“Yes”
“They are looking for you above.”
She nodded, “I would think so.”
“I have been rude. Are you needing nourishment?”
“You have food down here?”
“Yes, it is how I stay alive.”
“I don’t drink blood though,” she told him.
He looked at her and frowned slightly, “You don’t?”
“No”
“No, you wouldn’t, would you. No one that can carry a child is a natural blood drinker,” he said as he sat back down.
Finally, she sighed, “I’m sorry if this sounds rude… but… you’re not going to bite me, are you?”
“Bite a mortal?” He sounded confused.
“It’s… What do you eat?”
With great effort, he stood up and disappeared down one of the many dark corridors made by the towering shelves. When he returned, he had a small squirming animal in his hands.
“I do believe it’s courteous to offer food to guests first,” he said, holding out the animal.
Emily smiled slightly, “No, thank you.”
She grimaced when he tore the small animal’s head off with his mouth and then drained it into his mouth with loud slurping sounds. When he was done, he tossed it back down one of the rows.
“How can I get back up to the top?” she asked when her stomach settled down.
He frowned, “To the surface?”
“Yes”
“There is no way.”
“I can’t stay down here.”
“Why not?”
“I’m mortal.”
“You are?” he asked, sitting down again.
Emily frowned, “Are you ok?”
“Yes… now can I look at your ankle?”
She sighed and then held it out, “I think I just twisted it.”
His cold hands carefully gripped her foot as he pulled off her cowboy boot and lifted her pant leg, then looked at the dark bruise forming, “Why have you not healed?”
***
“Insane?” Zohn asked, frowning.
“Yes,” Chevalier said. “The Ancients found him insane and he was sent below ground for it, destined to forever guard the documents for the Equites.”
“How insane?”
“I’m not sure he was insane at all. He was the only mortal supporting Ancient, so they deemed him insane.”
“So there’s hope?” Quinn asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve never met him,” Chevalier said. “He was already below ground when I was turned.”
“Does he have an ability?”
“No.” Chevalier stood up and sighed.
Zohn frowned, “How does he feed?”
Chevalier smiled slightly, “Off of small earth animals.”
Quinn’s nose wrinkled, “If he’s been living off of animals, Emily has no chance.”
“I don’t know,” Chevalier said, and then turned toward the portal and cocked his head to the side. “He is asking where she is to be filed.”
“Filed?” Zohn asked.
“Maybe he is a bit insane.”
“So she’s alive at least?”
“Yes, now we just have to figure out how to get her out of there.”
“Well she fit down the portal,” Zohn said. “Let’s just pull her out.”
Chevalier turned and called for Kyle to bring a rope to the restricted cemetery.
***
“It does not appear to be broken,” the Ancient said before sitting down.
Emily studied him, “Why are you down here?”
“I am protecting.”
“I know… it just seems like almost a punishment to be stuck down here for eternity.”
“It’s an honor.”
“I see,” she said, and rubbed her hands along her arms to warm up.
“Are you cold?” he asked, looking at her oddly.
“It is kind of cold down here.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” he said, and looked awkwardly around the area. “Who did you say you are again?”
She smiled, “Emily Winchester.”
“Oh, that’s right. You want information on Miles Winchester.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Let me see now.” He thought for a moment before walking down a dark row and disappearing.
Emily looked over when she heard something in the tube she’d fallen down, and saw the end of a rope appear.
“Here we go,” the Ancient said when he came back. He had a group of files bound together with old twine.
“What’s your name?” Emily asked as she sat down beside him.
He looked up and his brow furrowed, “My name?”
“Yes, what’s your name?”
“My, my,” he sighed. “I do have a name.”
“Do you remember it?”
“Yes, my child. Heku remember all things,” he said as he started to look through files. “What part of this did you want to see?”
“First, do you have a piece of paper I can write on?”
He took a slip of paper from inside the file and handed it to her, “Here you go. This is recorded twice.”
“Do you have a pen?”
He looked up curiously, “A what?”
“Something to write with.”
Without a second thought, he dug a long, sharp nail into his wrist and held his bleeding hand out to her.
“Umm,” she said, trying not to gag.
He looked at his wrist, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, just… is that all you have to write with?”
“What more do you need?”
“It’s ok, that will do,” Emily said as she pulled a tiny root from the wall, dipped it into the Ancient’s blood, and then scribbled out a small note on the back of the paper. Once done, she tied it to the end of the rope and tugged on it a few times. When it disappeared up the shaft, she sat back down with the Ancient.
“It is most odd that you came here,” he said, still looking through records.
“Why is that? Don’t others come?”
“No, no, you are the first.”
“What if they need a record?”
“Then they must dig to the door,” he said. He looked over and Emily followed his gaze to a stone door built into the wall.
“No one’s ever come down?”
“No, Dear,” he said, and handed her a file. “Is that all you came down for?”
She smiled, “Yes.”
“Good, good, would you like something to drink?”
“No, thank you.”
The Ancient disappeared down another dark corridor and Emily turned to the file.
***
Chevalier sighed, “She said she’s visiting and will be a moment.”
Kyle gasped, “She’s… she’s visiting?”
“Apparently”
“With the Ancient?”
“He’s the only one down there.”
Quinn chuckled, “Well, she must be safe.”
“I still don’t like her down there with him.”
Quinn looked at the note, “What’s that paper?”
Chevalier flipped it over and read it, “It’s information on the Miles Winchester home.”
“So she went down to find out about her history?”
“I doubt it. Silas said she fell down there.”
“Is that written in blood?”
Chevalier chuckled, “Yes, that’s what the Ancient writes in. I’m sure he helped her.”
Zohn studied the hole, “How did she even fit?”
Chevalier shrugged.
“So let’s send Alexis down to get her.”
“I’m not sure even Alexis would fit down there.”
“So send a note down and ask her to please come back up,” Quinn suggested.
“You two have this handled. I’m going to go back to the Council,” Zohn said, then blurred away.
Chevalier wrote on a note and dropped it down the hole, followed by the ro
pe.
***
The Ancient looked up and saw the paper slide down into the room, “Curious.”
Emily looked up, “What is?”
“Another note.”
She smiled, “It might be for me.”
He stood up slowly and limped over to the note. He read it a several times, and then turned it over in his hand, “I’m not sure who it is for.”
“What does it say?”
“It’s for Emily.”
She smiled, “That’s me.”
He looked up at her, “Oh, well… this note is for you then.”
Emily took the note from the Ancient and read Chevalier’s request that she come back up immediately.
She looked over at the door again, “So heku can dig down to this door and come in for records?”
“Yes”
“Chevalier can dig down here and get us?”
“Who is Chevalier?”
“He’s my husband.”
He frowned, “Is he heku?”
“Yes”
“Are you?”
“Sort of,” she said, and tried the door knob. The door didn’t budge.
“Is he an Ancient?”
“No, he’s an Old One though.”
The Ancient thought, “No… no I know all of the Old Ones and he’s not one of them.”
Emily turned to him, “Chevalier isn’t?”
“No, he is not.”
“Everyone says he is.”
“I know them all.”
She thought for a moment, “You know the entire Equites Council?”
“Yes”
“Who is on it?”
He thought, “That… you may not be permitted to know.”
She smiled, “It’s ok. I’m an Equites.”
“You are?”
“Yes”
“Are you heku?”
“Yes,” she said, finally giving in.
“Oh, well ok. So there’s Aulus, Titus, Appius, Equitis, Amintah, Haemon, Elpidios, Yorgos, Zenon, Aalis, Barhan, Sevar, and Khalid.”
Emily shrugged, “I don’t know any of those.”
“But you are Equites?”
“Yes”
“Curious”
“Do you know Sotomar?”
He thought and then shook his head, “No, I do not.”
“He’s another Old One.”
“No, the Old Ones are Ariadne, Diocletian, Himerius…”
Emily smiled, “That’s ok. I’m sure he’s not among them.”
“I can name them all.”
“Yes, I’m sure you can.”
When the Ancient didn’t speak again, Emily started reading through the file on Miles Winchester. She was shocked to learn that he was attributed to killing over 100,000 heku from all three factions.
“You have an odd scent,” the Ancient said after almost an hour of reading.
She nodded, “I’ve been told that.”
“You must be careful around the heku.”
“I am, I promise.”
“There is very little control among the species.”
Emily laughed, “Yes, I know.”
“Hmmm,” he sighed, and sat in silence when she turned back to the file.
Finally, she looked up, “Would you like me to get you out of here?”
He cocked his head to the side, “Away from the vault?”
“Yes”
“There is no way out.”
“You said the heku could dig down to get records.”
“Yes, but then they stay.”
She gasped, “What?”
“That is our way. If they need records that badly, they dig down, but then they stay.”
Emily looked quickly around the vault, “Is anyone else down here?”
“No, no one has ever done it.”
She frowned, “That makes no sense. Why keep precious files if you can never access them?”
“You can, you simply dig down to my door,” he explained.
“I see… so what was your name?”
He smiled, “I do have a name.”
“Yes, but what is it?”
“No one’s asked me my name in thousands of years.”
Emily watched him as he stood up slowly and limped down a dark row, then disappeared. When he returned, he had another file. He handed it to her and then sat down.
Emily opened the file and thumbed through old parchments full of names, “Are these all your names?”
“Mine? No… they are Equites.”
She smiled and put the file down, “I need to send another message to the surface.”
He nodded, bit his wrist, and then held it out. Using the same root, she wrote Chevalier a note and then sent it up with the rope.
***
Chevalier sighed and hissed slightly.
“What?” Kyle asked as he studied the ground.
“She said she can’t leave him down there alone.”
“Of course she did.”
Chevalier smiled, “She said he’s not all the way there.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, he is insane.”
“Then she’s not safe down there.”
He shrugged, “She must be, or she wouldn’t casually be writing to us.”
“True, but he could still turn on her.”
“Rumor has it… I’d say from about 4,000 years ago, that he’d lived on animals for so long, that he no longer wanted human blood,” Chevalier explained.
“Well that’s lucky for her,” Quinn said.
“Now to figure out how to get her back up here.”
“Just tell her that’s his job to stay there.”
Chevalier looked at him oddly.
Quinn chuckled, “Yeah, that’d never work.”
“If he is insane and somehow makes it up here…”
“We’d have to kill him,” Quinn said. “Tell her that, that’ll change her mind.”
“I’m not going to bring that up to her.”
***
“It’s Emily,” she said, smiling.
“Oh what a pretty name,” the Ancient said as he sat down. “What can I do for you then?”
She smiled broadly, “There are secrets down here, right?”
“Well, I suppose there are.”
“Like what?”
He frowned, “You’re mortal though.”
“No, I’m heku.”
“Oh, ok then. Well there are things such as how to bring one out of retirement, the retirement incantations, or… well there’s even a way to un-turn a heku.”
“There is!?” she gasped.
“Well, yes, though I’ve never heard of it done. It can only be performed by an Ancient, but the Old Ones know about it.”
“What about…” She hesitated, “the Yisolatara ritual?”
He nodded, “Yes, yes, that’s down here too.”
“What else do the Old Ones know that Ancients only can do?”
“Summon each other, of course,” he said, smiling. “You’re an Old One though, you should know that.”
She nodded, “I did… so what good is it to summon each other?”
“That’s how we communicate across vast differences.”
“I see… and Old Ones can do that?”
“Well, no… Ancients can do it, call other Ancients and those with Ancient’s blood,” he fell serious and looked into her eyes, “You said you’re an Ancient?”
“Yes,” she said, leaning toward him.
“The summons was going to be used with the Aboleo,” he whispered.
“What would that do?”
“You remember when rumors started that the Old Ones were trying to arrange to have the Ancient’s banished?”
“Yes”
“This would take care of the Old Ones. We would summon them and then Aboleo, they would be ash.”
“It would destroy the Old Ones?”
“Yes, then we would start over. The main meeting place for the Ancients was in what is
now called Wiltshire, England. A central location, yet a neutral location where the Ancients could gather long enough to make decisions before going their own separate ways.”
She thought, “Wiltshire, England? I’ve heard of that place.”
“Yes… we also have an incantation to incapacitate a mortal. That made it easier to feed in small tribes. If the mortal screamed, it woke up the others, so we had to knock them out first.”
She smiled, “I’ll have the files on the things you just mentioned.”
The Ancient nodded and then shuffled down a dark corridor. When he got back, he had a stack of files that he handed to Emily.
She sat back and began to read each of the files as the Ancient sat patiently and watched. When she came to an interesting incantation, she entered the information into her phone for later use. It was hours later before another note was dropped down with the rope.
“Ahh, a message,” the Ancient said with a smile. He picked up the note and read it.
“Is it for Emily?”
“Why, yes it is… not sure who that is though.”
“I’ll take it,” she told him. She read the note, a brief request for her to take the rope and return to the surface.
The Ancient moved to the portal and cocked his head to the side, then turned to Emily, “Your presence is requested by the Council.”
“I’m sure it is,” she said, changing files.
He lifted her up by her arm, “You musn’t keep the Council waiting.
She stood up and put the files down on a table, “I don’t want to leave you here alone.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not right.”
He smiled, “It is my job.”
Suddenly, an image flashed through her mind of Dustin tearing Nicholas’ head off right in front of her. She frowned and watched as the Ancient began putting away the files.
Emily sighed when she realized that the heku would kill him the second he did anything that they deemed insane. She herself had told Chevalier that he wasn’t with it, and her heart sunk. She gave him the ammunition to kill the Ancient the second he saw him.
“Oh, hello,” the Ancient said when he saw Emily. “What can I get for you?”
She looked around the cold, dark room and then turned pained eyes toward him, “I don’t want to leave you here alone.”
Ancients and Old Ones : Book 8 of the Heku Series Page 15