by Jeff Hale
I had a quick lunch, a sandwich and a small bag of chips, and got ready as they called us back in. I just hoped that Lucien was right. We watched the last four tapes and afterwards Darien stood and glared at Phil and Henry.
“We have it on good authority that these tapes have been tampered with. We have no way of verifying when the events on these tapes took place and they do not show the attacker as definitively the defendant. They are inadmissible, and you knew that, Phil! We are throwing them out as viable evidence. Thank you for taking up the entire day for nothing!” Darien shouted before storming out of the room.
“Court is called for today. We will meet back here tomorrow at eight in the morning. Aerick, you are not to leave the premises of the Velvet Flame without express permission from the Adjudicator pack. Understood?” Kat asked me, trying to sound authoritative and not quite succeeding, but that could have just been my own view of her not allowing me to see her in that way. It was… weird. I just nodded and headed towards my room in the Flame.
I sighed as I lay down. I might have gotten a small victory with the video tapes, but I knew one thing was certain; they knew that I had killed that coyote after hunting him down. With that alone, my execution was probably secured. Not only that, Celeste had seen the entire thing on the tapes. Even if all of a sudden she remembered herself as Serena, she would probably hate me for that alone.
Yeah, maybe execution wouldn’t be so bad.
SIXTEEN
I walked into the courtroom the next day prepared to sit through more of whatever damning evidence Henry had tried to concoct for this portion of the trial. We would be viewing physical evidence, including photographs, in the early part of the proceedings, and after the recess we would be hearing any witnesses. I knew we would be calling Celeste and myself for the defense, and Queen Cynthia as a character witness to the depravity and danger of Baba Yaga and anyone working for her.
I sat down in my spot and noticed that Kat was in the middle chair today, not Darien; he was sitting where Kat had been the previous day. She called for the session to start, and Phil stood and left through a side door, then came back in rolling a stand with a large whiteboard on it. Along the top of the whiteboard were two clips and he proceeded to attach large photographs to them, what looked to be copies of autopsy photos and reports.
He went through each of them once, pointing out the wounds on each shifter in turn, and pointing out the relevant facts on the autopsy reports. They all started blurring together, each one almost the same; each shifter died from wounds sustained from a bladed weapon of some sort with obvious energy burns on the wounds. I shook my head, wondering how they had pulled this off.
Fucking bastards trying to frame me for shit I didn’t do!
The last photograph was the coyote I had killed. As Phil pointed out wounds, Henry stood, holding a cloth sack in one hand that he kept down low and just behind one of his huge thighs. I looked from him to the Adjudicator stand and realized that they couldn’t see the bag from where they were sitting.
“Permission to approach the stand?” Henry asked politely. Too politely. Kat seemed hesitant, and Darien leaned in and whispered something into her ear, at which point she nodded. Henry walked up to the stand with a purpose, using a quick stride so that no one could change their minds. When he got to the stand, he up-ended the bag and dumped its contents onto the surface.
Kat, Darien, and Alex all leaned back a little as something landed on the stand with a squishy thump. It was the head that I had removed from the werecoyote, still in mid-shift. Blood oozed out over the front of the Adjudicator stand, staining the white marble. Kat sat there open-mouthed for a moment or two, then stood and gave Henry a furious look.
“You will not use shock tactics as a way to browbeat us into swaying our opinions! You will remove this… thing from the stand immediately! It will not be admissible as evidence!” she snarled at Henry.
He just gave her an arrogant look, then shrugged, grabbed the bloody head by its hair, and dropped it back into the sack. One of the fae guards marched up to him and held a hand out for the sack then escorted him back to his seat. I waited in tense silence to see what would happen, but after taking a few breaths to calm herself Kat sat back down and ordered Phil to continue. To my surprise, Darien didn’t say or do anything other than to fix a stare filled with hatred on Henry.
Phil began going through the photos again, a little quicker this time, but not quick enough for me to miss something horribly important. Most of the wounds looked like they were caused by my fire blade; cuts with scorching along the wound’s edges, with cauterization. Earlier, I hadn’t been paying attention to the other wounds, wounds that were ragged with no scorching. My ice blade actually left very smooth cuts, the edges of the wounds usually bluish from frostbite.
“Wait. Kat!” I stood hurriedly and Kat looked my way to acknowledge me, appearing a little surprised.
“You will refer to her as Adjudicator Katelyn, or Adjudicator Shaughnessy,” Darien said evenly, speaking openly for the first time. “Furthermore, you are out of order. If you wish to say something, your advocate will say it.”
“I apologize, but this is not within his realm of knowledge. It is my personal expertise I would like to use here,” I said, hoping they would allow it.
Darien gave me a scrutinizing look, then nodded at Kat and Alex and they leaned in quietly to discuss it. After a minute or so, they all faced forward again and Kat nodded at me. “We will allow it.”
“I object! There is no possible expertise that the defendant could have that would be relevant!” Phil exclaimed heatedly.
“I said we will allow it! Sit down, Advocate. One more disrespectful outburst like that and Henry will be looking for a new advocate!” Kat yelled back. I was kind of proud of her in that moment. She looked at me. “I am sorry, Aerick, but he did make a valid point. What expertise are you bringing to this?”
“Expertise as a Sentinel on how our magic works,” I said.
She narrowed her eyes at me, then nodded slowly. “Okay. Go ahead.”
“Those wounds were not made by my weapons,” I stated.
“Who else could cause those kinds of wounds? Only your elemental weapons do that kind of damage, I’ve seen it first hand,” Kat said, sounding slightly confused.
“May I?” I pointed at the pictures on the board and Kat nodded at me. I moved closer and indicated one of the wounds, which was extremely ragged in nature.
“My weapons do not cause wounds like this one,” I said confidently.
“Your ice weapon does.” Darien grimaced briefly. He knew all too well how that particular blade felt.
“No. It doesn’t. That wound is far too ragged, and the flesh isn’t consistent with a cold producing weapon, there’s too much necrosis. The ice blade leaves a smooth-edged wound with bluing skin from frostbite.” I pointed to the edges of the wound to prove my point. The ice blade tended to preserve the state of the tissue at death for a little while. The wound I was pointing at had deteriorated too much and the skin was not blue.
“Then who else could have caused those kinds of wounds?” Kat asked.
I smirked and nodded; she had asked the right question. This was the crux of our defense. I hadn’t killed those shifters, but a Sentinel had. The only other Sentinel active in the area was Malachai.
“I’m glad you asked. Malachai’s do. His blades are crystal and lightning. The lightning blade would account for the scorch marks here and here,” I gestured at the picture. “This wound,” I pointed at the jagged one, “was caused by the crystal blade.” I lifted my shirt and showed a similar wound across my ribs.
“Who is Malachai?” Darien asked.
“The psychotic Sentinel that her father hired to assassinate me,” I said, motioning towards Kat.
“Why would he kill shifters?” Darien seemed perplexed. “I thought he was hired to kill you?”
“We have an idea.” I looked over at Lucien, who smiled, and then back to Kat and
Darien as they nodded for me to continue. “I know Malachai is working for Baba Yaga as well, so he probably took Lochlan’s contract because he was going to kill me anyway. Of course, my contention with the pack and my confrontation with them at the Circus Circus worked in their favor. Our guess is that Baba Yaga or Henry was viewing the pack as weak, a failure, and needed some ‘trimming’. So he told Malachai to kill all but a few specific members of his pack, and to do so within sight of the cameras that he obviously had set up, but to find a way to not be seen directly. So Malachai made sure to be moving so fast that the cameras never had a chance of catching him standing still. And then they used the deaths, the tapes, and banked on the belief that you thought I was the only existing Sentinel to frame me.”
“He’s lying!” Henry shouted, a little too defensively. He stood and pointed at the picture. “He did this!”
“Enough!” Kat yelled at Henry. “Thank you, Aerick. We will make note of this.”
I nodded and took my seat. There was movement and a bit of a commotion behind me so I turned to look and saw a fae handing Queen Cynthia a tape.
“Darien, my people have returned with an enhanced version of the tape you asked for,” she said. I felt a pull on the Aether and the tape floated across the courtroom and onto the Adjudicator stand, settling just to the side of the drying blood.
“Thank you, your Majesty.” Darien picked up the tape and moved down from the stand to the television and VCR that was still there. He put the tape in.
“Wait! I object! If the tapes have been tampered with, then they are not the original evidence we presented!” Phil argued, looking appalled.
“Hmmm, probably not. It’ll probably show us what really happened instead,” Kat said, her tone full of derision.
The tape started and I noticed that it was moving at a much slower speed now. There was also a date and time stamp. The date was the day before I killed the coyote shifter. It showed an individual in a black trench coat and a black fedora hat. You couldn’t make out his face, but since Malachai was similar in height and build to myself, it was hard to tell that it wasn’t me, except for that damned fedora.
“That cinches it, we were right!” I whispered to Lucien, who gave me a confused look.
“That does look like you,” Lucien whispered back, glancing back at the screen.
“I don’t own a fedora, but Malachai seems rather fond of his,” I pointed out.
“My client doesn’t own a fedora,” Lucien said, raising his voice and pointing at the television.
“No. He doesn’t,” Kat agreed. “And I’ve seen that guy before. In Henry’s den. You just fucked up, Henry. Darien, put in the tape from the warehouse, the first one.”
“Kat. Impartial,” Alex reminded in a low voice, but I still heard it. She nodded.
Darien switched tapes and we watched until Kat motioned for a pause. When it was paused, you could easily make out me fighting Henry, and Malachai standing in the corner of the room, fedora and all.
“Fuck!” Henry swore.
“You do realize that falsifying evidence of this nature to an Adjudicator pack is tantamount to treason?” Darien said in a level, cold voice.
“What? How?” Henry protested.
“Because we are the voice of the North American Shifter Council! And when you lie to us, you lie to the Council! You do not dishonor the Council by speaking falsehoods with the intent to trick and deceive! You are not above the Council!” Darien was yelling now, and for once it wasn’t at me or Kat.
“Defense, your evidence,” Kat said as she put a calming hand on Darien’s shoulder.
“We do not have any to present,” Lucien said lightly.
“Alright. We will call a recess, and afterwards hear from the witnesses,” Kat informed us, then stood with her pack and headed out the door behind the stand. Again I saw Queen Cynthia follow them.
We came back from the recess and the Plaintiff called their first witness; Henry. The fae representing truth made him swear a quick oath to tell no lies and to tell events as he knew them to be true. Phil and Lucien questioned him back and forth as he told the story from his side of things. It was all pretty consistent from what I knew. Next up was a skinny Native American shifter named Jill who was announced as Henry’s mate. She took the oath, then she gave her story, including what happened at the Circus Circus, but she left out the fact that they had attacked innocent bystanders. I wasn’t sure if it was some the fae could catch or not, but he didn’t indicate that she was lying. After Jill went back to her seat, it was our turn.
Lucien stood and called my name. I walked up to the witness stand and swore the quick oath in front of a fae of truth. Lucien walked over and gave me a slight nod.
“Please state your name for the courtroom,” Lucien requested.
“Aerick Kerensky,” I stated.
“Are you human, Aerick?”
“I am, but I have abilities that put me well above normal humans.”
“Like what type of abilities?”
“In the simplest terms, I can use magic,” I replied.
“And since you have those sorts of abilities, how do you feel you should use them?”
“To help and defend people. Especially to defend normal humans from things that they cannot defend themselves against,” I answered, my words deliberate.
“What would a normal human, with access to all their innovations, technology and weapons, need protection from?” Lucien asked. It was a line of questioning we had practiced over and over. It was to prove character and point out that I only used my abilities in specific circumstances.
“Aetherics.”
“Not all Aetherics are malevolent beings, are they?”
“No. But there are some out there that take pleasure in the suffering of others.”
“Who do you believe to be the most prevalent danger to humans in this area right now?”
“Baba Yaga. She means to subjugate the area, probably due to the high intensity ley lines in the region, so that she can bring forth a demon army to turn this world into a reflection of theirs,” I said, echoing Merlin’s fears that he had laid out to me earlier in the year. I saw the courtroom, with the exception of some of the fae, give me a horrified look. A quick glance to the side at Darien, Kat, and Alex showed me that they were just as shocked. .
“What does Baba Yaga have to do with any of this?” Lucien asked pointedly.
“She controls Henry’s pack,” I said simply.
“Thank you. I have no further questions,” Lucien said, going back to his seat.
Phil stood up, read some notes, then walked over and leaned on the railing in front of me. “So. Aerick. Do you hate shifters?”
“I never said that,” I said, giving him a dirty look.
“Then why, on the security tape from the Circus Circus, did you say the word shifter with such… venom?” he asked.
“I didn’t…” I saw one of the fae lean in to Kat and whisper something.
“Aerick, remember you swore to tell the truth,” Kat reminded.
“Fine. Let’s just say I’ve had it up to here…” I began.
“Yes or no will do. Do you hate shifters?” Phil asked again.
“Fine! Yes. I do,” I gritted out.
“Is it true that as a MAGE agent you were taught how to profile a shifter? That you were taught that shifters were nothing but animals just waiting to get into trouble?”
“Yes.”
“And is it also true that if you ran across a shifter it was your job to bring it in or put it down. That all shifters were deemed automatically a danger?”
“Yes!” MAGE had had a ‘no exceptions’ policy on shifters, one that I had ignored after the fall of the Barrier.
“If you could… would you kill me, right here and right now?” Phil gave me a look filled with hatred.
“Yes!”
“Objection! Goading the witness!” Lucien cried out.
“Sustained,” Kat said.
“Advoc
ate, do that again, and I’ll kill you myself!” Darien threatened.
I glanced surreptitiously at Kat. The expression on her face was one of confusion and almost disbelief over my words. She was probably wondering how I could have ever loved her considering what she was, but for some reason, in her case, I had just let it slide. Maybe it was because I had known her before, when she was still human.
“You may continue your questions, advocate, but be careful,” Kat warned, her expression changing to one of admonishment as she looked at Darien.
“Very well. Aerick, why exactly was it that MAGE taught you to arrest or kill any shifter that you came across?” Phil asked.
“Because, if we saw a shifter it meant he or she was in what we were taught to call their Aspect form and causing problems. Unless they shifted in front of us, we had no way at the time to tell if someone was a shifter or not,” I pointed out.
“Would you say it’s fair that you’ve been conditioned, then, to have a negative reaction towards shifters?”
“Sure. Why not? I’m having a negative reaction to one right now, and if…” I said before Lucien stood.
“Aerick! Yes or no. Remember?” Lucien warned. I shook my head and tried to calm myself.
“Is it because I’m a shifter?” Phil asked.
“Not really. It’s mainly because you’re a douchenozzle,” I got out before anyone could stop me.
“The witness will refrain from insulting the advocate,” Kat ordered, trying to hide amusement. I would almost swear she would have laughed if she could have gotten away with it.
“No more questions,” Phil said, then sat back down.
I went back to my seat and Lucien just patted me on the shoulder. I shrugged and gave him an apologetic look. Henry’s other pack member, Wallace, was called to the stand. He gave answers similar to what Jill had as she was questioned, again mainly recounting the events at the parking garage.
Then Celeste was called to the stand. I had to admire the view as she made her way to the stand since she was wearing a tight fitting white blouse, and a very short black skirt. Henry’s pack erupted into a round of catcalls, whistles and suggestions that weren’t appropriate in any society.
