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

  Finally the sword came free and clattered to the ground. Blood spilled from the wound, but not human blood. This blood glowed with white light. Koschei turned to face Becky, who had gotten unsteadily to her feet. His eyes burned with hatred. “We will meet again,” he said. Then he was gone.

  Becky staggered forward to grab the Sword of Justice and return it to its sheath. “Thanks,” she croaked to Marlin.

  “That is one tough bloke,” the ghost said.

  She could only nod and then stumble away from the scene before he decided to come back and finish the job. Becky clenched her fists as she thought of Steve’s warning again. She would find a way to beat him, no matter what it took.

  Chapter 24

  They had forced open the front door to Becky’s house. From the items thrown about the foyer and living room, Emma deduced they must have searched the place first and then waited for her to come home. She shivered at the thought of what they might have done to Dan if she’d brought him in with her. She winced as she remembered again why she had wiped Dan’s memory of their time together six years ago; her world was far too dangerous for him.

  The mess continued upstairs to Becky’s bedroom. Emma picked up a pair of underwear from the floor. She quickly changed into these as well as a pair of sweatpants. A shower would be much better to wipe the stink of urine away, but she didn’t want to risk being in the shower when Becky came home.

  Where was Becky? Emma shivered again as she thought of all the horrible things Becky might do with Emma’s body out of spite. Not that she could really blame her friend for wanting to do her harm. This was entirely her fault. If she hadn’t taken that job with Bykov, she never would have found the strange meteor and never would have switched places with Becky. She also wouldn’t have hired goons after her and Becky. And she wouldn’t have gotten the chance to kiss Dan again—

  Emma put a hand to her lips. Of course Dan hadn’t kissed her; he had kissed Becky. Provided they lived long enough to sort things out, that would make for an awkward conversation with Becky. It would be even more awkward with Dan. How could she possibly tell him she wasn’t who he thought she was?

  She tried to imagine this conversation as she began to tidy up the bedroom. There was no way Dan would believe her. She could try to recount the events of their date, but he might think Becky had told her. She could try to kiss him and hope her love carried through, but would it? After all, he didn’t love her; he loved Becky.

  When she finished with the bedroom, she went down to the foyer to right the empty umbrella stand and return the pile of old newspapers to the bag for recycling. She moved on to the living room, where she placed the knickknacks in their proper places and shelved the fallen books. In one of those books, something fell out. Emma picked up a photograph; she turned it over to see it was one of her and Becky when they were little girls—Becky six and Emma five. Emma felt a stab of pain that Becky had hidden this photograph, but at the same time she also felt a touch of relief that Becky hadn’t destroyed the picture or tried to cut Emma out of it. Maybe everything wasn’t lost between them yet.

  She heard something heavy thump against the ceiling. After she stuffed the photograph back in its book and returned the book to its shelf, Emma searched for a weapon. She settled on a poker from beside the cold fireplace. This wouldn’t do much good against one of the Russians with their firearms, but it was better than nothing.

  At the top of the stairs she didn’t see anyone in the hallway, nor any lights on. She edged down the hallway and noticed someone had closed the door to Becky’s bedroom. She tested the knob, but found the door locked. Why would a prowler lock himself into the room? Maybe he knew she was here.

  The poker trembled in Emma’s hands. She took a deep breath, to do the breathing lessons she had learned to cope with fear when she became the Scarlet Knight. The exercises helped a little, enough for the poker to steady in her hand, though it still felt weak in her grasp. She lightly tapped the poker against the door. “Hello? Who’s in there?” she rasped; her throat had become parched.

  The door burst open. Emma swung the poker. A hand batted it away so that it clattered to the floor. “What the hell are you doing here?” Becky asked. “I thought I told you to stay away from our house.”

  Overcome with relief, Emma ignored this outburst to hug her friend. Becky swum out of the embrace to push her back. “I’m sorry,” Emma said. “I’m just glad you’re safe.”

  “Yeah, I’m safe. Just barely.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing.” Becky crossed her arms over her breasts. “What do you want?”

  “I came to warn you. That Russian I worked for sent some men here. They want the meteor back. They said I have to return it in twenty-four hours.”

  “So? Give them the meteor.”

  “I can’t. I’m too close to understanding it.” Emma ran a hand through her hair—Becky’s hair. “It’s the key to everything. I have to find out what it is.”

  “You don’t think Ms. Chiostro will find a way to change us back?”

  “I don’t know. I just know there’s something strange about that meteor. It caused what happened to us; it might be the only thing that can save us.”

  “Fine, so they’ll come after you. It’s not my problem.”

  “No, they think you’re me. They think you have it. If they see you, I don’t know what they’ll do to you.”

  “You should be more worried about what will happen to them.”

  Emma wondered what this comment meant. Then she remembered the heavy thump on the floor, plus the fact that Becky had appeared in the bedroom but hadn’t used the front door. She pushed Becky aside to find her suspicions confirmed: the scarlet armor lay scattered on the bedroom floor just as Becky’s clothes had been earlier. “How?”

  Becky only shrugged at this. “I don’t know. Ask Marlin.”

  “I don’t have any more idea than you two,” the ghost said. His head poked out from the wall. “I only know that she heard the Call.”

  “But I’m the Scarlet Knight,” Emma said. “How could it call someone else?”

  “I already told you I don’t know. This isn’t something that happens every day.”

  “But it’s my job,” Emma said.

  “Was your job. Now it’s mine. And I’m doing a damn sight better at it than you.”

  “Except for almost being strangled to death by that maniac,” Marlin said.

  “Shut up,” Becky snarled.

  “What maniac?”

  “That Koschei character you thought you killed. He jumped me in an alley.”

  “He’s still alive?”

  “He felt alive enough to me,” Becky said and rubbed her neck.

  “Then I didn’t kill him.”

  “It would have been better if you had,” Marlin said.

  “But how did he survive? He fell eleven stories.”

  “I guess that’s another mystery for you to solve,” the ghost said. “In the meantime, I think it would behoove you both to get some rest—and a bath.”

  “I guess so. I’d better go back to Ms. Chiostro’s.” She waited for Becky to stop her and suggest they stick together for the night. That didn’t happen.

  Instead, Becky said, “I’ll call you a cab.” As if she sensed Emma’s thoughts, she added, “Don’t worry, Sylvia has plenty of weapons you can use if those guys show up for you again.”

  “Thanks.” The bedroom door slammed shut behind her. Emma waited a moment before she trudged downstairs to wait.

  ***

  Emma was still asleep the next afternoon when Becky’s cell phone rang. Emma flailed about with one hand, while her other cradled the sword of Perseus she’d taken to bed in case the Russian thugs came for her. When she found the phone, she pressed the talk button; she came to full alertness when she heard Dan’s voice.

  “Hi,” he said. “Did I wake you up?”

  “No, no, of course not. I was just away from the phone for a minute.”<
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  “Oh, I see.” There was silence for a moment. “I just wanted to say I had a really good time last night. I thought maybe if you weren’t busy—”

  “Actually I am going to be a little busy. There’s a project I need to work on.”

  “Something for the councilwoman?”

  “It’s more like a private project.” Emma moved the sword aside so she could sit up in the bed. “I’d rather not talk about it if you don’t mind.”

  “OK, sure. Maybe some other time.” Though she couldn’t see Dan, Emma could imagine him dejected, his face red. He would think she wasn’t interested in him, that he had done something wrong the night before. What could she tell him, Russian mobsters wanted to kill her? That she needed to study a meteor to find a way to switch bodies with her best friend?

  “Wait,” she said. “I think I’d have time for a cup of coffee.”

  His voice brightened. “Great. I can come by—”

  “How about I meet you?” They arranged to meet at the Turkish café around the corner from the Plaine Museum. When she hung up, she let out a contented sigh at the thought she’d see him again. It’s just a cup of coffee, she told herself. She would still have time to study the meteor and maybe find a way out of this.

  After a hot shower and three bowls of cereal, she dragged the meteor crate back into the foyer. As she was about to open the door, she noticed a glimmer from an antique candy dish—a set of keys. Emma almost slapped her forehead as she realized her stupidity. She had assumed Sylvia had taken the keys for her truck with her, but she had left them in the candy dish, in plain sight.

  The truck waited in the garage, where it took up most of the space. With a grunt, Emma hauled herself up into the driver’s seat. She had to suck in a breath so her gut wouldn’t spill out onto the steering wheel. The old truck didn’t have adjustable seats, which meant Emma had to drive the entire way like that, to the point where her midsection began to ache.

  She wasn’t surprised to see Tim Cooper’s car in the parking lot although it was the weekend. She thought of herself back in college and doubted Tim ever left the lab for very long. If they would allow it, he would probably sleep there too.

  She dragged the meteor case from the rear of the truck and then up to the front door. She had to pound on the door for a solid minute before Tim ran up to open it for her. “Doing more research?” he asked.

  “Yes. You too?”

  “Dr. Maxwell lets me do some of my extracurricular work on weekends. Let me get that for you.” He took the meteor case from her hands before she could stop him. He carried it as if it weighed nothing to the lab where she had worked previously. He went so far as to slide the case onto the counter and open it for her.

  “Thank you so much. I think I can get it from here.”

  “Sure. If you need anything, just give a holler; I’ll be next door.”

  “Thanks,” she said again. She waited until he’d left before she resumed her studies. She was careful this time not to cut into the meteor. Gingerly she took another sample from the top layer of the meteor to compare to the one she had taken before. Whatever had happened to her last time hadn’t done anything to alter the meteor’s composition.

  Her stomach began to growl after a couple of hours of fruitless study. Tim must have read her mind, as he poked his head into the room. “I thought maybe we could order a pizza,” he said.

  “Do they deliver here?”

  “I do it all the time.”

  Emma supposed this was probably true. “Sounds like a good idea.”

  The pizza came forty-five minutes later, by which time the thought of melted cheese on top of a crisp crust was all Emma could think about. She had already pushed away from the meteor to waddle down the hallway to the vending machines for a couple of cans of Coke for her and Tim. When she finally heard the knock on the glass she nearly rushed over to the door with joy until she remembered she didn’t have any cash.

  They ate the pizza—Emma ate far more of it than Tim—in his laboratory. From what Emma could tell, he was building some kind of tiny robot; the shape of it and the silver of its metallic spine reminded her of Pepe. She reached out with a greasy hand to touch the robot’s head and jumped back when it came to life, its eyes bright green. “Wow, you made that?”

  “It’s not finished yet,” Tim said. He looked down with embarrassment at the floor. “It’s just a prototype.”

  “Of what?”

  “I call it the Remote Automated Traveler.”

  “RAT,” Emma said with a giggle.

  “I know, it’s a dumb name.” He wiped his hands with a napkin before going over to where the RAT continued to stare at Emma with its glowing eyes. Tim picked up a remote control and punched something into it. In response the RAT raised itself up a few inches and then walked to the end of the counter.

  “That’s amazing. And you did it by yourself?”

  “It’s not that amazing. They have a lot better robots than this in Japan.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you.” He rubbed the back of his head. “I’ve been having a little trouble with his actuators.” To illustrate this, the robot’s hind legs suddenly gave out to dump it onto its rear. “I can’t seem to find the problem.”

  “Mind if I look at him?” Emma asked.

  “Go ahead.”

  Emma studied the robot’s hind legs and turned it over onto its back. She bent down to squint inside the machine. “There’s the problem,” she said. “You’re using a Compact Mark Seven circuit board. Those have a high number of defects in the relays. You’ve probably got one of the bad ones so that it’s interrupting the power supply—” She cut herself off as she noticed the way Tim stared at her. She blushed as she said, “My husband had the same problem with one of his experiments.”

  “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that sooner. It’s so obvious.”

  “It’s not that obvious. If Steve hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have known,” Emma said. She had actually read about the faulty circuit boards in an issue of Popular Mechanics while she waited for a checkup at the dentist nearly a year earlier. She supposed a boy as driven as Tim didn’t have time to read popular magazines.

  “Anyway, thanks a lot. I was about to throw him against a wall.”

  “I’m glad I could help.” She turned the RAT over and then patted its head as she often did with Pepe. She wondered what Jim would think if he saw this; maybe he’d decide to finally come up from the sewers to rejoin the human race. Probably not.

  When she turned back to the counter, she saw she had finished off the last of the pizza. “I guess I should get back to work.”

  “Right. I guess I will too. If you need any help with your project—”

  “I think I can handle it, but thanks.” As she saw the meteor on the counter, she wished she could figure out her problem with it as easily as the faulty circuit board on the RAT.

  ***

  Seven o’clock was a little early for the Scarlet Knight, but Becky didn’t have a lot of time to waste. She wanted to find this Koschei as quickly as possible and put an end to him. Then she’d handle those thugs who’d hassled Emma.

  Marlin had searched all day for Koschei but not found a trace of him. This wasn’t much of a surprise in a city as large as Rampart City. If it were possible, Becky would have gone into the sewers to ask Emma’s buddy the Sewer Rat for help. At the moment, he wasn’t disposed to help her. That left her with one other option, though it wasn’t much better.

  Captain Donovan sat on the edge of the band shelter stage; her jaw worked on a wad of gum. She didn’t look up as Becky came down the hill. “I thought I told you to leave things be,” the police captain said.

  “I can’t do that. I’m a hero.”

  “You’re a fraud.”

  “If you really think that, why are you meeting me here?”

  “You’re all I got at this point.”

  “An
d you’re all I’ve got.”

  “I’m touched.” The captain spit out her gum. “Let’s cut the bullshit and get to the point. What do you want?”

  “I’m looking for someone.”

  “Try one of those computer dating services.”

  Inside the helmet, Becky rolled her eyes. Did Emma have such a problem with Donovan? No, not sweet little Emma; everyone liked her—at least everyone law-abiding. “I’m looking for a big man wearing a black coat and floppy hat. Calls himself Koschei. He’s the one who busted up the zoo.”

  “I haven’t seen him.”

  “I thought maybe one of your people might have run into him.”

  “We have all sorts of big guys in black coats and floppy hats. Most of them work for Don Vendetta. You want to be more specific?”

  “This one is really nasty. He can punch through walls.”

  “Probably hopped up on steroids or PCP or something.” Captain Donovan reached into her jacket for more gum. “Why do you want to find him?”

  “Because he almost killed me last night.” In a lower voice, Becky added, “He killed a woman to use as bait. That’s how sick this guy is.”

  “You talking about that woman found by McKinley?”

  “Yes. What do you know about it?”

  “Some bum found her this morning. One of our guys went over there and said the alley looked like a wrecking crew had been in there. I suppose that wrecking crew would be you and this Koschei then?”

  “Yes. He wants me dead.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  “This is serious,” Becky snapped. She resisted the urge to grab Captain Donovan by the front of her T-shirt. “What do you think he’ll do after he kills me? You think he’ll just fly down to Miami and retire?”

  Captain Donovan spit out her gum; this time she hit the toe of Becky’s boot with it. “Take it easy.” She glared at Becky before she finally relented. “If I hear anything, I’ll let you know, all right?”