Ancients and Old Ones : Book 8 of the Heku Series

by T. M. Nielsen

“Where is she now?”

  “Out working. They’ll be back later today,” Silas told him. “Is the Elder coming?”

  “Not yet. He and Kyle are somewhere in Spain and we can’t get in touch with them,” Mark explained. “Did she see you?”

  Silas shook his head, “No.”

  “Ok, when she comes back I’ll let her see me and I’ll try to get her back here out of view of everyone else. I don’t want to risk exposure.”

  Mark spent the day reprimanding Kralen and Silas for breaking orders, but they knew the real punishment was coming when the Council found out. Just before dusk, they saw the big farm truck return, and Mark ordered them all to stay in the trees while he headed toward the farm.

  Emily lit a new cigarette and took a long drag before walking toward her bunk house. Her head was pounding and she wanted nothing more than a good, long drink. When she saw Mark, her heart skipped a beat and she froze and looked to make sure it was him.

  Mark stopped a ways off from her and motioned her forward silently.

  She tapped out some ash and took another puff before slowly walking toward Mark as he backed up. Her mind reeled through what to say to him. By the time he disappeared into the trees, she’d made up her mind that she owed him nothing less than intense pain and suffering.

  What Emily hadn’t expected was how many heku were waiting for her. She stopped as soon as they emerged into a clearing full of heku and her eyes narrowed as she scanned them.

  “What do you want?” she asked as she dropped the cigarette butt and put it out with her cowboy boot.

  “We’ve been looking for you,” Mark said.

  “Yeah, I bet you have.”

  “We don’t know what happened, but it’s safe to come back.”

  Mark cringed as she lit another cigarette and studied them before speaking, “How dare you tell me it’s safe!? I expected more out of you.”

  Mark frowned, “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I’m disappointed in all of you. I’m disgusted with you, and you have 5 seconds to leave my sight before I ash all of you and leave you here,” she yelled.

  “What did we do to deserve disappointment?” Kralen asked.

  Emily smiled, and the anger shocked the heku, “You’re all traitors… and you repulse me.”

  “Wait a minute…” Silas said, just before the heku turned to ash, except for Kralen.

  Kralen gasped and looked around the clearing, “Why did you do that?”

  “Because you’ve put all new meaning to the word Proditor,” she whispered harshly.

  “We aren’t traitors!”

  “Leave me alone… last warning,” Emily said. She concentrated on Kralen and he fell to his knees as he was struck with intense burning pain throughout his body. When he fell unconscious, Emily backed up and returned to the farm.

  When Kralen recovered, he carefully scooped up the ashes of his fallen heku and quickly blurred them to nearby Gael Coven on the outskirts of Dublin. From there, they contacted the Council and were told to wait until Kyle returned so they could revive the ash and figure out what to do.

  Chapter 24

  Kyle revived the last of the heku and then stood back while they recovered.

  Chevalier walked over as soon as Mark stood, “Where is she?”

  Mark looked over at Kralen, “Tell him everything you told me.”

  Kralen started with when he got the feeling Emily might return to her Dad’s family in Ireland. When he explained some of the behavior Emily had displayed, Chevalier was dumbstruck. It wasn’t like Emily to do any of those things and the self-destructive behavior was uncharacteristic for her.

  “She called us traitors,” Mark said to him.

  “Did she say why?”

  “We didn’t have time to ask before she turned us to ash.”

  “What did she say to you?” Chevalier asked Kralen.

  “She said we’ve put all new meaning to the word Proditor, and then warned us to leave her alone.”

  “Kyle, you stay here then, if she’s that trigger happy. I’ll take Mark and go talk to Emily.”

  “I want to go too,” Kralen told them.

  Mark shrugged, “For some reason she didn’t turn him to ash. He can bring us back to Kyle.”

  Chevalier nodded, “Let’s go.”

  They arrived back in Bracknagh and headed to the pub. They were in the shadows when Emily walked into the pub and immediately disappeared in the crowd of rowdy drinkers. Four hours later she staggered out of the pub and headed for her old pick-up.

  “Elizabeth, you can’t drive home,” one man said as he followed her.

  “Go away.”

  “No, I’m not going to let you drink and drive.”

  “You’re not my Dad,” Emily said as she climbed into the truck.

  The man reached in and took the keys from her, “No.”

  “Damnit,” she grumbled, and climbed unsteadily out of the truck. She tried to get the keys back, but he held them above her head.

  “I’ll take you home.”

  “Yeah I bet you will. Give me my keys!”

  “No,” he said, climbing into the truck. “Now get in.”

  Emily leaned back against the pub and lit a cigarette. She inhaled and then watched the man in her truck as she blew smoke into a light breeze.

  “You can kill yourself tomorrow, now get in,” he told her. She finally let out a string of curses before climbing into the truck.

  The heku took off after the truck and slid back into the shadows around Emily’s bunk house. The man parked her truck and climbed into another one with a field-hand. Emily watched them leave and then went into the bunk house and locked the door behind her.

  Chevalier, Mark, and Kralen watched secretly through her window as she dug out a bottle of Jack Daniels and poured it into a Styrofoam cup. She grabbed the bottle of pills, dumped some into her hand, and then downed them with the whiskey.

  Chevalier sighed and watched her strip and fall into bed, almost immediately falling asleep.

  Mark whispered, “We need to intervene. I don’t know what those pills are, but chances are she’s not supposed to mix them with alcohol.”

  Kralen nodded, “I bet she’s so far gone she won’t even know if we take her.”

  Chevalier jimmied the window open and then slid easily inside. Emily didn’t even stir as the heku watched her sleep. Chevalier studied her, but saw nothing wrong, no injuries, and other than being thinner than usual she seemed in good health.

  “Do we take her?” Kralen whispered.

  Chevalier shook his head and then started going through her room. He picked up the pill bottle and slipped it into his pocket before opening the cabinet and finding the alcohol supply. Mark and Kralen watched him as he looked through the partially empty bottles and then shut the door and stood up.

  He started looking through her mail and saw that all of it was addressed to Elizabeth Flynn. He put her phone bill into his pocket and opened up a drawer stuffed full of Euros. He figured she didn’t have a lot of bills and had both her wages from the ranch and winnings from the bar all stuffed into this unsecure location.

  The drawer under the Euros was filled with various kinds of pain medication and boxes of gauze. He found four bottles of prescription pain meds, and put them all into his pocket with the pills she took before bed. The rest were generic ibuprofen and acetaminophen tablets.

  Buried underneath the pills was a small notebook that was tattered and worn. He opened it up and frowned as he read what appeared to be eulogies for him and each of the kids. His confusion deepened as he read through them and then put the notebook back where he’d found it.

  All three turned to Emily when she whispered something incomprehensible and then rolled over and gripped her pillow tightly in her arms. Once she settled down, Chevalier went over and started to go through the few shirts she had hanging up in front of one of the windows. He thought it was odd that all of them were long sleeved, even though it was dead summer in Ire
land.

  Lastly, Chevalier opened up a box she had sitting on the windowsill and pulled out five cartons of unfiltered cigarettes. He walked over and tossed them out the window and then returned to sit down by Emily’s side in bed.

  “She thinks I’m dead,” Chevalier told them.

  “The ring though.”

  “We’ll have to ask her about it,” Chevalier said. “She either thinks the kids and I were killed, or are going to be. She’s written eulogies for us.”

  Mark shrugged, “Maybe it was her way of getting over you.”

  “What’s our plan?” Kralen whispered.

  “We hope she’s sober and has an open mind when she wakes up,” Chevalier said.

  “Do you want to be alone with her?”

  “No, because we don’t know why she’s not contacted us. I think we need to try not to scare her, but show that we’re not leaving without some answers.”

  When Emily started to wake, the heku moved back into the shadows of the tiny cabin, hoping not to startle her when she first saw them. She opened her eyes and looked up at the ceiling.

  “I hate you for doing this to me,” she whispered to the wooden rafters. After a few minutes, she leaned over and righted her Styrofoam cup before pulling a bottle of gin out from under her bed and pouring herself a glass.

  Chevalier’s sudden voice made her jerk and dump the gin onto her bedside table, “Isn’t it a bit early to be drinking?”

  She scrambled out of bed and pressed back against the wall when Chevalier, Mark, and Kralen stepped out into the cabin.

  Chevalier studied her, but couldn’t place the look on her face, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Her eyes darted between them, “I warned you…”

  “We’re worried about you,” Mark told her.

  She nodded toward Chevalier, “And what’s that shit?”

  “Excuse me?” Chevalier asked.

  “I thought it was against some stupid heku tradition to use a doppelganger,” Emily said, looking directly at Mark. “First you turn traitor and then you break laws? Things just get better and better.”

  “I’m not a doppelganger, Em,” Chevalier told her.

  “Bullshit! I’m not stupid.”

  “Not stupid, no. Maybe misinformed.”

  Emily leaned over and pulled on her jeans and straightened the long-sleeve t-shirt she’d slept in. She studied them, and then pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and lit up as she watched the heku.

  “Why are you smoking?” Chevalier asked.

  “So what’s the deal?” Emily asked. “The Council needs my help? Maybe the Valle are picking on them or the Encala have gotten too strong and they are too weak to handle it themselves?”

  “We aren’t here to enlist your help,” Mark said.

  “Good, because if I so much as see any of the Equites Council I’ll wipe them out, Chief Enforcer included.”

  “Why are you so mad at the Council?”

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” Emily said before taking another drag on the cigarette. “You’re going to leave me the hell alone and go tell your Council they can just forget me. I’m not helping them.”

  “Em… the Council doesn’t need your help. I miss you,” Chevalier said. “I’ll do as you ask, and leave you alone… if you’ll just help me understand why you haven’t contacted me. Why you’ve abandoned the kids and your friends.”

  She looked down at her feet and took another drag as she thought through her answer and fought back the tears.

  “Talk to us, please,” Kralen said. “You trust me… or you would have turned me to ash too.”

  “I didn’t turn you to ash because I don’t need the entire county filled with Equites.”

  “Why didn’t you call me when they let you go?” Chevalier asked.

  She laughed slightly, “Call you? You mean call the bloody Council? I’m not going to be a part of the sadistic banishment of innocent heku.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Elizabeth!” someone yelled from outside. “You have 5 minutes and we’re leaving you.”

  Emily took another drag and then headed for the door. She opened it and turned to Mark and Kralen, “I can’t believe how easily you turned and decided to back them.”

  “Emily, don’t go,” Chevalier said. “I’ll pay you for the days missed wages, just stay here for a few minutes.”

  She glared at him and shut the door behind her. Soon, they heard the ranch truck take off for the fields.

  “Who are we backing?” Kralen asked Mark.

  He shrugged, “I wish I knew.”

  Chevalier sat down and looked around the cabin again, “We’re missing something.”

  Kralen glanced at the messy cabin.

  “Let’s stay here then and talk to her when she gets back,” Mark said. “Maybe we can keep her from going out to the pub and driving home drunk again. That’s going to bite her in the ass one of these days.”

  Mark called the Council and checked in, and then sat back with Chevalier and Kralen to wait for Emily’s return. The old truck pulled up late in the afternoon and all three looked over at the door when Emily walked in.

  “Why are you still here?” she asked as she dug through the cupboard full of alcohol.

  “We still want to know what’s going on,” Chevalier said. He inwardly winced when Emily poured herself a glass of whiskey and downed it in one shot.

  She set the glass down and then sat in an old rocking chair that was off to the side of her bed, “What’s going on is that the Council is shit. I’m not going to have anything to do with heku anymore, and you know why. Even if the current Council brought back the others, they can’t make up for what they did.”

  Mark sighed, “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “And you two following the Council… I never thought I’d see the day,” she told them as she lit a cigarette and took a long drag.

  “We’ve always supported the Council. You already knew that,” Kralen said.

  “Bullshit! Your chicken ass way of saving your own skin is pathetic.”

  “Elizabeth, who are you talking to?” someone asked from outside the door. “We aren’t supposed to have people in our cabins.”

  “Fuck off, George!” Emily yelled.

  “God, you are such a bitch,” he said, and they heard footsteps heading away from the cabin.

  “What happened to you?” Chevalier asked as he studied her. The way she spoke, acted, and even moved wasn’t like her at all. She seemed not to care about anything or anyone, even herself.

  She ignored him and looked over at Mark as she poured herself another glass of whiskey, “So did you help the current Council do it? Or did you turn traitor later on?”

  “I’ve always backed the current Council,” Mark answered, getting mad. “You know I’m loyal to the Council, I’ve proven that.”

  “It’s sick,” she said, and then drank the glass at once.

  Kralen sighed, “Em, that’s probably a good 3 shots in each glass.”

  She stood suddenly and pushed Kralen, though he didn’t move, “You have no right telling me what’s right and wrong! You have no right coming in here and telling me that I should come support the current Council! I’m not a traitor and I will always… always… support the former one.”

  “When did you decide to support the former Council?” Mark asked, frowning.

  “Brainwashed again, maybe?” Kralen asked, too softly for Emily to hear.

  Emily sat down hard when the whiskey began to make her unsteady, “I’ve always supported them, what kind of lame ass question is that?”

  Chevalier suddenly had an idea, “Em, name the Council.”

  She stood up and walked past Kralen, purposely knocking her shoulder against him as she passed. She went over to the drawer filled with medications and opened it, then started shifting through what was left of the pill bottles.

  “I took the narcotics out,” Chevalier told her.

>   Emily turned toward him, “Give them back.”

  “No, you can’t mix them with alcohol.”

  “For chrissake! Give me my fucking pills!”

  “Name the Council,” Chevalier said again.

  “You name the fucking Council,” she snapped.

  When she grabbed the whiskey bottle to pour another drink, Mark gently took it out of her hand and stepped back.

  Her shoulders sunk, and when she spoke, her voice sounded defeated and tired, “Why are you doing this to me? Haven’t I been through enough?”

  “I can’t stand here and watch you kill yourself,” Mark told her.

  She looked up at him with red, teary eyes, “I wish I could kill myself… I don’t want to be here.”

  Chevalier tried to take her hand, but she pulled away from him and sat down on the rocking chair.

  “Talk to me,” Mark said, sitting down on the bed. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “They took everything from me,” she whispered. “I don’t have anything more to give… but they still felt compelled to send you to torment me. What do you want? What more could you possibly gain from coming here?”

  Emily reached out to grab the box of cigarettes sitting on the table, so Kralen gently reached out and grabbed her arm. She gasped and jerked away when his hand hit her forearm, and then cradled it close to her and turned away from them.

  “What’s wrong with your arm?” Chevalier asked, standing slowly.

  “Give me my pills,” she whispered.

  “Pain or not, you can’t mix those with alcohol.”

  “Why not? What’s the worst that can happen?” she said as she looked out the small window. “I can’t even die to forget.”

  “What are you trying so hard to forget?” Mark asked.

  “You’d think after 4 months the pain would lessen.”

  Chevalier sighed, “Just tell us what you are trying to forget. What’s causing this self-destructive behavior?”

  “Why are you doing this to me?” she asked, and leaned over so her forehead was against her knees. She fought back tears for as long as she could, but the hole in her heart grew larger and she finally broke down.

  Chevalier moved to her side and put a hand on her back, “Tell me.”