Fright Court

by Mindy Klasky

  “God damn it!” I heard Mr. Morton say, and a tiny part of my brain was surprised to hear him swear. He was too proper to swear. Too reserved.

  But there was nothing proper about the way he lifted me off my feet. Nothing proper about the way he cursed at me when I started to protest. Nothing proper about the way he barged into his office, about the way he dropped me onto the black leather couch that hulked against the wall.

  Leather. I shouldn’t bleed all over leather.

  Still dazed, I realized that my fingers had slipped off my neck, that my blood was flowing freely now. I fought to regain my grip, but my hand was tingling; I couldn’t figure out where my skin ended and the electric air in the room began.

  I closed my eyes, the better to concentrate on such a strange sensation. It wasn’t just my fingers. My toes had dissolved as well. I wiggled them, trying to figure out where they’d gone. I used to have shoes, brand new shoes. But they were gone. Everything was gone now. I was just floating, a drifting swirl of thought….

  “Sarah,” someone said from very far away. I didn’t want to listen. I just wanted to follow the irregular drumbeat that tickled the back of my brain, the thumping sound that was fading away, so soft now that I could barely make it out against my syncopated breathing.

  “Sarah!” That voice was more insistent, more demanding. Still, there was no reason to respond. Not when I could just fall back into the darkness forever. Not … when … I … could…

  I forgot my words and drifted away into the nothingness.

  But then, there was something—a sharp smell, hot, like a penny roasting in the sun, sparking beneath my nose. I had a nose. And I had a mouth, as well. A mouth, with lips and tongue and teeth. My teeth were pressed against something, something soft and yielding. My tongue darted out, and I tasted … not copper. Not exactly. This was salty and hot, like chicken soup in the middle of a blizzard.

  Strike that. Not soup.

  This was velvety and pure, hot and delicious. I swallowed, once, twice, a third time. Heat spread through my body. I was drinking, but it felt as if I were inhaling some distilled essence of power. A vibrating energy filled my chest; it expanded inside me, doubling, and doubling again. It pumped through my arms to my hands, to the very tips of my fingers. It echoed inside my legs, past my knees, through my ankles and into my feet.

  My flesh ignited with the sweetness of the drink, the sweetness and the saltiness and the pure, tawny wholeness of it. I could feel the rough ridges where my pantyhose had run as I stumbled through the hallway—when was it? A lifetime ago? I could feel a hangnail on my right thumb, sense it tingle before it closed itself up, before it disappeared.

  And I could feel the mangled mess beneath my jaw. My torn vein was weaving itself together, knitting itself back to health. The flow of blood was restored beneath my skin, and the smooth stretch of my neck was new again.

  With the healing came full awareness. Full comprehension. I knew that I was on a leather sofa. That I was cradled against a body. Arms were wrapped around me, holding me close, spoon fashion. My face was pressed against one of those arms, against a smooth, muscular wrist. My lips were suckling at the edges of a wound.

  I was drinking Mr. Morton’s blood.

  I pulled back, horrified. My motion, though, only moved me closer to his chest, closer to the body that sheltered me, that protected me. Closer to the vampire who was my boss. “Let me go!” I demanded, but I was still too dazed to put actions to words, to actually push myself away from him.

  “In a moment,” he said, and his words reverberated along the length of my spine.

  I should have been petrified. I should have fought for freedom, given my life to escape to the human world, to the sane world, to the normalcy that waited somewhere outside this office. But the energy inside me—the alien blood inside me—soothed me, calmed me as if it were a drug. I sank back, dazed by the sensation that all was right, that I was safe.

  I licked my lips, and I realized that the blood carried information. I knew things that I’d only imagined an hour before. A lifetime before. I understood vampires—who they were, what they did, how they lived, year after year after year, forever, unless they were killed.

  Vulnerable to silver: check, as I’d already witnessed back in the courtroom.

  Destroyed by sunlight: check, if “destroyed” meant increasingly severe burns tied to the length of exposure, culminating in brutal, cindery death.

  Killed by stake: check, but only with a direct blow to the heart, with a weapon made of oak.

  Teleporting, mind-reading, turning into a mist: nope, nothing that cinematic.

  Garlic, crosses, and other pathetic human folk remedies to protect against fangs: forget about it.

  Vampires didn’t need to sleep in coffins, and they didn’t salvage earth from some distant homeland. They did require an explicit invitation before they could cross the threshold of a home. And somehow, creepiest of all, they had no reflection—not in a mirror.

  All of that was crystal clear inside my head. All of that, and one more fact: vampire blood healed humans. Healed humans completely, from whatever physical harm we suffered, from whatever illnesses our weak, flawed bodies harbored.

  Vampire blood had brought me back from the very brink of death.

  CHAPTER 2

  MY MIND WAS still reeling as Mr. Morton said, “There.” His tone was detached, clinical, as if he were sticking a Band-Aid on my arm after giving me a vaccination. He opened his arms and released me from the stone prison of his body. I scuttled across the couch, taking refuge in the furthest possible corner, snagging a grey suede throw pillow as if it could defend me from an undead creature of nightmare.

  Not that he looked nightmarish as he swung his feet to the floor, sitting up straight on his end of the couch. His eyes were blue, clear and deep like a mountain lake, and his hair was black, almost inky, except where a few strands of silver glinted at his temples. His face was pale enough that I might have thought he was ill, if I hadn’t known the truth.

  He flexed his wrist, and I couldn’t help but stare at the well-muscled flesh, at the single neat cut that looked like he’d taken a scalpel to his flesh. I didn’t see a scalpel, though. He must have used his teeth to rip open his own vein.

  The flow of his blood had stopped completely, and the wound was already closing. A quick check with the facts clamoring inside my skull confirmed: vampires healed with preternatural speed, from anything short of amputation.

  “Mr. Morton —”

  His smile was lightning fast. “I think we’ve gone a bit beyond that now, don’t you? Call me James.”

  I had a sudden flash-memory of his wrist against my lips, of his impossibly hot blood flowing down my throat. My cheeks burned with embarrassment. As if he didn’t notice, he crossed to the credenza on the side wall and picked up a cut glass decanter of water. He filled a coffee mug, which he pressed into my trembling hand.

  “Drink,” he said.

  Out of habit, I obeyed, suddenly realizing how thirsty I was. I swallowed greedily, even though the water tasted faintly of cinnamon. When the mug was empty, I put it on the floor in front of the couch, automatically turning the handle so that it aligned with the cushions. The motion soothed me, made my nerves jangle a little less.

  I ran my tongue over my teeth -- my ordinary, human teeth. I hadn’t changed. Yet. It took me three tries, but I finally managed to croak, “When?”

  “When, what?” Mr. Morton, um, James leaned back against his desk and met my gaze levelly. A frantic corner of my brain wondered if he was staying so still because he didn’t want to frighten me any more than I already was, or if that was just his normal state of being.

  “When will I … what do you call it? Turn?” I don’t know why I hesitated. I knew my vampire literature. I’d practically majored in it, after all. I had just drunk the blood of a vampire, and now I would become one, for the rest of my unnatural days.

  “You aren’t going to Turn.” When I mad
e a wordless sound of protest, he shrugged. “I didn’t drink from you first. Turning requires a simultaneous exchange of blood.”

  Something about the word “blood” made me panic. I’d been thinking it myself; I’d seen it on his arm, tasted it on my lips. But hearing him say the word jolted fresh adrenaline through my veins. I had to get away from him, had to put some distance between us. Before I could flee, though, he closed the distance between us, touching his index finger to my forehead. “Be mine,” he murmured.

  “What the hell are you doing?” It might not be the best idea to shout at a vampire, but he’d caught me by surprise.

  James looked astonished. The emotion was so bizarre on his staid, calm features that it shocked me back to stillness. Without answering me, he dropped his hand to my wrist, folding his fingers around my bracelet. “Be mine!” he repeated.

  “Leave me alone!” I jerked my arm away from him, wondering what the hell he was doing, quoting Valentines Day candy conversation hearts like they were the secret to all the mystical knowledge of the universe.

  He collapsed back on the couch, staring at his fingers as if I’d burned him. “That should work,” he protested. “I should be able to Enfold you.”

  Enfold me. One quick glance inside my memory, and I knew that he had tried to mesmerize me, hypnotize me to do whatever he wanted. It was a two-step process—he had to drug me, and then he needed to touch me. The water in the decanter—it held the drug, an ancient formula, odorless, tasting only faintly of cinnamon.

  A chill marched down my spine. We weren’t equals here—and I wasn’t talking about the fact that James Morton was my boss. He could manipulate me. Control me. Make me do whatever he desired.

  Except, he couldn’t.

  “Well it doesn’t seem to be working, does it?” I snapped.

  He scowled. “It should be easier, now that you’ve had my blood.” He must have read my renewed discomfort with that word, because he held up both his hands, in a universal gesture of innocence. “Relax, Sarah. I was just going to help you forget what happened in the courtroom.”

  “What did happen in there?”

  He set his mouth in a grim line. “You’ve probably realized that Judge DuBois is more than a motions judge for the D.C Superior Court.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I figured that part out.” My sarcasm tasted deliciously sweet—defiant and aggressive and purely human.

  James arched one eyebrow, and I wondered if I’d gone a bit too far. Nevertheless, his voice was dry as he said, “Robert DuBois is one of the most senior vampires in the Old World. He conducts trials for the Eastern Empire, for all of North America east of the Rockies.”

  “The Eastern Empire.” I checked the secret knowledge in my bloodstream, but it came back empty.

  “A sort of shadow government. For all sorts of supernatural creatures, vampires included. We call ourselves imperials.” He shrugged. “Vampires are the reason the court meets at night. Other races go along with it. Live and let live.”

  Great. My employer had pulled a bait-and-switch on me. I had thought that I’d be working at a sleepy night-time courthouse, processing a handful of midnight arraignments for human miscreants. It turned out that I was starring in an episode of Law and Order: Supernatural. At least I’d escaped being the corpse in the opening scene.

  For now.

  I thought about Eleanor Owens, the massive bailiff who had likely saved my life with her silver chain. “Eleanor isn’t a vampire, is she?”

  James shook his head. “She’s a griffin.”

  I thought I knew my mythological creatures. “You mean, body of a lion, head of an eagle, that type of griffin?”

  “You’re seeing her human form. She’s a mountain spirit. The old griffins guarded the bones of the world.”

  Hmm. Maybe that explained the woman’s bulk. I doubted, though, that it had anything to do with the way she piled on the eyeshadow. Nothing could explain that.

  “What about the court reporter? What’s his name? Alex?”

  “Alex Bennett is a sprite.”

  I squelched the urge to make some smart-ass comment about soft drinks. “But both attorneys were vampires, right?”

  James nodded. “Imperials are represented and prosecuted by counsel of their own race. Schmidt is a vampire.”

  “What did he do to get here?”

  “Allegedly do,” James corrected, arching an eyebrow toward me.

  So, a defendant was innocent until proven guilty, even in Eastern Empire Night Court. I conceded: “Allegedly do.”

  “He’s on trial for running a blood herd.”

  Blood herd. I checked my quick-infused knowledge from James’s blood, but it came up lacking once again.

  James shrugged in response to my questioning glance. “Schmidt is accused of keeping a stable of humans, of holding them against their will. It’s a multi-count indictment, the biggest case the Night Court has heard in decades. Schmidt allegedly exposed humans to our … needs without benefit of Enfolding.”

  Needs. Like drinking human blood.

  James went on, as if I hadn’t shuddered. “He’s accused of procuring Sources for other vampires. There are extortion counts as well, and money laundering, of course.”

  “Of course,” I said drily. I forced myself to sit up straighter. “Schmidt called me a feeder bitch.”

  “Feeder means human.” James’s voice was surprisingly patient. “It isn’t used in polite company. Certainly not in a court of law. We would say ‘Source.’”

  Now there was something I knew about—my blood sparked with sudden information. Some vampires kept a single human Source Enfolded, for feeding. Some found random Sources when they needed sustenance, Enfolded them, made them forget.

  “And what was Brauer doing in there?”

  “He’s a witness. He supposedly has exculpatory evidence, alibis for Schmidt for nights when Sources were killed.”

  “So why did he go after me?”

  James met my eyes squarely. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, ‘you don’t know?’”

  He shook his head. “I’ve never seen a vampire lose control like that. We can manage our appetites; we have to. It would be one thing if you had already been bleeding in front of him. If you’d fallen down, waved your arms around. Those are known triggers for our prey-instinct, of course.”

  “Of course,” I said again, with more bravado than I felt.

  I swallowed hard. I had been bleeding before it was over. I’d stumbled, and I’d thrashed around, trying to free myself from my attacker. No wonder the other vampires had zeroed in on me. No wonder Judge DuBois had spoken in such a strained voice, ordering James to get me out of that room.

  I stared at the very still vampire sitting beside me now, wondering just how close he’d come to losing control himself. I had to say something, had to pretend like everything was normal, so I tried, “What do we do now?”

  “We?” He shrugged. “I go back to stacks of resumés. Find someone who won’t be terrified to do the job.”

  “I’m not terrified!” My natural stubbornness planted the words before I could think them through. Okay, I wasn’t terrified. I just wasn’t ever going anywhere near the vampires who had looked at me as if I were steak tartare. My voice trembled, betraying me as I insisted, “I’m not.”

  He shook his head. “If I could Enfold you, make you forget what happened in there, we could probably work past your fear. I could make your aversion fade. You could handle paperwork, so long as you kept your physical distance from the courtroom itself.” He glared at the decanter across the room, as if it had done something wrong. “Maybe DuBois can do the Enfolding himself.”

  I shuddered. As soon as I heard the judge’s name, I pictured his rapacious eyes, the stare of a predator barely refraining from pouncing. I didn’t want to get close enough to the judge to find out if he could hypnotize me to do his will. Especially not if he had to touch me to do the deed. “No,” I said. “Not DuBois.
”

  “What then?” James set the question between us evenly, not voicing frustration, not yielding to anger.

  “Let me keep my job and my memory of what happened.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t do that. If you’re uncertain on your feet in there, you’re a danger to the entire Night Court. You’re a security risk. I can’t take the chance that you’ll break.”

  Break. He didn’t mean physically. He was saying that I’d go crazy.

  And I could only imagine the subliminal message that would broadcast to the vampires.

  Dinner served. Come and get it.

  And yet, I didn’t want to give up. I didn’t want to walk away. I’d left dozens of jobs in the past three years; this was the first one that I was actually excited about. Just one night in, I knew that the requirements called to me—organizing information, helping the public, the peace and quiet of working the night shift. Peace and quiet—unless, you know, a vampire tried to rip my throat out.

  I forced myself to meet James Morton’s eyes. “Please,” I said. “Let me do this.”

  He studied me intently. Under the power of that blue gaze, I wondered if my blood-knowledge was wrong, if maybe vampires could read human minds. But, no. He was applying more mundane skills. He was measuring my stance, calculating my intention from the expression on my face. He was, after all, the Director of Security for the Night Court. He made his living measuring the emotions behind what people said, what they did.

  “Let’s wait until tomorrow night,” he finally said. “Let’s see how you feel after you’ve slept on this.”

  I nodded. That concession was more than I’d hoped for.

  He sighed and reached down to retrieve his suit jacket from the floor. It was twisted around itself, one sleeve hanging inside out. I pictured James ripping off the garment as he carried me into his office, supporting my failing body, tearing open his shirt sleeve before biting his own flesh to save me. He shook the coat out and extended it to me, holding it low enough that I could turn my back and place my arms inside the sleeves. I stared at him. “What’s that?”