Ferus : Book 6 of the Heku Series (66 page)

“Do you have no
compassion? Why are you doing this?” Silas asked. His heart ached
from watching Emily in so much pain.

“Compassion for a
Winchester? None,” he said bluntly, and then left the
room.

***

“It’s almost 12 hours,”
Kralen whispered as Emily groaned in agony, her arms and legs shook
with the pain and her blood saturated the dirt beneath
her.

Mark nodded, “Then they turn her.”

“No!” Silas screamed when
thirteen heku entered, twelve in blue robes and one in
black.

“Don’t do this,” Mark growled.

The heku in black knelt
down beside Emily and touched her cheek softly, “It will be over
soon.”

“Stop this!” Kralen yelled.

“Mortal, do you know where
you are?” one of the heku in blue asked.

“She does,” the heku in black replied.

Mark gasped, “Exavior!”

“Do you know what is about to happen?”

“She does.”

“Do you do so willingly and without
coercion?”

There was amusement in his voice, “She
does.”

“Proceed”

Hisses were heard from
around the room as the heku in blue knelt down beside her and sunk
their teeth into her soft flesh. She gasped at the pain and her
back arched.

“Exavior, stop it!” Silas
growled. “There are other ways to get back at
Chevalier.”

As she was about to lose
consciousness, she felt something placed against her mouth. At
first she struggled, but when the blood wet her dry lips, she began
to drink feverishly.

The twelve heku in the
blue robes all pulled away from her and stood back along the
circular walls. Exavior stayed knelt by her as she drank heartily
from his wrist. After a few minutes, he stood up, pulling himself
forcefully away from her.

Exavior took a stick and
wrote runes in the dirt around Emily as she began to convulse and
her eyes rolled back in her head. The twelve in blue began to chant
and sway slightly in place as the runes were etched into the blood
soaked mud.

“Stop!” Mark yelled.
“Exavior, stop it!”

He brought the stick above
his head, and poised it over her chest, ready to plunge it into her
heart, stopping it and bringing her into immortality. The runes
around the round ceremonial room began to glow and a grin formed on
his face.

***

Chevalier, William,
Sotomar, and Kyle stepped up to the cave entrance and tore down the
boards that covered it.

“I smell her,” Kyle whispered from the
entrance.

Chevalier nodded and
quietly walked farther into the cavern. The others followed behind
him and kept a close eye out for signs of any heku.

Suddenly, Chevalier held a
hand up and motioned off to the side. The others walked to see what
he was pointing at, and saw a type of recreational room carved into
the cavern. In it were eight heku, lying motionless on the damp
floor. Kyle moved forward quickly and knelt beside one of them,
then frowned. He’d never seen an unconscious heku with no obvious
signs of injury.

Kyle motioned to the
others, to indicate that they were still alive, and stood up to
join them. Following her scent, Chevalier passed through the
labyrinth of caves, quickly following it. They stepped over many
unconscious heku, all bearing the purple capes of the Ferus. None
were dead, yet none seemed to be healing and coming out of their
unconscious state.

Chevalier’s body tensed
when he came face-to-face with a heavy stone door, and the others
moved up to face it. He nodded at Kyle, and Kyle reached out and
opened the door to the round ceremonial room.

The heku instantly took in
the scene. Emily was lying motionless on the floor, still shackled
in a Y position. She had brutal cuts all over her body and thirteen
fresh bite marks. Blood dripped down the corner of her mouth. The
ceremonial rod was lying at her side, and a small bloody mark was
on her chest where it fell. There were thirteen unconscious heku
lying across the floor, twelve in blue, and one in black. Mark,
Silas, and Kralen were hanging from shackles on the wall, all
unconscious.

“Em?” Chevalier asked,
kneeling down beside her. Kyle quickly broke off the restraints on
her ankles and wrists, and Chevalier gently wiped the blood away
from her face and ears.

“Oh my God,” Sotomar
gasped when he lowered the hood of the heku in black.

William hissed and
Chevalier looked over at the unconscious Exavior.

“It was him this entire time!” William
growled.

Chevalier turned back to Emily and pulled
the log out from under her back. He gently picked her up in a
cradle, “Kyle, get them down.”

Kyle nodded and went to
the hallway to turn off the electrical current to the shackles.
Once dead, he was easily able to free the heku guards from the
wall, “They’re unconscious too, but I don’t see any
injuries.”

William gently touched the blood on Emily’s
chest, “They made it that far.”

Chevalier fought to
control his rage, “It looks like they only pierced the surface.
Something stopped it from going into her heart.”

A sickening tearing
sounded, and Chevalier turned just as Sotomar tossed Exavior’s head
off to the side of the room.

“We… we have a coven near
here, only about 10 miles away,” William said. “I’ll call them in
to clean this up… What do you want done with the Ferus?”

“Kill them,” Chevalier
said, and started out of the room with Emily.

“And your guards?”

“I want them brought back
with us,” he said. Kyle, Sotomar, and William each picked up one of
the unconscious members of the Cavalry, and headed after
Chevalier.

Once William had his coven on the way to
dispose of the Ferus, Equites 1 headed back for Council City.

“Will this affect her?” William asked,
motioning toward Emily.

“I don’t know,” Chevalier told him.

“Yisolatara is two parts,”
Sotomar said. “The first of which is to drive the human insane. The
second is to turn them. Once turned, they are then emotionless
creatures with one purpose in mind, to kill. If it worked, which
I’ve never heard of it not working... She may be
insane.”

Chevalier pulled her tighter against his
chest, “She’s Emily though.”

Sotomar nodded, “She has overcome a
lot.”

“Are we sure she’s not been turned?” William
asked. “I mean… I’ve seen the mortal smell last for a few
days.”

Chevalier lifted the
blanket discreetly and looked at the mark on her chest, “It didn’t
puncture the rib cage… she couldn’t have turned.”

Kyle, too furious to sit still, leaned over
and touched Mark on the shoulder, “Mark!”

The others looked at the
General, but he didn’t move.

“So that’s what happens
when you try to turn a Winchester,” Sotomar said softly. “She wipes
out the entire coven… not dead… not ash… just… gone.”

“Don’t talk about her!”
Kyle growled at him. “If you hadn’t brought him back, this wouldn’t
have happened.”

“I didn’t know…” Sotomar whispered.

“You should have! You knew
he was after her.”

The Valle Elder had
nothing else to say, he knew Kyle was right, and felt the weight of
what happened on his shoulders.

William’s phone rang and he answered it in
whispers, “William here.”

There was a pause while he listened, “Yes,
do it.”

He shut the phone and turned to Chevalier,
“There were 1,193 Ferus in the caves, all have been disposed of. We
are setting explosives to block the entrance and leaving them there
to rot.”

Chevalier nodded and watched as the pilot
gently set Equites 1 down on the palace roof.

Kyle was first out of the helicopter, “Clear
out, general quarters!”

The guards blurred away immediately and the
palace corridors emptied.

Chevalier jumped out with
Emily in a cradle and quickly blurred into her room, where Dr. Cook
was waiting.

The doctor hissed as he
ran his eyes over her, taking in the cuts, the bites, and the
bloody ankles and wrists. He pulled out his bag and dug through it,
pulling out his stethoscope. He moved the blanket and gasped at the
cut on her chest before listening to her heart.

“Her heart is strong,” he whispered.

Chevalier looked up when Quinn and Zohn came
in.

“Kyle filled us in,” Quinn whispered.

“Where are her guards?”

“They are in the infirmary, still
unconscious.”

“Breathing’s good,” the
doctor said aloud. He took out a yellow salve and began gently
applying it to all of her wounds.

The Elders watched as he carefully took care
of her.

“She has thirteen bites
and 43 cuts on her… Those cuts have had salt thrown into them,” he
growled angrily as he wrapped gauze around one of her wrists. “We
won’t know the damage to her back until she wakes up, though
there’s odd bruising on it.”

“They had her on a log,” Chevalier
whispered.

The doctor nodded and started to wrap gauze
around her other wrist.

“Mommy?” Alexis asked timidly from behind
them.

Chevalier turned quickly and ushered her out
of the room, “What do you need, Alex?”

“I want to see her.”

Chevalier knelt down so he
was closer to her height, “She’s hurt pretty bad right now. We’ll
let you talk to her when she wakes up, ok?”

Alexis nodded, “She says she’s hurt a
lot.”

“This one’s different,” he explained. “This
one was done to her on purpose.”

“Who?” Alexis asked, frowning.

Chevalier sighed, “Exavior.”

She looked around the hallway, “Where is
he?”

“He’s dead.”

“Will she be ok?” Alexis asked, her voice
soft and concerned.

“I don’t know.”

She nodded and pulled away from him, “I
better take Dain down for lunch.”

Chevalier nodded, and then
returned to Emily’s side when Alexis headed down the
stairs.

Dr. Cook stood up and
looked down on Emily, “Leave her as she is, on top of the covers. I
want those wounds covered in salve and untouched by even sheets, it
may lessen the pain from them.”

Chevalier nodded and began to stoke the
fires to warm the room.

“I’d like to stay in here,” Dr. Cook
said.

“Yes, please,” Chevalier
told him, and moved to the second fire.

“If you need us… just
call,” Quinn said, and shut the door when he and Zohn
left.

Over the next six days,
the heku watched over her as she slept. The guards in the infirmary
lay as motionless as she did, and no one was able to wake them. The
Valle were cut off from all communication with the Equites, and
only the Encala were able to get information updates on Emily’s
recovery, which they then enjoyed keeping from the
Valle.

“Her wounds are really
looking good. She’s healing well,” the doctor said on the morning
of the 7
^th
day.

Chevalier nodded, “I see that, though the
bites look worse than the cuts.”

“As is…” Dr. Cook stopped talking when Emily
sighed softly.

As previously decided, to
ensure the safety of Council City, when Emily began to wake, her
room was to be filled with the Cavalry and any sign of the
concentration it took to turn a city to ash, she was to be
immediately sedated. Any violence left-over from Yisolatara was to
be dealt with directly by the Cavalry, and not any of the Council,
including Chevalier.

“In,” Dr. Cook whispered,
and the entire Cavalry filed into the room and stood back against
the walls. A deathly silence filled the palace.

Emily’s hand twitched slightly and her eyes
fluttered open. She blinked a few times and looked at the
ceiling.

“Emily?” Jaron whispered
softly, and touched her arm.

She met his eyes and jerked her hand away
from him, gasping. He moved a step back when her cautious eyes
bored into his.

The heku in the room were
perfectly silent as they watched her for the telltale signs. Jaron
was elected to be the main point of contact, until they could
ascertain her memory and mental status.

Jaron cleared his throat, “Emily, do you
understand me?”

She nodded and her dry,
cracked lips moved some, but no noise could be heard.

“Do you know who I am?” he
asked softly.

She moved slightly to
shift away from him, and cried out when her back spasmed. Everyone
in the room tensed and watched her breathlessly.

“Your back is injured.
It’ll only hurt worse if you move,” Jaron explained when she
relaxed some. “Do you know who I am?”

Emily looked around the
room, meeting the eyes of each heku before turning back to
Jaron.

He sighed, “Please… do you know me?”

She had no voice, but the
word was easily readable on her lips, “No.”

“Do you know anyone in this room?”

She raised one arm and
lightly touched the elongated scabs that covered her arm from the
knife cuts, and softly whispered, “Why…”

“We didn’t do that,” Jaron
told her.

Chevalier was glad she hadn’t yet noticed
the bite marks on the soft side of her arm.