Ferus : Book 6 of the Heku Series (86 page)

“Ok,” Emily said, and hung
up. She grinned and looked over at Miri.

“What?” Miri asked, unsure she really wanted
to know.

“I have the sudden urge to be mean.”

“To who?”

“The Encala.”

“How?”

Emily thought for a moment and dialed again
while Miri watched.

“Valle Council,” a strange voice said.

“Is Sotomar there?”

“Emily?” Sotomar asked, shocked.

“The Valle are the smartest of the factions,
right?” Emily asked, grinning.

“Yes, why?”

“I was kidnapped by the Encala…”

“What!?” a member of their
Council screamed.

“I ashed them… but… we’re
under ground and no one knows the code to the elevator. Do you have
a techy that can come look?”

Sotomar’s voice held some amusement, “Do the
Equites know you called us for help?”

“No, I don’t need their permission.”

“We’ll get with them and
send someone down. We’ll get that code,” Sotomar
promised.

“Thanks,” Emily said, and
hung up.

“I can’t believe you enlisted the Valle! The
Elders are going to be mad,” Miri told her, frowning.

“No they won’t. They’ll
know I’m just messing with the Encala.”

Miri stood up, “I really do want a go at
that heku.”

“Can you find me down here if I go look for
food?”

“Of course, your scent… well… it’s easy to
track.”

“Right, go play with your
heku,” Emily said, and watched as Miri blurred away, then began a
systematic search of the coven, going through each room in search
of food. Whenever she came to a pile of ash, she took a pinch and
placed it into a plastic sack she found in one of the
rooms.

Emily jumped when the eerie quiet of the
underground coven was broken by Miri’s voice, “Find anything?”

“Don’t do that!” Emily
yelled, and put her hand over her pounding heart.

Miri grinned, “Sorry.”

“Nothing,” she told the
heku, and moved on to the next room.

“I have to tell you, I
don’t smell any food around.”

“Great… how is your toy?”

“Dead, he doesn’t know the code, someone up
above punched it in for him.”

Emily turned to her, “There’s a heku up
there that knows the code?”

“Apparently”

“We should go tell Chev,”
Emily said, and started down the hallway.

“The phone’s back this
way,” Miri said, and moved to the side so Emily could pass. The
heku showed her to the conference room and she dialed on
speakerphone.

“How are you holding up?” Chevalier
asked.

“We’re having a ball, you should join
us.”

“We’re above you, trying
to figure out the damned code. Did you call the Valle?” He sounded
amused.

“Yes, I did.”

“The Encala are furious.”

“Good, then it worked… Miri was playing with
our little heku toy down here and he said there’s someone up there
that punched the code into the elevator for him.”

She could hear Chevalier whispering to
someone else and then came back to the phone, “We’ll keep looking.
The Encala want to know who the heku is with you.”

“Was… Miri had an… accident?” Emily asked,
looking at her.

“No accident, I killed him
during an interrogation,” Miri told her plainly.

Chevalier chuckled, “Nice.”

“His name was Charles,” Miri said.

“Ok, we’ll keep looking.”

“Have fun, we’re just going to party down
here.”

“Find any food?”

“Not yet. I’m about to dig
into the dead heku. Wonder if I can find a barbeque.”

“Em…” Chevalier said, laughing. “That’s
disgusting, even for you.”

“Tell Sotomar I said ‘Hi’.”

“Will do,” he said, before
hanging up.

Emily turned around and
looked at Miri. She was still covered in blood, “I found a
shower…”

“Good, me first!” Miri
said, and stood up. Emily led her to the large bedroom with an
attached bathroom and dug around in the closet while Miri
showered.

“I’m putting clothes out
here for you, I hope they fit,” Emily said, and hung a long-sleeved
red dress shirt on the door and set a pair of black pants beside
it.

“Thanks,” Miri called
out.

Emily found another
identical shirt, and laid it out so she could shower, then started
looking through the room out of boredom. She tore open a manila
envelope and pulled out a stack of papers, then looked through
them, shocked to find an application to join the Valle along with a
twelve page letter explaining why. It listed numerous incidents
when the Encala enlisted Emily’s help and also the death of their
mortal. The last few pages contained a rejection, signed by
Sotomar, stating invalid reasoning to switch factions.

She put it on the bed and began to go
through the dressers and wardrobes again, even checking under the
bed.

“Much better,” Miri said,
coming out of the bathroom. The red shirt and pants fit her almost
perfectly, though she had to cinch the waist up with a belt. “I
hate Encala red.”

“It’s ok, it’s just us,”
Emily told her, and then went in to take a shower. The shirt came
to her knees, and she had to roll the sleeves up numerous times to
even get to her hands.

When she came out, Miri was going through a
box of papers. “What did you find?”

“Personnel reports, just
entertaining to read,” Miri said, and pulled out another
file.

Emily sat down beside her and grabbed a
file, “I found a letter from this coven to the Valle, asking for a
faction change.”

“No way!” Miri gasped.

“Yup, but Sotomar said
no.” Emily grinned, and showed Miri a file, “This heku had sex with
an Equites.”

“Who?” Miri asked, and
looked closely. “I know her!”

“You do?”

“Yeah, she’s in Council City.”

“Hrm, let’s put that in my
pile to show Chev,” Emily told her, and tossed the file onto the
bed.

“It’s almost midnight. Do
you want to sleep in here?”

Emily looked at the large bed, “I am kinda
tired.”

Miri stood up and started for the door, “I’m
going to keep snooping, get some sleep.”

She nodded and laid down
on the massive bed, afraid she wouldn’t be able to sleep. With the
dark, cool underground building, and the hard cement of the last
week, she was soon asleep.

“Lady Emily?” Miri said
softly, and touched her arm.

Emily looked at her and sat up in bed,
“What’s wrong?”

“I found some food, sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“Well, they have a bar, so
there are olives and onions, things used in drinks.”

“That’ll do!” Emily said,
and got out of bed. She followed Miri along the dark passages and
into a large bar, then began to dig behind the bar and pulled out
several jars.

“I figure you can’t
survive on that, but it has to help the hunger,” Miri told her, and
sat down at the bar.

“Oh my God these are
awful,” Emily said as she ate a handful of olives. “They’re soaked
in alcohol though.”

“Yes I saw that, so are the onions and
cherries.”

“Find anything else?”

“Not really. I talked to
Allen for a few hours, but that’s all I’ve done.”

Emily sat down at the bar beside Miri and
dug into the cocktail onions.

“Those smell nasty,” Miri told her,
wrinkling her nose.

“They taste nasty too,”
Emily said, and ate another one.

“Allen said that the entire topside is
surrounded by heku from all three factions.”

“We’re famous!” she said,
and grinned.

“You’re famous. They keep
talking about rescuing you and not mentioning me, it’s making Allen
mad.”

“Sorry”

“Not your fault, he’s just touchy.”

“Well…”

Miri jumped from the stool and turned to the
door, “Someone’s down here.”

Emily stood up quickly and whispered, “Can
you tell who?”

“No, I don’t know the scent.”

“It’d have to be the Equites, right?”

“Unless there’s a second way down that we
don’t know about.”

“Damnit, that’s true,”
Emily whispered. “Can you tell where they are?”

“They’re heading this way, quickly.”

“How many?”

“Six,” Miri said before
crouching defensively. Her arms arched out from her sides and her
hands balled into fists.

“I’ll ash them,” Emily
said, and turned to face the door. She took a deep breath and
waited beside Miri.

The two women looked angry
when they came face-to-face with six strange heku. Their clothing
had no indication of faction.

“We’re here to help,” one
of them said, and stepped forward some, putting his hands
up.

“Stay back or I’ll ash you,” Emily growled.
“Who are you?”

“Equites, we came down the elevator when the
Valle got the code.”

“I don’t believe you.
Where are your green capes?”

“We are from Powan. Capes
can get in the way of our illusion.”

Emily’s eyes narrowed, “I don’t believe you…
Miri?”

“I don’t recognize the
scent, but I don’t know anyone from Powan,” she said, eyeing them
suspiciously.

“Prove it,” Emily told
him, and then took a step back when he suddenly became a wolf. A
few seconds later, he returned to his heku form and
smiled.

“That work?”

“I still don’t trust you,
walk ahead of us,” Emily told him. She and Miri walked behind the
six heku as they lead them back to the elevator, after stopping off
to grab a box of things Emily wanted Chevalier to see.

The six stepped into the elevator and turned
to let Emily and Miri in.

“I’m not getting in there
so you can eat me,” Emily told them.

The heku they’d been talking to started to
laugh, “Untrusting a bit aren’t you? Fine… the code is
4-2-2-4-1.”

She nodded and then shrugged at Miri when
the elevator closed, they were once again alone.

Chevalier moved closer to the elevator when
it signaled the car was coming up. All heku in the area turned to
watch and were surprised when only the Powan’s stepped out.

“Where are they?” Chevalier asked,
frowning.

The Powan Lieutenant
smiled, “She said she wasn’t going to get into the elevator with us
so we could eat her.”

He grinned slightly, “Oh.”

“I gave them the code, they should be up
soon.”

“How is she?”

He sighed, “Her face is pretty bruised and
she smells like alcohol.”

“Damnit,” Chevalier growled.

When the elevator opened next, Miri and
Emily stepped out and Miri handed the box of files over to Dustin
before running into Allen’s arms. Emily quickly found herself in a
tight embrace and buried her face into Chevalier’s chest as his
arms wrapped around her.

“Welcome back,” he
whispered, and kissed the top of her head.

Emily finally pulled away from him and
spotted William a few feet away. She walked over to him and pushed
him hard against the shoulders, though he didn’t move.

“Why do you have to hit
me!?” she screamed, and pushed him again. “Why? Huh? I don’t care
if you fucking kidnap me but stop hitting me!”

“I…” he started, but his
eyes grew wide when she pushed him again.

“No more, do you hear me!
No more!” She accentuated each word with another shove as she
screamed at him.

“Calm dow…” Frederick
started, but she turned to him angrily. The Valle stood back,
enjoying her anger at the Encala, and the Equites watched
carefully, ready to intervene at any time.

“Shut up while I’m
talking!” she screamed, and slammed her hands into his shoulders.
“Why the hell do they hit me? I’m so tired of being
hit!”

“We didn’t…”

“Em…” Chevalier said from
behind her. They Equites were fine with her hitting William, but
Frederick’s temper was explosive.

“Answer me!” she yelled,
and pushed him again. “Why do you always hit me? Is it fun? Do you
like to hear the bones crack? What’s up with that shit?”

“I don’t…”

“I’m tired of concussions
and broken bones,” she screamed, and pushed him again. “I’m about
ready to go coven to coven and get rid of the Encala!”

Frederick’s eyes blazed and everyone noticed
he was losing control. William quickly put a hand on his shoulder
as Chevalier wrapped an arm around Emily’s waist and picked her
up.

“Calm down, Em, he didn’t do it,” Chevalier
said, still somewhat amused.

“Get control,” William growled at
Frederick.

Emily glared at Frederick
and fought to get out of Chevalier’s grasp, “Answer me, pencil
dick. Why do you have to hit me?”

Frederick pulled away from
William, but found himself face-to-face with four of the Powans.
Chevalier put a hand over Emily’s mouth and turned around,
grinning.

“Em… that’s enough,” he said, trying to hide
the laughter.

She stopped fighting when she saw that Quinn
was holding a pizza box. Chevalier finally put her down and she
went to him and grabbed a slice, immediately eating.

Chevalier looked over at the Encala and they
were all trying to calm Frederick down.

The Encala’s Chief
Enforcer went over and waited for the elevator, “I’ll go revive
them and bring them before the Council.”