Eternity of Vengeance : Book 7 of the Heku Series (27 page)

“Do you think I’m crazy?”

“No, not at all… I just…”

“You just thought you’d get me a
shrink.”

“Em, you seem depressed
lately. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Depressed?” she asked, still standing
defensively.

“Yes, you don’t talk to your guards,
you no longer go riding, you haven’t tried to slip out or play
pranks…”

Her eyes narrowed, “You have no right
telling me I’m depressed.”

“It’s obvious to us all,” Zohn
whispered.

Emily spun towards him,
“So this was a Council decision?”

“No, this was a decision of your
friends,” Quinn told her.

“Dear, please,” Lori said
from behind her, but Emily ignored her.

“We’re just concerned
about your obsession with keeping Frederick, and then questions
about Kralen’s mission,” Kyle explained.

“Where is he?” Emily asked, walking
over to Kyle.

“We’ve told you. He’s on
mission.”

“Bullshit, where is he?”

“He quit,” Dustin said, ignoring the
glares from the others.

Emily looked over at him,
“What?”

“He quit the Cavalry. The
day after you got back from playing in the woods.”

Her heart sank and she felt the room
closing in around her, “Why?”

“I would imagine you’re
too much to handle,” Dustin said, and leaned forward towards
her.

“Dustin, stop it,” Chevalier
growled.

“He… he just quit?”

“Yes, he did.”

Suddenly, Mark and Silas appeared in
the trial room behind her, after being called in by
Kyle.

“He didn’t want to be my
guard?” she whispered, and took a step back.

“No, Em, that’s not it at
all,” Mark said, and she turned pained eyes toward him.

“It’s hard for us when you
get hurt in our care,” Silas told her, and touched her arm softly.
“He took a lot of that responsibility and wasn’t sure he was fit to
guard you.”

“Where is he?”

“He left here,” Mark told
her.

“Because of me,” she
whispered, as her eyes scanned the floor.

“No, it’s not your fault,”
Silas told her.

“Maybe something to calm
you down,” Lori said from the side and started to dig in her purse.
She pulled out a tiny syringe just as Emily screamed.

“No!”

“It’s nothing strong. I
can hear your pulse racing. You just need help calming down,” the
Psychiatrist said, and smiled softly.

Emily backed up to the door while
turning Lori to ash.

“Em, calm down,” Mark said
sternly. He saw how quickly things were going downhill
fast.

“Em,” Chevalier said, and
started down the stairs towards her.

Emily felt trapped as they
all closed in on her. She quickly grabbed her phone and dialed,
“It’s time,” she whispered, and then shut it.

Chevalier stopped moving
and frowned, “Time for what?”

Without another word,
Emily turned and ran from the council chambers.

Kyle sighed, “I’ll go talk to
her.”

“No, stay here,” Chevalier
said. “The more panicked she feels, the more she ashes.”

“We’ll talk to her,” Mark
said, and followed Silas out the door.

“I thought it might help,”
Chevalier said, and then sighed. “Course, I don’t really understand
human emotions.”

“She’ll calm down,” Dustin told
him.

Zohn turned suddenly toward the Coven
Liaison Officer, “How dare you tell her that he quit.”

“She deserves the truth.”

“You want nothing to do
with her, but decide to tell her the truth when you know it will
cause problems,” Quinn growled. “Get out of my sight.”

Dustin nodded and blurred from the
room.

Chevalier thought for a
few minutes, “I’ll go talk to her. Kyle, revive Lori and send her
home.”

“Yes, Elder,” he said, and
grabbed the dagger from his pocket.

Chevalier started up the
stairs, not sure how to apologize for bringing in a psychiatrist to
see Emily. He was still worried about her nightmares with
Frederick, and how the questions about Kralen suddenly stopped when
her personality changed. He rounded up to the fifth-floor and
gasped when he saw Mark and Silas both on the floor, recovering
from electrical burns, and three sets of ashes beside
them.

“What happened?” he asked, kneeling
down.

“She tased us,” Mark
growled angrily.

Chevalier turned when he
heard the SSC Aero speed out of the garage, then blurred to the
council chambers after ordering Mark and Silas to their
cars.

“She tased Mark and Silas
and ashed the others,” Chevalier said, and looked over at Kyle.
“Revive them later, get in your car, let’s find her.”

Quinn looked over at the Records
Keeper, “Are you sure she hasn’t gotten Kralen’s home coven from
you?”

“No, Elder. She was only
in my office that once.”

“I’ll go too,” Zohn said,
and disappeared from his chair.

Chevalier crawled into his
McLaren and pulled out of the garage, followed by nine other heku
in cars. They all sped off in separate directions, keeping an eye
out for the purple Aero. Chevalier stopped to ask a few of the
guards posted in the mortal city if they’d seen Emily, and was just
heading over toward the warehouse district when his phone
rang.

“Go,” he growled.

“I found her Aero at
35
^th
and Pineview Road.
You better come over here,” Kyle said.

“On the way.”

Chevalier turned suddenly
and sped off toward Kyle’s location. He pulled up and parked
alongside one of three sports cars surrounding the Aero.

“Is she here?” Chevalier asked when he
walked up.

“No,” Kyle told him, and
turned to an older mortal. He was short and round with a pleasant
smile, “This guy here has information.”

“Well…” he said, and
looked up at the tall man. “The lady contacted me last month,
offered me $10,000 cash to do everything she asked.”

“Which was?” Chevalier asked, stepping
closer to him.

“She wanted a car parked
here, something with dark windows. The keys had to be in the
ignition, there had to be a full gas tank, and there had to be a
blonde wig in the seat,” the man said, and shrugged. “It was odd…
but for 10 grand, I did it.”

“She asked this last
month?”

“Yes, said to wait for her call and to
do it immediately.”

“What kind of car did you
give her?” Kyle asked, and leaned back against the Aero.

“It was a beauty, a
Mercedes CL600.”

“Color?”

“Black, and the windows
have a tint that lets through only 5% of the light.”

“Which way did she go?”
Chevalier asked, and glanced over at Zohn.

“Not sure, I didn’t watch… I told her
I’d wait here to make sure her car didn’t get stolen.”

“Take the Aero back to the palace and
wipe his memory,” Chevalier hissed and blurred back to his
car.

“What do you m….” the man
started, but Silas already had his gaze locked.

***

Emily drove quickly until
she was sure she was far enough away from Council City that they
couldn’t catch her easily. She felt comfortable with the dark
windows and sat back for the drive west towards Washington State.
She checked again to make sure the package from Aaron was in the
seat, and then finally turned up the music and ignored her ringing
cell phone.

She drove through the
night, stopping only for gas and always checking around her for any
signs of heku. As she neared Tonasket, Washington, she kept a close
eye out for the small road that would lead her back into the
Okanogan National Forest. When she found it, she shut off the
lights and drove slowly up the small dirt road.

After a few miles, she
shut off the car and dug through the box that Encala Elder Aaron
sent her. Inside was a shrink-wrapped red robe. The note attached
said it would be easy for any heku to catch the Encala scent from
it, and more than likely she would immediately be thrown into their
prison. There was also a warning that her Winchester scent would
overpower the Encala scent after only an hour or so. She sighed and
opened the robe before stepping out into the night and slipping it
on. She smelled the sleeve, but didn’t catch any scent.

Sighing, Emily pulled the hood up over
her face and walked forward toward the entrance to Okanogan
Coven.

“Stop!” a heku yelled at
her, and she saw the entry way fill with 6 Equites heku.

Emily stopped, too afraid
to speak. She suddenly found herself surrounded by heku wearing the
familiar green capes.

“You’re short for a heku,”
one of them said, and his nose wrinkled. “Damned
Encala.”

She didn’t speak, but took a step
backwards.

“Where you going?” one of
them asked, and she backed into another and stopped.

“Why are you here?” another asked
her.

One of them touched part
of her blonde wig that hung from under the hood, “Encala sending a
toy for us to play with?”

“Bow before me,” Emily
hissed, and then had to stifle a giggle when she was immediately
thrown over a heku’s shoulder, and then carried into the
coven.

“Little Bitch, see how you
like our prison,” he said, and blurred down a dark hallway. The
others laughed and joked behind him when he threw her hard into the
prison cell and slammed the door shut.

Emily crawled slowly to
her feet. She had landed up against a hard metal chair, and it
knocked the wind out of her.

“We’ll see how long Lord
Dexter wants her in here,” the large heku said, and Emily heard the
bars electrified before the others left and shut the light off,
throwing her into complete darkness.

She slipped off the hot
blonde wig, but kept the robe on. Her time in heku prisons told her
that it was about to get a lot colder.

“I smell a mortal,” she
heard an angry voice say from down the row from her. She cringed
and stepped away from the bars.

“I do too,” another hissed.

“You’re imagining things… those guards
probably just fed,” another said, amused.

There was silence in the prison for a
while before she heard another low hiss, “No, there’s a mortal
here.”

“Yeah… yeah, you’re right.
It’s getting stronger.”

“Odd smell that is too,
ahh, to get one taste.”

She heard a loud inhale
and a hiss.

She shielded her eyes when
the lights were turned on and then heard footsteps coming closer. A
heku in beautiful blue robes appeared. His face was stern and she
could tell he wouldn’t take well to disobedience.

“I’m Lord Dexter, who are
you?” he asked her angrily.

She shrugged.

He frowned slightly and
inhaled, “That… scent…”

Emily moved back further away from
him, pressing her back against the wall.

“Is Emily here?” Kralen’s voice rang
out through the prison and she gasped.

“No,” Lord Dexter said,
“Though… that scent...”

Emily scanned the heku
standing in front of her cell, but didn’t see Kralen.

“You, Encala… you didn’t
answer, why are you here?” one of the heku guards yelled at
her.

She sighed and slipped her hood down,
“I came to find Kralen.”

“Emily!?” Kralen yelled.

“Oh my God, get her out of
there!” Lord Dexter shouted.

“No!” Emily screamed.
“Touch those bars and I’ll ash you.”

She saw the heku all turn down the row
of cells and look when Kralen spoke, “Em, what are you
doing?”

“Come so I can see you.”

“I can’t… Em…”

She frowned, “Are you in a
cell?”

Lord Dexter looked over at her, “He
came back without honors.”

“Let him go!” she screamed.

“We cannot.”

“You have to go,” Kralen
said to her.

“No, I’m not leaving without
you.”

“I quit the Cavalry. They
had no choice but to put me in prison.”

“That’s stupid! Come back.”

“No”

She sat down on the hard metal chair
and glanced up when the electrical current was cut off to the bars,
“Last warning… touch those bars and I’ll ash this entire
coven.”

“Contact Council City,” Lord Dexter
told another heku.

“No!” she screamed. “No
one calls the Council… you’re on very thin ice right now, and
unless you want to lose your entire coven, I suggest you sit tight
and do nothing.”