Banishment : Book 9 of the Heku Series

by T. M. Nielsen

  “But they imprisoned you.”

  “I understood why… and I understood that they could have just killed me. I talked tactics to the Prison Guards and earned myself an immediate spot on their guard staff when I was released.”

  “I can’t believe you were banished,” she whispered.

  “It’s horrible, but we do recover, and I learned a valuable lesson. It changed everything and prepared me for a life following a faction.”

  “I want to get the Elders together and try to abolish banishment,” she told him.

  Andrew smiled, “That’s not going to happen. Banishment is the best possible option to rehabilitate a heku. The only other option is death.”

  “Or prison.”

  “We can’t put that many into a prison without a facility large enough the mortals would notice.”

  “It’s terrible.”

  “Yes”

  Emily put her hand on her stomach, “I’m going to be sick.”

  His eyes narrowed, “Are you pregnant?”

  “Oh my God! I’m not always pregnant.”

  He grinned, “Could have fooled me.”

  She glared at him.

  “I was just kidding, ok? Are you really getting sick?”

  “Just the thought of banishment makes me sick.”

  “Well now you know that a heku can truly recover,” Andrew told her.

  She nodded and stood up when she heard someone coming. Andrew stayed sitting in his cell and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.

  “Enjoying your stay?” a heku asked, scowling at them.

  “What faction is this?” Andrew snapped.

  The heku turned to Emily, “We’ve never had a human in our prison. You’d have to be pretty stupid to hang around a Chief Interrogator.”

  Emily glared at him, “You’d have to be pretty stupid to kidnap the…”

  “Em,” Andrew said, cutting her off. He looked over at the heku, “What exactly do you want?”

  “We want you to suffer… we want to drive you insane.”

  Andrew scowled, “Good luck with that.”

  “Don’t encourage him,” Emily said, frowning.

  “Have you made an offer to the Encala for my release?”

  “No”

  “Which is against heku laws. I’m on the Council and therefore, have to be ransomed.”

  The heku grinned, “We’ll do that after we torture you a bit.”

  “Yeah, I’m not going to let you torture him,” Emily said.

  The heku started to laugh and then turned and left.

  “I don’t like him,” Emily said after the door shut behind the laughing heku.

  “You can’t tell them who you are. It’s too dangerous,” Andrew told her.

  “I just have the sudden urge to wipe them out. I’ve done it before.”

  “Yes, but then we’ll be stuck in here.”

  “Can’t you break out of there?”

  “My bars are electrified.”

  “Oh”

  They both turned when the door to the prison opened again. The strange heku immediately began to open Emily’s cell, so she backed up against the wall and then fell into an attack posture.

  The heku saw her and smiled, “You going to fight me?”

  “Bring it,” she hissed.

  His grin widened, “What do I get if I win?”

  “You have no idea who you’re messing with,” Andrew growled at him.

  The heku blurred faster than Emily could see and pinned her against the wall with her hands tightly held out to her sides. His body pressed against hers, and she found it hard to breathe.

  “Why would you marry an Encala?” he asked before pressing his lips to hers. She screamed when his tongue plunged into her mouth, and she bit hard, instantly tasting the sickening blood.

  “You bitch!” he yelled, and then backhanded her to the floor. Emily tried to get up, but he kicked out and caught her in the side, sending painful stabs through her body, “You better watch it, mortal. You’re treading on thin ice.”

  “Stop it!” Andrew yelled just as the heku kicked again, painfully hitting her hip. She groaned softly, and the pain caused her to black out.

  ***

  Emily slowly climbed through the fog over her mind and pulled toward the light. She could feel severe pain in her shoulder and chest but wasn’t able to speak. There was a terrible taste in her mouth and a tightness around her face. When she became more aware, she realized she was gagged and hanging from shackles high on the wall where her feet didn’t touch.

  When she opened her eyes, she saw she was in an interrogation room. As her eyes adjusted, she also saw that she was alone. There was an empty fireplace along one wall and an iron maiden across from it. She was hanging beside several pairs of shackles, and a rack was situated off to her left. The guillotine and stockade were one device and stood alongside the only door.

  Emily tried to call out, to get someone to come into the room, but the gag successfully kept any noise from escaping. She tried to slip her wrists out of the metal shackles but ended up only causing more pain in her shoulder.

  It was hours later, when the pain was almost unbearable, that someone finally came in. Emily was shocked when two guards entered dragging Andrew along behind them. He seemed unconscious, and they strapped him into a chair that had long wires coming out of it that hooked to a panel with buttons.

  Emily screamed, trying to get their attention. The closest heku turned to her and smiled, “Is the little human uncomfortable? Your husband isn’t hurt, Sweetie. You just picked the wrong heku to love is all.”

  She frowned and kicked out at the other heku when he backed up closer to her. He turned and glared at her, “We’re vampires… don’t tick me off.”

  She rolled her eyes and tried to speak again.

  “Murso,” one of the heku said. The other turned around to look at him, “Check it. This human isn’t afraid of us.”

  “Of course not,” he said, smiling at her. “She’s bonded to this no-good heku. I’m sure the Encala weren’t strong enough to scare a human.”

  Andrew made a soft growl as he started to wake up. The heku named Murso went over and looked down at him, “Hey, Chief Interrogator. Make a noise and we’ll shock you. We’re going to show you the power of the Equites by making you pay for an interrogation you did on a member of our coven.”

  Emily gasped and looked at them with wide eyes. She had assumed they were Valle and was surprised to learn her own faction had kidnapped her this time. Kidnapped Andrew, she corrected. They didn’t seem to know who she was.

  Andrew looked up finally and focused in on Emily. He started to yell, but Murso hit the button and Andrew screamed.

  “No talking, Encala,” Murso yelled. “We’re going to let you watch us torture your wife… see how you like when someone you care about is interrogated.”

  Emily screamed again to get their attention and then glared at them and shook her head no.

  Murso started to laugh, “She’s got the fire. I'll give her that.”

  She kicked out again when the other heku walked over to her, but he easily dodged and lightly ran his hand down her side, then slipped it around and gently squeezed her butt.

  “Gorgeous this one. No wonder he stooped to marrying a mortal,” he said, smiling at her.

  “He doesn’t have an essence ring,” Murso said.

  “He probably doesn’t want his faction to know.”

  “True… what shall we do first?”

  He slipped his hand under her camisole and roughly squeezed her right breast, “I have an idea where to start.”

  Emily kicked out and connected with his neck, successfully closing off his windpipe. He immediately fell to the floor, fighting to breathe.

  Murso blurred to her and hit her hard, “Don’t fight us, bitch.”

  She started to black out but fought against it and her head finally cleared just as the heku she’d kicked got to his feet.

  “You
ok?” Murso asked, helping his heku friend to his feet.

  “Yes… but now she’s going to get it worse because of that.”

  “Let’s get it over with and make him suffer.” Murso walked up and unbuttoned Emily’s leather pants, then swiftly pulled them off. Andrew grimaced when he saw the deep purple bruise that had formed on her hip where she was kicked.

  “That’s…” Andrew started to yell, but Murso hit the button and started the electrical current again.

  “I don’t really care who that is. We’ll show her a real heku… not some pansy Encala. We Equites know how to treat a woman,” Murso’s friend said, then winked at Emily.

  She sighed, and as soon as Murso touched her again, he and his friend fell to ash at her feet.

  “Good girl,” Andrew said, looking down at them. “Are you ok?”

  Emily looked up at her hands.

  “Oh! Your shoulder must be bad.”

  She nodded.

  “Did you ash the entire coven?”

  Emily shook her head no.

  “Do it. They’ll come down to check on us.”

  Her eyes grew wide.

  “There're only 80 or so of them…” Before Andrew had finished, Emily shut her eyes tightly. When she opened them, a small stream of blood trickled down her lip and onto the gag.

  “Now to get out of here,” Andrew said, pulling at his chains. When his body tensed, Emily knew that he’d closed a circuit and been electrocuted again.

  She watched as he healed and when he looked up at her, she shook her head.

  Andrew sighed and looked around the interrogation room, “Can you still get messages to Chevalier?”

  She nodded.

  “Tell him to come get us out of here.”

  Emily just watched him.

  Finally, he smiled, “Oh right. We don’t know where we are.”

  She looked up at her hands and pulled against the leather cuffs, sending a small trail of blood down her arm.

  “Don’t make it worse, Hun,” Andrew said. He noticed while she was struggling that her ribcage on one side was a mass of bruises, “How badly are you hurt?”

  She looked over at him, and he saw her eyes filling with tears.

  “We’ll get out, ok? I swear it.”

  Emily nodded and tried to rub her arm against the gag to see if she could loosen it. Andrew was looking carefully around the room to see if he could figure out how to get free.

  He looked over at her when she moaned softly, and he saw her arms begin to shake from the pain, “Ok, yell Murso’s name to Chevalier. Maybe he can figure out where we are. That's not a common name.”

  She ignored him and focused on relieving her shoulder pain. Her struggling was making it worse, but the pain was becoming intolerable, and she had to find relief.

  “Em, calm down,” Andrew said softly. “We can’t get out of here unless you can get a message to Chevalier.”

  ***

  “I don’t believe you!” Kyle yelled into the phone. “She’s in pain and she was last seen with your Interrogator.”

  “We wouldn’t hurt Emily. Especially not Andrew,” William said. “They were supposed to arrive three days ago and haven’t been seen.”

  “Why didn’t you notify us?” Chevalier hissed.

  “We have heku out looking for them. We really thought that they probably stopped to rest.”

  “For three days?!”

  “There was a large accident that shut down parts of the Interstate for almost 16 hours. We figured they took a detour and maybe decided to keep riding.”

  Chevalier slammed his fist into the phone, shutting off the connection, “She’s been missing for four days then.”

  “You can’t tell what type of pain?” Quinn asked.

  “Not exactly. It’s not that specific.”

  “Let’s send our own heku out and find her.”

  Chevalier frowned suddenly and held his hand out to silence the heku. His brow deepened and he turned to the others, “What’s a murso?”

  “Murso?” Zohn asked.

  “Emily just told me murso.”

  The Records Keeper disappeared and then returned with a stack of papers, “Maybe a coven?”

  As Records Keeper, he had perfect memory of every coven in the Equites, but wanted to double check just to make sure.

  Chevalier ordered Silas to search the internet for the word Murso, while the Records Keeper poured through files.

  They watched as he went through the coven listing, “No Murso. I don’t think it’s even short for a coven name.”

  They looked up several minutes later when Silas appeared, “I didn’t get any solid hits on murso.”

  “Damnit,” Chevalier hissed. “She’s terrified.”

  “Do we have any heku named Murso?” Kyle asked the Records Keeper.

  He disappeared from the council chambers again.

  Chevalier looked at Silas, “Get your Cavalry together. We need to trace the route from here to Encala City. Emily’s missing.”

  Silas growled, “Missing?”

  “Yes, she didn’t arrive at the Encala, and she’s in pain.”

  Silas blurred from the room, and the Council could hear him calling the Cavalry together.

  Jerry, the Records Keeper, finally addressed the Elders, “There are three Murso’s in the Equites, one we know of in the Encala, and one in the Valle.”

  “Where are the ones for us?” Chevalier asked.

  “There’s one in the Iterambere Coven outside of Burundi, the Coven Lord of the Tarawa Coven in Kiribati is named Murso, and then there’s a Murso in the Kootenai Coven outside of Troy, Montana.”

  “Get Kootenai on the phone.”

  Jerry nodded and then dialed on the speaker phone. On the twelfth ring, he hung up and looked over at the Elders, “Kootenai is in a brand new location. They moved from outside of Denver only last month.”

  Chevalier called for Dr. Edwards, Mark, and Kralen to meet him at Equites 2. Within 10 minutes, they were heading toward Montana, while the rest of the Council contacted the other two covens in the Equites to see if they knew anything about Murso and Emily. Kyle contacted the Encala and informed them of the name Murso. They assured him they would get in touch with the two they knew of in their own faction.

  Kralen gently landed the helicopter down in an empty field just outside of the 91 heku coven of Kootenai. He cut the engines, and the heku stepped out and listened but heard nothing coming from the small compound.

  Chevalier was the first to the gates. He looked down at two piles of ash lying beside the entrance, “Find her.”

  The heku scattered through the compound, gathering ashes they came to into tiny bags to return to Kyle. Once in the main house, a three story red brick mansion, the heku spread out, following the strong Winchester scent.

  Kralen was the first to appear in the prison, and he looked carefully around the cell Emily was once housed in. A slight sound caught his attention, and he walked down past the four cells and stood before a brick wall. He reached out and pushed against the bricks, and the hidden door easily slid inward, revealing the interrogation room.

  “Damnit!” he yelled, and then immediately let Emily down from the high shackles. When her arms dropped suddenly, she screamed in pain and the other heku blurred into the room as he gently laid her down on the cold, dirt floor before ungagging her.

  Mark released Andrew from his restraints as Dr. Edwards knelt down and began to dig through his bag, “Let me stop the pain, then I want her upstairs where it’s warmer.”

  Chevalier nodded, too furious to speak, and ordered the two ashes at Emily’s side to be gathered and kept separated from the rest.

  Andrew knelt down, “She was kicked in the side and hip, and has been hit numerous times. She’s been hanging for about two days though.”

  “What happened?” Mark asked angrily.

  “We were stopped at a traffic jam and then Tasered by the Equites,” Andrew told him, glaring at the heku General. �
�They kept us in prison for a while and finally brought us here. They didn’t know it was Emily. They were after me.”

  When Emily finally relaxed and fell unconscious, Dr. Edwards tenderly picked her up and walked out of the prison. Kralen ran ahead and found a bed in the Coven Lord’s bedroom. Dr. Edwards laid her down and covered her with heavy blankets.

  “Why didn’t you tell them who she was?” Mark asked, and then spun and looked around the room. “Where did Andrew go?”

  Kralen frowned and called out for the Encala but got no answer.

  “Let him run,” Chevalier hissed, watching Dr. Edwards. “So?”

  Dr. Edwards looked up, “I don’t think there’s anything more than a bruise on her hip, but she does have a few cracked ribs. My main concern is her shoulder. It was already hurting her because of the horse, now it’s been holding her body weight for two days.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Dehydration is all. I don’t think they fed her.”

  “Do we have all of the ashes?” Chevalier asked.

  Mark nodded, “Yes, Elder.”

  “Let’s go then.”

  Chevalier picked Emily up and laid a blanket over her for the ride back to Council City. Everyone was quiet, each trying to figure out what happened.

  Once Emily was tucked into bed with a sling around the arm with the injured shoulder, the Council met to revive the ashes.

  Kyle first revived the two sets of ashes found in the interrogation room.

  Murso was the second to reform and slip on a blue robe. He turned to the Council and smiled, “Thank you.”

  Chevalier’s eyes narrowed, “You have a lot of explaining to do.”

  Murso nodded, “I realize that. The Encala’s Chief Interrogator tortured a member of our coven. We tracked him heading west on his motorcycle with his mortal wife, and we captured them. We were just about to torture his wife, so he could watch, when we somehow turned to ash. I guess the Encala came after their Interrogator.”

  “Andrew’s mortal wife?” Kyle asked angrily.

  “Yes, the red head with him.”

  “Did they tell you she was his wife?”