by Lynne Murray
“Now, run!”
The firecrackers went off with gunshot-loud explosions.
Bram grabbed my hand and we all turned and ran, except for Ned, who climbed on the bike and pedaled beside us. When we got as far as the next block, Geary Boulevard, Sir John called out to stop. We turned to look back up the slight hill.
The fog totally obscured the street, the golf course, and the fence. The rest of the night was still clear and still. The pork and incense were cut off from view. Then the mist slowly began to retreat back into the bushes and trees, into the manicured lawns that held their bodies and their still hungry spirits.
“Did the firecrackers scare them off?” I asked.
Sir John was still out of breath. “Distracted ’em, so they wouldn’t think to follow. Not sure how far they would get, but I didn’t want to chance it.”
Ned and Mina spoke quietly together. His face had the pale sheen of someone in shock. “Later we can go to my place and talk,” Mina said. Ned nodded. “Now we have to go with these men.”
“Can I come?” Ned still held his bike with one hand, but kept the other wrapped around Mina’s shoulders.
“Can Ned come too?” Mina asked the Bailiff.
The Bailiff laughed—a short bark. “No one ever asks to come to the Night Court, young man. You will share your friends’ fate if the verdict goes against them.”
“I don’t care if I live or die.”
“A useful attitude. You may accompany your friends.”
Sir John, Vi, Mrs. Battle climbed into the Bailiff’s van. The FVI agents had their own rental, and no one wanted to go with them. They followed us to where I had parked my car and fell in behind as I drove Mina, Ned and Bram, following the Bailiff’s van to Night Court.
Chapter 80
Kristin Marlowe’s typed notes
September 1st continued
The van led us up to the parking lot at Coit Tower on top of Telegraph Hill. Only a few cars remained in the lot at this hour, and I didn’t see anyone walking around. “Closed at 6:00 p.m.” was noted on the locked door to the first floor of the tower. The Bailiff led us around the curve of the tower to another, unobtrusive door labeled “No Entry.” It seemed at first like a janitor’s closet. But the Bailiff raised a trap door to reveal a staircase leading down. He led us, with FVI contingent bringing up the rear, down to an iron-barred wooden door set into solid rock.
The door was unlocked and opened into a small room, like a tiny semicircular amphitheater with perhaps 100 seats cut into the rock. The seats sloped down to face a paved floor that contained only a plain wooden table with an armless teacher’s chair behind it. The Bailiff closed the heavy door behind us with a tremendous crash and locked it from the inside.
In the first row facing the table sat a few vampires—one of whom was Edgar Morford. The Bailiff led us all down to sit in the first row off to one side. The FVI guys moved off a few seats, but within easy reach.
The higher rows were nearly full of spectators, a random sampling of a San Francisco crowd with a rainbow assortment of skin colors and dress styles, more men than women. Their utter stillness and they way they examined us as potential prey let us know that they were all vampires.
A tall, thin young man came in from a door in the wall behind the desk. He sat at the table. His complexion was the color of white candle wax, in stark contrast to his carefully combed, chestnut colored hair and the mutton chop whiskers that stuck out oddly from his narrow face. His eyes were pale blue and he wore half glasses over them as he looked down at a book that had been left open on the desk. He was dressed in a threadbare woolen coat with a plain white shirt, and trousers with suspenders. Abraham Lincoln would have been comfortable in the suit. The man’s expression was serious and reserved. Mrs. Battle whispered that he had been studying law in Virginia when he went off to the Gold Rush in 1849, and he had been turned into a vampire before he reached the age of 22.
Edgar Morford came up to Sir John and quietly asked if he could represent him. Sir John nodded.
A man came in through a door on the side leading Hal by the arm. Wearing his best gray suit and a blank, emotionless look on his face, Hal didn’t look around to see who else was there. Without meaning to, Mina and I exchanged a glance. I wondered if she felt the same mixture of anguish for Hal, and a shameful satisfaction to see him in some kind of custody. Not that we were much better off.
The vampire with Hal, whether he was another FVI agent or some kind of prosecuting attorney, pushed him forward as if he were a sulky child. “Tell the judge what you told us.”
Hal’s voice was flat. “I went to the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge at midnight. I invited the Others to come through the gate. Lucy fell and cut her knee and then the Others came.”
There was an audible gasp from the vampire audience.
“Were there other surviving witnesses?” The judge asked.
“There are two,” the agent said. “Lucy Westenra and Ned Harker-Poins, but we have not found them.”
Ned looked up, as if in a daze. “I’m Ned Harker-Poins,” he said, as if just discovering the fact. “Lucy is dead.”
Hal turned to meet Ned’s gaze. “Hi, Ned.”
“Hi, Hal.”
He gave no sign of registering Mina and me standing together with Sir John and Vi.
Another official in a blue outfit similar to the Bailiff’s came up and ushered Ned down to stand before the judge.
“You were there when Henry Roy called the Others through the Death Gate?” the judge asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Who else was there?”
“Our friend Lucy was there. She fell and skinned her knee, and that’s when the Others got her. She went over to them over the past few weeks. Only she died tonight. I saw it.”
“Lucy?” Hal’s voice was stricken.
“That will be all,” the judge said to Ned. “Go back to your seat.” The second bailiff followed Ned to where he had been sitting.
“You fed from Lucy, didn’t you, Morford?” Mrs. Battle asked.
Bram whispered to me, “How can they tell?”
I whispered back, “I don’t know, but they can.”
That earned us a look from the judge that nearly stopped my heart. Bram squeezed my hand.
The judge turned his ire on Morford. “Unlike Sir John’s actions with Miss Violet here, you made no move to try to save humans you made vulnerable.”
Sir John took a small step away from Morford. The judge turned an equally severe look on him. “You, sir, must share the blame.”
I noticed everyone in the room winced at the word “blame.” A dangerous thing in this group.
“You brought this young fool along to the point where you should have brought him over or eliminated him,” the judge continued. “Now your human protégé has managed to unleash the Others. Who will pay for that error in judgment?”
“What if Sir John was responsible for finding a way to eliminate the Others?” Mrs. Battle spoke up.
“I’m as fond of Sir John as anyone,” the judge said, with what sounded like petulance. “He’s most amusing. But it hardly seems likely that he destroyed the Others.”
Sir John raised his head. “These deeds have witnesses.”
“They have indeed, Your Honor. Ask these gentlemen.” Mrs. Battle pointed at the Bailiff and two agents who had gone with us.
The Bailiff spoke up. “She’s right. We just saw two hordes of Others devoured by Hungry Ghosts at the golf course on Clement Street. So far as we know, the infestation has been wiped out because of Sir John’s action.”
There was a faint buzz of comment in the room, which the judge silenced with another nasty look. No need for a gavel here. Young as he seemed, his pale eyes made crystal clear that he would silence any disrespect of the court—probably permanently. Nothing like the threat of total annihilation to silence a room.
“Sir John, Violet and her human friends here took real steps to solve the problem,” Mrs. Ba
ttle said. “Edgar?”
Morford shuffled forward as if reluctant to speak. “Mrs. Battle is correct. My client, Violet Semmelweis, is recovering from an Other attack solely due to action on Sir John’s part, and quick thinking and ingenious treatment by Abraham Van Helsing, Kristin Marlowe, and their associates whom you see here.”
“Van Helsing!” The judge exclaimed. The name caused another stir in the room. “Vampire hunters helping vampires?”
“This gentleman is from the American branch of the family,” Morford said hastily. “He will testify that he has never hunted vampires, and indeed, he has befriended Sir John.” He turned to Sir John, who smiled, nodded, and put an arm around Bram and hugged him for the judge’s benefit.
Bram stifled a faint “oof!” at the energy of the gesture, but smiled, though his smile was a little sickly.
The judge was mollified enough to be curious. “You humans came up with a treatment to cure attacks by the Others?”
“And some ways to fend off Others when they attack,” I couldn’t resist saying.
The judge turned to me again with only a little less ice in his eyes—I realized I was the first non-vampire to say anything without being asked first. “Sorry, sir,” I apologized too late.
“The court has read Dr. Quiller’s report on these strategies,” the judge said. “This action is worthy of mercy in the court’s eyes.” He nodded to the Bailiff. “I will rule on this case now.”
The Bailiff raised his voice. “All stand for the verdict.”
Everyone in the room got to their feet.
“Leave this court and cause no more disruption. We may not be so lenient if there is a next time. Mr. Morford, inform the court of any other developments.” He took off his half glasses, folded them up and stowed them in a small pocket in his jacket. He swept the room with another searching look, and I realized the glasses were a formal ceremonial remnant of his humanity. “Also let us know of any further infestations.” He turned and left without another word.
The man accompanying Hal took him out through the door they came in by. As he left, Hal cast a mournful look at Mina, his eyes widening in surprise as he finally realized Mina and I stood together. I wasn’t sure where they took him. He seemed to be getting a lot more personal time with vampires, but I got the feeling it wasn’t giving him the power he had been seeking.
The Bailiff unlocked the door and led us up and out the tunnels to the surface.
As we walked into the parking lot with no more official escorts, Mrs. Battle said in a solemn, low voice that this was the best verdict we could have gotten. “Night Court verdicts are usually either instant death, or banishment to another country.”
“I’m kind of glad I didn’t know that going in.”
“They do let you choose the country you’re banished to—usually,” Mrs. Battle said with a wry smile.
I offered to take everyone home in my car, but it was clear we wouldn’t all fit. Bram suggested to calling a cab.
“No need to have our feast delivered, young man,” Sir John said. I realized that the meal he was referring to the cab driver. He turned to Vi and Mrs. Battle “Who will hunt with me tonight?”
The three vampires decided to walk down the Filbert Steps to go out hunting in North Beach.
“Fertile ground indeed,” Sir John said with gusto. “Wine-besotted lovers, disoriented tourists, blind-drunk sailors—marinated for our pleasure!”
As they left, Sir John pulled me aside to say, “’Twas not the time to tell you before, but only fair for you to know. Hungry Ghosts never stray far from their graves. No matter that they be unmarked graves.”
“So the only way to get the ghosts to kill the Others was to bring them there.”
“Indeed. If they had not followed us—” He let the words die out, and winked at me, bowed and held out a hand to Mrs. Battle and Vi. The three of them set off down the Filbert Steps to a vampire feast in North Beach.
Chapter 81
Kristin Marlowe’s typed notes
New Year’s Day
I returned to my clients the week after our Night Court hearing. I received a surprise picture from my online suitor, Mr_Latte. As I suspected, he was indeed my client Luther. Luther and I had a serious talk at his next appointment, and he decided to try Larry’s suggestion and use the money to fund a better benefit package to attract prospective girlfriends. He casually mentioned exploring some New Age massage services. He left with a spring in his step that I had never seen before.
Mina found a new apartment that had no memories of Hal. She began to get on with her life. Ned came by often to see her. Bram and I took them out to dinner. We looked at some of his new cartoons and bought a CD from his band, which he had re-named Tragic Consequences. Mina told me he seemed to be slowly dealing with his grief over Lucy.
Mrs. Battle reported that the vampire hierarchy interested itself in Hal’s career. Talks were under way to marry him off to a French vampire of royal blood. They also sponsored his diplomatic career in order to keep a close eye on him.
Vi continued to recover from her encounter with the Others, and started to use her computer again, although most of what she wrote was vampire activism literature. Brutus, the vampire cat, sat on her shoulder while she wrote.
Bram decided to move to San Francisco to finish his book on the vampire-obsessed subculture. We started looking for a larger place—one that would have room for five cats and be close enough to feed Vi’s ferals every morning.
In late October I received a package via courier. Inside I found the silver-framed picture of my mother, along with three words written on plain white paper: “Sorry. Love, Hal.”
Sir John disappeared from time to time, notably when Dr. Quiller came around to ask questions about his defeat of the Others. He also reappeared in Vi’s living room from time to time for no known reason, but invariably in the best of spirits.
This book is dedicated to El Nino, the gentle giant and alpha tomcat, who taught me so much
Acknowledgements
I deeply appreciate the usual suspects, friends and neighbors whose caring and support have kept me alive and writing. Thanks to my brother Mike Murray, friends Jacqueline Stone, Barbara Landis, Merry vonBrauch, Jaqueline Girdner, Gregory Booi, Laurie Toby Edison, Ann Reasoner, Ronald Russell, Arlene Cooper Russell and David Cooper.
Special thanks to Peggy Elam, Ph.D. and Pearlsong Press for sharing the dream to make life-sized fiction available to the world at large.
I am also most grateful for the online feedback on the first several chapters from critters at Dr. Andrew Burt’s critique exchange site at http://www.critters.org/ and particularly from Carolyn, who undertook to critique the entire manuscript.
Thanks to Terri Bischoff, of Midnight Ink. for useful suggestions on some contents of the package on page one!
About the Author
Lynne Murray is the author of the award-winning Josephine Fuller mystery series. Lynne knew she wanted to write a novel about a woman of size who doesn’t apologize when she read one fat joke too many in a mystery. She found the trick to creating a positive fat fictional character was to become a self-accepting woman of size in the process of writing about one. Larger Than Death, the first in the series, won the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) Distinguished Achievement Award.
Lynne’s romantic comedy novel Bride of the Living Dead was published by Pearlsong Press in 2010. Her humorous short pieces have appeared in magazines and newspapers. Many of her articles, including her interview of Darlene Cates, star of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, are available on her website at www.lmurray.com.
Lynne has written two ebooks for Holly Lisle’s 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make series: The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About San Francisco and—based on years of working in law firms—The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Courtroom Law.
Lynne and fellow mystery author Jaqueline Girdner also collaborated on an ebook of encouragement: Writer to Writer Reminders, Tic
kles, Tips and Tricks for Writers.
A longtime San Francisco resident, Lynne received a B.A. in psychology from San Francisco State University. The city is the setting for most of her fiction since her first book, Termination Interview, was published in 1988.
Lynne shares an apartment with a small group of extremely mellow cats, who are all either rescued or formerly feral.
About Pearlsong Press
Pearlsong Press is an independent publishing company dedicated to providing books and resources that entertain while expanding perspectives on the self and the world. The company was founded by Peggy Elam, Ph.D., a psychologist and journalist, in 2003.
Pearls are formed when a piece of sand or grit or other abrasive, annoying, or even dangerous substance enters an oyster and triggers its protective response. The substance is coated with shimmering opalescent nacre (“mother of pearl”), the coats eventually building up to produce a beautiful gem. The self-healing response of the oyster thus transforms suffering into a thing of beauty.
The pearl-creating process reflects our company’s desire to move outside a pathological or “disease” based model of life, health and well-being into a more integrative and transcendent perspective. A move out of suffering into joy. And that, we think, is something to sing about.
Pearlsong Press endorses Health At Every Size, an approach to health and well-being that celebrates natural diversity in body size and encourages people to stop focusing on weight (or any external measurement) in favor of listening to and respecting natural appetites for food, drink, sleep, rest, movement, and recreation. While not every book we publish specifically promotes Health At Every Size (by, for instance, featuring fat heroines or educating readers on size acceptance), none of our books or other resources will contradict this holistic and body-positive perspective.
