Equites : Book 4 of the Heku Series (47 page)

“
Em,” she heard Chevalier
say from behind her, but she jerked away from him when he touched
her.

Emily saw a heku holding the baby and
she stumbled over to them.

“
Don’t touch her,” Emily
said, and took Alexis from Quinn. He looked at Chevalier, but
Chevalier’s attention was on Emily.

“
Come on,” she said to
Allen, and he followed her, too afraid to do anything
else.

Emily finally made it to the garage,
very much aware of the hundreds of heku gathered in the hallway to
watch her. Their eyes were filled with concern and confusion, yet
still amazed at what they had witnessed. They could smell fresh
blood coming toward them, and most turned away or stepped outside
to get away from it. Those who watched her saw the whites of her
eyes turning blood-red.

“
Where are you going?”
Chevalier asked as Emily climbed into the Durango and sat the baby
in the passenger seat. She reached out to start the car, but the
keys were gone.

“
Montana,” she whispered,
and then looked around the floor for the keys, confused.

Taking Alexis, Emily stepped out of
the Durango and almost fell as she moved into Quinn’s Zonda C12 F.
Allen crawled into the passenger seat and held Alexis when she
handed the baby to him. Again she couldn’t find the
keys.

“
Emily, no car in here has
keys,” Chevalier said as he saw the last of the heku guards moving
away from the garage with the keys in their hands.

“
I’ll walk,” she whispered,
her words slurred. She got out of the Zonda and slowly stumbled
toward the doors, leaving Allen and Alexis in the passenger seat of
Quinn’s car.

“
You can’t walk to
Montana,” Chevalier said, and took her arm to steady her. He then
glanced at the others, “She gets confused if she ashes too
many.”

Emily fell to her knees, grabbing the
side of her head. It was pounding too loudly to hear anything, and
her vision was like looking through a long tunnel. Voices were
distorted and sounded more like angry growls.

Chevalier picked her up, ignoring the
way her weak hands pushed against him.

“
Let me go,” she
whispered.

“
Ok,” he said, and then
carried her inside. The heku split to form a path between them, and
lowered their eyes as a symbol of respect.

“
I said don’t touch me,”
she mumbled, her words almost unintelligible.

“
Ok,” he told her again,
and started up the stairs.

“
Montana”

“
I know, you’re walking to
Montana,” Chevalier said, and then kissed the top of her
head.

The faction doctor met them in their
room. He already had an I.V. set up, “Same as last
time?”

“
I don’t know. She didn’t
kill as many as last time,” Chevalier said as he laid her down on
the bed.

The doctor took out a stethoscope and
began to check her over as she pushed at his hands. He sighed when
he looked in her ears and saw the fresh blood pooled in
them.

“
So?” Chevalier asked
impatiently.

“
Let’s let her rest on her
own and see if she can pull out of it. The confusion and slurred
speech make me nervous. I’d like to see her blood pressure go up,
and some clear thought process,” the doctor said as he easily
removed her hands as they gripped his wrist.

Chevalier met her gaze after she tried
to slap him. He cradled her face lovingly in his hands and told her
to sleep.

He kissed her hand and laid it by her
side and then pulled the covers up. Allen ran in and pushed his Dad
angrily. He turned around and looked at his son,
shocked.

“
What did you do to her?”
Allen asked, growling.

“
We’re just helping her
sleep,” Chevalier said softly, and glanced at Emily.

“
She wanted to go to the
ranch. You promised you wouldn’t stop her,” Allen said, with rage
and emotion beyond his years.

“
This was different, she’s
sick.”

“
She’s not sick! What did
you do?” Allen hissed.

Chevalier picked up Alexis and nodded
at Kyle, who took Allen away as he kicked and screamed.

“
Elder?” Damon said from
the doorway.

Chevalier turned to him.

“
The Valle Elders are
requesting an audience within the next six hours,” Damon told him.
“They want to… apologize for the behavior of this
coven.”

Chevalier looked at him, irritated,
“Apologize?”

“
Yes, a formal apology for
the unsanctioned actions of the Valle.”

“
I don’t want to see
them.”

“
They insist that you and
Emily are present,” Damon said, and glanced quickly at
Emily.

Chevalier growled, “Fine, I’ll be
there. Tell them Emily is too mad to talk to them right
now.”

Damon nodded and left the
room.

Chevalier looked at the doctor, who
was deep in thought.

“
Is there a problem?” he
asked.

The doctor shook his head, “I was just
wondering if she would agree to an EEG or MRI of her brain before,
during, and after she’s turned a heku to ash.”

“
I can tell you right now
she would never go for that,” Chevalier said as he sat on the bed
and took her hand.

“
It could tell us a lot.
Maybe even teach us how to stop the aftermath.”

“
I’m sure it
would.”

“
With the bloody nose and
ears, I’m afraid that one of these times, she’s going to have a
stroke,” he told the Elder.

Chevalier nodded, “The problem is
getting her to stop doing it.”

“
She saved us tonight,” he
said softly.

Chevalier sighed, “I look forward to
hearing what happened. I saw one of them take Alexis, and the next
thing I knew, Damon was reviving me.”

“
It was…” the doctor looked
at him warily, “Magnificent. We hear about her abilities, but to
see them… how she can talk to one heku, and turn hundreds of others
into ash simultaneously is amazing.”

“
We have it on security
camera,” Maleth said from the door.

“
We do?” Chevalier asked,
surprised.

Maleth nodded, “Yes, I’m having the
tape pulled now. I want to watch again. I couldn’t see a lot of
what was happening.”

“
If I might be so bold as
to talk about her while she’s not able to respond…” Quinn said from
behind Maleth. “I believe had she not been there tonight, the
Council would have been wiped out.”

“
How did that many Valle
get in without a single warning?” Chevalier asked, frowning as his
mind wrapped around the possibilities of what might have
happened.

“
It’s also too much of a
coincidence that they chose to attack when most of the city’s
defense is away fighting at the Powan skirmish,” Quinn
added.

“
We aren’t sure, but I can
promise you, we’ll find out and it won’t happen again,” Zohn said
as he walked into the room with the rest of the Council.

“
Mama mama mama,” Alexis
said, extending her hands out for Emily.

“
Shhh, she’s sleeping,”
Chevalier said, and kissed her on the forehead.

Alexis frowned and then pressed a
finger to her lips, “Sssss.”

Chevalier nodded and she smiled at
him, exposing her only teeth, the four front ones. He pulled her
into a hug and felt her small hand pat his shoulder. No one noticed
that Ford was pacing in front of the bed until Alexis reached out
for him.

Chevalier set her down and she walked
slowly to the Border collie, and held onto him with a handful of
hair. She smiled at the dog, her dimples and a head full of black
ringlets gave her the ability to melt even the heku’s volatile
hearts.

“
Call me when she wakes
up,” the doctor said, checking her pulse.

Chevalier nodded and watched as the
doctor left.

“
We’re ready,” Damon said
from the door, and the Council all filed past him. Alexis stumbled
over to him and held her hands up. Damon picked her up and kissed
her fat cheek, a gesture normally uncharacteristic for the heku,
but they found that the beautiful child had broken all of what they
believed of themselves.

Chevalier and Damon were the last to
sit in the Council chairs, and Alexis was on Damon’s lap, playing
with a pen from the table.

The Council watched as the
security tape replayed, starting from when the Valle first flooded
into the reception hall. They watched, entranced, as Emily appeared
on the stage to the left side of the screen. The chamber was
perfectly quiet except for the recorded voices of the Valle
commander and Emily as they spoke. Chevalier frowned when he saw
the look on Emily’s face when the Valle commander commented on how
the Equites treated her like a
‘purebred
bitch’.
The replay ended just as Emily fell
back behind the curtain.

“
What’s the total?” Damon
asked, still watching the blank screen.

“
She wasn’t able to
completely ash the Commander, so 529,” Zohn told them.

“
Is she ok?” Maleth asked
Chevalier.

He shrugged, “She’s killed more, but
she still got confused afterwards and has a severe headache. Now we
just wait to see how she is when she wakes up.”

Maleth nodded, “We owe her a great
debt.”

“
We just have to make it so
she doesn’t have to do it again. The toll on her body is too
great,” Quinn said as he pictured the confused look on her face
when she couldn’t get out of the garage.

The Council all turned toward the
doors when they were told that members of the Valle Council had
arrived.

“
Send them in,” Quinn said
sternly.

Four members of the Valle Council,
including Elder Jeaniel, came in with no guards, a common symbol
for peace.

They bowed before the Equites Council,
another sign that they were trying to make amends.

“
Why have you asked us
here?” Maleth asked them coldly.

“
Where is the Lady? We
asked that she be present to hear this,” Jeaniel asked.

“
She is quite upset by the
happenings tonight, and has retired early,” Quinn told
them.

Jeaniel smiled and nodded, “We have
come here to apologize for the misguided attempt by one of our
covens to contact Lady Emily.”

“
Contact?” Chevalier asked.
“You mean kidnap.”

The Valle Elder cringed, “Perhaps, we
have not yet spoken to their leader.”

“
I find it hard to believe
that this wasn’t sanctioned,” Damon said skeptically.

“
It was in no way
sanctioned by the Valle Council!” Jeaniel calmed herself, “Again,
we are here merely to apologize for the behavior of that
coven.”

“
Very well,” Maleth
said.

“
Now, may we have our Chief
Enforcer?” Jeaniel asked hesitantly.

“
That all depends. It seems
to us that your Enforcer has defied the Council,” Chevalier said
angrily.

“
Yes he has, and he will be
dealt with.”

“
Then you may have the
dagger, but we will keep the ashes,” Damon told them.

“
Did… did the Lady take the
dagger?”

“
No, she did not,” Damon
said, grinning. He still thought it was funny that such an ancient
rule was broken by the naivety of a mortal.

“
Very well, we will take it
and replace him as a show of goodwill,” the Valle Elder
said.

The Valle council members nodded and
left, meeting their guards in the hallway, they headed out to their
waiting helicopter.

“
I don’t know about you,
but I could use some time alone with the Commanding Officer,”
Chevalier said, standing up.

“
I think I’d like to get my
hands on the former Chief Enforcer,” Damon said, and hurdled the
desk, landing softly on the trial room floor.

Chevalier and Damon headed down to the
prison to try out a new addition to their Interrogation
chamber.

***

Emily opened her eyes slowly and
watched the ceiling as her eyes adjusted. She felt a fog over her
mind from the long sleep, but it was slowly clearing.

“
Good morning,” Chevalier
said, smiling.

“
What happened?” she asked
quietly. Her head hurt badly and talking made it worse.

“
First, how is your
head?”

“
Is it smashed in?” Emily
whispered, and covered her eyes with her arm.

“
Feels like it, huh?” he
answered, slightly amused.

“
There were
Valle.”

“
Yes”

“
They had Allen and
Alex.”

“
Yes, but we have them now,
they never left the palace.”

“
I was pretty mad,” Emily
said, and she fought to remember what happened.