Ferus : Book 6 of the Heku Series (20 page)

She watched silently as Chevalier pulled out
useless items from his wallet and tossed them onto the grass. He
pulled out a dark blue card and growled, “V.E.S. member.”

“We need to get in Emily’s
office… she monitors their computer systems and tracks activity,”
Storm explained. “She hasn’t in a few days though. She’s been busy
with the garden.”

“Silas,” Chevalier called
out, and headed into the castle. He stopped at the door to Emily’s
office and turned to the Captain.

“Yes, Sir?” Silas asked.

“Get on Emily’s computer.
She’s been tracking the V.E.S., see if you can find
her.”

Silas nodded and stepped
into the office. Chevalier sat down and watched the heku’s fingers
fly over the keyboard as all six monitors lit up with different
areas of the V.E.S. computer system.

“This is going to take a
while… I’m not nearly as good as Emily is,” Silas said, and studied
one of the top monitors.

Chevalier took Dain from
Anna and moved up to the roof of the castle. With keen eyes, he
scanned the horizon, waiting for any sign. When dark came, a few of
the heku came back for fuel and then headed out into the night on
boats and jet skis. He knew she was in pain, he could sense it, and
it was infuriating to have her so far out of reach.

He turned and disappeared from the roof when
Silas called out to him. He appeared in Emily’s office.

“I’m picking up a radio
transmission near here,” Silas said. “It was one of the V.E.S.
listed frequencies.”

Silas reached over and turned up the volume
on the computer.

“Bloody vampires
everywhere. My radar is picking up a lot of small craft around us,”
a frantic voice said.

“Can you get a clear path
to the mainland?” a woman asked.

“Not without risking running into one of
them.”

“If they get to you
they’ll kill you… try to get to the mainland, and we’ll wait for
you.”

“I know that! I told
Donald to wait, but he didn’t…”

“Damnit, tell him to stop
this instant. If he kills her, we won’t get any
information.”

A low growl erupted from Chevalier.

“He’s just trying to get
the location for their main city, so far she’s not talking, but she
will.”

“Just make sure he doesn’t
kill her, and get to the mainland.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“There,” Silas said
hurriedly. He pointed at a small blip on the computer
screen.

“What is it?”

“The origin of the
transmission. They’re only about 40 miles south of
here.”

“Let’s go,” Chevalier
said. He handed Dain off to Anna and blurred out to a waiting boat.
Silas, Kralen, Mark, and Chevalier sped off toward the last
location of the V.E.S. boat.

They had the advantage of
the dark, and as they approached the coordinates, they could see
the dark boat sitting still on the water. No lights were on. They
were masking themselves with the night.

“Kill the engines,”
Chevalier whispered, and the heku boat fell silent.

“Swim in,” Mark said, and
pulled off his shirt. He sunk quietly into the water, followed by
the others, and swam silently toward the unsuspecting
V.E.S.

They approached the 45
foot cabin cruiser without being detected. One man on deck leaned
over to check the port side of the boat. His neck was broken before
Kralen dropped him silently into the water.

Chevalier was first to
step foot onto the boat. The other three joined him and looked
around the deck. Mark motioned for Silas to take care of the
Captain, who was sitting on the bridge with a bottle of vodka and a
Playboy magazine.

Kralen and Mark headed
toward the back of the boat, while Chevalier took the first set of
stairs down. He emerged in a hallway and grew furious when he
smelled the distinctive Winchester blood.

Mark crouched low and
peered around an open door. There were six men sitting at a table
eating dinner and talking about the upcoming NBA playoffs. Kralen
appeared suddenly behind one of them, and removed his head before
the others even noticed. Mark took the second and third in quick
succession, and Kralen slammed the heads of two of them together,
shattering their skulls instantly.

The last man took a swing at Mark and
missed, slamming his fist into the wall. He cradled it and turned
as Mark and Kralen descended on him.

Chevalier opened the first door quietly and
looked in on an empty bedroom. He looked in the next room and
grinned, then killed a couple in the middle of the throes of
passion.

Kralen headed alone down a
narrow stairway, while Mark continued on toward the sleeping
berths. As Kralen entered a large cargo hold, he froze and scanned
the room quickly. Emily’s scent was much stronger in this room. A
man was asleep on a cot beside the entrance to the refrigeration
cargo bays, and didn’t stir when Silas entered.

Silas appeared beside the
man and restrained him while Kralen peaked into the refrigeration
storage. He growled loudly at the last freezer unit and tore the
door from its hinges. He knelt down beside her and touched her,
unsure if she was still alive in the sub-freezing temperatures. She
was wearing only her bikini bottoms, and her hair was frozen stiff
with blood.

Chevalier appeared in the cargo hold just as
Kralen brought Emily out of the freezer. He laid her down on the
cot beside Silas and disappeared from the room, reappearing a few
seconds later with a blanket. Chevalier took her freezing hand in
his and felt a weak pulse in her wrist.

“All of them are dead,”
Mark said, walking into the cargo bay. He frowned and turned on the
lights. Emily’s face was beaten beyond recognition and her body was
a mass of dark, vicious bruises. Her back was covered in bloody
welts and thick cuts, and she had crescent shaped marks all over
her. She was frozen in fetal position under the blanket, no longer
able to even shiver.

Chevalier hissed, “Kralen,
get us back to the island and call Storm, have Dr. Edwards
waiting.”

“Yes, Sir,” Kralen said,
and blurred from the room.

“Em?” Chevalier asked
softly. He pulled a lock of hair out of caked blood on her face and
watched for any sign she was awake. The boat shifted as Kralen
started up the engines and headed back for the island.

Mark stepped between Silas and Chevalier
when the Elder stood up, fists clenched, and faced the one
remaining mortal.

“Elder… don’t kill him… he deserves worse
than that,” Mark said, putting his hands out to Chevalier. “Trust
me, don’t kill him now.”

The man watched them with
wide eyes. Silas was restraining him, and had a hand over his mouth
so he couldn’t speak. It was obvious from the fear in his eyes that
he knew he would soon be dead.

Chevalier carefully picked
Emily up and carried her to one of the empty beds, then laid her
down and covered her with another blanket. Sitting down beside her,
he took her hand, the one thing on her body that didn’t seem
bruised or bleeding.

“Em? Can you hear me?” he asked.

She nodded slightly, but
only a soft moan escaped her swollen lips.

“You’re ok now. We’re
headed back to the island.”

It took every ounce of
control to keep his temper down. He knew he would get time alone
with the one remaining V.E.S. member, but for now, he needed to
stay calm and help Emily. When the engines slowed an hour later, he
picked her up again with the blankets, and slowly walked up onto
the deck. The sun was just coming up over the horizon and he saw
the coven gathered inside the cement walls, all waiting for word on
Emily.

Kralen and Silas cleared a
path through the heku and Chevalier blurred Emily to the castle,
followed by Mark, who had the V.E.S. member restrained and was
headed into the prison.

Storm met them at the door, “Dr. Edwards is
in her room.”

Dr. Edwards smiled when
they came into the warm room, “Good to see you again. Storm wasn’t
sure what the problem was but… oh my God.”

Chevalier laid her down
and Dr. Edwards’ eyes grew wide. He sat down beside her and took
her hand as she began to shiver violently.

“What happened?” he asked, looking her face
over quickly.

“Mortals had her,”
Chevalier growled. “The V.E.S.”

“Mortals did this?”

“Yes”

“Why is she hypothermic?”

“They kept her in the freezer.”

Dr. Edwards nodded, “Step out please, for
now.”

“Why?”

“I need to look her over without tempers in
the room.”

“Come on, Elder,” Kralen
said, and put a hand on Chevalier’s shoulder. He nodded and backed
out of the room slowly.

“Document all injuries,”
Silas said, and handed the doctor a notebook and pen.
“Everything.”

Dr. Edwards nodded and Silas left the room,
shutting the door behind him.

A helicopter landed an
hour later and there was still no word from the bedroom. The heku
could hear inside and all they caught was Dr. Edwards cursing and
mumbling under his breath, and the occasional groan from
Emily.

“How is she?” Zohn asked, walking up with
Quinn.

“We don’t know yet,”
Kralen said when Chevalier didn’t respond.

Silas filled the Elders in
on what they encountered, but stopped when the door opened and Dr.
Edwards walked into the ante-chamber, visibly upset. He sat down,
took a deep breath, and sunk his head into his hands.

“I’ve never seen anything
like that,” he said softly.

“Is she ok?” Chevalier asked.

“Yeah, she’ll live, but I
have a feeling that for a while she’ll wish she didn’t.”

“I want to know her injuries.”

Dr. Edwards nodded, “Come in and I’ll show
you what I found.”

The heku followed Dr.
Edwards into the room and he sat down by Emily.

“She’s sleeping?”

“I had to give her strong
pain medications. The exam was too painful.”

“Ok… show us.”

Dr. Edwards sighed, “I’m a little afraid to
show you some of this.”

Chevalier nodded, “Do it.”

“I don’t know her
temperature, my thermometer only goes to 94 degrees, but I can tell
you that she was close to freezing to death.”

The doctor paused when Emily sighed and then
turned back to Chevalier and continued.

“I’ll start with her face,
the most obvious. She has a broken nose and right cheekbone, her
jaw was dislocated but I managed to get it back in. She’s lucky
that she doesn’t scar, her face is pretty cut up. If I had to
guess, I’d say it was done with a fist wearing a ring,” Dr. Edwards
said, and moved the sheet down off of her neck. “There are ligature
marks on her neck. She was choked with something thin. Her black
eyes are from the usual, same with the swollen lip. I checked her
teeth and some are loose, but none seem to me missing.”

Chevalier shut his eyes and leaned against
the wall.

Dr. Edwards looked at the
heku and continued, “She has bruises and abrasions around her
wrists and ankles along with sprained wrists and shoulders… strung
up, again. That seems to be popular with this girl.”

“Seems so,” Quinn said, stepping over to
look at the fire.

“I’m not sure there’s an inch of her that
doesn’t have a bruise,” he paused and then continued. “There’s a…
well… a V carved into her stomach.”

“What!?” Quinn yelled, and
turned around.

Dr. Edwards nodded and
pulled the sheet over to show them. A large V was cut narrowly into
her abdomen, but had already scabbed over, “There’s more… on her
back.”

“More writing?”

“Yes,” the doctor said,
and gently rolled her over. He’d cleaned up her back, leaving only
the deep red welts and long cuts from a lashing. He motioned to her
lower back where the word ‘traitor’ was cut with jagged lines above
her tattoo, “I had to put stitches in some of that to stop the
bleeding… again, she doesn’t scar, so it should fully
disappear.”

Zohn walked over and
angrily put his fist through the stone wall, growling.

“Lastly… and this… I just wanted to make
sure that you said mortals did this?”

“Yes, why?” Quinn asked
when he realized Chevalier was too angry to speak.

“There are 31 bites on her.”

“Bites?” Chevalier asked,
through gritted teeth.

Dr. Edwards laid her back
on the bed and pulled her arm out from under the sheet. He pointed
to a deep red, crescent shape gash on her arm, “31 bites… if they
are really mortals, then we need to be careful. The human mouth is
full of bacteria and those will get infected.”

Chevalier walked over and violently tore the
balcony door off and slammed it against the outside wall of the
castle.

“What can you do for her?” Quinn asked.

“I’d like to take her to a
hospital, but there’s no way they wouldn’t call the police. So I’d
say antibiotics and bed rest, and we need to warm her up slowly. I
opened the window to cool it off a bit in here. We can’t get her
too warm at first. One of the bruises on her back looks a lot like
a kidney bruise, and those can be painful and nasty. Before I go,
I’ll treat the cuts on her back, wrists, ankles, and stomach, and
the bites with an anti-biotic ointment. Once I’ve covered them with
gauze, I’ll brace her nose and wrists.”