Encala (26 page)

Emily looked at him, impressed.

“
She gets the best, Eric,
only the best for my sister,” Frank said, putting his arm around
her casually.

“
Base model,” Eric said,
dryly.

“
If you ever treated her
right, like she deserved, you’d get her the fully loaded model,”
Frank said, letting go of Emily and pushing Eric.

Emily had to fight to control her laughter,
“Stop it… show me the fully loaded one.”

The salesman was terrified. His eyes were
wide as he watched the hulking heku start to push each other
around. He would much rather deal with the tiny woman than her
intimidating companions.

***

Chevalier watched the clock closely. It had
been six hours since Emily left with the two guards to go shopping,
and he still wasn’t picking up any emotions or senses from her. He
paced nervously across the foyer, getting angrier by the
minute.

“
I did not!” he heard Emily
yell, and he turned to face the doors to the large
garage.

“
Yes you did! Oh my God,
you did,” Frank said, laughing, and Emily slapped him playfully on
the arm.

“
At least what I did isn’t
going to get us arrested… Dear Brother,” Emily said, mocking
fear.

Frank’s face fell and he stood tall as
Chevalier approached, “Elder,” he said, bowing slightly.

“
Hi, Chev,” Emily said,
smiling.

“
Have fun?” Chevalier asked
curiously. He watched Frank and could tell he was trying not to
laugh.

“
I had a blast… though I’m
not sure Eric will be ok,” she said, smiling.

Frank stood perfectly still.

Emily frowned, “Chevalier, tell him to stop…
we were having fun.”

Chevalier nodded at Frank, and he burst into
laughter.

“
What is so funny?”
Chevalier asked. He couldn’t help but smile.

“
Your wife is a flirt,”
Frank said, and then tensed when he realized what he’d
said.

“
I am not!” Emily said, and
blushed. “You have to be attractive to flirt.”

Frank started to say something, but stopped
when he saw his Elder tense.

Frank grinned when Chevalier spoke, “What
did she do?”

“
She had this poor salesman
wrapped around her little finger and scared to death of Eric,”
Frank explained.

“
Of course he was afraid of
Eric. Eric was afraid to talk. Seriously… he needs acting
lessons.”

“
I’ll add that to the guard
regime,” Chevalier said, as he buried his jealous feelings
deeply.

“
I finally started
prompting him, that helped,” Frank admitted.

“
Ooooh, is that why he
started talking?” Emily nodded, finally understanding.

“
You don’t think he came up
with that on his own do you?” Frank asked.

“
Frank tried to trade in
your Humvee,” Emily said, and ducked behind Chevalier when Frank
gasped at her.

“
I didn’t really mean it,”
Frank said, eyes wide.

“
Trade it in? For what?” he
turned and asked Emily.

“
You promised me my own
car, so you bought me one.”

“
Oh and what did I buy
you?”

“
A Dodge Durango. Thanks
too, I love it.”

“
Give Eric the day off,
trust me. He’s terrified you are going to kill him,” Frank said to
Chevalier.

“
Gah, he needs to get over
it,” Emily said, as she heard the garage door shut.

“
What did he do to deserve
that?” Chevalier frowned.

“
Emily made him play the
part of her grouchy husband,” Frank said, smirking.

“
Emily! It’s against orders
to impersonate an Elder,” Chevalier said to her.

“
He wasn’t impersonating an
Elder… he was portraying my grouchy husband. It worked too, I got a
killer deal,” she said, proudly.

Eric froze in the hallway when he saw
Chevalier.

“
Eric, come here,”
Chevalier said sternly, and Emily smacked him on the
arm.

“
Yes… yes, Sir?” Eric was
terrified.

“
Go feed, Eric, you look
awful,” Chevalier said, and watched Eric blur away without another
word.

“
Here’s your credit card. I
don’t want it when the police come,” Emily said, handing him the
seldom used platinum card.

“
Why are the police
coming?” he asked.

“
That wasn’t illegal,”
Frank told her.

“
I’m pretty sure it’s not
legal either,” Emily told him, grinning.

Chevalier sighed, “Do I want to know what
you two did?”

“
I… erm… well I got her a…
yeah, well, a pretty good deal,” Frank said, nervously.

“
A pretty good deal? I just
bought a fully-loaded Dodge Durango in next year’s model for
$10,000,” she explained.

Chevalier looked at Frank, surprised, “How
did you do that?”

Frank sighed.

“
You didn’t,” Chevalier
said, shaking his head.

“
He started to be a jerk to
Emily, so I... intervened,” Frank explained, hoping he wasn’t in
trouble.

“
I need to learn how to do
that,” Emily said. “I want to look someone in the eyes and change
their mind, or tell them what to do. How convenient.”

“
Yes, well, we normally try
not to use that unless it’s an emergency,” Chevalier said, he was
trying to sound stern, but was having a hard time at it.

Emily stood toe-to-toe with Chevalier and
called him down to her level with a bend of her finger. He bent
down toward her, and she looked deep into his eyes.

“
Don’t be grouchy,” she
said, widening her green eyes at him.

“
That doesn’t work… Allen
wants to show you something,” Chevalier said, standing
up.

Emily headed up the stairs and Chevalier
turned to Frank.

“
How did it go?” he asked,
seriously.

“
Fine, Sir, nothing out of
the ordinary,” Frank reported.

“
Headaches?”

“
She asked for some pills
once, but refused to come back.”

“
Not the screaming type
though?”

“
No, Sir,” Frank
said.

“
Talk to Kyle. I want you
on the next cavalry unit,” Chevalier said, walking up the
stairs.

“
Yes, Sir,” Frank said, and
blurred off to talk to the Captain.

“
Get that damn dog out of
here!” Chevalier growled, as he held tightly to Emily.

Kyle grabbed Ford and pushed him into the
bathroom, slamming the door. He blurred back to the bed and held
Emily’s legs down. She was screaming as she thrashed in pain. The
last few times she had a similar episode, she managed to injure
herself, so Kyle and Chevalier fought to hold her down. They were
amazed at the strength the pain caused Emily to have.

“
No! No!” she screamed.
“You can’t make me.”

“
Emily, open your eyes,
look at me,” Chevalier said. He hoped if she could look into his
eyes, he might be able to gain some control of her in her weakened
state, but as of yet, she hadn’t done it.

“
Stop them,” she screamed,
and somehow managed to get one hand free for a second before
Chevalier caught it again.

“
Kill them,” she whispered,
as her body relaxed and her hands fell limp.

“
Emily, look at me... now,”
Chevalier said, trying to force her to open them.

With great effort, Emily looked up at him,
and in that split second, he was able to lock her gaze. Soon, her
breathing matched his and he relaxed as she fell under his control.
He could do this easily to any mortal except Emily, and it only
worked on her if she was sick or exceedingly tired.

“
Emily?” he asked. Kyle
watched them intently. He’d never seen Emily under heku
control.

Emily sighed, softly.

“
Who do you want me to
stop?” he asked, his was voice soft and calming. This trick was
often used to ensure cooperation by the mortal in extremely
stressful situations.

“
I will kill her first,”
Emily whispered. Her voice was hushed and far away.

“
Who are you going to
kill?” he asked, and all of his concentration was on her piercing
green eyes.

Kyle jumped off of the bed the second Emily
was thrown across the room and crashed against the bathroom door,
ripping it from the hinges. Chevalier was only half a second behind
Kyle. His concentration had been so fully on Emily, that he hadn’t
seen the doctor enter the room.

Kyle grasped the doctor’s arm. The doctor
hissed and broke free by twisting out of Kyle’s arms, then headed
for the bathroom. Chevalier dove for him, and slammed him into the
fireplace as a cloud of ash filled the bedroom. Kyle jumped into
the fight as the doctor twisted Chevalier’s head violently to the
side, and the sound of bones cracking echoed through the room.

Guards flooded the room, and heku from all
over the palace converged on the fight, and quickly pinned the
doctor down. He hissed and growled as he fought to get free. Kyle
ran to the bathroom and followed the trail of blood, stepping over
the shattered door. Emily was lying half in and half out of the
shower. Her shaking hand was pressed to the back of her head as
blood poured onto the tile.

He knelt down by her with a towel and
pressed it onto the back of her head, “Em, hold still.”

Emily was dazed and trying to crawl away
from him. She pulled the towel off of the back of her head and
pushed at Kyle.

“
Emily, stop,” he said, and
returned the towel to her head. He held his breath as much as he
could. The amount of blood on the floor was beginning to trigger
his predatory instincts.

“
Get me a mask!” Kyle
yelled at the guards, as he felt his mouth begin to
salivate.

Someone placed a menthol lined mask on his
face and he could relax. Emily’s shaky hand was still trying to
tear the towel away.

“
Get an ambulance,” he
ordered, and picked Emily up off the floor. She struggled in his
arms as he went into the bedroom. Chevalier was just standing up
after having healed when he looked around the room and then focused
on Emily. Blood was dripping down Kyle’s arm.

“
Five minutes on the
ambulance,” he heard a guard say from down stairs.

“
General quarters, clear
this palace out,” Kyle growled, and saw the guards blur away, two
of them taking the doctor with them.

Chevalier was looking at Emily with
confusion. The blood dripping down Kyle’s arm sent a warning
through him, but the back of his throat burned and he inhaled.

“
Back up!” Kyle yelled, as
he took a step back with Emily still cradled in his arm.

Mark appeared in the doorway and saw
Chevalier crouching slightly. He jumped and slammed into the Elder,
knocking him back into the bathroom. Kyle bolted for the door and
blurred down to the palace entrance. The plan had been
pre-established when the mortals arrived. Any ambulance would be
called to the small farmhouse outside of the city walls, where
their identity could remain anonymous.

Kyle arrived at the door to the farmhouse
just as the ambulance pulled up. Paramedics rushed out with a
gurney and took Emily from Kyle’s arms. He crawled into the front,
and after a few minutes, the orange and white ambulance sped away
with sirens blaring.

Kyle watched as Emily was whisked away by
the Emergency Room staff, and he went to the counter with the nurse
to fill out paperwork. He wrote down what he could and made up the
rest. The fee would be paid in cash anyway, so it didn’t
matter.

“
You can wait out here,”
the pretty blond nurse told him, and pointed to an old lounge with
mismatched, smelly chairs.

Kyle sat down and watched for Chevalier to
arrive. He was forced to turn his cell phone off, which cut him off
from the palace. He waited impatiently to hear something from Emily
and looked up at everyone who passed, waiting for any word. He was
surprised when four police officers came into the waiting area.

They walked over to him, “You need to come
with us.”

Kyle nodded and stood up, then followed the
officers into a small conference room.

“
Sit down, Son,” the
officer in charge said. Kyle did as he was told and ignored the son
comment. He was thousands of years older than all of
them.

The officer sat down across from Kyle, “I’m
Sergeant Washington, Special Victims Unit. I have some questions
for you.”

Kyle nodded and glanced at the other three
officers. They were looking at him angrily.

“
The young woman you
brought in, is that your wife?”

“
Yes,” Kyle said, not
hesitating.

“
What happened to her
tonight?”

“
She was bucked off of her
horse,” Kyle said, watching as everything he said was being written
down.

“
And the bruises on her
arm? Look a lot like a hand,” he said, coldly.

“
I grabbed her arm when the
mare acted up. I tried to get her off of the horse,” Kyle told
them.