Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 10

  ***

  The old man went to answer the door. “You see! Now they are here!” he said before he left. Emma felt a cold shiver at this; she had doomed them to die in a violent manner similar to their daughter.

  “Come,” the old woman said to her. “We must hide you.”

  She reached into the closet and pulled out a flannel nightgown. Emma assumed it belonged to the old woman until she said, “This belonged to my daughter. Put it on.” Emma did as she was told and found the nightgown nearly a perfect fit. She could hear the old man talk with someone at the front door, but she couldn’t hear exactly what they said.

  The old woman tied a kerchief around Emma’s head to hide her red hair. It wasn’t likely to fool anyone, not if they had a picture of her. The old woman took care of this when she opened a trapdoor in the kitchen floor. “Go into the cellar and be quiet.”

  Emma took a deep breath before she dropped into the cellar. It was more like what she had expected the bunker to look like: a tiny, dank room that smelled like rotten vegetables. Overhead she heard heavy footsteps and waited for someone to pull open the trapdoor to find her there in the dirt.

  She felt a familiar tickle that she knew came from a rat’s nose. She hissed a warning at it; she hoped ratspeak wasn’t much different in Russia than Rampart City. The rat seemed to understand and scurried away. Or perhaps he would return later with some friends to devour her. That was if Bykov’s goons didn’t find her first.

  They didn’t. She heard muffled voices followed by retreating footsteps and the slam of a door. The trapdoor opened and the old woman looked down at her. “It is all right now, dear. They are going away.”

  “That’s good.” Emma took the old man’s hand to help her out of the cellar. “I should hurry and get out of here. They might come back.”

  “Yes, of course. My husband will drive you to the train station.” The old woman’s husband voiced his displeasure about this. “There is no choice. Do it.” The old man, chastised, grumbled as he retreated into the kitchen.

  “Thank you for all of your help, but I can walk to the train station. How far away is it?”

  “Fifty kilometers.”

  Emma gulped at this. Maybe she couldn’t walk there after all. “I see.”

  “My husband will take you in the morning. In the meantime you must get back in bed and rest. I will pack some more of my daughter’s things that you can wear back to America.”

  “You don’t need to go to that much trouble. My old clothes are fine.”

  “They are covered in blood. Unless you want to look as if you’ve been slaughtering pigs, you should let me burn them.”

  “Well, all right. Thank you.” She let the old woman take her back to the bedroom, where she lay in the bed that presumably belonged to the elderly couple. She wasn’t tired, but she at least pretended to sleep for the old woman’s benefit.

  The old woman, like Emma’s mother, knew when she pretended. “Where did you get this?” she asked. She held up the thimble Ms. Chiostro had given her.

  “A friend gave it to me. She said it would protect me.”

  “Yes, this is a symbol of great power. Make sure you keep it with you.”

  “Maybe I should let you have it.”

  “I am too old to need protection.” The old woman’s voice left no room for argument on the topic. She dropped the thimble onto Emma’s blankets and then went back to rummage in the closet. Emma twisted the thimble in her hands a few times and wondered if it really did have the power Ms. Chiostro claimed. She supposed at this point she could use all the help she could get.

  ***

  The night passed without incident. The elderly couple let Emma sleep in their bed at the woman’s insistence. Her husband went out to the barn presumably to sleep in the hayloft. Emma didn’t sleep much, her mind too preoccupied that she might hear another knock on the door or feel that shadowy presence envelop her again.

  In the morning, the old woman made potato pancakes for breakfast, which Emma ate gratefully albeit quickly. The old man ate just as quickly; he frequently checked the clock by the mantle for the time. “We should be going,” he said.

  “You cannot go that far without a proper breakfast,” his wife said. She would not tolerate any argument on the subject.

  Once they were finished, the old woman pressed a sack of clothes into Emma’s good arm. “You will need these. It is a long way to America.”

  “Thank you so much. I don’t know what I could have done without you.”

  “We couldn’t let you die like our daughter.”

  Emma didn’t know what to say to this, so she hugged the old woman. To her surprise the old woman hugged her back. “It’s been too long since I hugged her,” the old woman said. “Perhaps it will not be much longer until I see her again.”

  “Don’t think like that. They won’t come back.”

  “Perhaps not, but I am an old woman. My days are few in any case.”

  Again Emma was tongue-tied. She looked down at her feet. “I suppose I better get going. Thank you again.”

  She went outside with the bag filled with a dead girl’s clothes. At the moment she wore a simple white blouse and long green skirt that made her look far more like a native than her old clothes. She climbed into the cab of the old man’s rickety pickup; to any observer she supposed they would look like a father and daughter—or grandfather and granddaughter—out for a ride.

  The old woman didn’t wave as they left; she merely stared at the truck as it drove away. Emma watched the woman in the rearview mirror until she was no longer visible. Then she turned to the old man. “Thank you for your help.”

  “It is my wife you should thank. She thinks you look like Anna. She had hair like yours, from my father’s side of the family.”

  “Oh.” Emma fingered the red hair hidden at the moment by a kerchief. “I’m sorry.”

  “She was a beautiful girl. Dumb as an ox but loyal and with a good heart.” The old man cracked a sort of half-smile at this. “When you get back to America, what will you do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You must tell your people of the Wolf. You must find a way to stop him.”

  “I’ll try. They might not listen.”

  “Make them listen.”

  “I will,” she said, though she felt far from certain about this.

  That was the last they spoke as the truck rumbled along the rough roads of the countryside. Emma could tell from the way the old man stared at the road that he didn’t want to talk to her anymore. He had said his piece and that was it. Emma wondered if she could carry through on her promise to him. If Bykov really had American politicians in his pocket, then it likely wouldn’t matter if she made it back or not.

  There was another option. She could come back here with the scarlet armor. There was little Dr. Emma Earl could do against Bykov, but the Scarlet Knight could bring down his empire. It would be so easy to kill him and his thugs, to make them pay for the old man’s daughter, not to mention Emma and the people of Grakistan. Too easy. She saw Koschei plunge off the roof of the Sheraton again while she could do nothing to help him. It was so simple to take a life; perhaps she wasn’t so different from the criminals she put away.

  The thought of Koschei prompted her to break the silence. “What do you know about the Koschei?” she asked the old man.

  “You would have to ask my wife. She knows far more about those fairy tales and superstitions. I’ve never seen any wood spirits. None of them ever helped me—or my daughter.” The way the old man spat these words out indicated Emma should not press him any further on the topic.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that I heard someone mention it and I thought you might know more about it.”

  “The only evil spirit you should worry about is the Wolf.”

  Emma nodded and then turned back to her window to look out at the countryside. The sparse farms gradually became closer together and then gave way to clusters of houses. They finally reac
hed a town, though Emma missed its name. It wasn’t much of a town, just a few shops and a train station smaller than Bykov’s bunker.

  The old man parked in front of the station. Without a word he went to the back of the truck to remove the case with the meteor inside. “What is this?” he asked.

  “It’s a research project,” she said.

  “You carried a research project with you this far?”

  “It’s a very important research project.”

  The old man snorted at this, but he carried it up to the station for her. As they approached the station, Emma patted the pockets of the dress to realize she didn’t have any currency on her. She had only the rusty thimble, which she doubted would have much monetary value. The old man—or rather, his wife—had already anticipated this. He stuffed a wad of rubles into Emma’s pocket. “That is all we have. It’s not much,” he said.

  “Thank you. When I get home, I’ll pay you back.”

  The old man waved away this offer. “We have little use of the money. And what you mail will probably be stolen in any case.”

  “There must be something—”

  “You can tell your people of the Wolf. That’s all the repayment I need.”

  “I will.” Emma took his hand in her good one to shake it, to seal the promise.

  Part 3

  Chapter 12

  As the old woman had said, it was a long way to America. Emma found out firsthand in her flight from the train station back to the United States. It took three weeks by train, truck, and finally by ship to reach the docks of Rampart City.

  If she had managed to keep her passport with her the trip might have gone much smoother. Without a passport or identification of any kind, she was forced to beg and borrow her way across Eastern Europe. The train let her off somewhere in the Ukraine, where she found a chicken farmer who allowed her to ride in the back with his hens. The stink of chicken droppings remained on her the rest of the way, not to mention a few new scars from beaks that managed to reach out through the wire to dig into her.

  She caught another train in Kiev; this one dropped her off somewhere in Romania when they discovered she didn’t have any travel documents. A professor of Romanian Literature took her as far as Vienna, where he had a conference scheduled. The professor refused to accept money; he wanted sexual favors instead, at least until she landed a right cross to his jaw.

  She wandered around Vienna for a day with the meteor case until a woman offered her a ride. Instead of chickens, she had to share the car with a circus bear who frequently rumbled his disapproval of her. At a stop for lunch, the bear had nearly taken off her already-injured left arm. This convinced her it was time to find another ride.

  This time she got luckier in that a female student from Wisconsin picked her up. The Midwestern girl was on her way to Paris, where she studied fine art—and fine artists. Throughout the drive to Paris, the girl went on and on about the much-older artist who had taken her under his wing—in more ways than one. By that point Emma was too tired and dirty to pay much attention; she grunted now and then while the girl rambled.

  The girl’s mentor/boyfriend evaluated Emma when they were introduced and announced she could make a good model once her arm healed. Emma didn’t have the energy to mention her other careers. She managed to see the Eiffel Tower and the front of the Louvre on her way out of the city. She headed south with a merchant marine, who was on his way back to Marseilles. When he mentioned the ship was bound for Rampart City, Emma asked if she could go along.

  “Stowaway? If they find you—”

  “I won’t mention your name.” The last of the old man’s rubles helped seal the deal.

  Stowing away wasn’t nearly as glamorous as books had made it sound. She spent most of her time in a compartment near the engine room, where she listened to the clank of the machinery. When she did pop out, it was only to snatch a few crumbs from the plates in the mess hall. The sailor who’d driven her to Marseilles brought her canteens of fetid water every couple of days.

  She had to wait until the ship emptied to sneak off onto the docks. Unable to find an operational payphone anywhere near the docks, she begged a dock worker to use his. The man initially agreed, but then, like the professor in Vienna, insisted she pay for the phone with her body. She settled the disagreement with a kick to his crotch, too worn out to abide by any rules of honor. While the man twitched on the dock, she called Becky.

  “Emma? How’s Russia?”

  “I’m not in Russia. I’m at the docks. I need you to pick me up.”

  “What’s going on? You don’t call for almost a month and now—”

  “Becky, please, I’m in trouble. I need your help.”

  Emma worried for a moment that Becky might spurn her as she had when Emma was evicted, but her best friend said, “I’ll be right there. Where are you at?” Emma gave Becky the pier number and then hung up. She left the phone with its owner, who smartly remained on the ground.

  It wasn’t a surprise that Becky didn’t recognize her. Dressed in the dirty, torn clothes of a Russian peasant, her body at least twenty pounds lighter, and her hair a wild mess of tangles, she didn’t look much like the geologist who had left nearly a month ago. Becky walked right past her and called out, “Emma? Where are you?”

  “I’m over here,” Emma croaked. Becky turned around and for a moment Emma saw her best friend again in Becky’s eyes.

  “My God, what happened to you?” Becky asked.

  “I’ll explain later. Just take me home, please.”

  ***

  When she looked in the mirror of Becky’s car, Emma saw a bag lady staring back at her with wild blue eyes. Plenty of such women roamed the streets of Rampart City; not all of them carried bags or pushed shopping carts. Emma carried the meteor case instead of a grocery bag or cart.

  “What is that thing?” Becky asked.

  “Research.”

  “Jesus, kid, you look like hell.”

  “I feel like it.”

  “What happened to your neck?”

  “Chickens.”

  “Chickens?”

  “Yes.”

  “And your arm?”

  “Shot.”

  “You were shot? By who?”

  “A farmer. He thought I was a bandit.”

  “I can’t blame him.” Becky shook her head. “I thought you were going over there for a geological survey.”

  “Things got complicated.” Emma thought back to her promise to the old man, what seemed like a lifetime ago. She would have to arrange a meeting with Captain Donovan later; the police captain was honest and she might have more information on Bykov. “I need to see your boss.”

  “Not looking like that you don’t.”

  “Later—but soon. There’s something important I need to tell her.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thank you.”

  Emma had hoped they would go to Becky’s house, which for one reason was closer and for another she had hoped this time apart might have allowed Becky to think of her more favorably. Instead, Becky turned in the opposite direction, towards Ms. Chiostro’s house. “Where are we going?” Emma asked, though she already knew.

  “You said to take you home.”

  “I thought maybe—”

  “I’m not taking you to my home—mine and Steve’s home. Just drop it.”

  “OK.” Emma shoved the mirror away and gave up on her tangled hair. “What happened while I was gone?”

  “Nothing much. No zoo stampedes or serial murders. It’s been peaceful.”

  “I see.”

  “You leaving was the best thing to happen to the city. No offense.”

  “I understand.” She wanted to cry, but tried to reassure herself this was a good thing. If Rampart City didn’t need her, it would make it easier for her to go back to Russia to pay Bykov a visit.

  ***

  Ms. Chiostro already had the door open. “Oh my goodness!” she shrieked when she saw Emma
. “What happened to you?”

  “I’ll explain later.”

  “Yes, of course. Rebecca, be a dear and start a bath.” She turned to her sister. “You’d better get your scissors.”

  “Looks like a razor would be more effective,” Sylvia grumbled.

  “Now, Sylvia, you’re supposed to be such a hotshot stylist. I’m sure you can figure something out.”

  “I could just turn it to snakes like a gorgon.”

  “Don’t be nasty. Can’t you see the girl has suffered enough?”

  “Fine.” Sylvia patted Emma with her hook. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you fixed up.”

  “Thanks.” Emma waited for Sylvia to leave before she reached into her pocket for the rusty thimble. “And thank you for this. It came in handy.”

  “Of course it did, dear. I told you it would protect you.” Ms. Chiostro took Emma’s arm to lead her upstairs. “Now, you go upstairs and have a nice bath and I’ll have dinner ready when you get out.” The witch’s expression darkened when she caught sight of the meteor case. “What’s that?”

  “Research. I’ll explain later.”

  “Yes, of course.” Emma couldn’t help but notice the discomfited expression on Ms. Chiostro’s face. Perhaps the witch could sense the presence that had driven Emma mad in the bunker. It was something they would have to discuss later.

  As Sylvia had said, a razor would have been a much easier way to get the tangles out of Emma’s hair. The process to get the rats out took considerable pain and in the end left Emma with far less hair than she’d started with. She touched the short hair that remained and tried to smile. She looked like a boy, but that was better than a bag lady.

  All of this came only after three baths to get the dirt from at least five countries off her. The scented soap managed to erase the stench of chicken feces mixed with motor oil that had plagued her for three weeks. In the mirror, she saw her ribs as clearly as in an X-ray. When she ran her hand along them they felt like an old washboard.

  Only after all of this—and changing into fresh clothes—did she come downstairs. The witches and Becky sat at the table to wait for her to tell them about her flight from Europe, but it would have to wait as she continually shoved food into her mouth; she barely took time to chew it. She couldn’t even be sure what she ate; after three weeks on the run she would have eaten a raw horse if Ms. Chiostro had served one.