Encala (42 page)

“
No warmth. Nice,” she
said, and stood up again. She looked both ways down the corridor.
“Come on Emily…”

Sighing, Emily set off down the long
corridor again. She came to another room and peered around inside,
“Light.”

The room lit up and she checked twice, there
were no skeletons. Emily looked carefully at the walls. Ancient
drawings were painted on them, and they reminded her of the old
cave paintings left by the Mayans.

She looked closer and realized they read
like a story. First was a peaceful village, the people hunted and
played. Then a heku arrived, his teeth were exaggerated in the old
drawing. The story was continued on the next wall, and she followed
along with it. Once the heku began to make friends with the people
of the village, he moved in with them. Late one night, he descended
on them in a mass slaughter. The next pictograph showed the heku
laughing while blood dripped down his chin.

Emily frowned and turned around when she saw
a shadow move. She put her back against the wall when a strange
heku entered.

“
Who are you?” she asked
him.

“
The Elder sent me to find
you, are you ok?” he asked, concerned.

Emily nodded and smiled, “I’m ok, just
cold.”

Chevalier’s fists tightened on the chair,
and the wood splintered at his touch.

“
Ready to go back to the
palace?” he asked.

“
More than ready,” she
said, taking a step toward him.

“
I’ll need payment first,”
the heku said, and watched her.

Emily froze and took a step back, “What did
you say your name is?”

“
I don’t think I did.” He
knocked her down quickly and sunk his teeth into her neck. His body
pinned her to the cold floor.

Emily screamed and pushed at him. He
suddenly disappeared and she got to her feet, clutching her neck.
Panting, she looked at her hand, there was no blood. She felt her
neck and the puncture wounds she expected to feel weren’t
there.

Emily staggered out into the corridor again,
still breathing quickly, “Light.”

The corridor’s torches lit up.

Emily blew her breath into her hands, trying
to warm them, but it didn’t work. Rubbing her arms with her hands,
she sat down against the wall. She sat for hours and rocked on the
cold ground.

“
Emily,” the voice sounded
from ahead of her and she froze, her body tensing.

“
No,” Chevalier
hissed.

“
Keith?” Emily whispered,
and her ex-husband stepped out of the shadows, smiling.

Emily took a step back. He was smiling and
coming to her with his arms open wide.

“
Stay back,” she said,
putting her hand out.

“
Oh come on. I can help
you,” he said, and stopped. He adjusted the Stetson on his head and
watched her.

“
No you can’t, go away,”
she said, angrily.

“
I can, I can show you how
to get back to him, Emily, back to Chevalier and Allen. They are
really worried about you,” he sounded worried.

“
You… you are going to show
me back to them?” Emily frowned.

“
Of course. The vampires
are good for you. I can see that now,” Keith took a step back. “I
loved you. I just didn’t know how to show it. I only want what’s
best for you, and that’s Chevalier.”

“
I don’t believe you,” she
said, hesitating.

“
You don’t have to believe
me. Let me take you back to him,” Keith said, putting a hand
out.

Emily’s eyes filled with terror, and she
turned and ran away from him. The footsteps behind her kept up with
her pace, and she pushed herself harder, yelling for the lights
every few seconds so she didn’t run into a skeleton.

Emily emerged into the kitchen of the
Montana ranch house and she stopped. The tile floor was too cold
against her bare feet. She turned to look behind her, and the
passageway was gone. Only the back wall of the kitchen was
there.

“
Mommy!” she heard Allen
call to her from the bedroom. She ran through the doorway and
looked around. The room was covered in blood. It dripped from the
ceiling and slid sickeningly down the walls.

Emily jumped at the heku on the bed. He had
his teeth sunk into Allen’s neck and the toddler was no longer
moving. She landed on his back and wrenched his neck hard to the
side. The heku fell against the bed, not moving.

Emily picked up Allen’s lifeless body and
cradled him in her arms. She kissed his bloody forehead and
cried.

“
Come on, Baby, wake up,”
she said, as tears streamed down her face.

“
I’m sorry, Emily. It was
an accident. I didn’t mean to,” Kyle said, standing up from the bed
as blood fell down his chin.

“
Wha… what…” Kyle said from
the game room. He was horrified by his image in the
fire.

Chevalier stood up, grabbed the pool table,
and threw it at the wall, where it splintered into pieces and
landed with a crash.

“
You killed him,” Emily
said to Kyle.

“
You can have another, it’s
ok,” Kyle said to her, smiling. “Let me take him, at least let me
finish. I’m still thirsty.”

Emily glared at him and took a step back,
“Stay away from him.”

“
He’s already dead. It
won’t hurt if I have just a little more,” Kyle said, moving toward
her.

The heku in the game room knew the look on
Emily’s face. She was trying to turn him into ash.

Emily screamed, frustrated, when Kyle didn’t
even flinch as he reached out for Allen’s body.

“
No!” Emily screamed at
him, and turned to run. The dark corridor appeared behind her and
she carried Allen’s body through the opening and into
it.

“
Light!” she screamed, and
ran. She could hear Kyle walking quickly behind her, easily keeping
up.

“
Emily, stop,” she heard
the familiar voice behind her. She turned quickly and looked at
him.

“
Troy?” she asked,
frowning.

The man smiled, “We miss you at the office,
Emily.”

“
Help him,” she
begged.

“
Help who?” Troy asked.
Emily looked down at her empty arms, then back to the
man.

“
Where did he
go?”

“
Listen to me Emily, have I
ever lied to you?” Troy said.

“
No”

“
You have to get away. You
have to leave the heku to save yourself,” he said, his voice soft
and tender.

“
But…” she said, not sure
what to say.

“
Remember when you told me
about Keith? Remember how I told you to leave him and offered to
lend you some money?” he reminded her.

“
Yes,” she
whispered.

“
You didn’t take my advice,
now you see I was right though.”

Emily nodded.

“
So trust me this time. Get
away while you still can. Take your son and run,” he said, stepping
back into the shadows.

“
Troy, don’t go,” she said
to him, but it was too late.

Emily turned to the wall, her eyes opened
wide. She could hear voices from the other side of the wall.

“
Chev!” she screamed, and
then pressed her ear against the wall. She could hear the familiar
voices clearly.

“
How much longer?” Maleth
asked.

“
It takes time. I have to
play the part or she’ll get suspicious,” Chevalier
answered.

“
If it’s another boy?”
Leonid questioned.

“
Then we try again. We’ll
just tell her the boy died at birth. We don’t need another brat
running around the palace,” Chevalier said.

Emily frowned.

“
Agreed, just keep trying,”
Leonid suggested.

“
Oh I will. She’s a sexy
little thing,” Chevalier said.

“
You aren’t becoming
attached are you, Elder?” Maleth asked.

“
Hell no, I’ll enjoy her
while I can, but when the time comes, I’ll drain her without a
second thought,” Chevalier said, coldly.

Emily pulled away from the wall slowly.

Chevalier stopped watching the flames. He
was watching his hands, enraged.

“
I never said that,” Maleth
said, frustrated. He looked at the other heku in the game room, “I
swear.”

“
We know,” Leonid told him,
and touched his shoulder.

“
The pattern is
disturbing,” Mark said. “The ones she trusts, tell her to get away
from us. The heku and the ones she don’t trust, tell her to stay
with us.”

“
Driving a wedge between
the mortal and immortal worlds,” Maleth said, nodding.

Emily slunk down on the wall and sat on the
cold ground. She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her
arms tightly around them, then sunk her head between her arms. Her
entire body shook with cold and fear.

“
We could get another
mortal to go in after her,” Mark suggested.

“
She won’t trust them,”
Kyle said.

“
There has to be something
we can do. She’s been down there for almost 24 hours,” Mark said,
frustrated.

“
Even if we somehow managed
to get a heku down there, what would they do? She wouldn’t listen
to them, and if I had to guess, she’d run from them anyway,” Kyle
said, watching Emily in the flames.

Emily screamed as two hands reached out and
grabbed her bare feet. She kicked hard, but they pulled her down
the corridor. The shadows were too dark to make out who it was.
Emily turned to her stomach and tried to claw at the ground. She
was dragged into a small room, and when the torches lit, she
flipped back around.

“
Hello, Sweetness,” Vaughn
said, letting her feet go.

Emily scrambled to her feet and turned for
the corridor, but the opening closed. There was only solid wall
behind her. She turned around and put her back against the
wall.

“
Stay away from me,” she
said to him.

He stepped toward her and pinned her to the
wall with his body. He took her wrists in his hands, and extended
her arms out, then ran his nose up her neck, inhaling.

Emily struggled to get out of his grasp,
“Let me go!”

“
Not until I get what I was
promised,” he said, and ran his cold tongue up the side of her
face.

Emily brought her knee up hard, but he was
too tall and it didn’t connect with him.

“
You need to learn some
manners, Child,” Vaughn said, and kissed her roughly. He screamed
and pulled away from her, grabbing his lip.

Emily ran to the other side of the small
room, the furthest she could get from him.

“
You little Bitch, you bit
me,” he said, snarling. “If you don’t learn some obedience, I’ll
leave you down here permanently.”

Emily frowned, “This is your doing?”

He smiled, “Of course, I always get what I
want.”

“
Let me out of here,” Emily
said, angrily.

“
It’s only fair… you bit
me…” Vaughn was on her in a second and had her cradled in his arms,
his teeth buried in her neck.

This time, Emily felt the warm flow of
blood, and her body became relaxed. She stopped fighting, and felt
herself becoming soft and limp in his arms.

Vaughn looked up at her and grinned, then
ran his tongue along the punctures in her neck, “See, that wasn’t
so bad.”

Emily blinked a few times and then lunged
out of his arms. She ran her fingers over the puncture wounds on
her neck.

“
You’ll like the rest of
what I have planned too,” he said, stepping toward her.

Emily screamed in anger. She wasn’t able to
ash him either.

“
Now, let’s get this over
with. Your blood is Encala, and we feel it only proper that you
join us. We’re needing leadership, and you and I… we could rule the
faction,” he said, smiling.

Emily watched him, suspiciously.

“
I’m the strongest heku in
the Encala, and you… my dearest Emily, are the only Winchester
alive. With a few children, the Encala would be unstoppable,” he
said, smiling.

“
You did this?” she asked,
frowning.

“
Yes, your loyalty is
essential for us to rule… your everlasting loyalty,” he said,
looking into her eyes.

“
I am loyal.”

Vaughn smiled, “That’s my girl. Prove it to
me, and we’ll leave this wretched place.”

“
Prove it to you?” she
asked, confused.

“
Yes, consummate the bond,
and we can leave. It’s that simple,” he took a step towards
her.

“
You misunderstand who I’m
loyal to,” she said, looking up at him.

Maleth and Leonid both moved closer to the
flame. Chevalier looked down at his hands, and Kyle glared at the
wall.

“
You must declare your
loyalty to the Encala, then to me,” Vaughn said,
sternly.

“
I’m only loyal to one
faction, and it’s not yours,” she said, watching him.

“
You don’t have to really
mean it though,” Vaughn said, taking her hand. “You just have to
say it, and do that one little thing for me, and then we can get up
to the warmth.”

Emily shook her head and took her hand away
from him, “No.”