“No, actually, I didn’t.”
Kyle grinned, “You could always knock her out and drag her to Colorado against her will again.”
Chevalier chuckled slightly, “Don’t tempt me… it worked once.”
“It’s just going to take time. We need to be patient with her and be understanding of her needs,” Quinn said. “It’s not really in our nature to try to understand feelings, but in her case, they mean a great deal to this faction.”
“She has such close dealings with this Council, maybe it’s not just the Elder that needs to court her,” the Faction Liaison Officer said.
“Do what?” Quinn asked.
“Not in the literal sense… but instead of treating her like we did before she left, maybe we need to put on kid gloves and be more in a stage of trying to help her accept us.”
“How, exactly?” Zohn asked, intrigued.
“Well I’m not sure. One thing is, not to force guards on her, or not to enforce any rules.”
The Chief of Defense nodded, “So we work her back into the faction slowly. Until she’s comfortable with us, we treat her like a guest?”
“We just need to remember that she didn’t marry the Council,” Kyle reminded them. “When she married the Elder, he was a Chief Enforcer and Coven Lord. He lived with his coven, so she was with him a lot and wasn’t fighting for alone time.”
“She doesn’t have to fight for time alone with me,” Chevalier said, slightly irritated.
“She doesn’t?” Kyle asked, and looked over at him.
“Has she ever asked you to stay away from trials and you denied it?” Zohn asked.
Chevalier sighed and nodded slightly, “Quite often, actually.”
“On the Island, that wasn’t as much of a problem,” Kyle said.
***
Emily finished loading the back of the Chevy truck full of things from Exavior’s room that she wanted to throw out. A few items were going back to Council City, but the rest needed to go to the dump. She locked up the new garage and the house and drove back to Council City in the dark.
She stopped the truck in front of Cavalry housing and turned off the lights, then looked at the dark building and wondered if anyone was inside. She knew that Kralen and Silas were housed inside of the palace, but spent most of their free time in the Cavalry’s barracks.
Emily got out and grabbed the three boxes for Kralen, along with a box full of miscellaneous items that she thought the Cavalry could use. Unable to see past the boxes, she walked carefully to the door and used her foot to knock on it, and then waited only a few seconds before the door opened.
“Erm… can I help you?” a strange heku asked.
Emily grinned, though they couldn’t tell from behind the stack of boxes. She lowered her voice to answer him, “Delivery for Kralen Jones.”
“Captain?” the heku said hesitantly.
“What is all of that?” Kralen asked, and tried to peek around the boxes at the carrier.
“Porn,” Emily said, and started to laugh.
“Gah, Em,” he growled, and took the boxes from her. “You aren’t supposed to be lifting.”
She stretched out her arms and walked inside. The barracks were too dark to see much, but she could tell by the sounds that they were full.
“What’s in the boxes?” Kralen asked, and set them down.
“I told you, porn.”
He grinned, “You brought me four boxes of porn?”
“No, of course not,” she said, and lifted the top box. “Only 3 of those are porn.”
He shook his head, “Clean out that room did you?”
“This box,” Emily said, and sat down on the nearest bed with the box on her lap, “Is fighting stuff that I thought you all might want.”
“Fighting stuff?” one of the Powans asked, and looked into the box.
“Yes, help yourself,” she said, and tried to pull on a pair of brass knuckles with spikes, but they didn’t fit.
“Nice, let me try those,” another guard said, and she handed them over as the guards looked through the box.
“What’s in these?” Silas asked, and motioned to the 3 boxes for Kralen.
Emily grinned, “I told you, porn.”
“There’s no way you brought the Captain three box of porn,” one of the Commanders said.
“Open it,” she suggested, and pulled out a weapon she didn’t understand. She ran her fingers along the sharp white spikes and cut her finger slightly, “Ouch.”
“Give me that before you kill yourself,” Kralen said, and took it from her. He looked over it and smiled, “It’s a leiomano, haven’t seen one of these in a while.”
“I had one of those about 500 years ago made of real sharks teeth,” Silas said, and opened the top of the three boxes. “Ok, so this is porn.”
“Told ya,” Emily said, and looked into the box again as she blushed.
“This stuff is pretty nice, a lot of antiques,” one of the guards said as he tried on a pair of shiny brass knuckles. “Most of it’s been used too.”
“What else did you find in the room?” Kralen asked as he threw the leiomano at the wall, where it stuck.
When Emily didn’t answer, he looked up at her and took a step towards her, “Em?”
The others turned toward her. She had a dazed expression and blood trailed from her nose.
“Emily?” Silas asked, and moved to her quickly.
She looked up at him and the whites of her eyes were turning blood-red. As the guards gasped, she fell back onto the bed.
“Get the Elder and the doctor,” Silas ordered, and pulled the boxes off the bed beside her.
“Em?” Kralen asked, and took her head in his hands. “Can you look at me?”
Emily’s breathing slowed as she relaxed into a deep sleep.
“What happened?” Dr. Edwards asked when he blurred in and sat down on the bed.
“I’m not sure. She was just talking, and all of a sudden, got a bloody nose and fell back,” one of the Cavalry told him. They all moved back when Chevalier entered.
“What’s going on?” he asked, not seeing Emily.
“She just… passed out,” Kralen said, and moved aside so Chevalier could get to the bed.
Chevalier sat down, “Did she turn someone to ash?”
“I don’t think so. She was just talking to us,” Kralen told him.
“Search around here, see if there are ashes.”
“Yes, Elder,” Silas said, and the Cavalry spread out around Council City.
“Her blood pressure’s pretty low,” Dr. Edwards said, and looked over at Chevalier. “This looks like that time when she was pregnant and we flew her to Bangor.”
“That was when she interrupted a turning though,” Chevalier said, and took her hand. “There are no turnings here today.”
Dr. Edwards pulled her eyelids back and then sighed, “According to Dr. Cook, we let her sleep it off.”
Chevalier nodded and picked her up, “We need to find who she turned to ash.”
Kyle appeared in the barracks, “I heard what happened. Did they find anything?”
“Nothing yet,” Dr. Edwards said, and followed Chevalier back to the palace. He arrived in the room just as Chevalier laid Emily in bed and covered her with a blanket.
Chevalier waited with Emily while the Cavalry searched Council City. Four hours later, Mark came into the room.
“What did you find?” Chevalier asked.
“Nothing, there are no ashes in this city or in the woods,” Mark told him.
The Elder sighed, “Then what caused it?”
Mark shrugged, “I talked to each member of the Cavalry, and no one saw anything. Emily brought four boxes in from Exavior’s old house, and they were going through them when she just quit talking.”
“Well, maybe when she wakes up she’ll know.”
“Maybe, but just in case, I’m putting upper-ranks only as her guards,” Mark said, and then grinned slightly. “She turned Tate to a
sh when she left here.”
“Why?”
“She told him to leave her truck. He said she’d have to ash him.”
Chevalier chuckled, “Give him leave. Not many would have stayed in the truck.”
“Yes, Elder,” Mark said, and moved outside of the bedroom door. He shut the door just as Silas and Kralen arrived to take up spots in the hallway.
Early the next morning, Chevalier was just shutting the curtains to keep the sun out of the room when he heard Emily shift slightly. He quickly moved to her bedside.
“Em?” he whispered and took her hand.
She slowly opened her eyes and looked up at him, “Good morning.”
“To you too. How are you feeling?”
“Fine, why?” she asked, and sat up to stretch.
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
She frowned slightly, “Come to think of it, I was in the barracks.”
“Did you ash anyone?”
“Just Tate.”
“Nothing after going into the barracks?” Chevalier asked, and called silently for her breakfast.
“I remember being in the barracks. We were going through boxes of stuff from Exavior’s house. How did I get here then?”
“You passed out.”
She sighed, “I hate when I do that.”
Chevalier grinned, “We’re kind of getting used to it.”
Emily hit him on the arm, “I’m not that bad.”
He suddenly turned serious, “You don’t remember anything? Anything at all?”
“Not a thing,” she told him, and crawled out of bed.
“Do you have a headache?” he asked, following her toward the bathroom.
“No”
“Dizzy?”
“No”
“Nauseous?”
She turned at the door to the bathroom, “No, nothing’s wrong.”
“Any pain?”
“Just you,” she told him, and shut the door.
He grinned when she locked it and then went to the door to talk to the doctor.
When Emily got out of the shower, she threw on jeans and a t-shirt and quickly ran a brush through her hair. She started out the door and ran into Chevalier, who was standing in the hallway talking to her guards.
He turned and smiled, “Problems walking?”
“Well don’t stand so close to the door,” she said, and pushed past him.
“We’ll talk more when you are done,” Chevalier said. The three heku guards began to follow Emily down the stairs.
She turned and frowned, “Finish your conversation. I’m not going anywhere.”
Mark grinned and crossed his arms, “If you aren’t going anywhere, why are you trying to get rid of us?”
“I’m not, you’re just paranoid.”
“We’re going with you,” Kralen said.
“For hell sake, go finish talking to Chevalier. I’ll be right back.”
Chevalier sighed, “Fine, stay here for now.”
The three members of the Cavalry returned to talk to the Elder while Emily went down the stairs. She was surprised he let her go without guards, and her plan went from getting breakfast, to making the illegal. She walked faster at the thought that alone, she could sneak a cup of coffee without the heku cooks around to tell Chevalier.
Once she saw that the chefs were already gone for the morning. She pulled out the coffee pot and got her cup ready while it brewed. She inhaled and smiled at the smell of coffee and poured herself a cup when it was done.
Leaning back against the counter, she shut her eyes and smelled deeply. As she brought the cup to her lips, it was ripped from her hands and she gasped and looked toward the blur.
“You do realize we can smell that stuff from a mile away,” Dustin said, still holding the cup of coffee.
“You don’t give a rat’s ass about me. Let me have my coffee.”
“No, it will cause the pain to return. I’m not taking it to be mean.”
“Then give it back.”
“Again, no,” he said, and dumped the coffee into the sink. “You can’t sneak it.”
Emily watched him leave the kitchen and then yelled toward the door, “Ego contemnovos!”
Kyle frowned and turned to Dustin when he came into the council chambers, “What did you do to Em?”
Dustin sat down in his chair with the Council, “I took her coffee away.”
“Interesting that she’s learned to say she hates you in Native,” the Chief of Defense said, amused.
“Yes, well, she really wants her coffee,” Dustin said, and opened up the roster.
Quinn walked in and sat down, “Who is Emily screaming at now?”
“That would be me, Elder,” Dustin said, not turning away from his book.
“Interesting”
After searching the entire kitchen, Emily left angrily and headed for the stairs.
“Problems, Em?” Mark asked, and grinned as she reached the fifth-floor.
“Yes, Dustin’s an idiot.”
“So I heard.”
“He took my coffee.”
“Ahh, that’s why you wanted us gone,” Mark said, finally understanding.
Chapter 13 - Visit
Emily reached out to the toolbox and grabbed a wrench. Her guards watched her nervously as she worked on the old Chevy truck. Only her legs and feet were visible from beneath it. They offered to do the oil change for her, but she insisted on doing it herself. She was nearing the third month back with the heku and, as of yet, still felt like an unwanted guest, and she vowed not to add to the workload of the heku staff at the palace.
She knew that if the Cavalry wasn’t away, she wouldn’t have gotten away with the oil change by herself. She was currently being guarded by four over anxious city guards, who she suspected were vying for a spot on the Cavalry, though they denied it.
“Lady Emily?” one of them asked, and bent down to look under the truck.
“What?” She didn’t look over when his bright face appeared next to the rusted out gray Chevy.
“I just confirmed with my General, you aren’t supposed to be working.”
She grinned slightly, “I’m lying down, what more do you want?”
“I… well… I don’t think that’s what he meant. He was pretty adamant that you not work on your truck.”
“He was?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“I’m almost done. Why don’t you four go inside and make sure no one broke in while we were out here?”
He stood up, “Do you suspect a break-in?”
She grinned, “Yes, I do.”
Emily’s grin got wider when she heard the four rush out of the garage. She wondered how long it would take them to search Exavior’s old house and return. She was almost finished with the oil change though, but the idea that these guards were extremely over ambitious gave her an idea.
“The house is clear,” one of them said, just after she saw their shoes reappear in the garage. She wheeled the creeper out from under the truck and looked up at the guards.
“Good… and I’m done.”
One of them helped her to her feet and she sighed when another blurred her tools into the box and put it on the counter before she could stop him.
She shook her head and walked back into the house. It was just starting to get dark and she wanted to leave soon. After a quick shower, she walked down the stairs toward the guards. They looked up at her, frowning curiously at the black leather outfit.
“Were we going out?” one of them asked.
“No,” she said, and then smiled and walked into the kitchen. Right on time, her phone rang. She looked down at the blank face of the phone and then pushed a button, “Hello?”
Emily listened to dead silence for a few seconds, “Yes, four of them are here.”
She started putting clean dishes away as she spoke to no one, “I don’t want to, though. I have things to do here at the house and I’ll stay here, I swear.”
The g
uards stood back along the wall and watched her. They strained to hear the conversation, but assumed she’d turned her phone down too low for them to hear.
“I promise! Yes, I’ll send them right over,” she said, and pretended to hang up the phone, then turned to the guards. “There’s a problem with the Encala, and the Council needs you to wait in the Council’s ante-chamber until you are called in.”
The closest one tensed, “Let’s go.”
“They said I can stay here if I promise not to leave,” Emily told him.
“We can’t just…”
“Go! The Council can’t be made to wait.”
He nodded, and the four blurred from the house. Emily grinned as she slipped the phone into the pocket of her black leather jacket and then headed out for the garage. The Harley started right up, so she pulled her hair into the helmet and drove out into the night.
Once she got onto the Interstate, she turned away from Council City and toward a small town 45 miles away. She knew of a quaint coffee shop there that was open 24-hours a day and had one of her favorite lattes.
***
“I don’t agree. I think that deserves a harsher punishment,” Chevalier said, and looked down at the cowering heku that was knelt before the Council.
“I concur,” Kyle said, and growled slightly when the prisoner’s eyes left the Council for a moment. The prisoner heard the growl and immediately turned back to the Elders.
“It’s a first offense,” Quinn said, and looked over at Zohn. “Does it warrant 800 years?”
Zohn shrugged, “First offense or not, it was stupid and careless on his part.”
The Chief of Defense turned toward the ante-chamber briefly and then back to the trial area, “Nothing like making a first offense a big one.”
“Just for sheer stupidity, I vote for the 800 years,” the Chief of Staff said.
Quinn’s eyes narrowed as he watched the panicked heku. The way the heku cowered and shifted nervously irritated the Elder, and he began to agree with the harsher punishment, “Is something wrong with you?”
“No… no, Sir,” he whispered, and swallowed hard. His eyes darted nervously between members of the Council, and he breathed in short, rapid bursts.
“Sit still then.”
Eternity of Vengeance : Book 7 of the Heku Series Page 36
