Equites : Book 4 of the Heku Series (43 page)

Emily heard them all come back in
while the baby was eating, but she didn’t care. She had her eyes
shut and was leaning against the round wall.

“
Hey!” Emily screamed when
Alexis was taken from her. She pulled the robe down to cover
herself and stood up as the baby was placed in the
bassinet.

“
It’s ok, Emily. Let’s
finish and then you can have her again,” Exavior said. Emily looked
over at him and frowned, he’d changed into a black robe.

Emily saw the blue robed heku line the
walls and she felt the panic begin when they started to hum
slightly, it was all too familiar.

“
What are you doing,
Exavior?” Emily asked, and stood up. Exavior grabbed her arms and
held her in the center of the room.

One of the blue robed figures moved
slightly toward her and spoke, “Mortal, do you know where you
are?”

“
Don’t do this,” Emily
screamed, and fought to get away from Exavior.

“
Do you know what is about
to happen?” he asked her, ignoring her response to the first
question.

“
Let go of me, or so help
me, I’ll ash your entire coven,” she hissed.

“
Do you do so willingly and
without coercion?”

“
No I do not,” she growled.
Emily noticed how tired she felt, weak and tired, which meant she
may not be able to ash enough of the heku to get out of there
alive.

“
Proceed,” he said, and
stepped back along the wall.

Exavior pushed Emily to her knees, and
she heard hisses as the twelve heku along the walls began to walk
toward her. He pushed her further until she was lying down on the
cold floor, and she felt the pain as thirteen heku sunk their teeth
into the soft flesh around her body.

She screamed and the fear flooded into
her, sending adrenaline through her. She sat up suddenly as all
thirteen heku in the room began to fall to the floor in agonizing
pain. She saw the bites on her body begin to bleed and as she stood
up, the robe fell to cover the wounds. She concentrated on those
around her and released them as they fell unconscious. She didn’t
have the strength to ash the entire coven, so she needed to get
away before they regained consciousness.

Emily grabbed the baby and ran from
the room. Her bare feet padded silently along the tile floors. She
stopped at the first Valle guard she saw, and he looked at her,
surprised.

“
Where’s the prison?” she
asked quickly.

He watched her and glared, “None of
your business.”

Emily gave him a brief shot of burning
pain and he fell to his knees, pointing down the
hallway.

She ran in the direction he pointed,
and repeated the process with each guard she encountered. She knew
she was leaving a trail of angry heku behind her. When she ran into
the prison, the first cells she came to contained only clothing,
including the dark green capes of the Equites. The cells were
standing open and a very angry heku watched her.

“
You don’t belong down
here,” he said to her. Emily saw the tiny dagger in his hand. It
looked exactly like the one Chevalier carried when she first met
him.

Emily looked at him angrily. He didn’t
deserve a brief pain, so she immediately turned him to ash and then
began to rifle through his clothing. She found a pocket full of
leather bags on the inside of his cape, and she took them and
dumped out the ash they contained onto the floor. Carefully, and
meticulously, Emily scooped up the ash from the three cells, and
tied them shut, and then shoved them deep into the pocket of the
gray robe. She looked around and saw the tiny dagger beside the
gray cloak. She picked it up quickly, and also stowed it in the
pocket.

Holding Alexis tightly, Emily made her
way back up to the foyer. She knew it was now or never. She was
either going to find the strength to ash the coven or they would
eventually win and she would be an immortal within the
hour.

Exavior and the other blue robed heku
met her at the door.

“
You can’t get away. You’re
too weak,” Exavior said, grinning.

“
I can’t?” she asked,
taking a step closer. She felt the anger in her growing.

“
No, you’re too weak, so
you might as well make this easy,” one of the blue robed figures
said.

“
Don’t… underestimate… me,”
Emily hissed, and held Alexis tighter.

“
Oh we don’t, I assure you.
We had to remove the runes before we could turn you. The nice side
effect of that is a weakened state by the mortal,” Exavior told
her.

“
You know what your first
mistake was?” Emily asked, and noticed how they glanced at one
another nervously.

“
What was that, Child?”
Exavior asked, amused.

“
Assuming I’m weak,” she
said, and the entire group turned to ash before her eyes. She felt
the trickle of blood begin to flow down her lip as she ran out into
the night. The white van was still parked out front, and she
climbed into the driver’s seat, laying the baby down on the
passenger side floor.

She turned on the van and spun out
down the small dirt road, watching closely to see if she was being
followed. When she hit the blacktop, she stopped and looked around
at the signs. It looked to her like the closest town was called
Woonsocket, so she pulled onto the pavement and headed toward
it.

Emily glanced quickly at a sign that
pointed the way to Augusta, Maine, and she stepped on the gas. Her
adrenaline pushed her past the pain from the bites and the
tiredness from the rune removal. She knew if she could make it to
Jonesport, she could take the ferry to the island and get help. She
was too afraid to stop and use a phone, too afraid the Valle would
catch up with her.

The gas tank on the small van was
full, but dropped dangerously fast as Emily sped toward the small
Maine town. Just under seven hours after leaving the Valle coven,
she pulled up to the docks and slowly inched the van onto the
ferry. The engine died immediately after the back wheels hit the
ferry’s wooden surface. She sat her head down on the steering wheel
as the Captain shrugged and pulled the ferry out onto the open
ocean.

Emily reached over and picked up
Alexis. She’d been asleep the entire trip, lulled by the rocking of
the van and the soft noises from the road. She was able to feed the
baby as she watched the land fall away to water behind her. The
baby fell asleep while nursing and Emily laid her against her
shoulder and leaned her head back against the chair.

Emily heard the tug boats beside the
ferry as they approached the island. She stepped out of the van and
stood toward the front of the ferry as the pier
approached.

“
You can’t get off the
ferry,” one of the guards said, his dog growling viciously at
Emily.

“
What? Why not?” she asked,
almost too afraid to think of where she could go now that the van
was dead.

“
First off, you’re Valle.
Second, you’re a mortal, so turn right around and go back where you
came from,” he said rudely.

“
I am not a Valle!” Emily
said weakly, and fought back the tears of rage. She couldn’t have
come this far only to be turned away from Chevalier’s own
coven.

“
Sure looks like one to
me,” he said, and Emily looked down at the gray robe. She hadn’t
noticed before, but intricately embroidered V’s covered the gray
surface.

“
Please, call Storm… or
even Chevalier,” she begged.

“
I’m not bugging them for a
mortal,” he said, and laughed.

“
Lady Emily?” a voice
sounded from the pier.

Emily looked up and saw Gordon walking
toward her, while the guards watched her with wide eyes.

“
Please, Gordon, help me,”
she said, and the tears began to flow.

“
How dare you turn away the
Elder’s wife!” Gordon yelled as he jumped down onto the ferry with
Emily.

“
I… I… didn’t know,” the
guard said, terrified.

Emily allowed Gordon to pick her up
after she got the baby, and the last thing she heard as he blurred
into the town was Storm yelling at the pier guards.

***

Equites 2 landed on top of the
island’s castle and Chevalier jumped out, followed by Damon. Storm
ran up to meet them.

“
When did she get here?”
Chevalier asked.

“
About six hours ago. She’s
been asleep since. The baby is down with Margaret,” Storm told
him.

Chevalier headed inside.

“
There’s one thing, Sir,”
Storm said, walking behind him.

He turned to face her,
“What?”

“
When she showed up she was
in a gray Valle robe… and…” She hesitated.

“
What, Storm?” Chevalier
asked, irritated.

“
She has thirteen bite
marks on her,” Storm said, and took a step back when a shadow
crossed the Elder’s face.

“
What?” he
hissed.

“
We haven’t been able to
ask anything. She’s been asleep since Gordon got here with her,”
Storm said. “They didn’t finish, though, I can tell you
that.”

Chevalier growled and blurred down
into Emily’s room. He saw the gray robes thrown over a chair by the
bed, and the sight of them infuriated him further. He watched Emily
sleep for a few minutes, she was still and unmoving, then slowly
slipped the covers off of her, and counted the bites for himself.
There were thirteen distinct bite marks.

He looked closely at her thigh. There
was no longer any sign of the runes, only smooth white skin was
left. He watched her sleep, and even gave permission for Margaret
to feed Alexis with a bottle when she got hungry. He wasn’t sure
what Emily had been through, but if she was still sleeping, then he
knew she needed it.

Just after dawn, Emily began to jerk
in her sleep and Chevalier touched her arm lightly. She jumped away
from him and screamed, pushing at his hand.

“
Shhh, Em, it’s me,”
Chevalier said, grabbing her wrists.

Emily looked at him with wide eyes,
and then fell forward and wrapped her arms around his neck. He
pulled her onto his lap and held her tightly, kissing the top of
her head.

“
I’m so sorry,” Emily said
as her tears wet his shirt.

“
Don’t be sorry. It’s not
your fault,” Chevalier told her, and heard a knock on the
door.

“
Come,” he said
sternly.

Damon came in carrying the baby,
“Sorry to interrupt. I heard Emily is awake, and we can’t get
Alexis to drink from a bottle.”

Emily held her hands out for the baby
and gave her a tight hug.

“
The Valle is requesting an
audience with the entire Equites Council,” Damon told
Chevalier.

Chevalier nodded, “First though… tell
us what happened.”

Emily started at the beginning, from
when they were forced out of the Durango. She told them every small
detail of what happened, but stopped when she mentioned that
Exavior had changed into a black robe.

Damon turned away, his anger was too
intense and he tried to hide his fury.

“
I can’t believe they were
going to do it,” Chevalier hissed.

“
How did you get away?”
Damon asked.

Emily gasped and jumped out of bed,
picking up the robe. She dug through the pockets and held out the
three leather bags, “Please, bring them back.”

Damon turned around with wide eyes,
“You have them?”

Emily nodded, “Yes, I took them out of
their cells.”

Damon pulled out his tiny dagger and
looked up when Emily started to dig through the gray robe
again.

“
I have this, too,” she
said, and turned around to show them the Valle’s dagger.

Chevalier stood up and took a step
back, gasping. Damon moved quickly away from her and put his back
against the wall.

“
It’s… the Chief Enforcer’s
dagger,” Emily explained.

“
We know what it is,” Damon
whispered.

“
Take it, I don’t want it,”
she said, and held it out for Chevalier.

“
We can’t touch that,”
Chevalier explained, watching the dagger closely.

Emily looked down at the seemingly
harmless dagger, “I don’t want it.”

“
No wonder they need to
meet with us,” Damon said. “They can’t revive their
ash.”

“
If you don’t want it, then
give it back to them. I don’t really know why I took it,” Emily
said, and slipped the dagger back into the gray robe.

“
Are you ok to travel?”
Chevalier asked Emily.

Emily nodded.

“
Get the robe and keep the
dagger away from any heku you see. Let’s get back to the palace,”
Chevalier said, and Damon handed the baby to Chevalier and left
quickly for the helicopter.

Emily slipped out of the nightgown and
into a light summer dress. She had left them all behind when she
left for the palace the first time. She crawled into the helicopter
with the gray robe tucked into a bag over her shoulder, and buckled
herself in, followed by Chevalier. She watched the castle fade away
as the helicopter returned them to the palace.