Equites : Book 4 of the Heku Series by T.M. Nielsen Read Free Book Online Page A

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,”