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

  The reporter took the microphone back, but Dan had already turned to the crowd to lead them in a chant of, “Ban the Knight!”

  Ms. Chiostro mercifully punched the button to turn off the TV. “I’m sure they’ll calm down eventually.”

  Emma shook her head. She knew Dan wouldn’t stop until he had put an end to the Scarlet Knight. He thought she was responsible for the death of his wife Isis nine months earlier. In a way that was true, although Isis wasn’t really dead; a part of her lived on as an infant in the custody of Ms. Chiostro’s coven. There was no way she could tell Dan that or that his wife had been possessed by an evil spirit.

  “Finish your lunch, dear, and then I think Sylvia has some more work for you downstairs.”

  “Sure.” Emma bit into her sandwich; the peanut butter and jelly tasted sour in her mouth. Work would be just the thing she needed right now to take her mind off what she had just seen, not that she could ever forget it.

  ***

  It promised to be a long day in the office. So far Becky had taken two-dozen calls from angry residents over the stampede that had ruined the fireworks. She did her best to calm these people and assure them the city council would hold an emergency session to deal with the issue. No such session was officially scheduled yet, but Becky needed something to tell these irate people.

  When she got a minute, she knocked on the door to her boss’s office. Councilwoman Napier called for her to come inside; she didn’t even look up from her work as she said, “I take it we’re getting a lot of flak about the fireworks last night?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ve promised them you’ll call for an emergency session of the council.”

  Napier, recently named the council president, finally looked up from her work. “And why would I do that, Rebecca?”

  Whenever Napier’s voice took on that icy tone, Becky was always transported back to the third grade when she’d stood in front of the principal’s desk. She cleared her throat before she said, “To make a token gesture to reassure people. Add money to security for next year’s fireworks or something like that.”

  “Can we afford to add extra security to the fireworks?”

  Becky had already anticipated this question; she’d run some figures past the treasurer’s office. “I think we can make it work.”

  “All right, let’s do it then. See if you can get a quorum together for this afternoon.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Becky knew this was a dismissal; she backed out of the office only to bump into a familiar face.

  “Hello, Mrs. Scherr,” Dan Dreyfus said. “Do you have a minute?”

  “I actually have to make a few phone calls.”

  “It’ll only take a minute.”

  “All right.” She motioned Dan into her office and then closed the door behind him. “Can I get you a drink of water or anything?”

  “No, I’m fine.” He waited until she sat down before he said, “I was hoping you could get me a meeting with your boss.”

  “The councilwoman is very busy these days as you might expect. I’m not sure—”

  “It would just be for a few minutes. There’s something urgent I need to discuss with her.”

  “Is it about the fireworks last night?”

  “In part.”

  “I can assure you, Dr. Dreyfus, that the council is going to do everything in its power—”

  “No you’re not. You’re going to make some token gesture like adding a few more security guards to make people feel better.”

  “That’s part of our response, certainly.”

  “Can’t you get me a few minutes with her? I’d consider it a personal favor.”

  Becky looked across the desk at Dan, at the pleading in his eyes. She could see why Emma loved him so much. Such a passionate, sensitive man didn’t come along too often. Becky had found such a man only for him to be violently snatched away. “All right, but I can’t guarantee you more than a couple of minutes.”

  She led Dan back to Napier’s door. She went in first and said, “Excuse me, ma’am, Dr. Dreyfus from the Plaine Museum would like to see you. I told him you might have a few minutes available.”

  Napier looked up from her work. “Rebecca, I’ve told you not to make promises you can’t keep. We have a lot to do—”

  “He just needs a couple of minutes, ma’am.”

  Napier stared at her for a moment before she finally nodded. “All right, send him in.” As Becky started to turn, the councilwoman wagged a finger at her. “You had better make sure this is quick.”

  Becky led Dan into the office to one of the chairs in front of the desk, but he remained standing. “Madam councilwoman, I’m sorry to take up some of your valuable time.”

  “Not at all. I always have a few minutes for someone from the Plaine Museum.” The councilwoman put on the friendly smile she reserved for the cameras and major donors. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m sure you know about what happened at Executive Plaza last night.”

  “Yes and I can assure you the council will take strong action to make sure nothing like that happens again.”

  “That’s good to hear, but I think you need to attack the root of the problem. The strongest message you could send to the people of this city that you’re committed to their safety is to issue a resolution condemning the vigilante tactics of the Scarlet Knight and demanding that the police stop turning a blind eye to her.”

  Becky took an involuntary step back in disbelief. Dan had at one time loved Emma and now he unintentionally wanted to put her into jail. Napier must have seen her reaction as she asked, “What do you think, Rebecca?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “I think Dr. Dreyfus has a good point. There’s been nothing but trouble since that woman first showed up. I’m not convinced she isn’t the Heartbreaker Killer. The police wound that investigation down awfully fast, wouldn’t you say, Doctor?”

  “Yes. The police need to bring her in and put her away for the good of everyone.”

  “But she’s helped people too,” Becky said. She had been one of those people six years ago when some thugs jumped her in an alley.

  “People she put in danger in the first place like last night,” Dan said. Becky thought of Steve; the shooter had probably aimed for Emma that day in the church. Or at the very least he had shot Steve to send the Scarlet Knight a message.

  “Do you think we can get the votes for something like that, Rebecca?”

  Becky turned her thoughts away from her dead husband to the more practical battleground of the city council. “I think so, ma’am,” she said quietly.

  “Good. Then let’s get that emergency meeting set up. Dr. Dreyfus, I’d like it if you would attend. I’m sure Rebecca can get you a good seat.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Becky said. She hurried to her office; she locked the door behind her to think about what she had lost—and what she was about to lose.

  ***

  In her nearly fifteen years with the Rampart City Police Department, Lottie Donovan had taken one sick day. She had never even come down with a case of the “blue flu,” which had made her very unpopular back in her early days. Whenever she felt she should stay in bed, she reminded herself that crime didn’t take sick days.

  But she didn’t have any choice today. She was stuck in the hospital for observation, her left arm still wrapped in bandages from the hyena bite. She had tried everything—which included threats of arrest—but the doctor refused to let her go. At least until they could make sure she didn’t have rabies or anything else from the animal.

  Her status as a police captain and the possibility of her getting some rare disease from the hyena had given her a room to herself. The nurses wouldn’t let any of her officers visit, nor would they allow anyone to send in reports for her to read, which left her with nothing to do but stare at the television. She couldn’t help but shake her head as she watched detectives on the screen solve a case in a half-hour, followed by prosecutors putting the people re
sponsible in jail in another half-hour. In real life it took days or weeks of work to find a criminal and months to try him or her. That is if someone like Don Vendetta didn’t silence any witnesses or bribe the jury—far too common occurrences in Rampart City.

  She turned the channel to a talk show; the accusations reminded her of domestic disturbance calls from her time as a beat cop. In those days things had been a lot simpler: go to a scene, try to calm everyone down, arrest anyone who got out of hand, and then file a report. She didn’t have to worry about politics. With a sigh she turned the television off and rolled over onto her right side.

  So far the only problems from the bite were occasional bouts of pain and an itch underneath the bandages. The former could be taken care of with a pill but there was nothing to do with the latter. At least not until she could take the bandages off. She rubbed her left arm along the sheets, not that this did much.

  The nurses had initially taken her cell phone, but brought it back later when she promised not to make any phone calls with it. That didn’t mean she couldn’t send or receive text messages. When her phone buzzed, she reached over to pick it up with her injured arm. The text was from Lieutenant Cielo, who was in charge while she recuperated. The text said simply, “Bad news, Cap. Turn on Ch 5.”

  Captain Donovan rolled over to turn on the television. She switched it to channel five in time to see the headline at the bottom of the screen: “Council Condemns Scarlet Knight. Demands Her Immediate Arrest.”

  “Oh shit,” Captain Donovan said. As she listened to the report, she uttered a few more curse words to herself. They had pinned the stampede last night on the Scarlet Knight and demanded the police force do everything in its power to arrest the vigilante.

  “It’s time we send a message to the people of this city and the rest of the world that we will not tolerate outlaws like this,” said new council president Napier. Captain Donovan wondered if Don Vendetta had written that little speech or if one of her henchmen had done it. Certainly the Scarlet Knight’s arrest would be a boon for the don and her buddies.

  Never mind that the Scarlet Knight obviously wasn’t behind the zoo caper. From their numerous meetings, Captain Donovan knew the vigilante wasn’t the type to pull pranks like that. More to the point, she wasn’t dumb enough to be seen on one of the elephants in the stampede. If she had really been behind it, she could have simply opened the doors and then taken off. Not that any of these politicians with their hands in Don Vendetta’s pocket would ever think about that.

  She continued to curse under her breath as she started to compose a text. Not to Cielo or anyone on the police force but to the anonymous address she used to communicate with the Scarlet Knight. After she typed her message, she sagged back against her pillow to wait.

  ***

  Even after she lost her job and sold off other possessions like her motorcycle, Emma had refused to give up the luxury of her BlackBerry. In part this was because she needed a phone number so potential employers could call her. Mostly it was so she could know whenever Captain Donovan sent a message to the Scarlet Knight.

  As she helped Sylvia validate whether a sword could have belonged to the ancient French hero Roland, the BlackBerry rang with the special tone reserved for Emails from Captain Donovan. Emma hurried out of the vault to pick up the electronic device.

  Usually she and the captain met at the band shelter of Robinson Park around midnight. This time Captain Donovan’s message wanted the Scarlet Knight to meet her at St. Joseph’s hospital, Room 4080. And she wanted to meet ASAP.

  “It’s probably a trap,” Sylvia said.

  “She wouldn’t do that.”

  “Maybe someone else got a hold of the Email.”

  “I don’t think so. It has her phone number.”

  “They could probably fake that.”

  “Maybe. I can’t take the chance.”

  “So you’re going to walk into a hospital in that getup?”

  “I’ll be careful.” Emma had to admit that Sylvia did have a point, as it wouldn’t be easy to get into the hospital. She couldn’t just walk inside, not in the red armor and cape. “Can you give me a ride there?”

  “Sure. We can bring a little backup—”

  “We won’t need any guns.”

  “You won’t.”

  “It’ll be fine. Trust me.” They took Sylvia’s truck, which wasn’t much faster than if Emma had put on the armor and bounded across the rooftops like she usually did. It did make it easier for her to get out by the front doors of the hospital and walk inside, clad in her old lab coat from the Plaine Museum.

  No one paid any attention as she strode purposefully to the nearest elevator until she was just a few feet away. Then an elderly woman in a wheelchair motioned to her. “Doctor, can you help me? I’ve been waiting forever.”

  “Oh, well, yes, of course,” Emma stammered. She took the woman’s chart to examine it. Though she wasn’t a medical doctor, she had read up on Alzheimer’s and related diseases when Aunt Gladys had been diagnosed with it. From what she could tell, this woman was in the early stages of the disease. Emma wrote down an order for neurological tests that would check for possible Alzheimer’s. “Don’t worry, ma’am, someone will be with you soon.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “You’re welcome.” Emma left the chart at the front desk for a nurse and then hurried into the elevator. She punched the button to the fourth floor; she waited until the elevator was between floors to hit the stop button.

  She had never tried to change in an elevator before, but the hospital elevator was large enough to accommodate her and the case of red armor. Once she fixed the helmet to her head, she dropped the lab coat into the case and then pushed the button for the elevator to resume its journey. Before the doors opened, she wrapped the cape around herself.

  When the doors did open, there was nothing inside, at least to the naked eye. Emma made her way carefully along the corridor; she passed within inches of a security guard. The only problem came when she reached the door to the room Captain Donovan had indicated. She had to wait until the security guard looked in the opposite direction before she could twist the knob and slip inside.

  She took a look around the room and saw only Captain Donovan in one of the beds, her left arm bandaged. There might be other officers waiting to trap her in an adjoining room, but Emma doubted it. In any case, she could always throw herself out the window to escape.

  She dropped the cape and asked, “What happened to you?”

  “A hyena bit me thanks to that little zoo stunt. I assume that wasn’t your handiwork?”

  “There was someone else behind it. I didn’t see his face. He called himself Koschei.”

  “Great. I’ll have someone look into it.”

  “Is that what you wanted?”

  “No. I don’t suppose you’ve seen the news?”

  “About the demonstration?”

  “Worse than that. The council passed a resolution demanding your immediate arrest.”

  Emma looked around for a trap. “Are you going to arrest me?”

  “I don’t think I could if I wanted to, not right now.” Captain Donovan held up her injured arm. “I just want to strongly suggest that you take it easy for a while. Keep out of sight until this blows over.”

  “It takes a long time for things here to blow over,” Emma said. It had been nine months since the Heartbreaker Killings and things still hadn’t blown over for her.

  “At least give me time to look into this Koschei character. If we can bust him and prove you didn’t cause that stampede then some of the heat will die down.”

  Emma considered this for a moment. She didn’t want to back down and go into hiding, not now with that lunatic on the loose. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said. Then she wrapped the cape around herself and disappeared.

  Chapter 5

  That night, out of respect to Captain Donovan, Emma didn’t venture out as the Scarlet Knight. Instead, she spent the
rest of the day at the public library, to search the computers for something on this Koschei. All she could find were Russian folk tales about a vindictive wood spirit. Which meant Koschei was probably some kind of code name, not the man’s real name. Or perhaps it really was a vindictive Russian spirit, though why it would be in Rampart City she had no idea.

  “Probably some animal rights kook,” Sylvia said on the drive back to her house.

  “I don’t think there are many animal rights kooks who can punch through locks.”

  “I don’t know of any Russian spirits who can do that either.”

  She waited until she sat in the parlor with both witches to ask the question she had dreaded. “Could this person be related to Isis or the Black Dragoon?”

  “Oh, no dear, I don’t think so. Isis is gone and the black armor destroyed,” Ms. Chiostro said. She paused a moment before she added, “It could be some other kind of demon, I suppose.”

  “Not like any I’ve seen,” Sylvia said. “What about that little shit Marlin?”

  “He hasn’t found anything yet,” Emma said.

  “He’s probably been too busy peeking in women’s showers.”

  “He wouldn’t do that.”

  “That’s what he says.”

  “Please, Sylvia, let’s not get distracted.” Ms. Chiostro glared at her sister. Despite that she looked like Sylvia’s granddaughter, her gaze still held its big sisterly authority. “I’m sure he’ll turn up again eventually. In the meantime it might be best for you to lie low.”

  “You mean I should let criminals run rampant?”

  “No, of course not. Just be more careful.”

  “I’ll try.” Emma retreated to the guest bedroom to lie down though she wasn’t tired. She wasn’t surprised when Marlin showed up around midnight. “I’m not going out tonight.”

  “Why? You on holiday?”

  “Have you seen the news? Every cop in the city is going to be looking for me.”