricade yourself inside? Or maybe you’ll torch the whole place. I seen your kind before.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “I heard that before too. You can get your stuff back when you pay me what you owe.”

  “But I don’t have it!”

  “Then you can’t have your stuff. Shouldn’t be that difficult for you to figure out, Dr. Earl.”

  “This isn’t fair!”

  “Life isn’t fair,” Mrs. Lang said, though Marlin had already told Emma this enough times that she should have believed it by now. “You’d best get out of here before I call the cops.”

  “I’ll go. I don’t want any trouble.” Emma turned back to pad down the hallway and outside. She turned the corner, into one of Rampart City’s many alleys. She sat down on an overturned milk crate to think.

  She was homeless now. It was hard to believe that in such a short time she could go from an assistant director with a six-figure salary to a vagrant. She had lost everything now except the clothes on her back and contents of her purse. Everything else was trapped in the apartment. Emma thought of her collection of books and scientific journals, a collection she would never be able to replace. Mrs. Lang would probably burn these out of spite since it was unlikely she could find a buyer for them.

  Of course Emma could get her things back. It wouldn’t be difficult to summon the scarlet armor and then use the magic gloves to break the padlock. She would have to wait until nightfall and then she could do it—

  Emma shook her head. That would be a felony and make her unfit to be the Scarlet Knight. She would have to find a way to get the money or maybe in a few days she could convince Mrs. Lang to let her in to get a few things. For now she would have to wait.

  She heard a squeak above her. Someone else might have screamed at the sight of a two-foot-long rat, but Emma knew the rat with the distinctive streak of silver along its back. Because of the stripe reminiscent of a skunk she called him Pepe. He had been a frequent visitor of the apartment in recent months; he popped up from her toilet to deliver messages from the Sewer Rat and to check up on her.

  Emma spoke to him in a series of squeaks and hisses, the rat language she had learned when she had stayed with the Sewer Rat. “What are you doing here?” she asked Pepe. He replied he had come up from the toilet to find the apartment abandoned and everything in boxes. “No, I’m not moving away. I’ve been evicted.”

  The rat didn’t understand the concept of eviction. His home was his family’s nest and no one ever bothered to ask him for rent. “It means I can’t live there anymore. I’m not sure where I’m going to live now. Maybe I’ll have to come down there with you and Jim.” To live with the Sewer Rat—whose real name was Jim Rizzard—would be a last resort, but the way things were going it might come to that.

  Pepe asked about the boxes piled up in the apartment. Emma had to admire how quickly Mrs. Lang had worked to pack up Emma’s things. She must have planned it for some time. “They’ll have to stay there. I can’t go in to get them unless I pay her.”

  The rat hissed an unfavorable opinion of this before he scampered off the fire escape. Emma thought Pepe had gone until he returned a few minutes later with a small box in his powerful jaws. “You can’t do that. It’s not right.” The rat didn’t understand this concept either. To a creature who lived in the sewers and rummaged through trash for food, the idea of ownership didn’t make sense. “It’s her territory. I can’t intrude on it,” she said. She hoped Pepe would understand that. He did, but not as Emma had hoped. “You can’t intrude on it either. It’s not right.” Ethics were another sticking point. “You just can’t.”

  Undeterred, the rat pushed the box off the fire escape. Emma caught it before it fell. She looked inside and saw her degrees from Northwestern and Berkeley as well as some of the scientific journals in which she had articles published. She supposed she might as well keep these; they wouldn’t have any value to Mrs. Lang. “Thank you, but don’t take anything else out of there. Because I said so, that’s why.”

  The rat grumbled about this, but obeyed. He hopped down the fire escape ladder to leap onto her shoulder. Emma had long since learned not to squirm at this. She patted Pepe’s head as if he were a cat “I’ll be all right,” she told him. “You and Jim don’t have to worry.” The rat wasn’t convinced about this; he expressed his concern in a quiet burst of squeaks. “It’s going to be fine. I’ll have to find somewhere to stay for the night, that’s all. I’ll come down to let you know in a couple of days.” She patted the rat on the head again and then Pepe scampered off to return to the sewers. Emma waited until he was gone before she sunk down on the crate to put her head in her hands.

  ***

  It took three transfers before Emma could get on a bus to the historical district. By the time she reached Becky’s door, the box Pepe had recovered for her had become dented and torn along one side. Emma stuck a hand in her pocket and felt her last two quarters.

  She had to wait a full two minutes after she knocked for the door to open. “What are you doing here?” Becky asked, her voice more angry than concerned. In the last nine months Becky had gained back the weight she had lost before her ruined wedding to Steve Scherr—and then some. Her bulk filled the doorway to keep Emma out.

  “I need your help,” Emma said. “I’ve been evicted and I don’t have anywhere else to go. Could you let me stay here for a little while?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not? Don’t you h
ave enough room?”

  “I don’t think it’s a good time for that.”

  “Becky, please, I don’t have anywhere to go.”

  “Why don’t you go sleep in the Sanctuary?”

  “There isn’t a bed down there,” Emma said. At one point she had a cot down there, but after the evil Black Dragoon—who had used Becky’s body—blew up the Sanctuary, the cot and everything else had been destroyed and she didn’t have the money to replace it.

  “Then go back to the sewer with your boyfriend.”

  “Jim’s not my boyfriend. We’re just friends.”

  “Whatever. I’m sure he’s got a bed for you. Him and his friends.”

  “Becky, please. You’re my best friend. I need your help.”

  Becky considered this for a minute. Emma thought she might give in or at least allow Emma to stay for one night until she could figure something out. Instead, Becky took a step forward; her big stomach pushed Emma back. “This is the house Steve and I bought. It was supposed to be where we’d raise our family. I’m not going to let you live in it.”

  “Please, Becky—”

  Becky pushed Emma back another step. “I want you out of here right now or I’m going to call the cops.”

  “The police? But you’re my friend. I need you.”

  “You were my friend.” With that Becky stormed back into the house; she slammed the door behind her. Emma stood there for a moment in shock. Then she finally let out the tears she’d held back. She staggered off into the night—alone.

  Chapter 2

  With no money and night about to fall, Emma saw little choice but to walk down the street, to an older part of the historical district. She wasn’t surprised to find the door already ajar for her. “Well it’s about time you got here, dear,” said an old woman’s voice. But the woman to whom this voice belonged did not look old; if anything she looked younger than Emma, her hair as golden as the Scarlet Knight’s cape and skin as smooth as a newborn’s. “I thought you’d take all night.”

  “I’ve been evicted,” Emma said, though she knew Ms. Chiostro already knew this. “I thought maybe you’d let me stay here until I can find somewhere else.”

  The witch put a hand on Emma’s shoulder. “Of course, dear. We have plenty of room. You’re welcome to stay as long as you want.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s no trouble at all. In fact it will be nice to have another young person in the house. Sylvia is such an old grump.”

  “Well—” Emma let her voice trail off. It was still difficult for her to accept Ms. Chiostro’s transformation nine months ago. To that point the witch had looked to everyone like a woman in her sixties, though she was in actuality over five hundred years old. A near-death experience had prompted her to embrace life more fully to the point she’d made herself into a woman in her young twenties.