Encala (30 page)

“
She can ash them,” Kyle
said in a harsh whisper.

“
We need to figure out how
to help her see this while she’s awake. The blood bond has to be
the answer. The strength of the Ancient in her veins.” Chevalier
looked at her with a deeper respect.

“
Did Ulrich
know?”

“
I don’t think so… if he
had, he wouldn’t have let her live a mortal life, I’m sure of it.
He would have had the greatest trophy,” Chevalier looked at
Kyle.

“
We need to keep this to
ourselves as long as we can,” Kyle said.

Chevalier nodded, “Emily will know, we have
to tell her.”

“
Agreed”

“
That’s why she doesn’t
remember.”

Kyle frowned slightly, “What do you
mean?”

“
When the heku visited
Emily’s mother, he was able to erase her memory. She had no idea of
the visits. So when this Ancient sends the ritual of pain and the
commands to Emily, he then erases his tracks. That’s why she
doesn’t know about them,” Chevalier said, seething.

Chevalier curled up next to her and shut his
eyes. His mind filled with swirls of gray and the soft flow of
emotions. She was no longer walking the hallways of the Encala
palace. She was now dreaming.

***

“
Just concentrate,”
Chevalier said, watching Emily as she sat cross-legged on the
bed.

Emily shut her eyes and breathed deeply. She
let her shoulders relax, and then her arms. The room was entirely
quiet, even though she was very much aware that fifteen heku were
currently watching her.

Emily opened one eye.

“
Em,” Chevalier
sighed.

“
I’m sorry, this is
embarrassing… can’t I just try this alone?” she asked.

“
No, you can’t, try
again.”

“
I’m not getting anything.
When I shut my eyes, all I see is… well… the insides of my
eyelids,” she said with a smirk.

“
You aren’t concentrating.”
Damon said, frustrated.

“
You aren’t helping,” she
snapped at Damon.

Damon growled, “She can’t do it.”

Emily’s eyes narrowed, “You are getting on
my last nerve.”

“
Heku blood or not, you’re
a mortal, and too weak to undertake this task,” he said to her,
coldly.

Emily launched off of the bed, catching
Damon off guard. She slammed into him, knocking him to the ground.
He brought his hands up defensively as Emily crashed her fist into
his nose, shattering it. Damon hissed just as Emily felt strong
hands against her waist lift her off of him.

“
Calm down,” Chevalier
said, laughing. He held her as she fought to get free.

“
Let me show him just how
weak I am,” she roared.

“
He’s sorry he called you
weak,” Maleth said, watching her, amused.

“
No, I’m not,” Damon told
them, and stood up to readjust his nose.

“
Did you want to feel the
burn or do you just want ashed quickly?” Emily threatened, pulling
at Chevalier’s fingers to get loose.

“
Emily calm down… Damon…
get lost,” Chevalier said, still grinning. The image of Emily
flying off of the bed onto Damon made him want to laugh.

Emily screamed at him as he left,
“Masochistic, psychopathic, mal-adjusted heku... you belong with
the unstable Encala...” Chevalier cut off her words by wrapping a
hand around her mouth.

Damon spun and started back into the room,
but was topped by Leonid’s hand on his shoulder. The Elder looked
back at Chevalier once as he led Damon away from Emily.

“
Are you done?” Chevalier
asked, still amused. He was glad Emily couldn’t see his face. She
would be extremely upset that he found this funny.

“
Anyone else think I’m
weak?” Emily scowled as she looked around the room. None of the
heku would look at her. Some were turned around, but she could see
their shoulders move as they laughed.

Chevalier finally set her down on her feet,
“Get out. Everyone just get out.”

Chevalier nodded to them and her room
emptied out. She sat down on the bed, still angry. Emily laid back
on the bed and looked up at the ceiling. She watched the intricate
pattern of the tiles as she slowly calmed down.

The heku bowed to her as she walked along
the corridor. She could feel the swish of her robes as she
walked.

She studied the golden statues and the
paintings of heku along the walls. The carpets and drapes were all
blood-red.

“
We’re about ready to
begin,” she heard someone say from behind her.

“
Emily? What are you
doing?” the voice came from far away.

She walked down the hallway after the heku.
She could feel the excitement in the air. She opened the door and
walked into a round room.

“
We’re a little early.
I’ll go see what’s taking the others so long,” the heku said, and
left. Emily was alone in the room. She looked at the walls and ran
her fingers along the runes etched into them. She followed along
the runes, tracing each one. She could feel the stone under her
finger and the grooves that formed the ancient text.

“
Emily, what are you
doing?” she heard again from a distance.

Emily turned when other heku walked in. They
were wearing dark blue robes, and each bowed to her. She moved to
the outside edge of the circle alongside the others. She saw the
mortal brought into the room, and he looked around at them,
afraid.

“
Mortal, do you know where
you are?” she saw a heku say to the man.

He nodded, “Yes.”

“
Do you know what is about
to happen?” she could feel the excitement building.

“
Yes”

“
Do you do so willingly
and without coercion?”

“
Yes”

“
Proceed”

Emily felt herself walk forward. She saw the
robes against her hand as she reached out, she was in a long black
robe.

She could feel the hiss escape her lips as
she brought her teeth to his neck and punctured his flesh with her
teeth. The blood flowed down her throat, and she could taste the
thick, salty liquid. She was aware of other heku doing the same and
had an urge to rip them apart, to protect her kill. She controlled
the urge and drank deeply as the man screamed.

“
Emily, stop!” she heard
the voice say to her.

Her instincts told her to stop, and she felt
herself pull away from him. Emily tore at her wrist, ripping open
her own vein, and she watched as her blood poured out, and the
mortal brought his lips to it and drank. It took some force to pull
away from the mortal, and as she did, he fell to the dirt floor
weakly.

Emily picked up a stick. She could feel the
hard wood under her hand as she began to draw runes into the dirt.
The mortal began to go into seizures as she proceeded to etch
around him, delicately carved runes older than time itself.

“
Emily stop, now!” she
heard a voice behind her, but she couldn’t stop.

She brought the stick up high above the
convulsing mortal and plunged it deep into his chest. She watched
as the blood poured out of him and ran into the runes. Emily looked
up as the ceiling began to glow. She heard the gasps from the heku
as the mortal fell silent.

“
He can’t be dead,” she
whispered.

Chevalier caught her as she fell and cradled
her in his arms. He was looking around the room at the sacred heku
runes painted on the walls. The gathered heku were too stunned to
speak.

“
Chevalier,” Kyle said,
looking at Emily.

He looked down at her and a trickle of blood
fell from her nose. Chevalier looked around the room again, and the
shaken faces of the heku turned to worry as they looked at him.

“
She… she just performed
the ceremony,” Frank said, looking at the runes
fearfully.

“
I know,” Chevalier hissed,
“I watched it.”

“
We’ll have to kill her. A
mortal can’t know,” Damon said, growling.

Chevalier turned and glared at him, “You’ll
have to get through me.”

“
She doesn’t know how to
perform the ceremony,” Kyle said. He seemed to be the only heku in
the room not completely shocked.

Damon turned to him, “We saw her. We all
did.”

“
She still doesn’t know…
I’m guessing there are some very confused Encala right now though,”
Kyle laughed, and the other heku looked at him, astonished he could
find any of this amusing.

“
This is very serious,
Kyle. A mortal cannot know about the ceremony. She can’t see the
runes and live,” Damon said.

Kyle shook his head, “Don’t you see? She did
it.”

“
I know she did. We saw
it,” Maleth said to Kyle.

Chevalier nodded, “She was seeing the
ceremony through the Ancient. Somewhere… in some Encala coven… the
ceremony has just failed. The mortal died.”

Leonid smiled, “She’s done it. She’s found a
connection back to the Ancient.”

“
Get these runes off of the
walls and the floors,” Chevalier said, and carried Emily out of the
room and into Kyle’s room. He laid her down on the bed and wiped
the blood from her nose.

“
She did it,” Kyle said,
proudly.

Chevalier nodded, “I just wish it hadn’t
been during a ceremony.”

“
It was a little creepy to
see her doing the actions to feed. I will admit that,” Kyle said,
sitting on a chair beside them.

“
I’m amazed at the details.
She painted those runes perfectly. Most heku can’t do that,”
Chevalier said, impressed.

“
Do you think she’ll
remember it?”

“
I don’t know. I guess it
depends on if the Ancient knows she was there or not.”

“
I taste blood,” Emily said
softly, her eyes still shut.

“
We’ll fix that,” Chevalier
promised, and reached out when a heku brought a glass of orange
juice to him.

Emily felt the glass against her lips, so
she opened her eyes and took the glass, drinking. She gave Kyle the
glass and crawled off of Chevalier’s lap.

“
I bit someone,” she said,
wrinkling her nose.

Chevalier nodded, “Yes, we saw.”

“
I couldn’t
stop.”

“
It wasn’t you. You were
the Ancient, you did it… you were able to see through his eyes.”
Chevalier kissed her forehead.

“
Gah, I still taste blood,
it’s salty and thick… ugh, nasty,” she said, shuddering.

Kyle laughed, “Some of us like that.”

“
That taste is making me
sick,” she said, putting her hand on her stomach, and Chevalier was
pretty sure she was turning a pale-ish green.

“
What would you like to
eat?” Chevalier grinned.

“
Bleach?”

Kyle laughed, “Is it really that bad?”

Emily covered her mouth and ran into Kyle’s
bathroom. He was glad he had it fitted with human necessities, just
in case.

“
I’ll take that as a yes,”
Chevalier said, raising an eyebrow.

Maleth and Leonid came in and looked around,
“Where is she?”

“
Vomiting, I do believe,”
Kyle said, smiling.

“
Is she ok?” Maleth
asked.

“
Yes, she can’t get the
taste of blood out of her mouth. It made her sick,” Chevalier
chuckled.

“
Hmm,” Leonid sighed and
sat down in a chair.

“
Curious,” Maleth said, and
leaned back against the wall.

“
Is her room ready?” Kyle
asked.

“
No, the runes aren’t
washing off… we are getting some paint,” Maleth
explained.

“
They won’t wash off? It
was just child’s paint she used.”

“
Yes, but ancient runes
don’t want to disappear,” Leonid explained.

Kyle nodded.

“
I’ll take that,” Chevalier
said to the heku that carried a tray into the room.

Emily emerged a few minutes later, still
pale.

“
Here’s your lunch,”
Chevalier said, pulling the dome off.

Emily sat down and started eating the
spaghetti and garlic bread. She looked up when she felt the others
watching her.

“
What?”

“
That smells awful,” Kyle
grimaced.

“
I asked for extra garlic
to get rid of that gross blood taste,” she said, taking another
bite from the garlic bread.

Maleth sat at the table by her, “Child? I’m
sorry… Emily… what do you remember?”

“
About what? The ceremony?”
she asked, taking another bite of spaghetti.

“
Yes”

“
All of it I guess,” she
shrugged and took a drink.

“
Can you write the runes
for me?” he asked, and handed her a notepad and a pen.

She shook her head, “I doubt it. I don’t
remember exactly what they looked like.”

Maleth smiled, “Very well.”

“
Blood taste is gone,” she
said, grinning, and took another bite of garlic bread.

“
I can’t imagine preferring garlic over blood,”
Kyle chuckled.

Emily held up a forkful of spaghetti, “I
dare you.”

Chevalier turned and looked at Kyle.