Eternity of Vengeance : Book 7 of the Heku Series (3 page)

“Why are you in camo?” Silas asked
her.

Emily smiled, “I was just
going to go out for training, remember?”

Mark was looking around the council
chambers, “What’d you erase? I don’t remember coming in
here.”

“Em…” Chevalier chuckled, and then
shook his head.

She turned and started for the door,
but Kralen took her arm, “What did you erase?”

“You really shouldn’t use your
abilities on the Equites,” Dustin growled.

Emily ignored him and pulled her arm
out of Kralen’s grasp, “It was nothing, really… I better go, my
guards are waiting.”

She grinned and left the council
chambers.

“What did she erase?” Mark
asked the Elders.

“I don’t believe it
requires Council attention,” Zohn said, grinning.

Emily quickly ran up to
the eighth-floor, and headed into a storage room. The door was old
and stiff, but she managed to get it open, and then shut the door
behind her. Inside was a dark room, long abandoned, and full of old
furniture covered with dust cloths and stacked high, almost to the
ceiling. She sat down on a dusty couch and started to read the book
she grabbed on the way up.

Silas frowned, “Was it something
bad?”

“No,” Chevalier told him.
“Though I would suggest you may want to keep her in sight until you
remember.”

Mark nodded, “Go find her.”

Kralen and Silas disappeared from the
room.

“Good luck,” Kyle chuckled.

“Perfect”

“Mark, one more thing,” Quinn said
before he left.

“Yes, Elder?”

“Lately, she seems
particularly upset with Frederick’s disappearance.”

“I’ve noticed… She’s been
asking a lot of questions.”

“Like what?”

“Things about the
banished. Is a heku aware when in ash form? How long before they
naturally heal? That sort of thing.”

“So she thinks he’s been banished?”
Zohn asked, frowning.

“I’m not sure, but I think so,” Mark
told him.

“Her dreams have nothing about the
Equites banishing him,” Chevalier said.

“Just keep an eye on her.
She may try to protect us if she thinks we’ve banished him and run
the risk of an Encala attack,” Quinn said.

Mark nodded, “Yes, Elder…
though, we already are watching her closely. We’re still waiting
for her to seek revenge for Jaron.”

Chevalier nodded, “It’s
coming.”

Kralen came back in with a
confused look on his face, “We’re not catching a recent scent. It’s
hours old.”

“She masked it,” Kyle told
him, and went back to reading a ledger.

“What did she do?”

Dustin sighed, “She interrupted your
guard training to play one of her games.”

Mark’s eyes narrowed and then he
grinned, “I have paint on my shirt.”

“So do Silas and I,” Kralen told
him.

“Damnit,” Mark chuckled,
smiling. “She’s supposed to be our prisoner.”

“She is?” Kralen asked, eyes
wide.

“Just go find her.”

He nodded and walked out
of the council chambers.

“We need to find a way to avoid that,”
Mark told the Council.

“Yes, we do,” the Chief Interrogator
said.

The Council all grinned
when they heard Silas and Kralen cursing as their memory came back.
They called for the palace guards to help find her.

“You may go,” Chevalier told the
General, and Mark disappeared from the room.

“I wonder if the Valle
have Frederick,” the Chief of Defense said, mostly to
himself.

“Why though? What could they gain?”
Quinn asked.

“Causing tension between the Equites
and the Encala,” Kyle suggested.

“It’s time, I think, to
pay the Valle a visit,” Zohn said, and turned to Chevalier. “We
could send our Interrogator and ask them outright if they have
Frederick. Then we can address the tensions between Thukil and
their Weber Coven.”

Chevalier nodded, “We’d risk being
taken captive though.”

“So send Emily,” Quinn
said, thinking. “They wouldn’t dare take us with her there, and it
would give her something to do other than decide when to
attack.”

Chevalier sighed, “I don’t
know…”

“It would give her more
purpose. We’re still seeing the effects of her conversation with
Wen,” Zohn said.

“Get this trial out of the
way. I’ll talk to Em, and we can send a delegation next
week.”

“Good, Derrick, bring in…”
Quinn stopped when he heard a blood-curdling scream from Emily. The
Council rushed into the hallway and followed her screams up the
stairs to the eighth-floor.

Mark, Silas, and Kralen
were already there, frantically searching through the rooms. Her
screams stopped abruptly, but Chevalier was picking up a strong
fear from her.

Mark tore open the storage
room door and saw her almost immediately. She was on the floor in a
tiny ball on her knees. Her arms were covering her head, and she
was whispering something into the floor and shook with
fear.

He quickly moved to her and knelt
down, “Em?”

The others appeared in the
doorway. The Council returned to the chamber, except for Chevalier
and Kyle. They both moved into the room.

“Get’em away… get’em
away,” she was whispering, over and over.

“Em, what’s wrong?” Chevalier asked as
he knelt down and bent over closer to her.

“Get’em away,” was all she
said.

Kyle quickly scanned the
room and then laughed, “Em, are you afraid of bats?”

Silas looked up at the
bats swarming around the ceiling of the storage room. He reached
out and easily caught one, and it emitted a piercing high screech
that made the heku in the palace cover their ears.

Silas quickly let the bat go and
winced, “Sorry.”

Mark grinned and got up off of the
floor.

Chevalier tried not to laugh, and put
his hand on her back, “Is it the bats?”

He was surprised that she
was shaking with fear, and when she didn’t answer, he picked her
up, still in her ball, and moved her out into the hallway. Silas
shut the door to the storage room and watched her in a tight ball
on the floor.

Kralen thought for a
moment and then went back into the storage room, shutting the door
behind him. The palace again filled with the terrifying screech of
bats and the heku covered their ears in pain. A few minutes later,
the screeching stopped and Kralen stepped back out into the
hallway, again shutting the door behind him.

“Are they dead?” Emily whispered,
still covering her head.

“No, I let them out,”
Kralen said. “No reason to kill them.”

She finally looked up and
her eyes were bright red. She scrambled to her feet and quickly ran
into Chevalier’s arms. He wrapped his arms around her and
grinned.

“That was all over bats?” Mark asked,
amused.

She pressed herself against Chevalier,
and he shook his head when he felt her tremble, “They’re gone, it’s
ok.”

They heard her sniffle slightly before
whispering, “They were after me.”

Kralen chuckled but kept
quiet.

“Bats don’t really attack,” Chevalier
told her.

Emily pulled away from Chevalier and
was still shaking when she walked down the stairs, “I’m
moving.”

“You’re leaving the palace
because of bats?” Chevalier asked, now frowning.

She nodded and went into the bedroom
and began to pack.

Chevalier put his hand on
her suitcase, “You can’t move out because of bats. They’re
harmless.”

“They’re gone. I let them
all go,” Kralen told her.

Chevalier glanced at the three guards,
and they all moved out of the bedroom and stood post outside the
door after shutting it.

He took Emily’s hand and
led her over to the bed, then sat down and pulled her onto his lap
as he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead
softly.

“They were after me,” she whispered,
and wiped a tear from her eye.

“They aren’t in the palace
anymore.”

“Can you smell them?”

“Yes”

“So you knew there were bats in here?”
she asked, frowning.

“Yes, but they’re
harmless.”

“They bite and carry
rabies.”

“Very few of them carry
rabies, and you’d have to really scare one to get it to
bite.”

Emily’s eyes narrowed as she looked at
him, “You’re a bat lover?”

“Not really.”

“Damned vampires,” she mumbled, and
disappeared into the bathroom.

Chevalier chuckled and stepped out
into the hallway.

“She leaving?” Mark asked.

“I don’t know… Now she’s
grumbling about vampires and bats… I’ll be in a meeting,” he told
the guards, and headed down the stairs.

“They are pretty much flying mice,”
Silas said, looking around the fifth-floor.

“I already have a few of
the Cavalry getting rid of the bats in the barn,” Mark told them.
“I don’t know how she expects to work in a barn with no mice or
bats.”

Kralen chuckled, “It’s funny how she
can completely wipe out our entire species, and is afraid of
mice.”

They turned when Emily opened her door
and stepped out with a suitcase in one hand and Dain’s hand in the
other.

“We’re moving,” Dain told
them.

“Em, we got rid of the bats,” Mark
told her, frowning.

“I’m going to stay at the other house
for a while,” she told them, and started slowly down the stairs
with Dain.

“We’ll just follow you
there.”

“I figured. You can come
in the Jeep.”

“I have a penis,” Dain told Mark, and
the heku grinned.

“Dain, stop it,” Emily
said sternly, and the toddler shrugged and then disappeared down
the stairs. “Damnit!”

“I’ll get him,” Kralen said, and
blurred after him.

Silas took her bag and also
disappeared down the stairs.

Emily heard the Council
talking to Dain, so she went into the council chambers to get
him.

“I’m sure you do,” the Chief
Interrogator was telling the young heku.

“Do you?” Dain asked.

He looked up at Emily and then smiled
and answered Dain, “Yes, child.”

“Mommy’s is gone.”

Emily gasped and grabbed
him out of Kralen’s arms as the Council started to laugh, “Enough
of that. I warned you.”

“Why?”

She started for the door, “Because I
said so… that’s why.”

“Emily?” Quinn called out.

She sighed and turned around,
“Yes?”

“Are you leaving then?”

“Yes, I’m going to stay in
Exavior’s old place. I need to start throwing stuff out and making
it livable.”

“Are you taking guards?”

“Do I have a choice?”

Quinn smiled, “No, I guess
not.”

“Then yes, I’m taking
guards.”

“You’re running because of a bat?”
Dustin asked.

Emily glared at him, “I don’t like
you.”

“I’m very much aware of
that.”

She turned and walked out
of the council chambers. A few minutes later, they heard the Jeep
leave.

“Well… at least we know where she’s
going and she has guards,” Zohn said, and called for Derrick to
bring in the prisoner that was to be tried.

Emily had to drive slowly
because of the snowstorm, but eventually made it to the dark house.
She left the Jeep in front and unlocked the door, then flipped on
the lights and the entire first floor lit up.

“It stinks,” Dain said, and looked
around the foyer.

“That’s Valle smell,” Silas told him,
and took his hand.

“Chevalier had the kitchen stocked,”
Mark said, and locked the door.

Emily started up the stairs, “Pick a
room… any but Exavior’s.”

Dain ran up the stairs and
passed her, disappearing into the room Exavior made for Emily. She
shut the door and started to get ready for bed.

“Check the doors and
windows. See what security he has in place and get a count, we may
need to call in more if it’s too open,” Mark said. “I’m going to go
through the house real quick and check for any sign of a heku. Then
I’ll lock up that ceremonial room and interrogation
chamber.”

Kralen and Silas both nodded and ran
off to check the main floor’s security.

***