Sure enough, a few more seconds produced the unmistakable smell of pot smoke and patchouli that marked the presence of my high school principal.
“Hey Al,” I said, as I felt the old man’s hand pat my shoulder reassuringly.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “I got here as quickly as I could.”
I just stared at him for a moment.
“Considering I only asked for you about ninety seconds ago, I’d say you were plenty quick.”
Albert looked somewhat offended, but before I could ask how on earth I’d managed to insult him, one of the voices from the darkness called for order.
Albert peered into the darkness, then clucked his tongue.
“No, this won’t do at all,” he muttered. Then he reached inside his robe, pulled out a joint, put it back in his robe, then pulled out a wand and waved it in a circle around us.
Suddenly the entire chamber was lit evenly, and we could see everyone in the bleachers that surrounded us.
“Ugh,” I said. “I think I liked it better when we couldn’t see everyone.”
Albert chuckled, as did Seamus. I was only half joking.
It wasn’t like we were surrounded by rows and rows of sea slugs or anything. Everyone in the bleachers looked pretty normal, outside of the fact that they were dressed like a university convocation ceremony, it was just that… well, it was easier to laugh off a room full of people who were hostile towards you when they were just a bunch of angry voices in the dark than it was when you could make eye contact with them and sense their very real hatred for you.
“Grand Master Bumblebee, may we ask why you’ve chosen to act as witness for this… criminal?” That was a middle-aged looking man wearing a particularly odd hat, which I supposed could have been a symbol of leadership… I mean, I would have expected it to be the symbol of leadership at say… clown school.
“Oh, but I haven’t,” Albert replied, causing my brain to stutter for a moment, as I wondered if Albert was about to feed me to the proverbial wolves.
“Did you not come here at the behest of Ms. Marmot, to act as her witness?” the man wearing the lead clown hat asked.
“No.”
My stomach sank further, each time Albert spoke.
“Then why are you here?”
“I’m here as Ms. Marmot’s legal representation.”
~~~
After I managed to pick my jaw up off the floor, the trial proceeded… differently than I had expected. Honestly, when I’d requested Albert Bumblebee as my witness, it had simply been because I’d expected him to be my best shot at having a mage who wouldn’t ruffle too many feathers in the court show up, and possibly give an honest account of whatever happened to my brother and Sol.
I hadn’t even known what the official obligations of a witness were, or that Albert Bumblebee might in any way be some sort of grand poobah in the mage world. I honestly wasn’t even sure the dude would be of any use, or on my side. All his previous affiliation with MOME might have hurt more than helped, and I wasn’t 100% sure I could trust him. He had been the best of a lot of bad options.
So, when it turned out that he not only commanded the respect of every mage in that courtroom, but also knew the legal system as well as he knew his own pipe collection… let’s just say I enjoyed the hell out of watching the rest of the room squirm while they tried their damndest to accuse me of wrongdoing without offending my defense attorney.
And, boy, did he slay as my attorney.
Rebecca Dryer didn’t stand a chance, though she sputtered and argued a lot anyway, glaring at Albert with the kind of venom one generally reserves for lifelong enemies and supporters of rival sports teams.
I had entered that courtroom hoping that they wouldn’t decide to execute me, or that they would at least spare Seamus, if they were going to kill me anyway. My distant hope was that they would sentence me to something possibly escapable, like life imprisonment.
I walked out of there free to go wherever I wanted, along with both Albert and Seamus.
“Well, that was unexpected,” I said, as we stepped out of the courtroom into the large marble foyer.
“Was it?” Albert asked. “I’m sorry, dear, I should have sent word that I was coming. There are some useful rats in this place that could certainly have delivered a message, if I’d thought of it. Sorry to leave you expecting the worst.”
I shrugged, unsure if Albert meant literal or figurative rats, and not really wanting to think about it too much, either way.
Albert pulled out the joint he’d accidentally removed when he was looking for his wand earlier, and lit it.
“Though I suppose that would have taken some of the dramatic flair from my entrance,” he said, as he finally exhaled a lungful of pot smoke.
He offered me the joint with a gesture, but I shook my head. It was damned tempting, after the week I’d had, but… well, after just narrowly escaping life in prison, breaking any law at all was less than appealing. He offered it to Seamus, who just stood there looking awkward for a moment before mumbling, “No, thanks.”
“There’s no smoking in this building, Cynthia,” came a voice from behind me.
I turned to see Rebecca Dryer, the prosecuting attorney, or magistrate, or whatever the hell mage lawyers called themselves, glaring at the three of us.
Albert waved the joint in her direction in a silent greeting.
“Still smarting from your loss, Becks?”
“Fuck off, Cynthia.”
“Come now, there’s no need to be rude, Rebecca. What will the children think?”
“I don’t care what you and your criminal brood think. Get off the damned premises, if you’re going to waste your breath on that thrice-cursed human brain candy.”
“You should really try it sometime, Becks. Delightful substance, keeps the vamps away—not that you’ve ever minded the creepy diamond skulls. Might help you relax.”
“Oh… sit on it and spin, bitch.”
And with that, Rebecca Dryer stormed out of the foyer through one of the three metal doors that led to the neon-lit maze beyond.
“Did she just call you Cynthia?” I asked, not sure what part of that exchange had confused me the most.
“She really has never gotten over the way we treated each other as school girls,” Albert said.
“Oh… right.” I mumbled, realization slowly dawning. “Well, shitty of her not to call you by your real name, though. That’s a stupidly low thing to do.”
Albert nodded appreciatively, foot-long white beard brushing his chest all the while, then shrugged.
“Of course, she would argue that Cynthia is my real name…. Honestly, if it makes her feel better, I won’t hold it against her,” Albert said, as we moved towards one of the other metal doors. “Life is too short, and all of that. Besides, I was rather mean to her in school.”
Albert pushed open the farthest right of the three doors, and gestured for us to lead the way.
“Shall we be off, then?” he asked.
I had no idea where we were going, but I nodded, and, as Seamus didn’t say anything behind me, I could only imagine that he did the same.
Albert grabbed both of our elbows, then the world winked out.
I SUPPOSE I shouldn’t have been surprised to find myself standing in the middle of the Andes, on a hillside that was far too cold for my black leather jacket and skintight black jeans.
“Seriously, I need to talk to Gwen about this clothing thing. These boots are solid enough, but why do they need a three-inch heel? And why can’t I ever be wearing a parka when we show up in the Andes?”
“I thought your clothes only changed when you shifted from snow leopard to human?” Seamus said, eyeing my outfit suspiciously.
“I thought so too, but that’s the third time my clothes have changed just when I’ve shifted location… and they haven’t even been location appropriate. I honestly think it's just that Gwen likes leather.”
Seamus swept his amber eyes over m
y body and smiled.
“It does suit you,” he said.
“Yeah, well, it’s fucking cold.”
I grabbed his arm and pulled him towards me.
“Now you have to cuddle me for warmth,” I muttered, burying my face in his shoulder.
What I wouldn’t tell anyone, for any amount of money, was how close I was to tears just seeing Seamus eye me with that much longing in his eyes, despite the burn on my face.
I still hadn’t seen the damn thing in a mirror, and I’d almost forgotten it even existed, what with the whole life on trial thing happening, but… ugh. Vanity was stupid.
“What happened to consent?” he asked, even as he wrapped his arms around me.
“You said you liked being touchy-feely with your friends,” I said. “But you’re right, I totally should have asked.”
I snuggled closer and he held me tighter. I would be sure to ask next time.
“Now then, you love birds, we need to get to that blasted cabin.”
I had almost forgotten Albert was there.
“Right. Down the hill about a kilometer. Do you have some kind of magey way of traveling quickly? It would be easier for us to shift to animal form and run there, but I don’t want to abandon you.”
Albert smiled.
“I have my ways. After you, Victoria.”
I shuddered.
“Please, Albert, call me Vic.”
He frowned, then nodded.
“Of course. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that you don’t like your full name.”
I shrugged, then closed my eyes and imagined what it felt like to be covered in warm fur, racing on four legs down a mountainside. Then, in a moment of awesomeness that I didn’t think I would ever get used to, I was covered in fur and racing down a mountainside on four legs.
Suddenly, all else was forgotten. Scars, MOME trials, dungeons, cryptic messages left by my parents, escaping a hell realm, none of it mattered. All that mattered was me and the rocks beneath my paws, the balance my tail provided as I skittered down cliff sides, and the clean scent of snow and pines on the breeze, lightly tinged with squirrel.
Before I knew what I was doing, I was veering away from where I could smell the smoke of Sol’s cabin, off into a patch of low boulders and scrub oak to my right, which I was now certain housed a small, fat rodent.
My mouth watered, and it finally sank in that I had barely eaten in the past week. They hadn’t even offered me a meal before my trial, and food had been more than scarce in the canyon that I’d been trapped in within the hell realm.
I slunk across the rocks, my profile lowered, my nose probing the air to ensure that I was downwind of my prey.
I ignored the howl I heard in the distance, zeroing in on the tiny heart I could somehow hear beating a few meters away. I might have drooled. I wasn’t sure. I felt my tongue reflexively clean my lips, at any rate.
A part of my brain recoiled at the vision of my large canines piercing the flesh of some poor defenseless rodent, but most of me was too hungry to care. Besides, even though I was vegetarian in my human form, I had nothing against a snow leopard catching its dinner. Even if that snow leopard was me.
I checked my footing on the snowy, rocky hillside, readying my muscles to pounce onto the hole that I now knew contained the squirrel. One more deep breath, and…
Light brighter than the midday sun now filling the sky flashed in front of me, and I lost all sense of time and space as I scuttled backwards, my feline reflexes just barely keeping me upright as I let out a yowl of consternation.
“I do not appreciate becoming supper, Luv,” said a deep voice, which rang a small bell of familiarity in my mind.
I blinked repeatedly, and soon found myself assuming human form around the words, “Do I know you?”
“Damn. What kind of shifter doesn’t show up naked after they shift? Poor form, Luv. I was really looking forward to that.”
The figure in front of me looked like nothing I’d ever seen before. Actually, that wasn’t entirely true. He looked a bit like Rhelia, with the smoothest, darkest ebony skin I’d ever seen, minus the iridescence and plus a pair of giant silver wings.
It took me a minute before my brain stumbled forward with an answer.
“Azrael? Squirrel demon? Is that really you? Were you the squirrel I was about to eat?”
It didn’t exactly make sense, but it was the only thing I could come up with.
“In the flesh. Told you I was an angel, Luv. Everyone in this realm loves me.”
Something about the way he said it sounded a bit forced.
“Really?” I hazarded. “Everyone loves the archangel of death?”
He shrugged, his handsome features catching the light in a way that made my breath hitch.
“That’s all just a misunderstanding, really, and I can tell you’re already warming up to me,” he said, dropping a wink at me that made my stomach drop a bit. There was something decidedly… compelling about him. And not just because he was the most handsome person I’d ever met.
Then I felt fur in my hand, heard a soft growl, and looked down to see a brief flash of black wolf before Seamus stood beside me. He looked… awed.
“Who is this?” he asked.
“This is Azrael. He’s… a friend.”
I watched Seamus’ expression turn from awe to puzzlement, then back to awe.
“He?” he asked.
I was about to gesture at the very obviously masculine body of the winged creature in front of us—I mean, hell, Azrael was basically wearing a loin cloth. He was chest to the wind, and so obviously male that I actually gasped in shock when I turned back to look at him and saw a person with the same gorgeous features, but instead of a masculinely sculpted set of pectorals she had a set of breasts almost as perfect as Sol’s, a slender but athletic waist… everything about her was still muscular, sculpted, beautiful, but now it was all decidedly female.
“Umm…”
Azrael laughed.
“Oh, how delightful, Luv—you’re a bridge! One of the lucky few who get to see both of me.”
I tried to shut my mouth before I spat out something overly honest, like the fact that I couldn’t decide which Azrael was sexier, or the fact that I shouldn’t be thinking that either of them was sexy, since we had more important things to think about at the moment, or… yeah. It was really best to keep my mouth shut. Luckily, Seamus seemed to be feeling talkative.
“What do you mean, both of you?” he asked.
“Vic here, as a being who is equally attracted to men and women, can see both aspects of my angel form. Most folks only see one or the other, even if they have some leanings in both directions. Not very many folks find themselves with an even split, and whichever sex they find most attractive is what they see when they look at me. You, for example, will only ever see me as a female. That angry woman, down the hill there, will only ever see me as a woman. But Vic, bless her, will see me as whatever the nearest person fancies, or maybe even see both of me at once, sometimes. That can be a bit confusing for folks.”
I was intensely curious about what Azrael was saying, but his comment about the angry woman down the hill had me turning around just in time to see Sol shift to her panther form and come bounding up the hill.
“WHERE THE FUCK have you two BEEN!?!” Sol shouted, once she’d taken a moment to resume her human form and take her eyes off of Azrael’s almost-naked body.
“Albert didn’t tell you?” I asked.
“No one has told us shit since Gwen abandoned us here a week and a half ago!”
“Well, don’t yell at me, I’ve been locked up in a dungeon and a hell dimension,” I said, raising my hands.
“Me too,” said Seamus, similarly raising his hands in the universal sign for please don’t rip my head off. “Well, not the hell dimension, but still.”
Sol looked about ready to punch something, but then she looked back at me and did a double take.
I almost flinched when she reac
hed for me, but she instantly wrapped me in her arms and was kissing both of my cheeks, eyelids.
“Damn it, Gatita. I was fucking worried. What happened to you?”
I knew that she meant my scar. I mean, I’m sure she meant my general well-being too, but… I could tell it was the scar that had turned her from righteous ire to concern.
“What do you think happened?” I asked, caught between wanting more of her kisses and wanting to push her away from the skin on my body that still transferred sensation so oddly.
“I will kill the MOME bastard responsible for this,” she muttered into my hair, pulling me closer.
“Ah, reunited at last, I see,” said a British voice, quite different from the one that had been explaining its dual sex from a nearby boulder only a moment before.
“Albert,” I said, looking up from Sol’s shoulder, “this is—”
But as I turned to introduce Albert to Azrael, I saw a whole lotta open sky where there should have been an angel, or a least a fucking squirrel.
“Where the fuck did they go?” I muttered.
“Who, Gatita?” Sol asked, pulling back to look at me again.
“Seamus, I didn’t imagine the whole angel thing, did I?”
Seamus smiled and shook his head, stepping closer and nudging Sol with his shoulder.
“Can I get a hug too?” he asked.
After Sol wrapped him in a slightly begrudging embrace, he turned to me.
“No, Vic. That gorgeous winged creature was real. Or… if she wasn’t, she was a group hallucination.”
I sighed.
“I can’t believe the shrieking squirrel demon is a Gwendamned angel.”
“Angel—” Albert began, just as a new voice asked, “Who am I damning?”
“Oh great.” I laughed. “The party’s all here.”
~~~
I wasn’t expecting to burst into tears when I hugged Trev for the first time after getting away from that MOME dungeon, but what can I say? Trev, running at me with his own eyes full of saline, was more than my emotionally beleaguered, sleep-deprived self could handle, and as soon as his arms wrapped around me we became an indistinguishable mass of damp, salty human.
Victoria Marmot- The Complete Series Page 29
