Ferus : Book 6 of the Heku Series (42 page)

“Where’s Mark and
Silas?”

“They are staying here,”
Chevalier said, and handed Dain in with instructions to make sure
he didn’t chew on Emily.

“Jaron?”

“Busy… Kralen’s in charge, be good.”

Emily crawled in and sat
on one of the hard vinyl seats beside Kralen. Her helicopter
couldn’t accommodate this many, so they were taking one of the
transports.

“Remember, we don’t know how well she’s
going to respond to being on the island, get immediately to the
yacht,” Chevalier whispered to Kralen, too low for Emily to
hear.

“Stop whispering about me
and let’s get on with this,” she said, and got Dain settled on her
lap.

Kralen grinned and shut
the door. Chevalier watched as the transport helicopter took them
to the island before he headed inside to begin the
ceremony.

Four hours later, and
without incident, Kralen was pulling Emily 2 away from the pier and
headed out onto the Atlantic. Emily was sitting behind him on a
little plastic chair, and Dain was down in the hold with some of
the guards.

Kralen pulled on some sunglasses and turned
to Emily, “Why don’t you go get some sun? It can’t be fun watching
me up here.”

“I don’t know any of those guards.”

“They are
Cavalry.”

“I know their faces… no names, nothing
else.”

Kralen grinned, “The Elders like it that
way.”

“Yeah… well… I don’t want to spend 3 days
with them on a boring yacht.”

He glanced up at the sky,
“Clouds are coming in. If you wanted sun, now’d be the time to do
it.”

“Oh, joy, a storm… that’s
worked out so well for us in the past,” she mumbled, and headed
down stairs to change. She put on her bikini and slathered in
sunscreen before sitting down on a chaise. She had to admit, the
sun felt amazing after sitting in the cold helicopter, and then the
cold bridge. It wasn’t more than an hour before the sun disappeared
behind dark gray clouds and lightning flashed in the
distance.

Emily got up and pulled on
some shorts before making a quick lunch. She ate by herself and
then pulled Dain over to the couch for a movie. The boat started
rocking with the worsening tide, and she started to get nervous.
This all seemed too familiar.

Hard rain began to pound
against the side of the yacht, and she heard the sound of guards
shutting windows and tying things down on the deck. Four members of
the Cavalry came down the stairs, dripping wet, and Emily threw
them each a towel.

“Thanks,” the closest one
said, and they dried off so they weren’t dripping. The four stood
at the bottom of the stairs, which put them down in the living
area. Emily tried to watch the movie, but kept glancing at them as
they stood motionless and without saying a word.

A violent wave shook the boat and slammed
Emily back onto the couch. Dain laughed and Emily glanced over at
the unmoving guards, seemingly undisturbed by the sudden shift in
the boat.

“Are you all from Powan?” she asked.

“Yes, Commander,” the
blond said.

“Do you have to stand
there, or can you come sit down and watch a movie?”

“This is our
post.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“No, Ma’am, no enjoyment.
We’re on assignment.”

“Are all of the guards on this yacht from
Powan?”

“All except for the
Captain.”

“Whose idea was that?” she
grumbled, and turned back to the movie.

“That information is unknown,” he told her,
still standing at attention.

Dain crawled down off the
couch after only an hour, and began to play with his fire trucks.
Emily sighed and laid down on the couch. The constant rocking of
the boat was starting to make her feel queasy. She shut her eyes
tightly when it got worse, and she felt like at any minute she
might have to make a mad dash for the bathroom.

“Commander, are you
unwell?” the blond guard asked.

She couldn’t answer.
Another wave hit and her stomach lurched, sending her running for
the bathroom. After a few minutes, she heard a knock on the
door.

“Em, are you ok?” Kralen asked.

“No,” she said
weakly.

Kralen opened the door and
looked down at her. She was leaning against the side of the toilet,
deathly pale, and sweating slightly. He sighed and picked her
up.

“No, put me down,” she whispered.

“You can’t feel better
down here, you need to look at the horizon,” he said, and one of
the Powan guards followed them up the stairs with an umbrella. The
rain was still pounding the deck, and the white crested waves were
slashing against the side of the boat.

“Ma’am, look out there… at the horizon,” the
guard said, moving the umbrella a bit so she could see.

Once Emily caught sight of
the horizon, her stomach started to settle down and she was able to
stand on her own. Kralen went back up to the bridge, and she stayed
out on the rain drenched deck and watched the waves and storm.
After a few hours, the storm began to subside and the boat stopped
rocking as badly. She finally was able to go back down and lay down
in bed for the night.

Kralen watched out over
the dark ocean. He stayed alert as he watched for any sign of an
approaching boat.

“Emily 2 from Island,” the voice came over
the radio.

Kralen picked it up, “Emily 2, go.”

“CC advises Valle are aware of your
location, move to point 2.”

“Copy that, point 2.”

“Radio silence initialized, continue to
point 2 with mission beta 4.”

Kralen hung the microphone back up and
started up the engines to move to the next staging location.

Emily sat up in bed when she heard the
engines roar to life and felt the boat begin to move. She turned to
the guards at the door, “Why are we moving?”

“We were not informed,” the blond told
her.

She glanced over at the
clock and figured because it was already 6am, she might as well get
up. She made a fresh pot of coffee and took a steaming cup with her
when she went to talk to Kralen. She stepped onto the bridge and
sat down.

“Sleep well?” Kralen asked, glancing at
her.

“No… where are we going?”

“It’s customary to move, so we keep our
location a secret.”

“Oh… Do the Powans have an
off-button?”

Kralen chuckled, “Not sure what you
mean.”

“They’re too… well… by the book… they need
to lighten up.”

“Not sure they can. That’s
why all of the guards are now being trained there.”

“So are any of these
Powans wolves?”

“Just one, the rest were taken to Powan from
other covens for training.”

Emily glanced up at the cloud covered sky,
“Any chance of sun?”

“Not on this trip. We have
storm after storm rolling in.”

She smiled, “Let’s go to the island.”

“We can’t, they are turning a mortal,” he
reminded her.

“Not Island Coven… our island… the one we
shipwrecked on.”

“Why would you want to go back there?”

“Just to see.”

“Well we can’t. The
Council is keeping tabs on our location.”

“So tell them.”

“We’re on radio silence.”

Emily frowned, “You’re keeping something
from me.”

Kralen’s body tensed, “Get below… now.”

“What’s going…” before
Emily could finish, she was blurred below deck by one of the
Cavalry. The four guards on the stairs moved back down into the
living area. She heard the engines slow and then stop. The silence
was deafening as she listened to try to figure out what was going
on.

She moved forward to see
if the Powan’s would stop her, but they didn’t. She ran up the
stairs and peeked out. They were floating alongside another larger
boat, and two of the guards were tying their boat to the other
while another guard put a plank between them.

Kralen appeared on deck and Emily went up
beside him. He glanced at her and then yelled over, “Is anyone on
board?”

“What’s up?”

“This boat was putting out an unmanned
distress call.”

“Meaning…”

“Meaning the distress call
was started by the automated system. The boat thinks no one’s
driving.”

“Let’s go check it out
then,” Emily said, and started for the plank. Kralen grabbed her
arm.

“Stay here,” he said, and
quickly crossed onto the other boat. She grinned and followed him
across.

“Hello?” Kralen called out
again, and then headed up to the bridge.

Emily saw a door heading below and opened
it, “Is anyone down there?”

“Commander, the Captain
asked you to stay over here,” the blond guard told her.

“I know,” she said, and
propped open the door. She started down the stairs slowly. The
first door she opened was the dining hall. She noticed the plates
set out were partially full, but the chairs were thrown
around.

She shut that door and
went to the next, which was a long room with 12 bunk beds. The beds
weren’t made and the sight of a red stain caught Emily’s eye. She
walked forward and touched it, and it looked like blood on the
sheets. She wiped her hand off on a bedspread, and then checked the
bathroom at the end of the room, but it was empty.

When Emily got back into
the hallway, she head an odd scratching sound coming from down in
another room. She opened the door and looked into a large
stateroom. There was a single bed with silk sheets and a TV mounted
to the wall. In the corner, was a tall cage and scratching on the
inside, was a ferret with black feet and a raccoon like mask. He
was angrily scratching at the door. Emily unlocked the cage and
gently pulled him out. She held him up, and he began to nose around
in her hair and tried to crawl onto her shoulder.

Taking the small animal
with her, she went to check the last door in the hallway. The door
only opened an inch or two, so she pushed harder, but it didn’t
move. Bracing herself, she cradled the ferret in one hand and
pushed with her other, using her legs for force. The door broke
free of its restraint, and she fell forward into the room, coming
face-to-face with a purple, bloated corpse.

Emily screamed and
scrambled to her feet as she realized she’d fallen into a room full
of bodies. All of the guards appeared in the room behind her, and
she backed into one of them, screaming louder.

“Em… it’s us,” Kralen
said. She finally calmed down and turned around as the heku were
moving throughout the room.

She ignored the ferret as he hissed at the
guards, “What happened?”

One of the Powan guards
whispered to Kralen, but she couldn’t understand. Kralen nodded and
said something to the others.

“Tell me,” she said. It
was obvious they were keeping something from her.

Kralen sighed, “These bodies have all been
drained.”

“What?” she yelled. “By
who?”

“No way to tell,” he said,
and then stood up. “17 bodies in all… we’ll have to burn the boat.
We can’t risk this getting into the news.”

“No! We need to take them
back. Their families will be worried.”

“We can’t… it’s obvious
they were drained, and there are puncture wounds all over
them.”

She frowned, “Who would do that?”

“Smells Encala to me,” one
of the guards said, and then quieted down when Kralen glared at
him.

“Everyone out,” Kralen said. “Get back to
the boat, I’m burning it.”

“Wait! I have to get that cage and food,”
she said. Kralen turned and looked at her, instantly catching sight
of the ferret.

“Why do you have that… thing?”

“It’s not a thing, it’s a
ferret, and he’s scared.”

The ferret hissed angrily at one of the
Powan guards as they passed.

Kralen sighed, “I suppose you’re keeping
it?”

“Of course, not going to
let you burn it,” she told him, and headed out. One of the guards
brought the cage, and another grabbed a large bag of food. Emily
stuffed the rest of the ferret’s things into a pillow case, and
then carried them all across to the yacht.

Kralen appeared after a
few minutes, and they untied the boat and watched it float away
from them as smoke began to pour out of the windows.

Emily watched as a tear
streamed down her face, 17 mortals killed at the hands of the
Encala. Kralen started up the yacht and pulled away from the
burning wreckage. When she could no longer see anything but smoke,
she went down the stairs with the ferret to clean his cage and put
him away.

“Can you hold him while I
clean?” she asked one of the guards. He reached out and took the
ferret by the scruff of his neck as the animal hissed and chirped
at the heku, then tried to bite him, “Just be nice to him, I’ll
hurry.”

The guard didn’t answer,
but continued to hold the squirming ferret at arm’s length. Emily
plugged her nose as she cleaned out the bottom of the cage. It was
obvious that it hadn’t been cleaned in a long time. Once it had
fresh wood chips, food, and water, she took the ferret from the
guard and put him back in his home, then locked the door and sat
down to watch him play.

“What’s that?” Dain asked, sitting down by
the cage.

“It’s a ferret.”