“Sss some,” Salazar whispered. “She was… she was weak and… disoriented. She didn’t fight much, but I don’t think she knew wh… what was g g going on. Her… her… she couldn’t… talk… well.”
“Her speech was slurred and slow?” Mark asked.
“Y… yes.”
“So she hadn’t fully recovered from the stroke,” Chevalier said. “As soon as you had her, where did you put her?”
“She was… sick… tired… afra… afr… afraid.”
“I would imagine so. Where did you put her?”
Salazar swallowed hard, “I… no… no one… could know.”
“Where?”
“We… we… hung her… down… in… interrogation.”
“By shackles?”
Salazar nodded, “It… it didn’t… hurt her.”
“For how long?” Kralen asked him.
“Four days,” Salazar whispered.
“Food?”
“She… she didn’t ask ffor any.”
“Did you talk to her during this time then?” Mark asked.
“S… some.”
“What were you saying?”
“Just… just that… no one knew where she was. No one could help her.” Salazar groaned. Mark peered around the stockade and saw that Silas was grinding Salazar’s foot into the dirt floor of the interrogation room.
Silas looked up and grinned, “Oh sorry.”
Mark chuckled as Silas returned to the wall.
“Please… please… kill me.”
Chevalier watched him for a moment, “I’m tired of you, and ready to be done with you, so if you tell us what we want, I may just grant that wish.”
“After you got Emily, you brought in a heku that was familiar with mortal brainwashing,” Kyle told him. “What was the first thing you used the brainwashing for?”
Salazar gasped, “Wh… what?”
“Talk,” Kyle growled, and grabbed the Spanish flayer off of the wall.
“I w… wan… wanted a… baby.”
“So you wanted her to agree without a fight?”
“Nn… no, it… it didn’t work. She wouldn’t stop fighting.”
Kyle nodded, “No, she wouldn’t agree to that. What’s the next thing you tried to plant?”
“Please… you have to understand my reasoning,” Salazar begged.
“No, we don’t. What’s the next thing you planted?” Chevalier asked as he took the red-hot poker out of the fire.
Salazar began to pant, “She… I… she had to be… quiet… if I gave her the word.”
“What word?” Kyle asked.
“Ssso… so no one… no one would hear her if they came to… to my coven.”
Chevalier nodded, “Thus the ‘shhh’ whenever anyone mentions a faction or the Valle Council’s names.”
“Y… yes.” Salazar began to scream when Chevalier burned an E into his back. He returned the poker to the fire and stood back while Salazar healed enough to speak.
“Very well. What’s the next thing you told her?” Kyle asked.
Salazar sighed, “Kill me… please…”
“Next!?”
“Shh… she… kept saying Ch… Chevalier would… come get her.”
“Ok”
“She watched… for him.”
“Go on.”
“I… made… her believe I could… become… another heku.”
Chevalier nodded, “Oh that’s right. That’s why she has to see our chests… because you have a tattoo.”
“We already know this!” Kyle yelled. “Start telling us what we don’t already know.”
They all looked over when Mark put a pot of water on the fire to boil, “For later.”
“Next then,” Silas said, nudging Salazar’s foot with his boot.
“That’s… all,” Salazar whimpered.
“String him up,” Chevalier said softly.
Within just a few seconds, Salazar was hanging from the shackles, facing the Equites in the room with his feet a few inches from the floor.
“Good, now we can see your face,” Chevalier said as he took a whip from the wall. “We know you told her more than that. For 2 years you tortured her, that’s a lot of room for planting thoughts into her head.”
Salazar’s terrified eyes looked around at each of the heku in the room.
“Let’s see this tattoo then,” Kyle said.
Silas tore Salazar’s shirt off, revealing a large raven tattooed across his entire chest.
“It used to be said that a raven was a sign of intelligence,” Chevalier told the others. “I guess it’s wrong.”
“K k kill me,” Salazar managed to say. “I w won’t tell you m more.”
“Yeah ya will,” Mark said with a menacing glare.
***
“Em’s awake,” Mark said as he held Salazar down on the rack.
Chevalier nodded and ordered her some breakfast once Anna confirmed that Emily was just watching the fire.
Kyle sat down on another table, “Amazing resolve. 8 hours of torture and all he’s given us is little stuff.”
“He’ll talk,” Chevalier said, walking over to the fire.
“Frustrating is what it is,” Kralen growled. “The things he’s told us so far wouldn’t cause her to stop talking or to act like she does. So she’s afraid of coffee now, thinks he’s poisoning it. I want to know what the hell is going on with her!”
“Calm down,” Mark told him. “We’ll get it.”
“Wish I had my water tank,” Chevalier said as he leaned back. “We should get one for here.”
“Easy enough,” Kyle said as he painfully jabbed a metal electrode deep into Salazar’s arm.
Salazar groaned and began to whimper, “Stop… please.”
“You ready to talk then?” Silas asked him, bending down to look into his face.
The Valle hesitated and then nodded.
“Keep him there, if he hesitates, shock him,” Chevalier said.
Mark sat down at the small desk and put his hand over the button, “My pleasure.”
“Why is Emily afraid of Allen?” Kyle asked as he leaned back against the wall.
Salazar swallowed hard and then whispered, “I… I told her he died. I had pictures of a heku retiring and it looked like him.”
“There has to be more to that,” Silas said. “She wanted him banished or thrown into prison.”
He sighed, “I told her we replaced Allen with a doppelganger, and that no one knew.”
“See how easy that was?” Chevalier asked. “Keep going… what else did you tell her?”
“Trees,” he croaked, squeezing his eyes shut.
“What about trees?”
“We wait in them,” he whispered. “When she’s out on a horse, we’re watching everything and one of these days we’ll get her back.”
“We?”
“Valle”
“Ok, what would you do then when you got her back?”
The Valle’s body began to shake. It was obvious he was praying for death, “We’d have to bu… bury her forever.”
Kyle turned toward the door and then looked back at Chevalier, “She’s not eating.”
Chevalier’s eyes narrowed as he watched Salazar, “Do we have any coffins?”
Kyle grinned, “No, but we can get one soon enough.”
“Bury him for now while we deal with what we know.”
“No!” Salazar screamed.
Chevalier left the interrogation room just as Silas and Kralen left to go buy a coffin. He stopped in Emily’s ante-chamber.
“She won’t eat,” Anna told him. “She’s just rocking by the fire.”
He nodded and knocked lightly before walking into the room. Emily was still by the fire where Anna had last seen her, and she was rocking slightly as she watched the flames. Her uneaten pancakes sat on the small table beside her.
Chevalier sat down next to her and looked into the fire, “Why aren’t you eating?”
She didn
’t move or give any indication that she’d heard.
“We know about Allen’s doppelganger.”
Emily looked over at him.
“It’s not true though. Allen didn’t die. The pictures you saw were of a heku going into retirement.”
She watched him silently.
“If you won’t talk, I don’t know if you believe me or not though.”
After a few minutes, Chevalier picked up the pancakes, “Eat, please.”
Emily dug in her front pocket and pulled out Kyle’s rank pin, then held it up for Chevalier.
“Why do you need Kyle?”
She watched him, still holding the pin out.
He sighed, “We aren’t going to banish Allen. Salazar lied to you.”
She shoved the pin back into her pocket and turned to the fire.
He thought for a few minutes before whispering, “We’re going to bury Salazar alive.”
Emily gasped and flew to her feet. Chevalier stood and blocked her when she tried to leave the room, “What’s wrong?”
She pushed against him until he finally let her past, then he followed her down the stairs as she ran toward his office.
“Where are you going?”
She surprised him when she reached out and pushed the stone that opened the way to the interrogation chamber. He quickly appeared in front of her, “You can’t go down there.”
Hearing what was going on, Kyle came up the stairs and stood to the side of Chevalier.
“No,” Chevalier said sternly when she tried to push past them. “You can’t see Salazar.”
“Why do you want to go in there?” Kyle asked her softly.
Emily again rushed at them and tried to push past them. They easily kept her from going down the stairs and could tell she was starting to panic.
“We don’t think you should see Salazar yet,” Chevalier told her, holding his hand out to stop her from running at them again. “When you’re better, you can see him.”
She started to shake, and broke out in a sweat as she looked around for a way past them.
“Just tell us what’s going on,” Kyle said to her.
Chevalier sighed, “If you tell us why you want to see him, we’ll probably let you.”
They both shifted nervously when Emily concentrated on them.
“Is she going to ash us?” Kyle whispered.
“Em, no,” Chevalier said sternly. “You aren’t going to see him. We don’t think you’re ready.”
Emily’s eyes grew wide when Salazar began to scream in pain from behind Chevalier and Kyle. She again ran at them and rammed her shoulder into Chevalier’s stomach as his arms wrapped around her. In one swift movement, he spun her and pulled her against his chest with her arms trapped.
“Stop it,” he growled. “You’re going to get hurt.”
Chevalier took a moment to calm his innate nature. When attacked, it was instinctual to fight back and he had to force all of those intrinsic needs into the back of his mind when Emily fought him.
Kyle watched them closely, he knew that even the small amount of pain Emily caused Chevalier, could send him into a rage that he was ingrained to express.
When Chevalier calmed, Kyle walked around to look Emily in the eyes, “Just tell us why you want to see him so badly.”
She looked at him and was obviously panicked.
“I told her that I’m going to bury him.”
Emily gasped slightly and began to struggle in Chevalier’s arms.
“Calm down!” Kyle told her. “We don’t know what the problem is.”
She didn’t respond, but continued to struggle.
“Fine,” Chevalier growled, and then looked up at Kyle. “Make sure he’s decent.”
Kyle nodded and disappeared. A few seconds later, Chevalier let Emily go. The second his arms left her, she ran down the stairs to the interrogation chamber. She’d only been there once before, but remembered the way and seemed frantic to get inside. The heavy door opened for her when she arrived and she stepped in and looked around.
Salazar was on the rack against the far wall, still restrained with thick chains. He watched her nervously and glanced often at the Equites. Mark and Kyle were situated around the stone walls, and Chevalier was close behind her.
She stepped into the room and looked at each of the Equites before turning to Salazar and studying him closely.
Mark spoke too softly for Emily to hear, “Could this be that Stockholm Syndrome that Lori mentioned in briefing?”
Chevalier shrugged and watched them.
Emily’s hands twitched as she walked forward unhurriedly and stood at the side of the rack. Salazar was now focused on her and it was obvious to the Equites that he thought she was going to free him, so they were ready to stop her.
To cover blood and wounds, Mark had thrown a thick blanket over him when Kyle announced that Emily was coming. She reached up and pulled the blanket down to reveal the tattoo across his chest, and then returned her hands to her sides, though they still trembled slightly.
“What do you want us to do, Em?” Mark asked her.
She looked up at him, and then turned back to Salazar and removed the blanket fully. Kyle cringed and looked at Chevalier when numerous, vicious wounds were revealed across Salazar’s body.
Emily walked the length of the rack and studied every inch of Salazar’s skin, saying nothing and looking up at no one. She gently touched her finger to some freshly spilled blood on the table and then glanced at it before looking back at the Valle.
“Em, tell us what’s going on, please,” Chevalier whispered softly. They were all uncomfortable at how meticulously she looked over the Valle’s wounds and couldn’t explain the look on her face.
Tucked under the table’s edge by his feet, was a cat o’nine tails whip with curved metal hooks at the end. She picked it up and held it firmly in her hand.
“Do you want to whip him?” Kyle asked, misunderstanding.
Mark smiled, “We can string him up for you.”
“Something’s not right,” Chevalier told them as he watched her intently.
Emily looked at Salazar’s face just as he spoke softly, “I’ll do it.”
“What!?” Chevalier yelled. When he stepped forward, Emily turned to him and put her back to Salazar. He stopped when she put her hand out toward him, and readied the whip in the other.
“Em…” Kyle said, shocked.
Salazar laughed from behind her, “Torture me all you want. She’s still mine.”
“Let me have that,” Mark told her, and put his hand out. She glared at him and her hand tightened on the whip’s handle.
“You don’t want to hurt us,” Chevalier said to her, taking a step back. “You know the heku, Em. Think about it. If we want to, we can get the whip out of your hand before you even see us. We don’t want to do that. We want you to trust us enough to hand it over.”
“Let me go,” Salazar whispered.
The door opened to the interrogation room and Silas and Kralen came in.
“We got the cof… What’s going on?” Kralen asked when he looked around the room.
“Em?” Silas asked, confused.
“Please, Emily, give me the whip,” Mark said softly, taking great care to control his voice.
Kralen frowned, “What do you want us to do?”
Emily glanced at the door, still holding the whip ready.
“You want us to leave?”
“We can’t leave you alone with Salazar,” Chevalier told her. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Do it,” Salazar commanded.
“Stop!” Kyle yelled. “Emily, don’t listen to him.”
She looked quickly at the eyes of the Equites and then brought the whip to rest against her chest.
“Do it!” Salazar screamed.
“Shut up, Valle!” Mark yelled. “We’re not going to let her hit us with that thing and you know it.”
“Listen to me,” Chevalier told her calmly. “I’m afraid if
you try to hit us with the whip, you’re going to hurt yourself. You can’t hurt us with it, but you can hurt yourself.”
Emily’s face showed the conflict she was going through, and a single tear escaped her eye as she extended her hands out in front of her, still grasping the whip. Her heart was racing dangerously fast and her breathing was in short, shallow gasps.
“I said do it!” Salazar ordered.
“Shut up or you’ll wish you’d never turned,” Kyle hissed at him.
Emily’s arms began to shake with the strain.
“Don’t attack us,” Kralen said to her. “Think through this. You can’t attack more than one of us before we get the whip back.”
“You owe me,” Salazar whispered harshly.
“You owe him nothing,” Chevalier said softly, taking a step forward.
Emily gasped softly, and before the heku knew what she was doing, she flung the whip back as hard as she could and impaled the metal hooks deep into her back.
The entire room turned into a blur. Chevalier grabbed Emily when she fell to her knees, then Kyle began to gently pulled the hooks out of her back. Salazar hissed at the smell of blood, but Kralen and Silas hauled him out of the room and toward the castle’s prison.
Mark immediately disappeared from the interrogation chamber.
When the metal hooks were out of Emily’s back, Chevalier blurred her to her room and held her, still in shock at what she’d done.
Kyle appeared shortly after them and held a towel against her bleeding back, “Mark went to get Dr. Edwards.”
Chevalier nodded. Emily wasn’t fighting in his arms, but leaned her head against his shoulder and clutched his shirt tightly in her hands.
Kyle’s voice trembled as he tore the nightgown away from her back, “These look pretty bad.”
“Why did you do that, Emily?” Chevalier whispered. She didn’t respond or even move in his arms.
“Damnit, I can’t get these to stop bleeding,” Kyle hissed.
“Let me try,” Anna said, coming into the room. She had fresh towels in her hands and took Kyle’s place at Emily’s back.
Kyle moved back a few steps and looked at Chevalier with confused eyes, “Why would she do that?”
“These are going to need stitches,” Anna said, too softly for Emily to hear. She pressed the towel harder against Emily’s back when her blood began to saturate them.
Eternity of Vengeance (Extended Edition) : Book 7 of the Heku Series Page 71
