Proditor : Book 5 of the Heku Series (49 page)

“
How did you find
me?”

William grinned slightly, “With your scent,
you aren’t hard to track down. We got worried when you slipped your
guards.”

“
I didn’t… technically…
slip them,” Emily told him. “I just let them go back to the
party.”

“
True, but they thought you
were still eating dinner.”

“
Well they aren’t my normal
guards. My regular guards would have seen this coming.”

“
What do you want to happen
to Exavior?” William asked, suddenly serious.

“
In a perfect world, he
would just go back to being the Valle’s Chief Interrogator and
leave me alone… however… I don’t think he’ll ever do
that.”

“
Do you want him
banished?”

Emily cringed, “I’m not sure I would wish
that on my worst enemy.”

“
Imprisoned?”

“
I don’t really want
anything bad to happen to him. I think he’s harmless, just
annoying.”

“
Harmless? He’s notorious
for being one of the most malicious Chief Interrogators the
factions have ever seen.”

“
I’ve heard that… I just
don’t see it.”

William smiled, “Of course you haven’t seen
it. The factions would fight if he even suggested he question
you.”

“
I’m tougher than I look,”
Emily said, watching him.

“
I’ve heard that, however…
you don’t want to tangle with Exavior, take my word for
it.”

Emily shrugged, “I just don’t see how he can
harm anyone… I can see how he could drive someone crazy out of
sheer annoyance though.”

William stood up and put his hand out,
“Come, let me show you.”

Emily took his hand and stood up. She
followed him out of the great hall and into the red carpeted
hallways of the Encala Palace. After many twists and turns, William
walked through a secret passageway, and they both emerged in the
Encala’s prison cell.

“
Sir,” the four guards
said, bowing. They looked nervously at Emily and then turned back
to full attention. William led her down a few rows of screaming
heku before he stopped at a quiet cell with a lone, still figure
lying on the bed.

“
Joseph?” William called to
him softly.

The heku’s body began to shake and a slight
whimper escaped his parched lips.

Emily frowned, “Let me in.”

William nodded to one of the guards and he
came down and opened the cell door. Emily stepped inside and sat
down on the bed beside the quivering heku.

“
Joseph?” Emily asked
softly, and touched his arm.

“
I see it all,” he
whispered.

“
Joseph,” she said again,
and touched his face with her hand. His eyes were terrified, yet
confused and distant. They scanned the room quickly, never stopping
for long on any one spot.

“
What happened to you?”
Emily asked him, and his body stiffened as he inhaled
sharply.

“
I see it all,” he
whispered again, and began to moan.

Emily frowned, “Exavior did this?”

“
Yes,” William told her.
“He was interrogated by the Valle when he accidentally walked near
one of their covens.

“
What did Exavior
do?”

“
We aren’t sure the methods
he uses, but they can and will turn heku insane.”

“
Why is he in prison
here?”

“
He’s a danger to himself
and others. If his mind ever clears, he will be
released.”

“
Joseph, can you hear me?”
Emily asked him, and took his quivering hand in hers.

Joseph’s lips moved, but he said nothing as
he rolled back onto his side away from her.

“
Let’s get you out of here.
I don’t think the Equites would appreciate you being in one of our
cells… even voluntarily,” William told her, and put his hand out
for her again.

Emily hesitated and then followed him out
while the guard locked the cell door behind him.

“
How can they let Exavior
treat someone like that?” Emily asked.

William smiled slightly, “He gets the job
done. They don’t care how. He’s never interrogated a heku that he
couldn’t get information out of.”

“
Why does it sound like you
envy the Valle for that?”

“
I do. We all wish we had
an Interrogator that vicious and malignant.”

Emily stopped in the Encala’s hallway and
looked at the Elder, “Even if it drove innocent heku insane?”

“
Yes, it’s hard to get
information from a heku. You can’t kill them easily, and any pain
inflicted is short lived,” William explained.

“
That’s… that’s awful,”
Emily said, frowning.

William smiled, “Let’s not talk about it.
They are waiting for you back at the ball.”

Emily looked up at the large clock, “It’s
getting late. I think I’ll just turn in.”

“
We forget that you need to
sleep, please forgive me. I will tell them you have retired and
will send the guards up,” William said.

“
Let them party. No one’ll
hurt me while I’m just sleeping,” Emily told him.

William nodded, “That is true, good night
then.”

Emily smiled and then went up the stairs to
her room. She changed quickly into a nightgown and turned off the
lights. She could hear the sounds from the ballroom and the soft
murmur of voices as she drifted off to sleep.

“
I don’t care what you say,
our Cavalry can beat your Imperial Guards any day,” a voice said
angrily.

Emily looked up from her pillow. It was
still dark outside, and all she could see was the small amount of
light the low fire put into her room. She could tell from the
muffled voices that they were right outside of her door.

“
Mounted Guards? That’s
insane!” a boisterous voice said. “How stupid to put a heku on a
dumb animal that moves slower than we can run.”

“
You’re one to be talking.
Why in the hell have an Imperial Guard? What good does it do to
train specialized guards in protecting the Elders? When are the
Elders ever in danger?” another voice said.

“
Take that back!” someone
yelled, and Emily heard a large crash outside of her
door.

“
Stupid Valle, why are you
even here?” JV yelled. “We can protect her by ourselves without you
meddling.”

“
Protect her? The Equites
haven’t protected her in 13 years…” Another large crash
sounded.

Emily sighed and got out of bed. She pulled
on her robe and tied it before stepping out into the hallway. The
entire hallway smelled strongly of alcohol, and the six guards were
all crouched and facing one another, their hands balled into
fists.

“
What’s going on?” Emily
asked.

“
Get back inside. This is
no concern of yours,” one of the Valle guards yelled at
her.

“
Don’t talk to her like
that!” Russ screamed, and then lunged at the Valle across from him.
He landed squarely against the Valle heku and they began to blur
into a fight. The Encala guards began to pull them off of each
other, and one of them got punched in the neck. The other Encala
guard jumped into the fray, and soon, there were six blurring
figures crashing into the walls and furniture, sending it flying in
a mass of splinters.

“
Stop it!” Emily shouted,
and tried to pull one of the Equites out of the fight.

“
What’s going on here?”
Elder Aaron shouted, coming up the stairs toward the guard
fight.

Emily turned toward him as a strong arm
pushed her roughly. She flew backwards past the Elder and hit the
wall. Her head smashed against the black stones and she fell to the
floor as the heku all turned to look at her.

Aaron knelt down beside her, “Emily?”

“
You did that!” Russ
growled at one of the Encala.

“
I did not…” the Encala
yelled back as he watched

Suddenly, the entire floor was full of
palace guards as the fighting guards were all restrained against
opposite walls. Elder William and Elder Reese appeared and knelt
down beside Emily.

“
What happened?” William
asked, and picked her up gently. He carried her limp body into the
room and laid her down on the bed.

“
The guards were fighting
and she tried to stop them,” Aaron said, watching her.

“
Damnit, put them in prison
cells until we can handle them,” William said. “Get the covens on
the line, find me a doctor.”

“
Prison cells? Even the
Encala guards?” Aaron asked, frowning.

“
Especially the Encala
guards,” William growled, and covered Emily up with the
blankets.

“
I think Bachman was a
doctor,” Reese said. “I’ll get him.”

“
Emily?” William asked
softly, and touched her arm.

Aaron turned toward the door, and then back
to William, “They are all in prison. Do we call the Valle and
Equites?”

“
Not yet,” William said. “I
don’t want to be the one to tell Chevalier his wife is injured.
Let’s see how bad it is first.”

Aaron nodded and watched as William put a
cold washcloth on her forehead.

Twenty minutes later, Elder Reese came into
the room with an older heku.

“
You were a doctor?”
William asked.

“
Yes, I still practiced up
until a few months ago,” he said, and sat down on the bed beside
Emily. “Is this… is this the Winchester?”

William nodded.

“
What happened?” he asked,
shinning a light into her eyes.

“
She got into the middle of
a guard fight,” William said.

“
They threw her against the
wall,” Aaron told him. “She hit her head pretty hard.”

The doctor inhaled, “No blood though.”

He felt along the back of her head, neck,
and back, and then again looked at her eyes. The Encala Elders
watched nervously as he looked her over.

“
She has a concussion, a
pretty bad one,” Bachman said.

“
How long until she wakes
up?” William asked.

“
It’ll be a while. I’m
going to give her some pain medication and an anti-inflammatory to
try to help with any swelling or headaches she has. Let her sleep
it off, I’ll stay here until she wakes up,” Bachman told them, and
began rifling through an old leather bag. He measured out two
injections and exposed her thigh long enough to give her the
medications before covering her up.

“
Now what?” Reese
asked.

“
Now we wait. Make sure she
doesn’t have a seizure, and see how she’s doing when she wakes
up.”

“
Do we tell Chevalier?”
Aaron asked, wincing.

William sighed, “We should... but we’ve
injured the Winchester and an enemy Elder’s wife… let’s hold off in
case she’s fine.”

“
I want to get my hands on
those guards,” Reese said angrily.

“
Again, let’s wait to see
how she is,” William said. “If she’s badly injured, we’ll have to
tell the Equites and the punishment will be harsher.”

The three Elders and the doctor waited
through the night and into the next day, watching her and hoping
that she would wake up. Over the course of the night, she began to
get black marks under her eyes.

“
Damnit,” Bachman said, and
pulled her hair away from her ears. The Elders saw black bruises
behind them, “She has a basal skull fracture.”

“
Meaning…” William
asked.

“
Meaning they cracked her
skull,” Bachman said, and felt along the back of her neck again.
“They are going to be bloody well lucky if she doesn’t
die.”

“
Die? How serious is
this?”

“
Without an x-ray machine,
there’s no way to tell. I can assure you if you take her to the
Emergency Room, they are going to call the police.”

“
I don’t really care about
the police. If we need to get her to a hospital, then let’s do it,”
William said.

“
Let’s wait,” Bachman
suggested. “She doesn’t have any spinal fluid in her nose or ears,
so we just hope for a minor fracture.”

“
We need to tell the
Equites,” William sighed.

“
Yes, we do,” Reese
agreed.

“
I’ll go,” Aaron said.
“I’ll make the arrangements to bring Chevalier here.”

“
Be very compliant,”
William said. “We need to keep this as friendly as possible. We
have injured the Winchester.”

Aaron nodded.

***

“
She loves me,” Exavior
said again. “You can ask her all you want, but she won’t have me
banished.”

“
It has nothing to do with
love. Emily doesn’t believe in banishment,” Quinn said.

Chevalier grabbed his phone, angry that this
had gone on for three days so far, “What?”

“
Chevalier, this is Elder
Aaron… there’s been an… accident,” Aaron said softly.

Chevalier frowned, “What kind of
accident?”

“
The guards, all six of
them guarding Emily… got into a fight and somehow she got in the
middle of it.”

Chevalier’s face fell, “How badly is she
hurt?”

“
We have a doctor here. He
said she has a skull fracture. Right now she’s sedated, and he’s
giving her pain medications.”