Encala (20 page)

“
She doesn’t
know.”

“
What does the doctor
say?”

“
She won’t go.” Kyle
crawled off of her and covered her with a blanket.

“
Why not?” Chevalier
frowned.

“
Because she was afraid of
leaving the house… and go figure… it took me three days to talk her
into leaving, and she gets arrested,” Kyle said,
accusingly.

“
Let’s take this up out of
the room,” Chevalier whispered.

Kyle nodded and left the room. He glanced at
the remnants of the plate glass window, “You broke my house.”

“
I’ll pay for it,”
Chevalier said, not finding humor in the situation.

“
You can’t still be mad at
me. You know why I had to stay… better me than no one,” Kyle said,
sitting down on the couch. The cold wind coming in through the
broken window didn’t bother the heku.

“
Yes, I can still be mad.
You had no right to keep her from me.” He continued to
stand.

“
So you’d rather I have
told you and had her disappear.”

“
No, I would rather you
have told me, and then kept her here until I arrived.”

“
Oh that’s right. I should
have asked nicely,” Kyle said, sarcastically.

“
Have you forgotten who I
am?” Chevalier growled.

“
No, I have not, but I’m
already going to be in the interrogation chamber for what I did,”
he said, looking out the window.

Chevalier ignored that remark, “Talk to her.
She listens to you.”

“
She doesn’t listen to me,”
Kyle told him.

“
More than she does me,”
Chevalier said, sitting down on the couch.

“
She loves you, you know
that, right?”

“
I’m not so sure of that
anymore, too much has happened.”

“
She does,” Kyle said
toward the Elder.

“
I just want to get her
back to the palace where it’s safe, and then we can find
out.”

Kyle just nodded. He wasn’t sure she was
going to go.

Sam came in a short time later carrying
Allen, asleep in his arms. He quietly went upstairs and laid him
down on a bed and then came back down stairs.

“
There are cops around the
cab,” Sam said, sitting down.

“
If they come to the house,
we’ll just tell them we called for a cab, but he never showed up,”
Kyle said, smoothly.

“
I won’t let you take her
without her permission,” Sam said, watching the two
heku.

Chevalier nodded, “It’s ok, Sam. I’m not
going to force her to come back with me.”

“
You will
eventually.”

“
I won’t, all I want is for
her to be happy.”

“
Then both of you should go
now, before she wakes up,” Sam suggested.

“
She said I could stay,”
Kyle argued.

“
It’s painful for her to
see a heku. You are just a reminder...” Sam stopped and watched his
hands.

“
Of what? Being bitten?
Abused? Being confined?” Kyle asked.

“
No… of him,” Sam said,
nodding toward Chevalier.

Chevalier nodded, “She hates me that bad
then.” It wasn’t a question.

“
Quite the opposite. She
loves you, and it’s hard for her to break away, especially when
she’s reminded of you all the time,” Sam explained.

“
Then why leave? If she
loves me so much, why is she going away?”

“
That’s not for me to say.
I just see her, the way she watches Allen, she sees so much of you
in him,” Sam looked toward the door.

“
Then how can she just
leave?” Chevalier asked again. “How can it be so easy for her to
run away?”

“
Easy? It’s harder on her
than you could ever imagine.”

“
How do you f…” Chevalier
froze when he heard the soft voice from the bedroom call his name.
Without another word, he blurred to Emily’s side as she knelt by
the window.

“
Em?” he said, sitting
down.

“
It hurts,” she
moaned.

“
Where does it hurt?” he
asked, touching her shoulder.

“
Please make them stop,
Chev,” she begged, her eyes fixed on the snow outside.

“
Emily…” Chevalier said,
beginning to panic, “What hurts?”

“
Get me off the island,”
she groaned, and fell against the floor. Her back arched as a
trickle of blood fell from her nose.

Chevalier frowned, “Kyle.”

“
What happened?” Kyle
asked, kneeling beside her.

“
Look”

Kyle looked at the stream of blood, then
stood and looked around the room, “There are no ashes.”

“
Check outside,” he hissed,
as Emily fell unconscious.

Kyle blurred out the door and returned a few
seconds later, “All over, Chevalier. There are piles of ash all
over out there.”

“
What?” he asked, turning
to Kyle.

“
I’m not kidding. There are
a lot of ashes out there,” Kyle said, confused.

“
Who was it?” Chevalier
asked, as he grabbed a tissue and wiped the blood from her
face.

“
Looks Encala. I think we
may have been under attack,” Kyle turned and looked at Sam, who
just walked in.

“
Sam?” Chevalier asked
him.

“
The Winchesters have to
stare down the ones they kill,” Sam explained.

“
But… she doesn’t,”
Chevalier said. “When she demonstrated her abilities to the
Council, she was facing away from him.”

“
That’s impossible, it
takes eye contact,” Sam frowned.

Chevalier shook his head and looked back at
Emily, “She doesn’t.”

Emily inhaled slowly and opened her eyes,
then exhaled as her body tensed and her hands tightened into
fists.

“
Emily?” Chevalier asked
her, taking her fists in his hands.

“
I hear someone out there,”
Kyle said, blurring from the room.

Sam followed him, and Chevalier moved to
look out the window. He could see dark figures below, crouched low
and approaching the house slowly. He turned when Emily
screamed.

“
Em,” he said, holding her
down. Her back was arched and her eyes were rolled back in her
head.

She collapsed onto the floor again,
breathing deeply. A stream of blood began to trickle from her
ears.

“
Emily?” Chevalier shook
her lightly.

Kyle blurred back into the bedroom, “It is
the Encala, dozens of them. They are falling to ash, but they are
still coming. We need to get out of here.”

“
Sam!” Chevalier
yelled.

Sam walked in slowly, “I’ve never seen a
Winchester do this.”

“
I don’t care what she’s
doing. She can’t keep it up. We need to take her back to the
palace,” he said.

“
No,” Sam said. “She made
it clear she wasn’t going back.”

“
She can’t keep this up,
and Kyle and I can’t fight off the entire Encala
faction.”

Sam shook his head, “I won’t say yes.”

“
Damnit, Sam, go get Allen…
Kyle, get the Humvee,” Chevalier said, picking Emily up and
wrapping a blanket over her. He blurred to the Humvee and crawled
into the backseat as Kyle turned the heater up and looked around
nervously. Sam finally came out carrying Allen. He buckled Allen
into the car seat, still asleep, and then crawled into the front
seat by Kyle. Kyle spun out and pulled away from the
house.

“
How many Encala were
there?” Chevalier asked, looking behind them.

“
A few dozen,” Kyle said,
checking his rear-view mirror.

“
Someone else was out
there. The Winchesters have to see the eyes of the one they turn to
ash, and only… maybe… ten or so,” Sam said, looking out the
window.

“
They were all turning to
ash in front of my eyes, Sam. No one but Emily can do that… then
there’s the blood,” Kyle said, watching the road closely. “I saw
her kill 83 in one night, and thirteen in quick
succession.”

“
Go to the palace,” Sam
whispered.

Kyle glanced at him, “You’ll take the heat
from Emily?”

Sam nodded.

“
What changed your mind?”
Chevalier asked him, suspiciously.

“
Elizabeth,” he whispered,
watching out the window, deep in thought.

“
Emily’s
mother?”

“
No, the eldest daughter of
the first Elizabeth and Ulrich.” Sam looked back at Chevalier.
Emily was still cradled in his arms, the blanket covering her
face.

“
What about
her?”

“
There was an attack on the
city.” Sam was deep in thought watching Emily breathe, “The night
she died.”

“
How did she die?”
Chevalier was suddenly intensely interested.

“
I didn’t lie,” Sam said,
looking at Chevalier. “The Winchesters have to see the heku
eye-to-eye to ash them… all except for Elizabeth.”

“
How… did… she
die?”

“
The night of the attack…
the Equites started to fall quickly, turning to ash as we fought
them.” Sam wiped a tear away with the back of his ancient hand,
“When we won, the Valle were dancing in the streets. Then Lord
Ulrich found her.”

Chevalier pulled Emily tighter against his
chest.

“
How many?” Kyle asked,
respectfully.

“
Lord Ulrich was never sure
what happened. As far as he knew, Elizabeth didn’t even know that
the Equites had attacked... but she knew… she was killing them by
the dozens.”

“
She died from it?” Kyle
asked, frowning.

Sam nodded.

“
The Winchesters have a
limit, at least Elizabeth did.” He nodded at Emily, “That child is
the only other direct descendant of a heku though. She’s stronger
than Elizabeth even.”

“
Could Elizabeth control
it?” Kyle asked after a few minutes of silence.

“
No, she saw those Equites
and got scared. Emily is the first I’ve known that has any
control.” His voice dropped to a whisper, “She saw the Encala
coming and tried to protect us.”

Chevalier growled, “It’s not her job to
protect the heku.”

“
If we drive all night, we
can be back in Council City by morning,” Kyle said, adjusting the
rear-view mirror. He was keeping an extra eye out on the cars
around them.

“
Daddy?” Allen asked,
yawning.

Chevalier mussed his black hair, “Good
morning, Allen.”

“
I’m hungry,” he said, and
pulled the blanket up off of Emily, “Shhhhh.”

“
Yes, shhhh,” Chevalier
said, whispering.

Kyle pulled over at the first fast food
restaurant he saw and ordered some pancakes and milk for Allen. He
was eating happily by the time the Humvee pulled back onto the
Interstate.

“
Oops,” Allen said, as his
milk spilled all over him.

“
Gah, Allen,” Chevalier
yelled, trying to clean him up and hold onto Emily at the same
time.

“
I got it,” Sam said,
unbuckling and leaning back. “You do realize Allen’s not going to
like traveling all day and all night.”

“
What do you mean?” Kyle
asked.

“
He’s two, he can’t be in a
car seat for that long. We’re going to have to get a hotel
tonight.”

“
We need to get back to
Council City,” Chevalier hissed.

“
We aren’t going to get
attacked by the Encala after one night. Emily may need a break from
the car too,” Sam told them.

They drove quickly toward Council City in
silence. Each alone with their own thoughts, and each worried about
Emily. Sam was right, and by nightfall, Allen was screaming and
pulling at his car seat. Chevalier tried at first to block Emily’s
ears, but soon found that even Allen’s wail wasn’t waking her
up.

“
Damnit, find a hotel,”
Chevalier finally said.

Kyle pulled off at an exit and tried to find
a nice hotel.

“
I say we get one room
tonight. We’ll watch while they sleep,” Kyle suggested. Sam and
Chevalier both nodded.

Kyle slid out of the Humvee and ran into the
hotel, a luxurious inn with water fountains and tall columns.

He returned a short time later, “I was able
to get us the penthouse, top floor. I’ll be up as soon as I park
the Humvee. I don’t want the valet in case we need to leave
quickly.”

Chevalier took the key and slid out of the
Humvee with Emily. He watched Sam unbuckle Allen, who finally
stopped crying and they headed into the lobby. The mortals watched
them oddly as Chevalier carried the limp body to the elevators.

“
Floor please,” the
elevator operator said, bored.

“
Penthouse,” Chevalier told
him, and watched as the numbers slowly crawled up.

When the doors opened, they stepped out into
a large suite with plate glass windows on all sides. From that one
suite, they could see all around the hotel grounds. Chevalier laid
Emily down on one of the lush beds and covered her with a blanket.
He watched her for a moment, but she didn’t stir.