Equites : Book 4 of the Heku Series (18 page)

“
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 hallway,” 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 below 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.”

“
They’re still in the city
aren’t they?”

Chevalier stopped and a grin formed,
“I bet they are.”

“
There were five of them,
should we get some help?”

Chevalier looked at him, “I’ll take
three, and you can have the other two.”

“
Not unless I get there
first,” Damon said, and blurred away, followed by
Chevalier.

Chevalier caught up to them first and
was able to incapacitate the first one easily. He was reading and
not paying attention to his surroundings, and his head hit the
floor with a thud and rolled into the roaring fireplace. Chevalier
turned around as Damon brought his teeth to the neck of the leader,
a stout woman with a bad attitude. He tore the flesh from her neck
and swiftly snapped her neck with a sickening, crunching sound. Her
head came off easily and he tossed it into the fire.