Fright Court

by Mindy Klasky

  Exploiting his grip on her arms, James led Allison around the counter. He settled her into my chair and then he finally looked at me. “Allison?” he asked, confirming her name. I nodded. He turned his attention back to her. “Allison, I’m sure that what you saw this evening was frightening. You don’t have to be afraid, though. You’re not in any danger.”

  If she heard him, she wasn’t responding. Beneath her unearthly daze, her fists remained clenched. “Relax, Allison,” James said, and he took a half step away.

  Tension flowed out of her at his command. I felt like I was watching some bizarre time lapse photography. The change started at the crown of her head, as if someone had cracked a raw egg into her hair. I could see the transition drip over her, seep across her face, down her shoulders, into the very tips of her fingers.

  “Very good,” James said. “Now I don’t want you to worry about what you’ve seen here. Forget whatever documents you read. Can you do that for me?”

  Allison nodded, and she whispered, “Yes.” The single syllable was so soft, so wispy, that I would have missed it if I hadn’t been staring at her in something akin to shock.

  He reached around her and fiddled with my computer keyboard, making the Schmidt information disappear. When the mundane blindfolded Justice screensaver was back in place, he told Allison, “You never saw Sarah’s computer. She showed you her desk. She told you about her job, processing papers at the District of Columbia Night Court. Nothing else.”

  Allison stared into the distance, her eyes vague and dreamy.

  “Nothing else,” she repeated.

  “If you think of anything after you leave here, if you have any memories that distress you, then you’ll realize they were just a daydream. Just your own mind wandering. Do you understand?”

  Allison nodded, apparently too far gone to manage any verbal response.

  “Very good,” James said. He glanced around the office, obviously checking to see if there was anything he’d overlooked, anything else that he had to erase from Al’s recollection. His flask sat on the counter; he hid it away in an easy fluid gesture that he’d clearly completed many times before. After he twitched his jacket back in place, he raised his finger to Allison’s forehead again, touched her very lightly. “Forget,” he whispered.

  I shuddered as he said the word, overwhelmed with a sudden shiver of deja vu. James could have been touching me. I could have been the woman he was telling to forget. But that was impossible, because he’d never succeeded in Enfolding me in the first place.

  Allison sat up straighter in my chair. I knew her well enough to realize that she was embarrassed, more than a little shocked that she’d somehow forgotten the basic rules of etiquette that she’d mastered years before. She leaped to her feet and flashed her usual brilliant smile as she extended her hand.. “Mr. Morton! I’m so pleased to meet you! Sarah has told me so much about you!”

  “I’m sure she has,” James said dryly. He turned to me. “Could you stop by my office when you’re done here?”

  “Of course,” I said. Even though I couldn’t imagine anything I wanted to do less.

  “It was a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Ward,” James said, and then passed through a door that said Staff Only, heading to his private domain.

  Allison barely waited until the door was closed before she seized my arm. “He’s gorgeous!”

  “He’s my boss,” I said, because that was safe.

  “And he’s gorgeous!” she repeated. “I have to tell you, Sarah, I thought you were a little crazy when you decided to take this job. But now that I see him….” She bit her lip with just a hint of naughty speculation. “And that voice… Don’t you just feel it in your toes?”

  “Something like that,” I said. I felt terrible listening to her gush. Everything that she was saying, every thought she had about James, about my job, was a lie. I had led her into danger, and now there would always be a gulf between us, a chasm that I could never cross. I’d shared everything with my best friend for so long that I couldn’t imagine what I’d do now, now that I was basically alone.

  Allison glanced at the clock and sighed. “Okay. I really should go. You were right, though—this office is great. I can hardly believe it. Sarah Jane Anderson, civil servant.”

  I excavated a laugh from somewhere deep inside my chest.

  Allison collected her purse. “Okay, then. We’ll see you a week from Sunday, right? For Nora’s birthday party?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I said.

  Strike that. I wouldn’t miss it if I was still alive then. If my boss didn’t murder me the second I set foot inside his office.

  I pasted on a smile and walked Al to the front of the courthouse, feeling like the worst friend in the entire world. I wished that she would stop babbling about how great my job was. I wished that I had never, ever tried to tell her the truth.

  Everything was a million times worse because Allison believed me completely. She had no idea what I’d done. What I’d forced James to do. And she never, ever would.

  * * *

  I delayed going to James as long as I could. I set out my nameplate on the counter, taking more than usual care to line it up perfectly. I filled the pen holder with exactly twenty blue ball points. I added fresh cover sheets to the pile by the door, tapping them into a neat pile vertically, then horizontally, then vertically again. I checked my email, praying for some urgent matter that needed my immediate, undivided attention.

  But I wouldn’t gain anything by avoiding James indefinitely. He could always track me down. Better to face my punishment with my head held high.

  This time, he didn’t stand to greet me. His voice was colder than steel as he said, “Close the door.”

  I complied, but I was already arguing as I turned back to face him. “I can explain,” I said. “Allison is my best friend! She knows everything about me. I tried not telling her; I tried keeping it a secret, but she figured out that I was lying, that there was something going on here. I made her swear not to say anything. She promised. She swore on Woof Woof!”

  I don’t know how I wanted him to respond. I don’t know if I wanted him to laugh at the ridiculous childhood name. I don’t know if I wanted him to roll his eyes at my naivete.

  His voice was absolutely flat as he said, “Our existence is not your secret to tell.”

  “I see that now. I thought that she could hear it, that she would understand, like I did. I never imagined that she’d panic like that.”

  “This is why you’re supposed to be Enfolded. It should be impossible for you to mention us to anyone. To any human.”

  He set the raw words into the desert between us.

  “I understand,” I said, putting every last ounce of sincerity into my voice. “I understand just how bad things could have been. I understand that I let things get out of control.”

  “You don’t understand anything at all,” he said. “You can’t. You’re human.”

  “Then why did you hire me? Why didn’t you just accept applications from imperials?”

  For the first time since I’d entered his office, he hesitated. I wondered if I would be able to recognize a lie, coming from his lips. As if he heard my silent suspicion, he met my eyes again, his cobalt gaze cold and steady. “We vampires are lousy at organization. We can’t keep up with the filing.”

  A joke? Now? And yet I wasn’t entirely sure that he was joking. “Come on!”

  “You’re different, Sarah. You have an affinity for the other.”

  “Other?”

  Still exercising a terrifying control, James picked up an empty coffee mug from his desk. It was identical to the one he’d used a couple of weeks before, when he tried to drug me with his cinnamon Enfolding water. He tilted it, so that I was staring directly at the logo embossed on the side. “What do you see?”

  “A sword? Impaling a scroll of parchment?” That was the symbol for the Night Court; of course. It sprang up as my screen saver on my computer; it was
stamped in the upper left corner of every official document.

  James nodded, and then he tilted the mug slightly. “And now?”

  The familiar design shimmered, like a hologram shifting in direct sunlight. Beneath the sword and parchment, I could make out a more ordinary image of blindfolded Justice, raising unbalanced scales. I blinked, and the sword returned. “What the —”

  “The vast majority of people, of humans, only see Justice. A very few, though, are perceptive enough to see the Sword. To accept the Eastern Empire Night Court.”

  I thought back to the website I’d used to apply for the job. The sword-and-parchment logo had been displayed prominently. “So other applicants wouldn’t have seen the job opening?”

  “Not for the clerk’s job. They would only see the mundane positions available. That’s one of the ways we’ve maintained our safety for centuries. We only reveal ourselves to those who are ready to see.”

  I wanted to say something. I wanted to protest. I wanted to tell him that Allison’s panic was because she’d been kept in the dark, that if imperials all revealed themselves, humans might adapt. All of us, we might learn to embrace the other, without panic. Without disaster.

  But what did I know? This was all new to me, and I was managing to screw things up pretty thoroughly, without even trying.

  I knew that James wouldn’t listen to me now, not while he was still so angry. He couldn’t process any argument that I might make. Not when he was stretched so thin, bound so tight. And so, literally biting my tongue, I waited until he spoke to me. “I’m the Director of Security, Sarah. I must protect the imperials. I have to serve the Eastern Empire.”

  “I know,” I whispered. Sudden misery pushed behind my eyes, sparking a wash of tears. I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to keep from crying in front of him.

  “You drank from me, and that created a bond between us. But don’t ask me to divide my loyalties. Don’t force me to make that choice.”

  “I won’t,” I said, but my words were inaudible. Horrified, I felt my tears well over, blazing streaks down my cheeks.

  James swore and reached inside his breast pocket for a handkerchief. I pressed the snowy linen beneath my eyes, willing myself not to start all-out sobbing. When I was able to look at him again, he was shaking his head. “Okay, Sarah,” he said, and he squared his shoulders. “Get back to work.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said belatedly.

  “Get back to work,” he repeated.

  I folded the crisp handkerchief into a square, then a rectangle, then a smaller, perfect square. There wasn’t anything else that I could say, any other way that I could explain. I’d have to prove my remorse by action. I’d have to show that I was sorry by doing my job.

  I worked straight through my entire shift, not even stopping for lunch. I made headway in organizing the vampire files, building a template for all future cases, so that we could track information accurately, keep everything organized. In a moment of inspiration, I tracked back through the Schmidt case, into the actions where Maurice Richardson had been convicted. I corrected the spellings on the older cases, made notations so that anyone could see that the older actions were related to each other, to the current case in front of Judge DuBois.

  I worked hard, and I worked smart. And I made absolutely sure that the rest of the Night Court was gone when I finally ventured out from behind my desk. The sun was rising before I found the courage to leave the courthouse and head toward home.

  CHAPTER 6

  STILL HOPING TO impress James with my industriousness, I arrived at the courthouse half an hour early on Monday evening. I’d considered showing up a full hour before my shift began, but I couldn’t guarantee that he’d be there to witness my Employee-of-the-Month behavior. I realized that I should pick up an almanac, or at least bookmark one on my computer, so that I could get specific times for sunrise and sunset.

  I’d spent the weekend calculating ways that I could be a more impressive Court Clerk—starting with rearranging my desk space so that no one other than I could ever look directly at my computer screen. I was tired of slamming my fingers down on the Control, Shift, and V keys every time I was interrupted. Better to keep the screen facing the dull, institutional beige wall.

  I practically needed a forklift to move the heavy monitor. Even after I got it shifted (surviving the perilous moment when it nearly overbalanced and crashed to the floor), I needed to move my phone. And moving the phone required that I resettle my pen holder and my ever-ready cup of paper clips. The stapler needed to change places as well, and then everything needed to be lined up, to be precise, to look like I’d planned it, instead of just happened to be suffering with it. Even though I told myself that the details were unimportant, that no one would even notice them, my palms itched until I could get everything exactly where it belonged.

  No wonder working retail had been such a nightmare for me.

  Once I finally had the desk rearrangement completed, I looked eagerly toward the door, hoping that James would check up on me at the very beginning of my official shift. No such luck, though.

  The minute hand on the clock jumped its way around the dial, slowly tagging up with a quarter after nine. The hordes must have been lying in wait outside the main courthouse doors. As soon as the office officially opened, I was deluged with requests for help.

  Sure, there were the usual emergency filings for the human side of Night Court. On top of those, there were three subpoenas that needed to be issued right then, without any pause, without any delay. Seven (seven!) new cases needed to be opened immediately. Three ancient files needed to be retrieved from our paper stacks so that some jaded law firm associate earning four times my salary could make copies at our temperamental machine. That project led to two different rounds of clearing paper jams, tugging at levers, burning my fingers on the bar labeled “HOT!”, and rubbing toner into my skin like it was some luxurious unguent. Of course, the phone didn’t want to be left out of the fun—both official lines rang non-stop. I couldn’t begin to calculate how many messages waited for me on the voicemail system.

  I kept my wits about me, though. I didn’t panic. I handled each customer as they came, pasting on a smile, apologizing for the delay. In short, I was the very model of efficiency.

  Not that anyone noticed.

  I was starving by the time I finally saw the last attorney out the door. I took advantage of the lull in the legal storm to set the arms on the “I’ll Be Back” clock, giving myself a full hour for my virtuous lunch of hummus and veggies. By the time I staggered through the Staff Only door to one of the desks in the back room, my stomach was growling like a wildcat.

  I saw the envelope before I even sank onto the wobbly chair. Someone had printed my name in bold red letters across the manila surface.

  Someone. Who was I kidding? I’d only been working at the court for two weeks, but I knew exactly who had written my name.

  James.

  I wasn’t surprised to find that the envelope was taped closed with heavy-duty packing tape. It was glued shut as well, and its brass brads had been tamped down. Triple safety for the Director of Security. I expected nothing less.

  I managed to rip into it with the help of a letter opener and a pair of scissors. Inside was a creamy note-card, the type that wealthy people use to write prim and proper thank you notes. Except vampires didn’t say thank you. And this card only bore a single word:

  “Midnight.”

  Taped to the bottom was a brass key. I was willing to bet my next paycheck that it fit the door to the super secret stairwell, to the forgotten passage at the end of that long, out-of-the-way corridor. I glanced at the clock on my computer. I had three minutes to make it.

  I swore and grabbed the banana that I’d planned on enjoying as an early-morning snack. If I had to walk down five flights of stairs, I might as well use the time productively.

  I took the liberty of moving my “I’ll Be Back” clock to two, figuring that the only person w
ho would call me on my long lunch hour was going to be right down there in the basement with me. I had the banana peeled by the time I got to the locked door. The key turned smoothly, and I picked up my pace as I completed each flight of stairs. I swallowed the last bite of fruit as I reached the downstairs landing.

  The door to the Old Library was open. I took a deep breath, trying to regulate my rapid breathing before I stepped over the threshold.

  “You’re late.” James’s voice was flat, as bare of emotion as if he were reciting local Rule of Civil Procedure 4(f). My quick glance at the caged clock on the wall confirmed that he was right. I was late. By one stinking minute.

  I thought about protesting, but then I remembered my vow to be the perfect employee.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I was proud of myself for not making excuses.

  I was even prouder, though, for keeping my gaze on James’s face. He had taken advantage of my delayed arrival to change into workout clothes for our session. He wore a pair of black pants from the armoire, but he hadn’t bothered with a sashed jacket. Instead, he wore a black T-shirt. Maybe a Hollywood costume designer could have modeled the cotton across his chest with a little more precision, but I couldn’t imagine how. The dark fabric left absolutely nothing to the imagination; an artist could have used James’s torso as a study in musculature.

  Oh. I guess I hadn’t kept my gaze on his face after all.

  “Get changed,” he said, nodding toward the armoire.

  So. He definitely hadn’t gotten over our conversation from Friday night. My heart leaped into high gear as I grabbed a set of workout clothes. I ducked into the locker room without a word, trying to remember how to slow my pulse, how to calm my body, how to look as little like prey as possible. I tugged my fingers through my hair, willing myself to some semblance of inner peace.

  Pressing my palms against the icy tiled wall, I told myself that I could do this. I’d been terrified of our first lesson, but it had turned out to be nothing traumatic. I closed my eyes and remembered the low rumble of James’s voice, the feel of his chest against my spine. I had nothing to be afraid of. Sure, he’d warned me that we were ready to begin the hard work, but I’d mastered the breathing exercises. I could handle whatever else he demanded.