Equites : Book 4 of the Heku Series

by T. M. Nielsen

  Emily rocked back and forth nervously on her feet, “Sooo… can we let him go?”

  “On what grounds?” Damon asked, irritated.

  Chevalier hissed softly. The sight of his pregnant mortal wife standing before the Council beside a large enemy heku made him furious.

  “On the grounds that he didn’t mean to hurt me, and I think time served is enough,” Emily said.

  “What about attacks on Council City?” Quinn asked.

  “Oh… that… do you have any proof that he actually attacked?” Emily asked.

  “I did attack,” Exavior told her.

  “Shut up,” she snapped at him.

  Quinn chuckled, “Seems that we can hold him indefinitely on grounds of the attack.”

  “Fine then… how about you release him so I can stay out of the prison,” Emily said, and looked at the ground.

  “Wait for our decision in the hallway,” Maleth said.

  Two guards came in. One took Exavior’s shoulder and the other pulled Emily’s hands behind her back.

  “Hey!” she yelled.

  “Let her go,” Chevalier growled. The guard looked up at him and let go of Emily nervously. He moved to Exavior and helped the guard escort him into the hallway. Emily followed, not looking back at the Council.

  “What are you doing?” Exavior asked her after the door shut.

  “Hopefully, setting you free.”

  “Do you just wander around all day trying to find trouble?”

  Emily frowned, “No. I thought you’d want to be free.”

  “I can take care of myself. There’s no reason you need to put yourself in jeopardy to set me free,” he said, irritated.

  “How is this putting me in jeopardy?”

  “You have no idea what you’re dealing with. I am just looking out for you,” he said, and Emily picked up a hint of patronization.

  “Oh, another one of those heku traits that I haven’t seen in my 7 years with them?” she asked him, angrily.

  “You have only scratched the surface of what the heku is truly like. You are my main concern. I want to keep your view of our species as you see it now.”

  “Yeah well, don’t do me any favors,” Emily snapped, and stormed off.

  The guards pushed Exavior back into the council room a short time later.

  “Where is Emily?” Quinn asked, confused.

  “I do believe I’ve lost my representative for this appeal,” Exavior said, and shrugged.

  Damon motioned one of the guards up onto the stand. Quinn and Damon listened in while he relayed, word-for-word, what happened in the hallway.

  Damon turned to Exavior, his eyes narrow, “What did you mean by scratching the surface of what the heku are truly like?”

  Chevalier turned to Exavior as he spoke, “I know about your interrogation chamber. I also know she’s trying to find it. She sees this species as warm and kind. You know as well as I do that that’s a far cry from our true nature.”

  “So, as you see it,” Quinn asked, “We are incapable of caring for her?”

  “Exactly. If you cared for her at all, you would let her leave and start a life back with her own kind,” Exavior told them.

  “Let her leave? She can leave whenever she wants,” Damon scowled.

  “Can she?” Exavior asked.

  “I will not sit here and defend my actions to a prisoner. Return him to lockup,” Chevalier growled.

  Exavior nodded and went with the guards.

  “Damnit,” Chevalier hissed.

  “What?” Maleth asked, turning to him.

  “Emily’s encounter with Adam scared her away from the prison. Now that Exavior brought it all up again, I can just see the challenge forming in her head again,” Chevalier said, frustrated.

  “If we kill him, would she stop going down there?” Damon asked.

  “No, if we kill him, she’ll take that personally and it would drive her harder.”

  Damon growled and blurred from the room.

  “Shall we continue?” Maleth asked, and turned to the Court Reporter.

  Emily stood down in the prison looking at the empty wall. She tried to form a map in her mind of what would be behind it, but she wasn’t finding an answer. She’d been down into the prison a lot and never noticed this annex and its empty wall. She wondered who would build a hallway off of the main prison that went nowhere. She ran her hands along the cold stones.

  “Having fun?” Damon asked, walking into the annex.

  “What’s this place for? The hallway doesn’t go anywhere,” Emily asked, turning to him.

  “It’s for future growth.”

  Emily turned to him and leaned against the hidden doorway to the chamber, “You’re lying.”

  Damon frowned, “What makes you think that? That’s quite an accusation.”

  “It just so happens that I’ve been wandering this prison for almost an hour, yet the second I walk into this annex, you appear. Sounds to me like the guards yelled that the mortal was close to something she’s not supposed to be.”

  “You’re flattering yourself. Maybe I was informed you were looking for trouble, and as my experience has taught me, you usually find it,” Damon grinned.

  “If I’m not close to finding what I’m looking for, then you don’t need to watch me.”

  “Someone has to, you’re a magnet for danger.”

  Emily smiled sweetly, and then walked out of the annex and up the stairs to the foyer.

  Damon blurred back to his seat.

  “What was that?” Quinn asked, irritated.

  “Our resident pain in the ass found her way to the door of the interrogation chamber,” he said, looking over at Chevalier.

  “Did she know there was a door?” Chevalier felt his heart skip a beat.

  “No, but she’s not stupid. She knows no one puts a hallway to nothing,” Damon said.

  “Maybe you’d be better off just taking her in and showing her the room,” Maleth suggested.

  Damon cringed.

  “No, I don’t think she needs to see that right now. Exavior was partially right. She doesn’t know some of our more darker tendencies. It’d be nice if we could keep it that way. For now, I’ll just stay out of the chamber, Kyle and Damon should too,” Chevalier said.

  “Hey, why am I getting punished?” Damon frowned.

  “She’s going to watch you like a hawk. She knows you were there on the night in question.”

  “Let’s just lock her in her room where she belongs then. That’s my room!” Damon said angrily.

  “You’re not helping,” Maleth said to him.

  “It’s also not helping if you appear down there every time she sets foot in the hallway. Just have them watch her,” Chevalier said. “You can keep going, but be careful that she’s not following you.”

  Damon laughed, “She couldn’t follow me if she wanted too. I can smell her from a mile away.”

  “Then it’s settled, just let her snoop. She can’t get the door open on her own,” Chevalier said, and turned back to the docket.

  “Fine then, she’s down there again. We’ll just let her snoop,” Damon said, and watched as a guard brought in the next prisoner.

  Emily made her way to the hallway again. Other than a stack of wooden crates in the corner, nothing else was in there. She felt along the wall on both sides, then stopped when the wall seemed a little warmer in one spot. She pushed against the wall, but it seemed solid.

  “Hey, Ron,” Emily called out, and one of the door guards came to her.

  “Yes, Ma’am?”

  “Open this door for me,” she said, and pointed at the wall.

  “No, Ma’am.”

  Emily smiled, “Ok, thanks though. You can go back.”

  Damon sighed, “I’m going to kill him myself.”

  “Who are you going to kill now?” Quinn asked, amused.

  “Ron, one of the door guards in the prison. He just fell for Emily’s trap. Now she knows there’s a door in that hallwa
y,” Damon said, growling.

  “Are you serious?” Chevalier asked angrily.

  “Yup, when Emily asked him to open the door for her… pointing at the wall in the hallway, he said ‘no’… he didn’t say ‘What door?’ he said ‘no’,” Damon explained, shaking his head.

  “She still can’t get in,” Chevalier said, rubbing the back of his neck.

  “She’s not trying. She’s gone out to the stables,” Damon told them.

  “Perfect, that’s how she thinks… she’ll take Patra out and think,” Chevalier growled.

  “She can’t get in. We have to push hard against that door to even budge it,” Maleth said.

  Emily kicked Patra into a gallop and ran through the streets of Council City. Right now she just wanted to get out onto the hills. She hated how heku watched her from their houses when she passed. It was best to do it quickly, so she didn’t have time to get the creeps. Once out on the green hills, she looked over Council City, then headed into the woods and let Patra lead while she thought. Another plan was forming in her mind, and she started to get excited about ending this mystery.

  ***

  “Shhh, it was a nightmare,” Chevalier said as he pulled Emily closer to him.

  Emily buried her face in his chest, trying to wipe the images from her mind. Chevalier kissed the top of her head and smiled where she couldn’t see him. He found that nightmare somewhat funny, as it was too farfetched to ever actually happen. He knew that Adam didn’t have the same effect on heku that he did on mortals though, so he could see how it scared her.

  “Do you have to work today?” she asked as she looked over at the clock.

  “Yes, we have new covens applying. Tomorrow, though, I’m off.” He smiled, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

  “New covens? Someone just applies to be an Equites?” she asked, confused.

  “No, someone who is already an Equites decides to move from their coven and start a new one.”

  “Hrm, interesting.”

  Chevalier grinned, “You going to give it a go?”

  Emily smiled, “Maybe.”

  Chevalier began to slide out of bed, but felt Emily’s arms tighten around him. He broke her grasp easily and stood up.

  “I need a weight set,” she grumbled, and curled up with his pillow.

  Chevalier chuckled, “It wouldn’t help.”

  Emily faked mad until Chevalier left and then she scrambled out of bed. She threw some clothes on and dug through her dresser, pulling out the flashlight she kept in there. Grabbing a pancake, she left quickly for the prison.

  “Good morning, Ma’am,” one of the guards said.

  Emily smiled and headed down the hallway to Exavior’s cell. She passed him without a word, and doubled around the back way to the mysterious hallway. Slipping behind the wooden crates, she sat down and ate the pancake dry, waiting.

  Hours passed, and Emily was finding it harder to keep herself entertained, she was getting anxious. She heard the changing of the guards and smiled. It’d been nearly four hours since she got there and she hadn’t heard her name mentioned in the briefing. She hoped they had forgotten she was down there.

  Emily froze when she heard someone in the hallway. She peeked around the crate and saw Damon and two heku guards struggling to get a prisoner through the door. She hadn’t seen how they opened it, though, and cursed herself for missing that opportunity. She jumped when she heard screams coming from behind the wall a few minutes later.

  Damon left the room a while later, he was covered in blood and mumbled, “Damn, this hallway even smells like her now.”

  She waited for the others to come out. When they did, the two guards were dragging a lifeless prisoner from the room. They were talking in Latin, so Emily couldn’t understand what they were saying. She was focused on the slow closing door as they rounded the corner into the prison cell section.

  Emily sprung from the crates and disappeared into the dark room, thne huddled down by the wall as the door closed with a loud thud.

  She flipped on her flashlight, excited that she’d finally made it into the room. She had no proof that’s where the three heku spent their exhilarating night, but she had strong suspicions.

  Standing up, she scanned the room with the flashlight. There weren’t any lights that she could find. She moved up to the tables in the center and ran her fingers along the ancient wood. One table had ropes at both ends, and she picked one up. There was something caught between the fibers, so she pulled it closer to the flashlight and dropped the rope suddenly when she realized it was skin.

  Emily looked around the other tables and followed the wires connecting them to a smaller table off to the side, full of buttons. She pressed one of the buttons, and heard electricity flow through the wire and into the table.

  She saw something in the corner and went toward it. It stood a lot taller than she was, kind of a metal coffin with an intricately carved sun at the head. She pulled open one of the doors and looked inside curiously. Nothing jumped out at her, so she opened the other set of doors. Large metal spikes stood out from the back and the doors and from the smell inside, someone, or many someones, had died in there. The spikes were covered in dried blood and Emily covered her nose against the smell.

  “Methinks your Daddy’s been torturing someone,” Emily said, shaking her head as she talked to the baby.

  “Ooooh, a guillotine,” Emily said, and went over to it. She pulled the lever and then jumped when a loud crash sounded as the blade swept past the seat to the floor. The floor beneath it was stained red. She tugged on the cord to raise the blade, but it was too heavy and she couldn’t lift it more than a few inches, even when she hung from the cord using all of her body weight.

  “Hrm,” Emily sighed, and left the guillotine for a long wooden post across the floor that had two holes cut out of it.

  She played with it for a second, and found that the top half lifted up from the corner. She slipped one wrist into the hole and shut the device, but the hole was too big and she was able to easily pull her hand out. She stood back and looked at it again, then realized it must be for feet.

  Lastly, she went to the fireplace. It had a large metal pig dangling over where the flame would be. It was almost as long as she was tall, and stood almost 3 feet high. Emily knocked on it and heard that it was hollow. She pulled the top open and looked inside. Nothing was in there but black marks where the heat from the flame scorched the inside. She frowned and looked around inside of the pig, but there were no signs of any torture devices.

  Emily shrugged and shut the top, then heard the ding as metal hit metal. She looked around to the side, and saw a set of padlocks that could be used to fasten the top.

  “What the hell is that for?” she asked no one.

  Emily sat down on one of the tables and stared at the metal pig. She shook her head and gave up trying to decide what it was. She scanned the room one last time, and headed for the door, then began to panic. She pushed as hard as she could against the door, but it didn’t move. She tried to knock, but knocking against solid rock didn’t make any noise.

  “He’s going to kill me,” she said, and looked around the room.

  Emily leaned against the wall and turned off the flashlight to conserve the battery. She debated how to get out of the newly found torture room. She was sure they would search for her eventually, but wondered if they would check this room. She figured that Damon would, he knew how close she had come to finding it.

  She turned on the flashlight and went back over to the fireplace. She quickly found the gas valve and the matches and soon had a roaring fire, then turned off the flashlight and was able to see the entire room. Again she looked at the metal pig and wondered what it was for.

  Emily scanned the room and saw something up higher that she’d missed before. It was shining in the firelight. She crawled up onto the guillotine’s seat and grabbed it from high on the wall. The end was a small decorated skull with a rope knotted a few inches b
elow it. From the rope dangled more little ropes with knots tied at the ends.

  She sat down on the guillotine and studied the device. She was sure it was a whip, but the knots on the end seemed like unnecessary additions. She sat it down on the guillotine when something else caught her eye. She got closer and saw shackles hanging a few inches down from the ceiling. She couldn’t reach them, even jumping, so they had to be at least eight feet from the ground.

  Emily looked around. The room was getting warmer finally, and she wasn’t as panicked about being trapped than she was before. She knew she could always yell for Chevalier. Their bonding made it so she could call for help, but she wasn’t sure she really wanted him to know where she was. She just hoped for some way to get out on her own.

  As Emily sat on the table and thought about how to get out, her eyes kept drifting to the wooden post along the floor. She was sure those holes were meant for feet, they were too big for hands, though, if the person was large, it may work. Finding nothing else better to do, she sat down on the ground and slipped her feet into the bottom half of the hole, and then grabbed the top half to swing it down. She felt the poke of a splinter and accidentally dropped the top half. It slammed into the bottom half, and Emily heard the sound of a metal latch.

  “Oh… tell me I didn’t just do that,” she growled.

  Emily pulled against the top half of the post, but it wouldn’t move. She tried to pull her feet free, but the holes were tight around her ankles and she wasn’t able to slip her feet out.

  She ran her fingers around the pole, frantically looking for some type of latch release, but she didn’t find anything. She lay back against the cold ground and looked around the room.

  ***

  “Have we ever approved three new covens in one meeting?” Damon asked, stepping onto the bottom stair.

  “Not as long as I can remember,” Chevalier said, looking around. “They were good candidates though, I was impressed. Well… except for the two we denied, what a nightmare.”

  “I can’t believe the one leader started screaming about going to the Encala,” Damon chuckled.

  “I say we should have killed them right there for treason.”