Ferus : Book 6 of the Heku Series (60 page)

The Council all stood when
the explosion shook the palace. They rushed outside and pushed
through the crowd of servants and guards.

“Get the Elders out of
here!” Kyle yelled, and ran for the plume of flame and smoke rising
from the farmhouse.

“Let’s go,” Zohn said, and
the Elders moved back into the palace.

“The Lady’s in that house!” one of the
servants said, rushing up to Chevalier.

“What!?” he yelled, turning around.

“Lady Emily, she’s in the
farmhouse picking up a package,” the servant explained
quickly.

Chevalier disappeared from
the stairs.

“You and I better go,”
Quinn said, and he and Zohn quickly went to the roof and took off
in Equites 1.

Chevalier appeared at the remains of the
farmhouse just after Kyle. Mark and Silas were digging through the
burning rubble, their hands blacked and charred as they dug. Sirens
sounded from the distance. Kyle and Chevalier began throwing
flaming support beams out of the way as they searched for any sign
of her.

“Emily!” Kyle yelled into the burning
house.

Chevalier jumped back just
as the rest of the roof collapsed, and the fire rose higher. Six
fire trucks arrived from the city and the firefighters scrambled to
get their hoses out.

“Was anyone in there?” the lead fireman
asked him.

“Yes, six are in there,”
Kyle told him.

“Get them out of there!”
the fireman yelled when he saw Mark, Silas, and Chevalier digging
through the burning debris.

Kyle beat the fireman to
the heku, “Get back and let them do it.”

“No,” Chevalier growled,
and moved another beam. Mark and Silas took his arms and began to
drag him away. “Let me go!”

“No, Elder,” Kyle said,
and faced him. “They can put out the fire faster than we can search
through this… Let them do it.”

“I’m not getting anything from her,”
Chevalier said angrily.

“Just let them get to
her,” Kyle said, and turned to watch the firemen work while Mark
and Silas held Chevalier back.

“Whose house is this?” the
command leader asked.

“Mine,” Chevalier whispered.

“Who’s in there?”

Chevalier couldn’t talk.
The last wall of the farmhouse fell with a deafening crash and
added to the fire.

“His wife,” Kyle told him,
“And five friends of ours.”

“Where in the house were they?”

“I don’t know. We were
away.”

“Do you know what happened?”

“No, there was just an explosion.”

Mark was eyeing a delivery
truck that the explosion threw up against some of the trees. It was
lying on its side, back away from the house.

“That your truck?” the fireman asked.

Mark’s eyes narrowed,
“Yes.”

When the fireman walked
away to talk on the radio, Mark glanced at Silas, “Search that
truck. I want to know whose it is.”

“Yes, General,” he said,
and let go of Chevalier’s arm, then blurred to the truck, making
sure none of the fireman saw him, and began to go through
it.

After four hours, the
farmhouse was nothing but ash and smoldering beams. The Command
Leader walked over to Chevalier again.

“We found one set of
remains, big fella. I’m so sorry… are you sure the other five were
in there?”

“Yes,” Chevalier
whispered. The absence of emotion and feeling from Emily was
harrowing.

He turned back to the firemen, “Keep
digging, look for 5 of them.”

The heku knew what he was
referring to. The heat, the smoke, and the collapse of the building
would be too hostile to survive, even for a heku.

***

“Jaron?” Emily was able to
whisper through panting. Her lungs burned from the inhaled smoke,
and the pressure of four heku and rubble from the house were making
it hard to breathe, even little gasps, and her chest hurt. She
tried to shift under them, but wasn’t able to move and the injury
to her back was excruciating.

She shut her eyes and groaned,
“Tunnels.”

Chevalier gasped, “She’s in there.”

Kyle turned to him, “She’s alive?”

“Yes,” he growled, and ran
for the back end of the tunnels to the farmhouse.

“Where are you going?” Mark asked, keeping
up.

“She’s in the tunnels,”
the Elder said, and ran into the tunnels, followed by Mark and
Kyle.

The three heku came to
where the tunnel caved in and began to clear away rocks and dirt.
They were soon joined by the entire Cavalry as they formed a line
to get the fallen debris out of the way.

Chevalier and Kyle worked
feverishly to clear away the tunnel. After two hours of digging,
they’d managed to clear out 10 feet of the tunnel and kept working
as night fell.

Emily could hear something, something far
away that sounded like rocks falling.

“Emily?” Jaron whispered, obviously in a
great deal of pain.

“I’m… here…” she panted,
and groaned slightly. She felt him move above her
slowly.

“I can’t get the boards
off. I need to heal longer,” he told her.

“Others?”

Jaron caught his breath
and answered, “Three are dead, burned… Ryder is badly injured, but
still alive.”

“You?”

“Healing,” was all he told
her. She felt some of the weight lessen off of her, and Jaron
groaned as he tried to lift the beams lying on them.

“Stop,” she whispered.
“Don’t hurt… yourself.”

She could hear the smile in his voice, “Too
late for that.”

“I… hear…” She couldn’t
talk anymore. The pain in her chest and back was growing worse and
she leaned her forehead against the cold dirt ground.

“They’re coming, digging
through the tunnel. I smell blood. Where is it coming
from?”

“Allen… needs… a
bottle.”

“Em, stay with me,” Jaron
said, and struggled to relieve more of the weight off of
her.

She tried to get the
breath to answer him, but couldn’t through the pain. She started to
feel dizzy and leaned her head against the dirt as she fought to
breathe.

“Get here, now…” Jaron
growled as he heard a strange sound coming from Emily when she
gasped for breath, and he could feel her skin becoming cold and
clammy.

“Almost there,” Chevalier
yelled back, and fought harder to get to them.

“Get an ambulance,” Jaron
yelled. “She’s crashing!”

Jaron looked up when he saw light for the
first time since the explosion. He was able to see Kyle and
Chevalier as they slid under the rubble toward them.

“I can’t move, it’s too
heavy,” Jaron told them, and pushed against the heavy wooden beams
on his back.

“We’ll push with you,”
Kyle said. “Silas… get ready to pull her out, but don’t move her
any more than you have to.”

“Yes, Sir,” Silas said.

Kyle and Chevalier moved
to Jaron’s sides and braced their arms against the beams, while
Silas positioned his hands under Emily’s shoulders after moving
some rubble away from her face.

“On 3,” Kyle said, and
counted to 3. The three heku pushed against the beams and were able
to lift them the few inches it took for Silas to slide Emily out
from underneath them. Sirens sounded from above them, and they
could hear the Chief Interrogator talking to the
paramedics.

Silas slid Emily into the
tunnel, and four other heku moved around them to help get the
guards out. As soon as the four heku were released, Kyle and
Chevalier let go of the beams at the same time, and were barely
able to get out of the way as the ash and rubble crashed into the
basement.

“Em?” Chevalier asked,
moving her hair aside. She was still stomach down on the dirt,
unmoving, and breathing in short, rapid gasps. Once they could
clearly see her face, they saw dried blood across her forehead and
her lips were turning blue.

Mark put his hands up for
everyone to stop, “Don’t touch her. If we move her wrong, we could
break her spine. Get me two boards and everyone hand me your
belt.”

Chevalier slipped off his
belt and handed it over to Mark. He pulled his shirt off next and
laid it over her, her clothes were soaked from the water the
firefighters used to put out the flames.

Mark gently slid the two
boards under her and fastened her to it snugly using belts. Once he
was satisfied she wasn’t going to be jostled, he lifted one end as
Kyle lifted the other and they quickly moved out of the tunnels to
meet up with the ambulance.

Silas and the rest of the
heku stayed behind in the tunnels to help Jaron and Ryder as they
healed from broken bones and burns. The two deceased guards were
carried out immediately and moved to the palace lawn.

“Put her on the
stretcher!” one of the paramedics yelled, and immediately began
looking her over. He listened to her back for a moment with the
stethoscope and then called out to the other, “Only breath sounds
on one side, pneumothorax. I’m seeing signs of cardiovascular
collapse, hand me the kit.”

The other paramedic handed
the first a large bore needle and the first unwrapped it quickly,
and without even pausing, shoved it into Emily’s side, sinking it
deep into her chest. She groaned slightly but was unable to move
away from the pain.

Chevalier started forward,
but the Court Reporter and Chief Interrogator held him
back.

The second paramedic began
taping Emily down to Mark’s makeshift stretcher as a third started
an I.V. in her arm, “I.V.’s in, going bolus. She’s in shock and we
need to watch out for crushing syndrome.”

“What’s going on?” Chevalier asked
angrily.

“Push Mannitol in the
back, let’s get out of here,” the oldest paramedic said, and jumped
into the front of the ambulance. The other two loaded Emily in and
talked quickly as they shut the door. The ambulance sped away with
the lights flashing and the sirens blaring.

Kralen appeared with his
truck and stopped long enough for Kyle, Mark, and Chevalier to jump
inside before speeding off after the ambulance.

“I want to know what caused that,” Chevalier
said angrily.

“We already know,” Kralen
told him as he wove in and out of traffic. “The V.E.S. handed Emily
a package with a bomb in it. Jaron told Silas that he picked up the
scent, and was able to take the package from her, but they didn’t
have time to get her out before it exploded.”

A shadow crossed
Chevalier’s face, “Get all three factions together, we need to
dispose of the V.E.S. immediately.”

“I’ve called Quinn and Zohn back in,” Mark
told him. “As soon as they get in we’ll tell them.”

Kralen screeched to a halt behind the
ambulance as twelve doctors and nurses met the ambulance and Emily
was rushed into the hospital.

“I want CBC, SMA-12 and
Chem 20 stat, call in help if you have to,” one of the doctors
yelled. He had taken over from the paramedics and was barking
orders angrily as he cut Emily’s clothing off and shut the curtain
around her.

Chevalier lunged forward
when Emily screamed, but the other heku were able to hold him
back.

“Let them do what they
have to,” Kyle told him, fighting the urge himself to go in and
kill whoever made her scream.

Her scream stopped almost
as abruptly as it started, and all that was left was the sound of
people moving frantically around the room, yelling out results and
ordering more tests.

“Do you want a
2
^nd
I.V.?” one of the
nurses asked.

“Yes, go through the
jugular and push saline,” the doctor ordered.

“Doctor, potassium came
back. She has hyperklemia, 7.1,” a strange voice called out
frantically.

“Get 15u of regular
insulin and 50ml of 50% dextrose hung up now!” the doctor yelled,
and a nurse ran out of the small room and returned shortly with an
armful of supplies.

“Are one of you Emily’s
husband?” someone said from behind them. Mark, Kyle, and Kralen all
turned to face another doctor.

“Yes, he is,” Kyle said, motioning to
Chevalier, who was concentrating to hear everything that was going
on in the room.

“I’m Dr. Sauts, I’m Dean
of Medicine here. We have a room ready for you to wait in. It’ll be
more comfortable.”

“No,” Chevalier whispered.

Dr. Sauts sighed, “I was
trying to be polite. You gentlemen are in the way.”

Mark grinned slightly, “Sorry.”

“Just wait in the waiting
room. It’s a private one, and then the doctors will know where to
find you when they have an update.”

“Come on, Elder,” Kralen
said, and took his arm. He hesitated, and then turned to follow the
others into the private room.

“Have a seat. I’ll go see
what I can find out and come back,” Dr. Sauts said, and shut the
door.

After twenty minutes, they
all looked up when Silas came in. He sat down next to them, “How is
she?”

“We don’t know yet,” Kralen told him.

“We got the delivery guy.
He knew exactly what was in that package,” Silas whispered. “He’s
waiting in the prison.”