The judge frowned as if he weren’t buying an ounce of her story. “That is all very lovely, Caressa, but what does it have to do with this case?” he asked. Now, I found myself beginning to seriously dislike him. At least Knight had a friend in Caressa and, since she came to the hearing (either by subpoena or otherwise), I assumed she had to have been a decently high ranking official. Hopefully, she would prove to be useful.
“If you would allow me to finish,” she snapped while shooting daggers at the judge with her eyes.
“Excuse me, but weren’t you brought here as a witness for the prosecution?” the judge interrupted, obviously not interested in details about Knight’s innocence.
I was surprised to hear Caressa was the prosecution’s witness because she had just stood up in his defense.
“I’m not a witness for either side,” Caressa retorted at the asshole judge. “As there was no defense attorney supplied for Mr. Vander, I am attempting to present an unbiased case.”
It was deeply disturbing that Knight had no attorney. I could only wonder why they had a hearing to begin with? Based on Caressa’s statement, she, too, was appalled by the injustice of it all. I didn’t know why, but it appeared the odds had been stacked against Knight on purpose. Due to Knight’s previous confession, no one cared to hear anything more. No one, that is, except for Caressa and me, of course.
“Introduce any contingencies to the case, Caressa, and move on with it,” the judge said as he stifled a yawn. “I’m not interested in your personal accounts of Mr. Vander.”
Caressa frowned at him and then took a deep breath, turning to face the audience again. “Mr. Vander was not the only active ANC employee the night Quillan Beaurigard escaped. His partner that night was a Ms. Dulcie O’Neil.”
I felt my heart sink as I caught my breath when I heard my name. After I thought about it though, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Of course the ANC knew that I was on duty that night. Not only that, but they would be remiss not to think that perhaps I had been involved in Quillan’s escape.
“Caressa, Dulcie had nothing to do with it,” Knight suddenly piped up and the tone of his voice warned her not to argue with him. At the same time, there was a twinge of desperation to it, as if he recognized that she was his only friend in the room.
Caressa cast him a look that discouraged him from any more outbursts. It was pretty obvious she was trying to save his ass but even more apparent that he wanted none of it. Guilt began to spiral through me as I realized how much Knight had put on the line to defend me—his reputation. And I had to wonder what that would mean for his position as the head of the ANC in Splendor? If Knight lost his job because of me… I couldn’t even finish the thought.
“Mr. Vander seems to debate the validity of your argument, Caressa,” the judge observed as he smiled at her with fangs.
Caressa had her hands on her hips and I could see the tension building in her shoulders. “Do we or don’t we want to seek the truth in each and every trial?” she demanded but the judge didn’t respond right away. He appeared to be trying to preserve his patience. “Judge Thorne?” she repeated in an annoyed tone.
The judge shrugged. “We have already found Mr. Vander guilty, Caressa.
“Already?” she repeated, her eyebrows raised in suspicion.
“Yes,” Judge Thorne answered, hissing the syllables as he leaned forward. “The only reason we are sitting through this farce of a trial is as a personal favor to you.”
That silenced Caressa who immediately sat down. I could tell by the fact that her arms were crossed against her heaving chest that she was about to lambaste the lecherous judge but caught herself in time. She must have realized it wasn’t the best move to make. As soon as she sat down, Ms. Fields-Gerrity tried to comfort her.
When I glanced up at the judge again, his lips were drawn in a tight line. He picked up his gavel and smacked it hard against the wooden dais. “In the case of the Association of Netherworld Creatures versus Knightley Vander, the High Court of the Netherworld finds Mr. Vander guilty of deliberately failing to apprehend Quillan Beaurigard.”
I felt my heart sink as a sigh lodged in my throat. Even though I expected this would be the verdict all along, somehow I wasn’t prepared to hear it in person. It sounded so final, so heavy and so wrong.
The judge took a deep breath and called the Chimera over to his side, whispering something in the ram’s ear before he descended from the stand and disappeared into the adjoining hallway. The Chimera faced the audience and the lion head announced: “The honorable Judge Thorne will now determine Mr. Vander’s sentence. This court will take a brief recess.”
The Chimera reached for Knight’s chains and yanked on them, forcing him upright. Knight narrowed his eyes and tugged the chains back, jerking the Chimera and causing it to stumble over its cloven hooves. Knight chuckled and the Chimera glared at him with all three heads before snatching up the chain and forcing him through the doorway and down the hall.
“Where is it taking him?” I asked, leaning over to whisper in Bram’s ear.
“To the holding cell while the judge deliberates his sentence,” Bram responded. His face was stoic, revealing no emotion, nothing at all.
“How long will that take?” I continued.
Bram shrugged but didn’t glance down at me. “I do not know.”
As it turned out, the judge didn’t deliberate long although it felt like an eternity to me. According to the wall clock above the judge’s box, a mere twenty minutes had passed; but for all I knew, maybe time existed in a different spectrum here in the Netherworld. Nothing would have surprised me.
When court resumed, I felt my heart rate quicken, realizing that the time of reckoning was now upon us. A grunting sound came from the hallway behind the judge as the Chimera pushed him aside and moved to the center of the courtroom, obviously tardy in announcing the judge’s return.
“The honorable Judge Thorne will now announce Mr. Vander’s sentence,” the ram head said in a voice that bleated between words. Because it said nothing, I wondered if the dragon head was mute.
The judge frowned at the Chimera as the creature disappeared into the hallway, only to return a few minutes later with Knight, who appeared exhausted.
The Chimera led Knight to the same table as before and yanked down hard on his chains. This time Knight didn’t throw the Chimera a curveball, instead he merely took his seat, his attention primed on the judge.
Judge Thorne cleared his throat and addressed the spectators and I swear my heart stopped beating as I awaited his sentence.
“This is quite an unusual case as I’ve received orders with regards to the sentence of the convicted,” the judge began as he glanced at Caressa, with a slightly apologetic expression. His body language seemed very unusual and it only served to heighten my concern.
“In accordance, Knightley Vander is hereby sentenced to…” the judge cleared his throat as his eyes belied the fact that the verdict surprised him—he was merely the messenger of bad news.
“Death.”
Eleven
It seemed like time stood still or I was watching a movie. Everything I witnessed appeared unreal; like it was staged. I glanced around myself, at the people in the courtroom and watched the surprise register in their cocked heads and bouncing shoulders. But even their surprise didn’t seem real—no, it was as if they were all just actors, performers all around me, pretending to be the judge, the prosecutor and the defendant, not to mention those observing the farce. It was all a sham, a ridiculous play or maybe it was just a dream. Either way, it remained non-threatening, just a little blip on the radar of my completely muddled and confused mind and soon I would wake up.
Soon I would wake up.
Soon I would have to wake up.
But I didn’t wake up. Pretty soon, the comprehension that I was in a real courtroom, amid otherworldly creatures who cared nothing for Knight or me dawned on me. And so did the sentence… That Knight had just been ordered to?
??die.
Death.
Death?
Had I really heard the judge correctly? I must not have because there was no way Knight could be put to death for failing to apprehend Quillan. It just didn’t make sense. I shook my head, trying to eradicate the ludicrous thoughts right out of my ears. But there wasn’t anything ludicrous that needed eradicating. The cold, hard reality was that everything around me was actual, true, and appalling.
“What?” Caressa yelled at the same time Knight stood up, his chains clanking against one another, making him sound like Marley’s ghost. I could barely bring myself to look at him because I was so afraid of seeing his face and his reaction to his own death sentence. But I had to look at him; there was no escaping it. When I did, I found him straight-faced, stoic, almost as if he was wearing a mask of indifference. But he was hiding behind that mask—there was no way he could’ve expected execution; no way he would’ve come here voluntarily, knowing his life was on the line. No, I anticipated some shock, anger or fear veiled behind that mask of indifference and yet, even I couldn’t see beyond it. There was nothing there, visibly—no surprise, dread or anxiety. Not until I forced myself to study his eyes did I realize the fury with which he struggled. His eyes were an incredibly bright, burning blue, like frantic sapphires in his face.
Still, he never said one word.
I was so stunned, I couldn’t even think. Every time my mind reached for a logical thought, anything to make sense of what had just happened, my brain couldn’t follow it long enough to solve the riddle.
“This whole fucking thing was set up!” Knight suddenly erupted, angst and vitriol dripping from his voice.
At Knight’s outburst, the Chimera yanked his chain, probably intending to silence him. Then, seemingly unbalanced on its hind goat legs, it aimed for the hallway, its dragon head still space-cadetting out, weaving this way and that. My attention gravitated back to Knight and I watched him as he narrowed his eyes at the Chimera. Then he tugged on the chain leading from his handcuffs. The Chimera lost its footing and tumbled over, heads, arms and legs all flailing about until you couldn’t tell if it was one creature or three.
I watched as Knight held the chain in his hands, focusing intently on it. His face turned bright red as he did the unthinkable and snapped the chain with his bare hands. I felt the air constrict in my lungs while I watched his pure, brute strength. As a creature created by Hades, in Hades’ own image, his strength was God-given and unsurpassable. That thought led to another one…
He’d been playing the court like a game all along; playing the part of the accused, at the mercy of the court of the Netherworld, when all along, his own immense strength could have set him free. He could have easily unleashed havoc on the courtroom; yet he restrained himself and played along simply to secure my safety. But even he had been surprised by this verdict, however, and its inappropriateness. And, really, the joke was on him in the end—and now it seemed the Netherworld would get the last laugh. That is, unless I intervened.
I swallowed hard as the imaginary flood gates burst open in my mind and thoughts of my next steps overwhelmed me. I knew what I had to do now; what I’d known all along. I was foolish to think it would ever have come to anything but this. At the moment, however, I remained wholly focused on Knight, waiting for my cue.
After freeing himself from the chains, he held his hands upright and pulled against the handcuffs. I watched as they strained under the intense pressure, eventually twisting with a snap and falling to the ground below, a pile of warped metal.
Knight took a deep breath and approached the judge who stared at him with a strange expression—not one of concern, but merely interest. He had the kind of curiosity of one detachedly watching an experiment.
“That fucking bastard has been looking for an excuse to polish me off all along,” Knight railed, his eyes spewing venom at the judge.
And then, as far as I was concerned, the halcyon before the storm had suddenly been given the boot. Something welled up inside me—something volatile and passionate that could no longer be denied. I couldn’t comprehend what Knight had just said; it was like I went into a purely emotional state and words and logic no longer held any relevance to me.
I was acting on pure instinct now.
“No!” I screamed out at the instant I stood up. I felt Bram’s hand on my t-shirt as he tried to tug me back down but I swatted him away. I was on autopilot now, almost a spectator to my inner Dulcie taking over—that primitive person inside every one of us who only comes out in times of panic.
I started to move past Bram but he stood up and grasped my arms, his eyes begging me not to do what I’d begun, step two in his plan. A step that he never expected to come to fruition. But, now that I was aware of what was happening, I wasn’t about to be silenced.
“Let go of me,” I said in a steely voice.
“Dulcie,” he started. “Please.”
I swallowed hard and tried to free myself from his hands but he wouldn’t release me. “Let go.”
“You will not sacrifice yourself on my watch.”
“That isn’t your decision to make,” I said, pulling my arms from his grasp. I didn’t wait for him to change his mind; I merely leapt past him and tripped over his leg when he attempted to circumvent me. For once, my idiotic wings actually proved their worth because they began to beat outrageously fast, probably spurred on by my “fight or flight” adrenaline rush against a vampire. I easily hovered just out of his range and felt like I might float all the way to the top of the ceiling which would prove to be a big problem, in and of itself. I grabbed the first anchor I could, which happened to be the arm of a creature I’d never seen before.
It faced me in surprise, its huge mouth frowning to reveal three rows of shark-like teeth that were, in a word, sharp. Its massive under bite as well as its wide, flared nostrils, and red, glowing eyes, were enough for me to shrink back but I didn’t release my hold on its leathery, upper arm.
“Sorry,” I offered with a sheepish smile while I gestured to my wings. “I’m not used to these things.”
It seemed to understand because it merely shrugged or maybe it was the fact that I was a fairy and, as such, a sexual delicacy because it allowed me to keep hold of its arm until my wings calmed down. Then I took a deep breath, thanked it with a heartfelt smile and faced the courtroom again.
“Knight didn’t do this!” I yelled out as I moved forward, making sure my wings weren’t going to start up again. I glanced back at them and found them sitting peacefully. From the looks of it, I was in the clear. Thank Hades.
The judge slammed his gavel down and scowled to let me know he wasn’t impressed. “Order!”
“He is innocent!” I insisted as I made my way down the aisle, pausing only at the partition which separated the audience from the participants in the court proceedings.
“Dulcie?” It was Knight’s voice. He sounded shocked and even betrayed. But I saw no betrayal in his eyes. No, the expression I found there was more like dread—probably at seeing me here.
One glance was all I could spare him. I wasn’t strong enough for anything more. Not when I could see that he was furious I’d come—that he’d just realized his sentence would now most likely be transferred to me. Or, maybe I was completely wrong. Maybe he was actually relieved.
Either way, tears threatened to fall from my eyes and if there was one thing these sons of bitches wouldn’t get from me, it was my tears. They could have my blood and sweat but tears were where I drew the line.
“Restrain that woman,” the judge ordered to someone behind me. I looked back and saw a guard at the entrance of the courtroom. He was a shape shifter who could become a lion. He had the intimidating appearance of someone you didn’t want to mess with, very large and beefy. I wondered if he’d been standing there the whole time. I also happened to notice that Bram was nowhere to be seen. Great. So much for acting as my escort and guardian. He must’ve decided that I’d made my bed and now I had to sl
eep in it and probably saw no need to further ingratiate himself on my behalf.
The guard grabbed hold of both my arms but I had too many self-defense training sessions not to know how to get away from him. With a well-placed kick, I nailed him between the legs and watched him crumble to the ground, grabbing his crotch. With no time to waste, I catapulted myself over the barrier separating the court spectators from the rest of the courtroom.
“I’m Dulcie O’Neil, former ANC Regulator of Splendor, California,” I said in a loud, breathless voice as I faced the judge. “It was my responsibility to apprehend…”
“Don’t listen to her!” Knight interrupted loudly as he turned his panic-stricken eyes on me. “Don’t listen to a word she says. She’s… she’s not telling you the truth.”
When I looked at him, his eyes begged me not to continue, not to endanger myself but I was already involved, as in up to my thighs. I was also determined. And if there was one thing I knew about myself it was the fact that if Dulcie O’Neil decided to do something, there was nothing that would get in the way of her accomplishing her mission.
“It was my responsibility to take Quillan into custody and I allowed him to escape,” I finished, alternating my attention from Knight to the judge.
“I’m not interested in the testament of some,” the judge began, glancing at my wings with distaste, “fairy.” When I saw him sigh wearily, it was pretty obvious this guy simply wanted to get the case wrapped up so he could get back to doing whatever it was that vampire judges did in their leisure time.
I narrowed my eyes and fished inside my pocket for my ANC ID which, against Bram’s advice, I’d decided to bring with me anyway. Hey, you never knew when you might have to prove your identity to save your favorite Loki from an unjust sentence.