Encala (46 page)

“
Keys,” Chevalier demanded
of the guard, and immediately began opening the cell
door.

“
I’m the only one that can
help you, Emily. I’m the only one that knows how to end it. If he
kills me, he’s only killing the enchanted image of me, and then
you’ll be alone. No way out,” Vaughn said, watching her.

“
Chevalier, get out,” she
said, quickly.

“
Don’t listen to him, he’s
lying,” Chevalier said from inside the cell.

“
Get out before I ash you,”
she said, and Chevalier felt the slightest bit of burn start in his
chest.

“
Turn him to ash, Emily. Do
it and show me your loyalty,” Vaughn smiled.

Chevalier backed out of the cell and the
burning stopped. He turned to her, “He’s lying. You have to trust
me.”

“
Emily, listen to
Chevalier,” Mark said, stepping out of the shadow.

“
If I let you go, will you
let me out?” she asked Vaughn.

He nodded, “Come with me. I hold the key to
the runes. You can’t resist it forever. Soon you’ll come when I
call.”

“
I’ll worry about the runes
later, just let me out of this corridor,” she said,
begging.

“
Emily, you can’t let him
go,” Chevalier said, and touched her hand softly. She screamed and
jerked away from him, landing on her back on the floor. She crawled
backwards way from him, frantically.

Emily scrambled to her feet and ran up the
stairs, ignoring the pain from the gravel cuts. She disappeared
into the upstairs foyer.

Chevalier growled at Vaughn, “How dare
you.”

“
Have fun with her now.
She’ll come running to me soon enough,” Vaughn said to
him.

“
Unless you’re dead
first.”

“
You can’t kill me. Code
says you have to keep me until a release is negotiated. I’m the
only Elder the Encala have,” he said smugly, and sat
down.

“
So you’re an Elder now?”
Chevalier asked.

“
Yes, when all three Elders
died, I was the only council member to take their place,” he
explained. “When Emily comes to me, she’ll sit at my side as the
second… well… after she’s given me a female child and we turn her
into an immortal, of course.”

Mark held Chevalier back and whispered into
his ear, “Just wait, we’ll get him.”

They headed back to the door and Chevalier
turned to the guards.

“
I don’t care if she
threatens to ash you. If I catch her down here, you’ll wish she
had,” he growled and walked up the stairs.

“
Where is she?” he asked at
the top of the stairs.

“
Stable,” he heard a voice
say from far away.

“
Kyle,” Chevalier said, and
Kyle blurred to his side. Chevalier stood and looked out the window
to the stables as Mark filled Kyle in, word-for-word, on what had
just occurred.

“
How did he even know?”
Kyle asked, baffled.

“
It has to be a connection
through those runes,” Chevalier said.

Chevalier’s eyes narrowed as he saw the
silhouette of a figure on top of the stable roof, “What is she
doing?”

Kyle looked out, “I’m not sure.”

“
Dad!” Emily called into
wind.

Chevalier frowned.

“
Help me,” she whispered
softly, and sunk down into her protective ball and
rocked.

“
We could sedate her and
bring her in here. We can keep her here until we figure out how to
convince her,” Mark said.

Chevalier shook his head, “We aren’t going
to earn her trust by betraying it.”

Damon walked up and looked out the window,
“Just leave her. She’ll figure it out on her own. You all indulge
her too much.”

Chevalier growled at him.

Damon looked over at him, “I just mean…
she’s not hurting anyone out there but herself. When she decides to
see logic, she’ll come down.”

“
She’s up there because our
ancestors scared her to death,” Kyle snapped at him.

“
She’ll live,” Damon said.
He shrugged and walked off when the other heku glared at
him.

Chevalier turned around and gasped just as
Emily jumped off of the roof of the stables. Chevalier, Mark, and
Kyle blurred to the other side of the stables, prepared to find her
dead on the ground. Instead, she was lying on her back on a loose
pile of straw that stood taller than the heku. When they saw her
crawling out of the straw, they scattered quickly and joined up
back in the palace.

“
I didn’t…” Kyle said, and
Chevalier cut him off.

“
Don’t say it,” he
said.

“
But I…”

They watched as she dusted straw off of
herself and went into the storage room.

“
Tell me if anything
happens,” Chevalier said, disappearing into his office.

“
What do you think she’s
doing?” Mark asked.

Kyle shrugged.

“
Erm… does she… no way,”
Mark said, watching Emily walked toward the palace.

“
Yeah she does,” Kyle said,
frowning. “Kind of weird things to have.”

“
Should we move back?” Mark
asked, disappearing into the shadows, followed by Kyle.

Emily walked into the palace. She had a 9mm
tucked into the back of her jeans, and a shotgun in her hand. She
ignored the fact that the door guards were gone, and stepped into
the foyer. Without stopping, she made her way to the prison
entrance and walked down the stairs.

“
Damn,” Kyle said,
following her.

The guards looked at her fearfully when they
saw her, “You can’t come down here, Ma’am.”

“
Yes I can. Hand me the key
to Vaughn’s cell.” She held out her hand.

“
No, Ma’am, strict orders
from the Elder,” he said.

“
Don’t make me ash you,
just give me the key.”

The two guards looked at each other
nervously, “No, Ma’am.”

“
Fine,” she said, and Kyle
watched, shocked, when both of the door guards turned to ash. Emily
went through their pockets and pulled out the keys.

“
I… I… can’t believe… she
did that,” Mark stammered.

“
We’ll call Damon in a sec.
Let’s find out what she’s doing first, before we raise the alarm,”
Kyle suggested, and they moved to the dark shadows around Vaughn’s
cell.

“
Hello, my bride,” Vaughn
said, standing up.

Emily opened the shotgun and loaded two
shells of buckshot into it. She cocked it back.

“
You can’t kill me with a
gun,” Vaughn chuckled.

“
I’m not looking to kill
you, just hurt you,” she pushed the shotgun through the cell bars.
Kyle and Mark covered their ears less than a second before the
first shot rang out through the palace. The second shot came a few
moments later, and she sat the shotgun down by her feet.

Vaughn was moaning in his cell, but healing
quickly from the small pellet wounds. Emily unlocked the door and
pulled out the 9mm. She pointed it right at Vaughn and quickly shot
off 16 rounds into his head. Blood covered her and the walls of the
cell and Vaughn screamed in agony.

“
We should stop her,” Mark
said, and leaned back against the wall.

“
Yup, we should,” Kyle
agreed, watching.

Emily stepped inside, lowering the 9mm down
toward Vaughn. She aimed directly at his groin and fired off
another 9 rounds.

“
Ouch,” Mark
whispered.

Kyle cringed.

“
Still wanna get it on?”
she asked, and emptied the rest of the clip into him. She hit a
button and the clip fell to the ground. She pulled another out of
her pocket and jammed it into the gun and leveled it back at
Vaughn.

“
Ready to take the runes
off?” she asked him.

Vaughn just groaned. He was healing, but not
fast enough to alleviate the pain.

Damon, Maleth, Leonid, and Chevalier blurred
into the corner with them.

“
Who is shooting a gun in
my palace?” Maleth growled.

Mark pointed at Emily.

“
Ok,” Emily said, and
emptied the second lip into the heku.

“
That has to hurt,” Kyle
said.

Mark nodded.

Chevalier raised his eyebrows.

Emily stepped out of the cell and dropped
the 9mm on the floor, picking up the shotgun. She grabbed the
barrel and slammed the stock of the gun into Vaughn’s head. The
sickening crack was followed by a splash of new blood onto Emily
and the walls.

“
We were talking about how
we should stop her,” Kyle said, leaning back against the
wall.

“
Yeah I guess we should,”
Mark nodded.

Emily screamed and continued to smash Vaughn
with the stock of the shotgun relentlessly. Blood was dripping from
the walls, and she was covered with pieces of flesh and blood. She
started at his head, and moved down to shatter both of his legs.
His screaming had turned to gargles as he fought to breathe through
the blood in his mouth.

“
Did you want to stop her
or should I?” Kyle asked casually.

“
Doesn’t matter to me,”
Mark answered.

“
We really do need to stop
her,” Damon said, concerned.

“
Want to remove it now,
Child?” she asked, standing over him.

He tried to get his hands under him, but
Emily smashed the butt of the shotgun down on the back of his neck,
crushing his vertebrae. He fell limp to the ground.

Emily took a second to catch her breath, and
then brought the shotgun up again. She brought it down toward
Vaughn’s back, but he rolled out of the way, grabbed her foot, and
she slammed into the ground.

The Equites reacted quickly. Mark and Kyle
tackled Vaughn while Chevalier grabbed Emily under her arms and
pulled her out of Vaughn’s grasp.

“
I’m not done!” Emily
yelled, trying to crawl back into the cell.

“
I think he’s had enough,”
Chevalier told her, grabbing her waist to stop her from going back
inside. He lifted her up to her feet.

She was dripping with blood and pushed her
hair off of her face to see Vaughn better. Kyle and Mark managed to
pin him against the ground, he was almost entirely healed.

“
Take it off,” she glared
down at him.

“
No,” he
growled.

Emily ran forward and kicked. Vaughn
screamed when her foot connected with his lower jaw and broke it
into several pieces.

Chevalier pulled Emily back out of the cell,
chuckling.

“
Impressive, for a mortal,”
Damon said, leaning against the wall and laughing.

Maleth and Leonid disappeared up the
stairs.

“
Guess I better go bring
back the guards,” Damon said, and walked over to the two piles of
ashes by the door.

Emily tucked the 9mm into the back of her
pants and picked up the bloody shotgun. She looked at Vaughn in the
clutches of Kyle and Mark, and walked toward the door. She glared
once at the one revived door guard and moved slowly up the stairs
to the foyer. Chevalier followed her, keeping a slight
distance.

Emily stopped at the bedroom door and turned
to Chevalier, “Where’s the money from the sale of my ranch?”

He frowned, “It’s in an account in your
name.”

“
I’ll need to get at it,”
she said, turning toward the door.

“
Emily, if you need
something, all you have to do is ask,” he said, following
her.

“
Just give me the account,
and I won’t have to ask permission for anything.”

“
I didn’t say you had to
ask permission, but I’ll give you anything you want.”

“
As long as I ask for it,”
she said.

“
That’s not what I mean,
and you know it,” he said, sitting down.

“
What I need is a laptop
with an Internet connection and that account information when I get
out of the shower… add in some privacy, and I’ll be good,” she
walked into the bathroom and shut the door.

Emily had to take a very long shower to get
all of the blood off of her and out of her hair. She dried off and
threw on a long t-shirt and jeans, then went out into the bedroom.
She nodded when she saw the laptop and a debit card sitting beside
it. She grabbed her cell phone and made the call.

A few hours later, Emily was done. She went
out to find Chevalier and finally found him and the other Elders in
the game room. She stepped in just in time to catch the end of the
conversation.

“
We’ll find a mortal soon.
We have to be selective,” Maleth said.

“
A mortal for what?” she
asked, and they turned to look at her.

Chevalier glared at Maleth when he stepped
forward, “We need a mortal’s blood to seal the door forever.”

“
No,” Chevalier
hissed.

“
That’s all you need? A
mortal’s blood?” she asked, skeptically.

“
Emily, no,” Chevalier said
to her.

“
Do it then,” she said, and
walked forward, holding her wrist out.

“
I said no,” he
growled.

“
Oh sure, then what? Let
Allen walk through there?” she kept her wrist out to
Maleth.

“
There is another way,” he
said.