Banishment : Book 9 of the Heku Series (6 page)

“We?”

“Myself, the heku who turned me, and the
three heku living with us.”

“Ok, go on.”

“It was an Equites attack. We’d just moved
into a house in Paris, not knowing that there were Equites nearby.
So, one night we staged an attack of our own and wiped them
out.”

Emily frowned, “How many did you kill?”

“Me personally or all of us combined?” Andrew
asked.

“Just you.”

“Eighteen over the course of the night.”

She felt her heart sink, “Ok.”

“The Equites easily caught us, and I was
banished for 400 years by Chevalier…”

“Wait! You were banished?” she asked, her
eyes wide.

“Yes”

“For the entire 400 years?”

He nodded.

“You never told me that.”

“Not something I brag about.”

She was finding it hard to speak, “You
suffered…”

“More than you could imagine. I also planned…
and what I planned to do was to seek out a faction. It was too
dangerous to be unfactioned,” Andrew explained.

Emily leaned over and sunk her face into her
hands.

Andrew sighed and continued, “So when I
revived, I immediately ran into the Encala and was imprisoned. Not
my best day, let me tell you.”

She managed to look up at him again.

He smiled, “After another 400 years in their
prison, I finally convinced them that I wanted to join them.”

“But they imprisoned you.”

“I understood why… and I understood that they
could have just killed me. I talked tactics to the Prison Guards
and earned myself an immediate spot on their guard staff when I was
released.”

“I can’t believe you were banished,” she
whispered.

“It’s horrible, but we do recover, and I
learned a valuable lesson. It changed everything and prepared me
for a life following a faction.”

“I want to get the Elders together and try to
abolish banishment,” she told him.

Andrew smiled, “That’s not going to happen.
Banishment is the best possible option to rehabilitate a heku. The
only other option is death.”

“Or prison.”

“We can’t put that many into a prison without
a facility large enough the mortals would notice.”

“It’s terrible.”

“Yes”

Emily put her hand on her stomach, “I’m going
to be sick.”

His eyes narrowed, “Are you pregnant?”

“Oh my God! I’m not always pregnant.”

He grinned, “Could have fooled me.”

She glared at him.

“I was just kidding, ok? Are you really
getting sick?”

“Just the thought of banishment makes me
sick.”

“Well now you know that a heku can truly
recover,” Andrew told her.

She nodded and stood up when she heard
someone coming. Andrew stayed sitting in his cell and leaned
forward with his elbows on his knees.

“Enjoying your stay?” a heku asked, scowling
at them.

“What faction is this?” Andrew snapped.

The heku turned to Emily, “We’ve never had a
human in our prison. You’d have to be pretty stupid to hang around
a Chief Interrogator.”

Emily glared at him, “You’d have to be pretty
stupid to kidnap the…”

“Em,” Andrew said, cutting her off. He looked
over at the heku, “What exactly do you want?”

“We want you to suffer… we want to drive you
insane.”

Andrew scowled, “Good luck with that.”

“Don’t encourage him,” Emily said,
frowning.

“Have you made an offer to the Encala for my
release?”

“No”

“Which is against heku laws. I’m on the
Council and therefore, have to be ransomed.”

The heku grinned, “We’ll do that after we
torture you a bit.”

“Yeah, I’m not going to let you torture him,”
Emily said.

The heku started to laugh and then turned and
left.

“I don’t like him,” Emily said after the door
shut behind the laughing heku.

“You can’t tell them who you are. It’s too
dangerous,” Andrew told her.

“I just have the sudden urge to wipe them
out. I’ve done it before.”

“Yes, but then we’ll be stuck in here.”

“Can’t you break out of there?”

“My bars are electrified.”

“Oh”

They both turned when the door to the prison
opened again. The strange heku immediately began to open Emily’s
cell, so she backed up against the wall and then fell into an
attack posture.

The heku saw her and smiled, “You going to
fight me?”

“Bring it,” she hissed.

His grin widened, “What do I get if I
win?”

“You have no idea who you’re messing with,”
Andrew growled at him.

The heku blurred faster than Emily could see
and pinned her against the wall with her hands tightly held out to
her sides. His body pressed against hers, and she found it hard to
breathe.

“Why would you marry an Encala?” he asked
before pressing his lips to hers. She screamed when his tongue
plunged into her mouth, and she bit hard, instantly tasting the
sickening blood.

“You bitch!” he yelled, and then backhanded
her to the floor. Emily tried to get up, but he kicked out and
caught her in the side, sending painful stabs through her body,
“You better watch it, mortal. You’re treading on thin ice.”

“Stop it!” Andrew yelled just as the heku
kicked again, painfully hitting her hip. She groaned softly, and
the pain caused her to black out.

***

Emily slowly climbed through the fog over her
mind and pulled toward the light. She could feel severe pain in her
shoulder and chest but wasn’t able to speak. There was a terrible
taste in her mouth and a tightness around her face. When she became
more aware, she realized she was gagged and hanging from shackles
high on the wall where her feet didn’t touch.

When she opened her eyes, she saw she was in
an interrogation room. As her eyes adjusted, she also saw that she
was alone. There was an empty fireplace along one wall and an iron
maiden across from it. She was hanging beside several pairs of
shackles, and a rack was situated off to her left. The guillotine
and stockade were one device and stood alongside the only door.

Emily tried to call out, to get someone to
come into the room, but the gag successfully kept any noise from
escaping. She tried to slip her wrists out of the metal shackles
but ended up only causing more pain in her shoulder.

It was hours later, when the pain was almost
unbearable, that someone finally came in. Emily was shocked when
two guards entered dragging Andrew along behind them. He seemed
unconscious, and they strapped him into a chair that had long wires
coming out of it that hooked to a panel with buttons.

Emily screamed, trying to get their
attention. The closest heku turned to her and smiled, “Is the
little human uncomfortable? Your husband isn’t hurt, Sweetie. You
just picked the wrong heku to love is all.”

She frowned and kicked out at the other heku
when he backed up closer to her. He turned and glared at her,
“We’re vampires… don’t tick me off.”

She rolled her eyes and tried to speak
again.

“Murso,” one of the heku said. The other
turned around to look at him, “Check it. This human isn’t afraid of
us.”

“Of course not,” he said, smiling at her.
“She’s bonded to this no-good heku. I’m sure the Encala weren’t
strong enough to scare a human.”

Andrew made a soft growl as he started to
wake up. The heku named Murso went over and looked down at him,
“Hey, Chief Interrogator. Make a noise and we’ll shock you. We’re
going to show you the power of the Equites by making you pay for an
interrogation you did on a member of our coven.”

Emily gasped and looked at them with wide
eyes. She had assumed they were Valle and was surprised to learn
her own faction had kidnapped her this time. Kidnapped Andrew, she
corrected. They didn’t seem to know who she was.

Andrew looked up finally and focused in on
Emily. He started to yell, but Murso hit the button and Andrew
screamed.

“No talking, Encala,” Murso yelled. “We’re
going to let you watch us torture your wife… see how you like when
someone you care about is interrogated.”

Emily screamed again to get their attention
and then glared at them and shook her head no.

Murso started to laugh, “She’s got the fire.
I'll give her that.”

She kicked out again when the other heku
walked over to her, but he easily dodged and lightly ran his hand
down her side, then slipped it around and gently squeezed her
butt.

“Gorgeous this one. No wonder he stooped to
marrying a mortal,” he said, smiling at her.

“He doesn’t have an essence ring,” Murso
said.

“He probably doesn’t want his faction to
know.”

“True… what shall we do first?”

He slipped his hand under her camisole and
roughly squeezed her right breast, “I have an idea where to
start.”

Emily kicked out and connected with his neck,
successfully closing off his windpipe. He immediately fell to the
floor, fighting to breathe.

Murso blurred to her and hit her hard, “Don’t
fight us, bitch.”

She started to black out but fought against
it and her head finally cleared just as the heku she’d kicked got
to his feet.

“You ok?” Murso asked, helping his heku
friend to his feet.

“Yes… but now she’s going to get it worse
because of that.”

“Let’s get it over with and make him suffer.”
Murso walked up and unbuttoned Emily’s leather pants, then swiftly
pulled them off. Andrew grimaced when he saw the deep purple bruise
that had formed on her hip where she was kicked.

“That’s…” Andrew started to yell, but Murso
hit the button and started the electrical current again.

“I don’t really care who that is. We’ll show
her a real heku… not some pansy Encala. We Equites know how to
treat a woman,” Murso’s friend said, then winked at Emily.

She sighed, and as soon as Murso touched her
again, he and his friend fell to ash at her feet.

“Good girl,” Andrew said, looking down at
them. “Are you ok?”

Emily looked up at her hands.

“Oh! Your shoulder must be bad.”

She nodded.

“Did you ash the entire coven?”

Emily shook her head no.

“Do it. They’ll come down to check on
us.”

Her eyes grew wide.

“There're only 80 or so of them…” Before
Andrew had finished, Emily shut her eyes tightly. When she opened
them, a small stream of blood trickled down her lip and onto the
gag.

“Now to get out of here,” Andrew said,
pulling at his chains. When his body tensed, Emily knew that he’d
closed a circuit and been electrocuted again.

She watched as he healed and when he looked
up at her, she shook her head.

Andrew sighed and looked around the
interrogation room, “Can you still get messages to Chevalier?”

She nodded.

“Tell him to come get us out of here.”

Emily just watched him.

Finally, he smiled, “Oh right. We don’t know
where we are.”

She looked up at her hands and pulled against
the leather cuffs, sending a small trail of blood down her arm.

“Don’t make it worse, Hun,” Andrew said. He
noticed while she was struggling that her ribcage on one side was a
mass of bruises, “How badly are you hurt?”

She looked over at him, and he saw her eyes
filling with tears.

“We’ll get out, ok? I swear it.”

Emily nodded and tried to rub her arm against
the gag to see if she could loosen it. Andrew was looking carefully
around the room to see if he could figure out how to get free.

He looked over at her when she moaned softly,
and he saw her arms begin to shake from the pain, “Ok, yell Murso’s
name to Chevalier. Maybe he can figure out where we are. That's not
a common name.”

She ignored him and focused on relieving her
shoulder pain. Her struggling was making it worse, but the pain was
becoming intolerable, and she had to find relief.

“Em, calm down,” Andrew said softly. “We
can’t get out of here unless you can get a message to
Chevalier.”

***

“I don’t believe you!” Kyle yelled into the
phone. “She’s in pain and she was last seen with your
Interrogator.”

“We wouldn’t hurt Emily. Especially not
Andrew,” William said. “They were supposed to arrive three days ago
and haven’t been seen.”

“Why didn’t you notify us?” Chevalier
hissed.

“We have heku out looking for them. We really
thought that they probably stopped to rest.”

“For three days?!”

“There was a large accident that shut down
parts of the Interstate for almost 16 hours. We figured they took a
detour and maybe decided to keep riding.”

Chevalier slammed his fist into the phone,
shutting off the connection, “She’s been missing for four days
then.”

“You can’t tell what type of pain?” Quinn
asked.

“Not exactly. It’s not that specific.”

“Let’s send our own heku out and find
her.”

Chevalier frowned suddenly and held his hand
out to silence the heku. His brow deepened and he turned to the
others, “What’s a murso?”

“Murso?” Zohn asked.

“Emily just told me murso.”

The Records Keeper disappeared and then
returned with a stack of papers, “Maybe a coven?”

As Records Keeper, he had perfect memory of
every coven in the Equites, but wanted to double check just to make
sure.

Chevalier ordered Silas to search the
internet for the word Murso, while the Records Keeper poured
through files.

They watched as he went through the coven
listing, “No Murso. I don’t think it’s even short for a coven
name.”

They looked up several minutes later when
Silas appeared, “I didn’t get any solid hits on murso.”

“Damnit,” Chevalier hissed. “She’s
terrified.”

“Do we have any heku named Murso?” Kyle asked
the Records Keeper.