Equites : Book 4 of the Heku Series (7 page)

Chevalier nodded at Mark and whispered
instructions to him. Mark agreed, and then Chevalier went into
Emily’s room. She was sitting up on the side of her bed.

“
I did it!” she said
proudly.

Chevalier smiled,
“Impressive.”

“
What’s wrong?” she asked,
watching him.

“
Why do you assume
something is wrong?”

“
What bad news did you come
to tell me?”

Chevalier sighed, “Ok, I forgot that I
have an induction ceremony tonight in Illinois. They asked for the
three Elders to come, and I already promised I’d be
there.”

Emily laughed, “That’s not bad,
go.”

“
I hate to leave you,” he
said, sitting by her on the bed.

“
I’ll be ok, if I get bored
I’ll go visit Exavior in the prison,” she said, and winked at him
when he looked at her, shocked.

“
You aren’t helping,”
Chevalier chuckled.

“
Just go,” she
said.

***

The ceremony took longer than
expected. Seven hours to swear in a new Coven Head was pushing it,
and all three Elders were eager to return to Council City. With the
city at imminent war, it made them all uncomfortable to be away for
that long. Equites 1 hovered over the palace before gently setting
down. The pilot cut the engines, and the Elders stepped out to a
long line of guards.

“
It just seems… that if we
are asked to come to a new Coven Head’s coronation, they should
drop the daily announcements and other random coven business, and
bring it up at a later date,” Maleth said, irritated, as they
stepped into the palace.

“
Maybe we should specify
that the next time we’re invited,” Quinn suggested, slipping off
his green robe.

The Elders stopped and listened when
they heard the shouting.

“
Run Mark!” Emily
screamed.

“
I can’t, you attack him.
I’m busy with this one,” Mark replied, frantically.

“
Don’t attack me! I will
always win,” Kyle said, and laughed menacingly.

“
I’m hurt,” Emily
yelled.

“
Die, Emily!” Damon yelled,
and then laughed.

Chevalier and the Elders blurred into
Emily’s room, and then stopped suddenly. Kyle, Damon, and Marked
turned around quickly and stood at attention. Emily peered at the
Elders from a wheelchair by the TV.

“
Welcome back,” Emily said,
smiling.

Chevalier frowned, “What’s going
on?”

“
Erm… Vampire Attack IV,”
Kyle said, stifling a grin.

Maleth frowned, “Excuse
me?”

Chevalier laughed, “Did you buy her a
game console?”

Mark nodded, “She was bored,
Sir.”

“
But… I heard Damon
threaten Emily,” Maleth said, still confused.

Chevalier took Maleth to the TV, and
showed him what was going on. The large LCD TV was displaying a
dark, destroyed village. The stereotypical vampire was running
around aimlessly, while four dead, bloody bodies lie in the
streets. Above the heads of the deceased were the names: Emily,
Kyle, Mark, and Damon.

“
It’s a game,” Chevalier
said, frowning. “A bad one at that.”

“
It’s fun!” Emily laughed.
“I think Damon cheated, though. He only attacked me when I had
vampires all around.”

“
That’s not cheating,
that’s strategy.” Damon grinned.

“
At least our team was
winning,” Mark said.

“
Was not.” Kyle laughed.
“We had you both dead before the zombies even got out of the
graveyard.”

“
The zombies were pansies,”
Emily said. “They ran from the vampires, at least the big ones… the
little ones they could take out though.”

“
This is just weird,” Quinn
said, and left the room.

Emily squinted her face at him after
he left, “No fun.”

“
Hmm,” Chevalier said,
walking around the wheelchair. “What did they have to do to get you
into that?”

Emily smiled, “They bought me a game,
of course.”

“
It only seemed logical.
Now she can easily maneuver around her room by herself,” Mark said,
looking at it. The footrest on the right was lifted to accommodate
the cast on her right leg, and a pillow was propped under her left
arm, which was no longer in a cast.

“
Where’s your cast, Em?”
Chevalier sighed.

“
It was bugging me,” she
said, looking down at her arm, propped up on a soft
pillow.

“
Who took it
off?”

“
I’m not
telling.”

Chevalier turned to Mark.

“
It was off when we got
back here with the Wii,” Mark said quickly.

“
So we leave for the night,
and you all decide to play games?” Chevalier asked.

“
It was purely tactical,”
Emily said. “Now if I’m ever attacked by vampires, I know to stay
away from Damon and the zombies.”

“
Hrm,” Damon said, laying
down the remote controller.

Maleth lifted the controller and
looked at it, then at the screen, where a small human avatar was
being eaten by enraged, computer controlled vampires,
“Interesting.”

“
We… better get back to
work,” Kyle said, nodding to Mark, and they both blurred out of the
room.

Silas knocked on the door and came
into the room carrying a pizza box, “Did someone order
pizza?”

Emily smiled, “How’d you guess it was
me? Allen, come eat!”

Allen ran out of the bedroom in his
pajamas, and grabbed a slice from Silas before running back into
his room with it. Silas laid the box down on the table and left the
room. Emily picked up a piece, and took a bite of the pepperoni,
olive, and pineapple pizza, and then looked up at Chevalier,
Maleth, and Damon, who were watching her.

“
Um... did you want some?”
she asked, holding up a slice.

“
No, I think we’re all
good.” Chevalier smiled.

“
Then why are you watching
me?”

“
To try to figure out how
you can eat something so disgusting,” Damon said
casually.

Emily frowned, “Pizza is not
disgusting. Now that salty coagulated blood… that is
nasty.”

“
Says the mortal,” Damon
said, raising an eyebrow.

“
Leech”

“
Child”

“
Psychopath.” Emily threw a
slice of pizza at him just as he started to turn away, and it
smashed into the side of his face.

“
Control your wife,” Damon
said to Chevalier.

“
Get bent,” Emily yelled at
him.

Damon threw his hands up in the air,
“What does that even mean!?”

“
Out,” Chevalier said,
pointing to the door. Maleth took Damon by the shoulder and ushered
him out, then shut the door.

Emily pushed the control on her
wheelchair and it slid silently over to the gaming console. She
turned it off and then drove over to Chevalier.

“
It’s actually kind of
fun,” she said.

Chevalier chuckled and sat down on the
bed, “Did Mark talk to you?”

Emily nodded, “Yes.”

“
So… let’s start with the
answer to his request.”

“
I agreed to two, not four,
and they have to stay outside of my room. They also have to leave
me alone when I go riding,” she said. “Oh, and if I tell them to
get lost, they have to.”

“
Were those the only
conditions?” he asked, chuckling.

“
No, it can’t be Damon…
ever.” Emily thought, “I think that was all.”

“
But you honestly agreed to
two?” Chevalier asked, just to clarify.

She sighed, “Yes, I did.”

“
What did you ask in
return… dare I ask?” he asked, watching her.

“
Well the Wii was one of
them, or, more like something to do. I get a palomino and a paint
stallion when I am up and around. Kyle’s not allowed to give me any
more uninvited shots, and I can talk to Exavior whenever I want,”
she said, listing the bribe.

“
That’s quite the list,”
Chevalier said.

“
Yes, well… it was quite
the demand, too,” Emily told him.

“
True, I don’t like a few
of the listed items though.”

“
Like what?”

“
The shots… sometimes they
are necessary, and you are just too stubborn to see that,” he said
matter-of-factly.

Emily frowned, “That one
stays.”

“
What about Exavior? Why
would you even want to see him?”

“
He didn’t know my back was
hurt, nor did he know that picking me up like that aggravated it,”
she said.

“
He still had no right to
do what he did,” Chevalier said sternly.

“
I agree.”

“
Then why?” Chevalier was
confused.

“
Because… that’s why,”
Emily said bluntly.

“
That helps.”

“
Live with it,” she said,
frowning. She drove her wheelchair into the bathroom, and tried to
slam the door, but it hit her back wheels.

“
No fighting, ok? Let me
bring it up to the Council and see what they say.”

“
Why do they get a say in
it?” she asked, backing out of the bathroom.

“
Just the Exavior
thing.”

“
No Exavior… then no
guard,” she said, and lowered the footrest on her wheelchair.
Chevalier helped her to her feet and turned her around, sitting her
in bed.

Emily laid back and relaxed on the
bed, “Long day.”

“
How’s your back?” he
asked, folding her wheelchair out of the way.

“
Sore, but not too bad,”
she told him, and pulled the covers up.

Chevalier kissed her forehead and
turned the lights off, then headed for the door. He still had a lot
of work to do.

“
Chev?” Emily asked
softly.

“
Yes?” he asked, turning
around.

“
Will you stay?”

Chevalier smiled and slipped off his
shoes, then crawled onto the bed. He wrapped his arms around her
and she laid her head against his shoulder.

“
Don’t let go,” she
whispered, and snuggled down into the bed.

“
I won’t,” he promised and
kissed her softly.

Emily slipped quickly off to sleep.
Chevalier smiled as he shut his eyes and saw the swirl of emotions
surround his thoughts. He hadn’t been able to feel her emotions
since she’d removed the ring, and he forgot how much he missed it.
The soft swirls were peaceful and flowing. He watched as the swirls
slowly formed into images.

Chevalier shivered in the
cold. The wind howled above him, and he felt the ice cold water
drench the back of his clothing as the snow he laid on melted.
There were piles of twisted metal and blood all around him. He
couldn’t breathe well, there was something lying against his
chest.

Chevalier put his hands
under the metal on his chest and pushed it off, easily. He sat up
and looked around. He was in a long dark corridor. He felt a cold
hand against his leg, but the scream he heard wasn’t his own. He
pulled his leg back, desperate for the skeletal hand to release
him.

A skeleton slowly crawled
toward him as it spoke, “I am Encala.”

Chevalier felt fear, a
foreign emotion for him, yet it surrounded him in this place. Blood
began to flow from the ceiling and soon the snow was dyed
red.

Chevalier felt Emily’s hands tighten
against his arm, and she cried out softly in her sleep. He opened
his eyes and felt her body tense against his. He touched her cheek
lightly.

“
Shhhh,” he whispered into
her ear, and she settled down.

Chevalier shut his eyes again and
rested his cheek against the top of her head. He saw the dark
corridors swirl back into flowing, soft emotions, and smiled. He
opened his eyes just as Emily started to wake up. The emotions and
random thoughts had stopped and began to fade.

Emily opened her eyes and smiled, “You
stayed.”

“
I told you I would,”
Chevalier reminded her.

“
Let’s just stay here all
day,” she said, curling up against him.

Chevalier chuckled, “It’s trial day. I
don’t think the Council would appreciate if I stayed in bed all
day.”

“
What? They can’t punish
the innocent without you?” she mumbled.

“
We don’t punish the
innocent,” he said, amused.

“
When’s the last time a
trial found someone innocent?” she asked, sitting up slowly and
wincing as her back complained.

“
Just because we don’t
arrest the innocent,” Chevalier said as he reached over and grabbed
a bottle of ibuprofen. He held out two of them to her.