by Mindy Klasky
“And now,” he went on, “it’s my turn to ask you something. Or, rather, to tell you. As of tonight, you’ll become a vegetarian.”
I immediately pictured the beef and broccoli that I had enjoyed at lunch. My stomach growled, and I hid my embarrassment by arguing. “Why should I do that?”
“Your diet influences your scent. If we are going to train together, you have to smell less like prey.”
Well, when he put it that way…. I’d never been a big fan of tofu, but I liked the notion of a torn and bleeding throat less. A lot less. “Vegetarian it’ll be, then.”
“Excellent,” he said, but when he smiled, I could see the glint of fangs, unnaturally white against his lips.
They’d retracted by the time I changed back into my street clothes, by the time we left the Old Library. Nevertheless, I was grateful that he led the way up the five flights of stairs to the main courthouse hallways. It was easier to ignore those dangerous incisors when they were safely positioned in front of me. Even if I supposedly knew how to center myself into vampire-calming stillness.
CHAPTER 4
APPARENTLY, I UNDERESTIMATED the demands of deep breathing—I slept through my alarm on Wednesday night. At least I was fully refreshed when I awoke. As I took a hurried shower, I remembered that I’d had another sand dune dream. This time, I remembered climbing the shifting slopes, tracking some creature who had gone before me, reading its passage easily by sniffing the lemon-scented air.
I must have been getting in touch with my Cro-Magnon hunter ancestors. My subconscious was already craving the meat I had promised not to consume. I took a couple of deep breath and told myself not to be such a baby, even as I scrounged in the refrigerator for a hunk of cheddar cheese and an apple—the closest I could come to a vegetarian lunch on short notice.
I rushed into the courthouse precisely at nine o’clock. Collecting my purse from the metal detector, I dug deep for my office keys, remonstrating with myself that I should have taken them out as I jog-walked from the subway. And that’s when I ran into Judge DuBois.
Ran into. Not like “I casually saw him down the hallway and raised my hand in greeting.”
Nope. I plowed into the guy as I fumbled in my purse, planting my shoulder neatly under his collar bone with enough force that an ordinary human man would have taken a giant step backwards.
Not Judge DuBois, though. He grimaced as he held his ground, and he folded a spidery hand around my elbow. “I’m sorry. Ms. Anderson?” he said, my name high and reedy on his lips, the last three syllables lilting into a question.
I jerked my arm away before I could remember that it was a bad idea to make sudden moves around a vampire. Even a vampire that looked old and tired and as dissipated as any human working the night shift. I wondered if Judge DuBois could attack me before he’d downed his special blood cordial, the one that transformed him into the raptor of a vampire I’d seen my first night on the job.
“Please,” I said, flustered by the thought of his transition and trying to cover up my reaction. “Call me Sarah.” It felt strange to issue orders to a judge, especially one who was a known bloodsucker. I swallowed hard and added a belated, “Your Honor.” My arm felt dusty where he had touched it, powdered with a thin film of grit. Or maybe that was just my imagination. It took all my willpower not to brush away whatever trace he’d left on my skin.
“I just wanted to apologize for the … mishap in the courtroom earlier this week. Ordinarily, things run much more smoothly.”
Ordinarily. When a human girl didn’t screw things up.
“No problem,” I said, before I realized just how casual those words sounded. What was next? Was I going to start calling the judge “dude”? I might have argued successfully with James to keep my job the other day, but whatever truce I’d negotiated wouldn’t stand up against perceived insubordination against Judge DuBois. I struggled to clean up my act. “I mean, I understand, Your Honor. I don’t think it will be a problem again.”
“No,” the judge said. “It won’t.” He reached inside the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out a leather-bound flask.
Of course vampires carried flasks. They needed to keep their Enfolding water close at hand, for whenever they had to drug a human. My heart started pounding, hard enough that I worried I would spark a reaction in the judge. I wanted to refuse to drink. I had already told James that I didn’t want Judge DuBois to Enfold me. But, apparently, I didn’t get a vote.
I was pretty sure that the judge could force me to down the potion, even now, even in his dissipated human form. And if I was going to give in and swallow voluntarily, I’d be wise to do so quickly, before anyone found us in the hallway. Before anyone started to wonder what the new clerk was doing, accepting a surreptitious beverage from an esteemed member of the bench.
The liquid inside the flask whispered cinnamon across my tongue. I swallowed twice and handed back the flask, which Judge DuBois stowed away with a quick flick of his wrist. Before I could reconsider, he darted in a finger to rest on my forehead. “Be mine.”
Nothing. No frisson of a magical bond. No slack forgetting of who I was, of what I was doing. None of the enchantment that James had implied I would feel if I could actually be Enfolded. Shaking my head, I stepped away, just as two very human attorneys rounded the corner, deep in conversation about some ongoing trial.
“Of course, Your Honor,” I said, pitching my voice loud enough that both lawyers could hear. “I’ll take care of that right away.” There was a murky flash of surprise in Judge DuBois’s eyes; he clearly had expected me to slip under his control. He shrugged, though, and the motion made him appear even smaller and less effective than usual for his human self.
The attorneys stopped short, pulling themselves to attention like schoolboys caught sexting between classes. “Your Honor!” they squawked in unison.
“Counselor,” the judge said, nodding first to one, then the other. “Counselor.” He turned back to me, blinking rapidly, as if he were trying to remember some fleeting thought. “Sarah, you’ll let James know about this?”
About this. About Judge DuBois’s inability to Enfold me. I’d let James know, but it wasn’t going to change anything. James and I already had an agreement. He was training me, precisely so that we didn’t have to worry about this type of thing.
“Of course, Your Honor,” I said again. The judge shuffled off down the hallway, looking like he might get lost on the way to his chambers. I nodded to the attorneys and headed down to my own office, quickly settling down to the serious business of cleaning up the court’s computer files.
I’d spent two nights using the system, and I was just beginning to discover just how much work needed to be done. The court’s computers were ancient—my monitor looked like something from an old Apollo space launch. The software wasn’t any more recent; everything about it was clunky and counter-intuitive. It took me almost fifteen minutes to login, and I already knew that I could expect the system to crash half a dozen times in a single night.
Typing in my username and my password, I realized that there must be a different court system, a hidden one that contained records for the vampire Night Court. I couldn’t imagine what secrets might lurk in those files.
The cursor flashed inside a box on my computer screen. I was supposed to type “DCNC”—District of Columbia Night Court. Those letters gave me access to every one of the files for my public-facing, mundane, human job.
But what if I typed something different?
Eastern Empire Night Court. What if I typed “EENC”? I bit my lip before pressing the Enter button on my computer.
The screen flashed to black so suddenly that I thought I’d crashed my computer yet again. I jumped back, biting off a curse. Before I could touch my keyboard or mouse, though, the screen cleared, and the court’s familiar logo twisted in front of me—an ornately carved sword, pinning down a sheaf of parchment. Excited, I slid the mouse across my desk, positioning the cursor over the cross-
hilt of the sword. I was just about to click when I heard someone clear his throat. “I’m sorry. Ms. Anderson?”
I jumped halfway to the ceiling. “Yes?” I said, frantically wondering how I could hide my super secret vampire work. As I scrambled for a solution, I stammered out, “Please. Call me Sarah.”
Fortunately, when I looked up, I found myself staring into the chocolate-colored eyes of Alex Bennett, Judge DuBois’s court reporter. “Alex!” I said, relieved that I didn’t have to hide the Night Court screen from him.
He gave me a strange look, then nodded toward the computer. “Control-Shift-V will take you back to the mundane system.”
“Oh. Thanks.” I held down the three keys as if I’d been born to the job. Sure enough, the rotating sword-and-parchment was wiped away, replaced by the ordinary file maintenance template that I used for the human court.
I realized that Alex was still standing there. He was clad from head to foot in navy blue, a sleek suit with matching shirt and tie, all cut perfectly for his slim build. Standing this close to him, I could see tiny wrinkles beside his eyes, grooves to either side of his mouth. His skin looked like it was stretched thin over his bones; it reflected the overhead light just a little more than seemed strictly natural. I realized that his light brown hair was actually dusted with a substantial amount of gray. Alex was older than I’d first guessed. A lot older.
Well, of course he was older. He was an imperial. A sprite. He was probably immortal—like vampires. I fought the urge to roll my eyes at my own scattered thoughts; it was going to take a while to get used to my supernatural colleagues. “Um, can I help you?”
“I just wanted to apologize for the … mishap in the courtroom the other night. Ordinarily, things run much more smoothly.” The words rang strangely in my ears; they were syllable for syllable what Judge DuBois had said.
“No problem,” I said, reprising my earlier response. At least I didn’t feel quite so cavalier talking to a court reporter as I had conversing with the judge. Also, I was pretty sure that
Alex couldn’t Enfold me. That seemed to be strictly vampire territory.
“I hope you don’t think ill of us.” He shrugged a little as he spoke, his body language actually conveying more of a heartfelt apology than any words he said.
“It was a surprise, of course. But I think I understand everything better now.”
Alex’s smile was sweet. “If you ever have any questions, you know that you can ask me.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate that.”
I had about a thousand questions. But I wasn’t ready to share them yet. Still, it was good to know that I had something of an ally in the imperial ranks.
The phone rang, and Alex excused himself so that I could answer. I provided our address and office hours to the nervous attorney on the other end of the line. It sounded like some young associate at a major law firm had just drawn the short straw; she didn’t sound thrilled to be heading over to the courthouse at this time of night. She was likely concerned about finding a taxi and avoiding mundane muggers. If she only knew what true dangers lurked inside our hallowed halls….
It turned out to be a slow shift in the clerk’s office. I took advantage of the quiet to log back in to the Eastern Empire system. I could see at a glance that the files there were in even greater disarray than those for the main court.
James hadn’t been lying when he said that vampires were lousy at paperwork. Calling up a dozen random files, I realized that each one used a different set of abbreviations. Names were listed in different orders—first name first, first name last, no first name at all. Some case numbers were recorded with dashes, some with colons, some with long run-on numbers that made my eyes cross.
My palms started to itch. It would take months to bring order to all of this.
“I’m sorry. Ms. Anderson?”
The sound of my name startled me so much that I leaped out of my chair. I hadn’t realized I was so engrossed in my work, hadn’t realized that I’d stopped listening to the occasional sounds from the hallway, the rare passage of people outside my door. I pounded on the Control, Shift, and V keys as I flew to my feet, only to realize that Eleanor Owens was leaning against the counter. I steadied myself with a breath that reached to my toes.
Eleanor had apparently decided that silver was the color of the evening, both for cosmetics and for accessories to her size 24 uniform. Well, why not? Griffins apparently weren’t harmed by the metal. Not like vampires.
Her lips were coated with gloss so shiny it looked white. She’d caked on half-moons of eyeshadow, all the way up to her flaming red brows, and it looked like she’d dusted some sort of glitter over her cheekbones. Either that, or her eyeshadow was flaking off. Somewhere, she’d found silver mascara; it conspired to make her green eyes look bald in the bright overhead light. The color choice wouldn’t be an inspired one, for any woman. Given Eleanor’s ruddy coloring, it was an unmitigated disaster.
A disaster, made even more striking because she’d once again matched her jewelry to her makeup palette. A choker barely closed around her thick neck. Individual beads of something that looked like crumpled aluminum foil cut into the folds of her flesh. A bracelet of the same stuff struggled to cut off the circulation in her left hand. I couldn’t help but note that her right wrist was unimpeded, though. She could still draw her gun if necessary.
“Please,” I said, as soon as I could force words out of my fashion-stunned throat. “Call me Sarah.”
“I just wanted to apologize,” she said. “For the … mishap in the courtroom the other night. Ordinarily things run much more smoothly.” The now-familiar words sounded strange coming from the massive woman in front of me. I got the feeling that she didn’t apologize to many people for anything.
“No problem,” I said, well-trained mynah bird that I’d become. “Um, shouldn’t you be in the courtroom?”
“Judge DuBois just called a recess.” She met my eyes with a challenging glare that made ripples of light spark from her copious makeup. “I wanted to make sure you knew that type of thing isn’t usual.”
“I didn’t think it was,” I said, reminding myself that I had to say something, that I couldn’t just stare at the silvery light cascading off Eleanor’s fashion-disaster ensemble. I shook myself back to normal thought. “I appreciate your moving as quickly as you did. Your restraining the, um, witness probably saved my life.”
She brushed off my thanks with a gruff snort. “James has us reviewing our policies. We won’t slip up like that again.” Before I could make any sort of response, Eleanor turned on her ample heel and pounded out of my office. Somehow, I was certain that Eleanor Owens, griffin, didn’t spend a lot of time engaging in chatty girl-talk.
I shook my head and returned to the computer database, thinking about the identical wording that all three creatures had used. James must have told them that they needed to apologize to me. I could imagine his voice, rumbling that I was officially a matter of court security, that all communication with me clearly fell within his jurisdiction.
I reminded myself to appreciate what James was trying to do. He wanted the court personnel to talk to me, to assure me one on one that they wouldn’t let anyone make me their next meal. It was a nice gesture, a solid complement to the training that James was providing. Between office diplomacy and the zen breathing stuff I’d started learning down in the dungeon, er, practice room, I might actually survive my probation period here at the court.
Nevertheless, I was a little annoyed with my boss. I didn’t want anyone thinking that the human girl needed special treatment. I couldn’t have everyone on the night shift treating me like I was fragile. Vulnerable. If the goal was to make me appear less like prey to the vampires, shouldn’t I work toward everyone considering me an equal?
I should talk to him. Explain my point of view. I didn’t want to make too big a deal out of it, though. I didn’t want James to think that I would take hours of his time, whenever I stuck my head
into his office. I’d wait until I ran into him casually, until he happened to stroll into the clerk’s office or I ran into him in the cafeteria.
Strike that. I didn’t see him heading down to the vending machines any time soon. The cafeteria didn’t exactly offer a triple-shot, extra-hot jumbo size blood. With or without whipped cream.
Blech.
Determined to bleach that disgusting image from my mind, I typed “EENC” for the third time that night, dropping back into the Eastern Empire files. I needed to study a single case closely, figure out all the data that were supposed to be included, so that I could make a master template.
Well, there was one case I definitely knew by name. One case that had to be in the database. I typed in S-C-H-M-I-D-T. The letters crouched beside the pulsing cursor, somehow malignant, despite the fact that they were only photons, that a name was just a name. I pressed the Enter key and caught my breath.
The system might be in utter disarray, but it was fast. In three heartbeats, a list of names flashed up on the screen. I had no idea there were so many imperials named Schmidt out there. I glanced at the list: from Dorothy to William, a couple dozen names in strict alphabetic order. And in the middle of the group, completely innocuous: Karl.
I clicked on the name, and the screen flashed again. It resolved into a caption, the online version of the court’s official cover sheet, like the one we used for the human proceedings. The Clans of the Eastern Empire were listed as one party, just like “The People” would be in a human criminal case. Karl Schmidt was listed as the defendant. Judge DuBois’s name indicated that the case was assigned to him, and two other blocks of text indicated the attorneys—the brittle blond woman and the rumpled man. Clarice Martin and Frederick Teller, I knew now.
At the bottom of the screen was a note in dark red: See also Clans v. Maurice Richardson (1999).
Richardson. The vampire who was somehow related to Ernst Brauer, Schmidt’s alibi witness. The one who was controlling Schmidt. Allegedly. I went back to the search screen and typed in R-I-C-H-A-R-D-S-O-N, then selected Maurice. The 1999 case was there, another criminal matter. Clarice Martin had been Richardson’s lawyer. I clicked on the link to all the papers filed in the Richardson case, only to find that they were held under seal. I didn’t have authority to access them. One final entry, though, said See also Clams v. Maurce Richardson (1952).
