Encala : Book 3 of the Heku Series

by T. M. Nielsen

  “We can’t do it with three,” Mark said.

  “Why not? We have the two out of three Elder approvals that we need… we can do it.”

  “No, we can’t. Three of us can’t drain her fast enough to make it work,” Maleth said, touching Chevalier’s arm lightly. “She wouldn’t want to be turned. She has never expressed a desire for it.”

  “Get me that Ancient, alive,” Chevalier hissed.

  “There’s one thing… something I wanted to just bring up,” Maleth said, and waited until Chevalier looked at him.

  “What?”

  “The dog, Emily’s new dog… he attacked the doctor.”

  “So? He doesn’t like heku,” Mark said, softly.

  “I don’t think that’s the case. As soon as the doctor became aware of his actions, the dog let him be,” Maleth said.

  “I still don’t see why we’re talking about the dog right now,” Chevalier said.

  Mark nodded, “He started to growl the other day, just before her headache started.”

  “Chev?” Emily whispered, and the three heku turned to look at her.

  “I’m here, Em,” he said, rubbing her hand.

  “I hurt.”

  “I know. You’re in the hospital,” he said to her. She still hadn’t opened her eyes.

  “Make them stop. I won’t do it,” she whispered.

  “Tell me, Em, who?” Chevalier asked, softly.

  “Tell them I won’t do it,” she said again.

  “Who?” he asked her, frustrated.

  “The pain doesn’t matter. I won’t do it,” she said, frowning slightly.

  “Do what?”

  “Who?” he growled when she didn’t answer.

  “Visiting hours were over at 11pm,” a nurse said when she walked in the room.

  “Can’t we stay? Please?” Mark asked her.

  “Are you her husband?” the nurse asked, looking at him over her reading glasses.

  “No, her husband is in jail… we’re brothers and her dad,” Mark explained.

  “Then out,” she said, irritated. “You can wait in the lobby if you want, visiting hours start at 7am.”

  Maleth and Mark stood up, but Chevalier didn’t move. They each took an arm and had to use their strength to get him to stand up and let go of her.

  “She’ll rip out her I.V.,” Chevalier said, as he was pulled to the door.

  “We’ll watch it,” the nurse told him, sounding insulted.

  The few mortals in the lobby thought the men in the corner were sitting in silence, still as statues, but they were, in fact, carrying on a conversation. They were desperately trying to figure out how they were going to get at the Ancient. They were interrupted at 7:30am when a pretty nurse came and touched Maleth on the shoulder.

  “Sir?” she asked, smiling sweetly at him.

  Maleth turned to her, “Yes?”

  “Are you Emily Russo’s father?”

  “Yes,” he replied.

  “She’s… well…” the nurse hesitated and then sighed, “She’s asking for her husband, and we thought maybe you could talk to her. She doesn’t seem to believe that her husband is in jail for... domestic violence.”

  Maleth nodded, “She’s a lot closer to her brother, maybe he should go.”

  The nurse smiled, “Ok, come with me.”

  Chevalier thanked Maleth and followed the nurse into the elevator.

  “Where is she?” Chevalier asked.

  “She was moved to the ICU last night,” the nurse said sweetly.

  Chevalier nodded and followed the nurse out of the elevator and into a large round room. The center desk was also round and full of monitors and folders. Glass rooms lined the outside circle, most had curtains pulled across the glass.

  The nurse opened Emily’s door and smiled at Chevalier.

  “Please, let me break it to her alone,” he said to the nurse, and she nodded and shut the door after him.

  “Chev,” Emily said, and smiled.

  Chevalier sat down in a chair by her and took her hand. He frowned when he saw that her hands were restrained to the sides of the bed with soft leather restraints.

  “How are you?” he asked, softly.

  “Let my hands go, please,” she said, pulling at the restraints.

  He smiled and kissed her hand, “I’m imagining they are there to keep your I.V. in.”

  “Please,” she begged.

  “How are you?” he asked again.

  “I’ve had worse,” she said, and looked up at the I.V.

  “I need to explain some things. It’s important that you understand me.”

  She looked over at him, “What’s wrong?”

  He smiled, “Where should I start. Your injuries, the ones from last night and the ones from previous years… the doctors are blaming it on domestic violence.”

  Emily frowned.

  “We know… some of it was from Keith. So Kyle took the fall.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Kyle has been arrested on domestic assault charges, from what we can tell… a lot of them.”

  “Why did he do that?”

  “I think to save me from going to jail. He knew I would want to be here. So he went to jail as Keith, which means he probably kept Keith’s I.D.” Chevalier watched her carefully.

  “He’s still in jail?”

  “We’ll get him out, ok? As soon as a judge posts bail.”

  “If Kyle is Keith, then who are you?”

  “Your brother… so is Mark, and Maleth is your Dad,” he said, shrugging. “It all happened so fast and spiraled into one huge, confusing mess.”

  “I thought I was the one with the head injury,” Emily said. She laughed once and then winced.

  “Don’t laugh, Em,” he said, touching her arm.

  “I don’t remember why I’m here,” she said finally.

  “It was another ancient attack.”

  “Why don’t I remember?” she asked, confused.

  “It was right after one of your headaches,” Chevalier said. He didn’t mention that he’d been trying to control her even though his intentions were good.

  “Please let my hands go, they hurt,” she said, looking into his eyes.

  “No”

  “They hurt.”

  “If I thought that for one moment, I’d rip them off of you.”

  “When can I go home?”

  “They haven’t said. We’ll ask the doctor, ok?”

  She nodded.

  “We’ll find out about the baby, too,” he said, watching her.

  She frowned, “What about the baby?”

  “To see if it’s ok.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be ok? I hit my head.”

  Chevalier considered lying, but then remembered his promise, “It was more than that. You were thrown across the room and into a door.”

  She frowned, “By who?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes… it does.”

  “The doctor.”

  Emily turned her head away from him, “I want to be alone.”

  Chevalier nodded and kissed her on the forehead before leaving.

  He returned to the lobby. Maleth and Mark had heard their conversation, so he didn’t need to fill them in on the details. They waited for a few hours before the doctor appeared.

  “Hello,” he said, shaking their hands.

  “You’re Emily’s Dad?” the doctor asked Maleth, and he nodded.

  “May I talk to you alone for a moment?”

  “Actually, talk to her brother. He’s a lot closer to her than I am,” Maleth said, and Chevalier stood up.

  “Sorry, dad trumps brother,” the doctor told them, and led Maleth to his office.

  Chevalier leaned toward the office so he could hear better.

  “Your daughter’s suffered very serious physical injuries, but we also need to address the emotional abuse. We’ve noticed she has nightmares, and while that’s common with domestic violence, hers seem confus
ed and well… quite frankly… don’t make much sense,” the doctor said.

  Maleth caught Chevalier’s words, and repeated them to the doctor, “What do you mean that they don’t make sense?”

  “It’s common with a head injury. I wouldn’t worry about it,” the doctor smiled.

  “So when can we take her home?” Maleth asked.

  “That’s the other thing. Her husband is locked up in jail, but if he can post bail, he’ll be back on the streets. With the controlling abusive types, there’s a good chance he’ll try to get back with her.”

  “She won’t, her brothers and I won’t allow it.”

  “That’s good to hear. A strong family base will help,” the doctor said.

  “What about the baby?”

  “As far as we can tell, the baby is fine.”

  “That’s great!” Maleth said. “So… about taking her home?”

  “I want to keep her for a few more days. Then she can go home as long as it’s not to her husband,” the doctor said. “You need to understand that abused wives often return to their husbands.”

  Maleth nodded, “Trust me, that won’t happen.”

  “Doctor?” a nurse said, knocking on the open door.

  “Yes?”

  “Umm… patient in room 6? She got out of her restraints and pulled her I.V. out again.”

  “Put it back in,” he said, not looking at Maleth.

  “She’s fighting us, Sir.”

  “Very well, I’ll come,” the doctor told her, and stood up. “Let her rest, come and get her on Friday.”

  Maleth nodded and returned to the lobby.

  ***

  Chevalier carried Emily up the stairs, cradled in his arms. She still had bandages around her head and her arm was in a cast.

  “I can walk, you know,” she said, laying her head against his shoulder.

  “I’m sure you can.”

  “Mommy!” Allen yelled, and ran to Chevalier when they walked in her room. Chevalier laid her on the bed and Allen jumped up and hugged her.

  “Hi, Baby,” she said, leaning back against the pillow.

  “I missed you,” Allen told her, and kissed Emily on the cheek.

  “I missed you, too.”

  Chevalier propped her bad arm up on a pillow and sat down on the bed, “Need anything?”

  She shook her head.

  “I have pills for the headache.” He put a bottle on the bedside table.

  “My wrists hurt worse than my headache,” she said.

  Chevalier picked up her good hand and rubbed her wrist, “It wouldn’t hurt if you would have stopped slipping the restraints and taking your I.V. out. They had to keep tightening them.”

  “They wouldn’t take it out,” she said in her defense.

  “Get down!” Chevalier said, scooting Ford off of the bed when he jumped up.

  “Be nice, Chev,” Emily said, frowning.

  “He’s fine,” Chevalier told her, as he watched the puppy tear apart a pair of shoes.

  “I’m tired.” Emily shut her eyes.

  Sam came and took Allen as Chevalier sat on the bed and watched her sleep. The heku in the corner stood silently and watched everything in the room.

  “Let’s go,” he whispered, when there was an all-call to the council chambers. He kissed Emily softly and then both blurred to the council chambers.

  Chevalier took his spot with the Council while the guard stood along the walls. Standing in the middle of the trial area were four heku in dark red robes, obvious Encala.

  Leonid stood, “Why have you come to our City?”

  One of the robed Encala stepped forward. His hood was pulled low to cover his identity, “We have come for our Elder. We demand his immediate return.”

  “You demand?” Damon asked, amused.

  “Yes… we will return the Winchester to you if you return the Elder to us,” he said.

  Chevalier spoke, “Maybe we don’t want her back. She’s been a pain.”

  The robed figure turned to Chevalier, “We know you want her back. Now return the Elder to us, and we will return the Winchester to you tonight.”

  “That’s very nice of you but... no,” Damon said.

  “We want the Ancient in return for your Elder,” Leonid said.

  “We don’t have an ancient,” the Encala replied.

  “We heard differently,” Leonid said.

  “The only thing we will trade for the Elder is the girl.”

  “We already have her, try again,” Damon said, irritated.

  “You do not have the girl, we have her.”

  Chevalier rolled his eyes, “Don’t be stupid, she’s upstairs.”

  “Smell deeply, heku, do you smell the scent of a pregnant Winchester?” They could see a glimmer of teeth as he grinned.

  “What makes you think she’s pregnant?” Maleth asked.

  “We have our own informants.”

  “We aren’t trading you the Elder for Emily,” Chevalier said, sighing.

  The back door to the council chambers opened and Emily stumbled in. She fell forward into Damon’s arms. Chevalier was at her side in a blur and knelt down.

  “Emily, what’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I’m hearing voices in the bedroom,” she said, her were eyes afraid.

  “Frank, Mark, take her upstairs,” Chevalier said. It wasn’t until he calmed down, that he noticed the bandages were off of her head, and her cast was missing.

  Chevalier froze when he heard a series of hisses, and the sound of fighting. He looked up just as Damon disappeared over the desk.

  “Get her out of here,” Maleth yelled, jumping into the fight.

  Chevalier picked Emily up and blurred to their room. He sat her down and turned as Mark and Frank entered.

  “Where did you hear voices?” he asked her.

  “In the bathroom,” she said, looking at the door.

  Mark and Frank walked into the bathroom and looked around carefully, “There’s no one in here.”

  “I swear I heard them,” she said.

  “I know,” he said, kissing her forehead, “But you also have a head injury. I shouldn’t have left you alone. I’m sorry.”

  “I didn’t mean to cause a fight,” she apologized, softly.

  He smiled, “They were asking for one anyway. I’m sure Damon is quite happy that you started it, as he was about to.”

  “Go back, it’s ok,” she said, laying down.

  “Where’s your cast?”

  “It… slipped off,” she said, blushing.

  Mark came out of the bathroom carrying her cast. It was torn in half, “Who did you have to bribe to get this torn off?”

  She shrugged and then gasped when the pain in her shoulder hit.

  “I’m ok, just go back,” Emily told Chevalier.

  “I’ll leave Mark and Frank, ok?”

  Emily nodded, and Chevalier blurred to the council chambers and sat in his chair. The four Encala were now restrained. Damon was furious, which meant the Elders called off the killing of the Encala.

  “Well… where were we?” Chevalier asked.

  “We were just seeing what else they had to offer other than Emily, who is obviously still here,” Maleth said, turning to the Encala.

  “How do you not feed from her?” one of them asked, running his tongue along his lips. The taste of her blood was still in the air.

  “Control,” Leonid said, bluntly.

  “What offer is on the table?” Chevalier asked, trying to catch up.

  “So far, they have nothing,” Damon said.

  “Do we know who they are?”

  “Apparently no one… the Encala were afraid to send anyone of importance, not sure why,” Maleth said with a grin.

  “If they won’t tell us what we want… let’s just have Emily turn them to ash. She can do it slowly, I’ve felt it, the burn is severe,” Chevalier suggested.