Jesse stepped through the junk in the living room and moved down a short hallway to the only bedroom. A Pack ’n Play had been overturned and half-collapsed. The bikers had flipped the mattress and box springs off the wood-framed bed. Next to it was a small fireproof safe, the kind you could buy at an office supply store. They’d thrown it down against the stone tiles until the tiles had cracked and the hinges had popped off the safe. Jesse squatted in the mess. No cash—if Hayne had any, the bikers would have taken it as part of their cover. All that remained was a passport for Theodore Hayne, a few official documents—and a gallon-size ziplock bag full of miniature burlap sacks, each about the size of a marshmallow. Jesse grinned. The bikers had left behind the real treasure.
He opened the ziplock and upended it, dumping witch bags all over the floor. As he’d been hoping, Hayne had been prepared for more than just a vampire press: the bags were marked with a simple “V,” “W,” or “Ww” in black marker. Jesse looped one of each around his neck, just in case. Then he ran for the car.
Chapter 30
I went up the stairs with the rest of the crowd, but broke away when they began filing into the auditorium. A series of small corridors led back to the wings, and through them to the stage itself. The exterior curtain was closed, but the two interior curtains were drawn, creating a large open space. The stage had been set up that afternoon: on one side, three ornate chairs that couldn’t quite qualify as thrones, and on the other, a long table with three simple straight-backed chairs—the seating for me, the defendant, and the accuser. Lucky me, I’d be sandwiched in the middle of them. Will was already sitting in one of the ornate chairs, and Kirsten was gathering her skirts to sit down in the opposite chair, leaving the middle seat for Dashiell.
I swallowed hard, feeling butterflies in my stomach for the first time. It was all so big. I’d been to the theater before, when we were making arrangements, but all of a sudden it felt very, very real. I wished Eli were here. Things were a little rocky between us, but I felt unmoored without him, like a kite without a string. More than anything, I wanted him to be standing with me, squeezing my hand.
I caught Kirsten’s eye, and she gave me an encouraging smile and a wave. Right. Move your feet, Scarlett. I pushed out a breath and went to my seat at the other table. Just as we’d planned, the distance between me and the other leaders was too great for them to be in my radius. Dashiell, Will, and Kirsten would retain all their powers during the proceedings.
Dashiell was standing center stage, his back to the curtain. He looked sophisticated and confident in his tuxedo, much more James Bond than concert pianist. As soon as I took my seat, he turned toward us and raised his eyebrows in a simple look: ready? The fudge popcorn had solidified to a slimy lump in my stomach, but I forced myself to put on my game face. We all nodded, and Dashiell pointed offstage, cuing whoever was in charge of the curtains. The red fabric began to draw to either side, slowly revealing us. The light onstage was still fairly dim, but a bright spotlight clicked on, pointing right at Dashiell.
“Good evening,” he announced. I risked a glance at the crowd, trying to peer past the stage lights. I’d figured we would only need a fraction of the available space, given the Theatre’s size. To my surprise, nearly every one of the two thousand seats was filled. Had our intel on the number of people in the Old World been faulty, or had people from outside Los Angeles snuck in to see how we did things? Or was it both? We’d taken so many security precautions, but it hadn’t occurred to me to make sure that all the Old World attendees were actually part of the Los Angeles Old World.
Then I realized that Manuela, the witch who now hated me, was sitting front row center. Her arms were folded tightly across her chest.
Great. That wouldn’t be distracting at all.
“Welcome to the Vampire Trials,” Dashiell said simply. “As you know, this event is held approximately every three years as a way to solidify the unique arrangement that binds us together in Los Angeles, allowing us to share power.” I noticed he didn’t say share power equally. “As is our custom, we will have five hours of trials, including a break in the middle, followed by several hours of . . . socializing.” I couldn’t see Dashiell’s face, but I could hear the humor in his voice. “We will repeat this same schedule tomorrow night.”
A murmur went through the crowd, as people shifted in their seats and whispered to their neighbors. Dashiell held up a hand. “I understand that many of you have heard about an incident that took place yesterday evening near the University of Southern California. One of our vampires has been accused of killing a number of young women.” He paused, letting that sink in. In the front row, Manuela the witch glared at me with a renewed intensity. I barely suppressed the instinct to slump down in my seat.
When Dashiell spoke again, it was into a void of dead silence. “I can assure you that the vampire in question will be tried for the crimes of blood-gorging and risking exposure. I have scheduled her trial for first thing tomorrow evening.”
Another murmur, and maybe I was being paranoid, but this one sounded disappointed. The crowd wanted blood, and they wanted it now.
Dashiell gestured to his left. We had built portable wooden steps and set them at the corners of the stage, on either side of the gaping orchestra pit, so the litigants wouldn’t have to leave the auditorium and traipse through the backstage area. “These stairs will be for the defendant,” Dashiell announced. He gestured to his right. “And these will be for the accuser. Let us begin.” He nodded to a short, stocky vampire standing at the corner of the stage behind a podium with its own microphone. “Lawrence, please read us the first names.”
The rest of the onstage lights went up, and Dashiell took his seat between Kirsten and Will. Lawrence, one of Dashiell’s most loyal—and most sycophantic—vampires, opened the protective cover of a tablet and tapped at the screen. “Werewolf Travis Hochrest has been accused of theft by Witch Adrienne Pough,” he called grandly, as though he were announcing the arriving guests at a ball.
An ample woman in her forties and a skinny werewolf with a bulbous nose both approached their sides of the stage, making their way over to sit in the chairs on either side of me. I hadn’t met Adrienne Pough, but she gave me a prim nod and took her seat, her hands folded on the table in front of her. Travis Hochrest, on the other hand, tried to give me a fist bump. “Scarlett, my man!” he cried. “Long time no see!”
The audience tittered, and I smiled in spite of myself. I’d cleaned up more than one minor mess caused by Travis. I declined the fist bump, which caused him to plop down in the chair with an injured look. A wave of body odor assaulted my nostrils, and I was suddenly very glad not to have enhanced senses.
“Adrienne,” Kirsten began, “please tell us what happened between you and Travis.” We had agreed in advance that the leader for each party would be the first to address them, and that we would use first names, because most of the vampires only knew each other that way.
The witch beside me looked like she wasn’t sure whether to sit or stand. Kirsten gave her an encouraging smile as if to say, “Either way.” She stayed seated.
“I used to have a goat,” the witch said abruptly. She bit her lip, winced, and started again. “That is, until last year I kept a small goat in my backyard, for milk, mostly. At the Midsummer party, Travis Hochrest said he could smell it on me. He was really . . . interested.” A disgusted look crossed her face. “Anyway, I believe he followed me home that night, because the very next morning when I went out to feed Shelly—that was her name—she was . . . she had been killed.” Adrienne’s voice faltered as she got choked up. “And there were wolf prints in the blood.”
“Isn’t it possible that a coyote got the goat?” Kirsten asked carefully.
Adrienne shook her head. “No, ma’am. I grew up in Montana, see, and there are wild wolves there. I saw their tracks all the time. I know a wolf print when I see one.” She reached into her cardigan pocket and held up a cell phone. “I got pictures of the
m, too.”
Will held up a hand. “That won’t be necessary. I have seen Adrienne’s photos, and I concur that it was a werewolf.” He turned his gaze to Travis. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Like, it was a goat, you guys!” said Travis, and the audience tittered again. “I’d pay the lady for it, but I don’t have any cash right now. I actually, um, owe cash to a couple of the other wolves. We have this poker game and—”
“I think that’s enough,” Will said, after a glance at the others. “As alpha, I will pay my wolf’s debt to Ms. Pough.” He sent a kind smile across the stage for her. Then his eyes moved to Travis, and narrowed to something very lupine. I actually kind of felt bad for Travis, even though he was an idiot. “Travis, you and I will work out the details of your debt in private.”
I could actually hear Travis swallow next to me. And here I had thought that only happened in cartoons.
And so it went. The next two trials were fairly uneventful, though neither was as open-and-shut as the Case of the Pilfered Goat. One of the vampires was reprimanded for starting a fight at Hair of the Dog—why had the moron decided to hang out in a werewolf bar in the first place?—and two witches were admonished for trying to recreate a strain of an herb that was poisonous to werewolves. Their excuse—that they weren’t trying to breed anti-werewolf magic into wolfberry; they just wanted to make it tastier so they could use it in a homemade dessert wine—was so stupid and flimsy it almost had to be true.
We were listening to one of the vampires tell an elaborate story about why he should be allowed to record himself waking up for the night so he could study the footage when I heard a hiss from the wings behind me.
“Scarlett! Scar!”
I jumped in my seat, and the vampire next to me turned to look, too. Dashiell, who was rarely interrupted under any circumstances, much less in the middle of the Vampire Trials, glared at a spot over my shoulder. I turned—and saw Jesse standing fifteen feet behind me, gesturing frantically for me to come over there. Shocked, I shook my head slightly, but that only made him march forward. As he got closer I saw his rumpled, dusty clothes, his torn pants, and the look of desperate determination on his face. I held up a hand—stop—and turned around to face Dashiell again. He was still glowering, but he gave me a barely perceptible nod, and I pushed my chair back and stepped offstage, expanding my radius to keep the two people at the litigant table human.
“What the actual hell, Jesse?” I whispered, as quietly as I could. Most of the people in the theater had superhuman hearing, and they would undoubtedly be curious about us going off-script. “What are you doing?” Before he could answer, a new thought struck me and I added, “How did you even get in here?”
Understanding the need for quiet, he grabbed my arm and put his mouth near my ear. I was hit with his familiar scent—Armani cologne and oranges. “The bad guys took Hayne,” he murmured. “He’s alive, for now, but I don’t know what they’re planning.”
I tensed. Without giving it much thought, I whirled around and made my way to the edge of the stage, where I was still out of sight of the audience, who were now whispering amongst themselves. Dashiell, Will, and Kirsten were all staring at me, as was the vampire on trial.
I didn’t want to mouth words where the defendant could see me, so I just looked at the Old World leaders, lifted a flat hand and slid it across my throat, the international symbol for stop it. Then I mimed tipping my head back for a drink. “Getting a drink” was our code for an emergency meeting, since although I might conceivably get together with either Kirsten or Will to discuss something casual, there was no scenario in any dimension that would involve just the four of us having social cocktails.
Kirsten’s eyes widened. Dashiell was glowering at me, and although he wasn’t human at the moment, I could easily translate his expression. This better be worth it, or you’re dead. I just hoped he didn’t mean that literally.
Dashiell rose from his chair and turned to address the restless audience. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, in a tone that left absolutely no room for argument or complaint, “there is a matter which requires my immediate attention. We will take our break early, and resume in ten minutes.”
A rustle of dissatisfaction ran through the crowd, but no one dared contradict Dashiell in any direct way. The vampire leader strode across the stage toward me, and Kirsten and Will followed.
Five minutes later, the five of us were congregated in the same soundproofed dressing room where Kirsten had prepared her spell materials. Dashiell was fixing a laserlike stare on Jesse, as if he might x-ray him and see the truth. “You’re saying they took Hayne, who’s still alive, but you don’t know how to find him. Do I have that right?”
Jesse nodded. He’d already explained stealing the witch bags and his difficult trip through the wards and the guards. The vampire at the front door had recognized Jesse from a previous trip to Dashiell’s house—three years isn’t much in undead time—but the werewolf had tried to restrain him physically, hence the torn pant leg. Jesse claimed the wolf didn’t break skin, but he’d also been smart enough to steal one of the witch bags that protected the wearer from werewolf infection. Of course, now that he was close to me, all his protections had shorted out. I had already decided not to let him out of my sight while we were at the theater.
“The only thing I can’t figure out is, why Hayne?” Jesse continued. “In theory, Hayne could let this guy into the mansion, but you and Beatrice are both here, so what could he hope to gain? And it’s not like you’d trade Hayne for Katia, right, because he’s just a human.” Jesse seemed to hear how shitty that sounded, because he winced. “I can’t believe I just said that—uh, Kirsten?”
I looked at the head witch. Her lips were pressed in a tight line, but her skin had gone red and fat tears were rolling down her face. She was practically shaking with the effort to keep it together, and I could feel her magic flex involuntarily inside my radius.
Jesse shot me an uncertain look. “Hayne and Kirsten are more or less back together,” I muttered under my breath. “They don’t live together, but they have a toddler.”
“Oh. Oh,” Jesse looked exactly like I’d elbowed him in the stomach. “I’m so, so sorry, Kirsten. I didn’t mean to sound so crass—”
She lifted a hand, cutting off his apology, but she couldn’t handle speaking yet.
Will was looking at Dashiell. “Would we?” he asked quietly. “Would we trade this boundary witch to get Theo back?”
“We would undoubtedly pretend that we were willing to exchange the hostages, in order to get close to this vampire,” Dashiell said without hesitating. “Which is why he won’t ask for a trade, especially considering how much we outnumber him.”
Jesse blew out a breath, frustrated. “Well, unless he’s just trying to kick us in the nuts, I’m right back to having no idea why he took Hayne. Um, Theo,” he added, with a glance at Kirsten.
When it hit me, I stupidly clapped a hand over my mouth, because it was so fucking obvious and yet I didn’t want to be true. They all turned to look at me.
“Scar?” Jesse asked.
“I know why,” I whispered, forcing myself to put my hand down. “They don’t want Hayne. They want Molly.”
Chapter 31
The four of them erupted into discussion, or questions, or something, but I wasn’t listening. My thoughts were racing.
This had always been about Molly, really. Count Asshat had wanted to frame her, turn her friends into vampires, and watch her be killed by her own community, preferably in that order. I’d thrown a wrench in his plans by showing up at Molly’s last night. Now, to make sure his original plan succeeded, the Count would make it look like Molly had broken out of Dashiell’s mansion and disappeared.
It would be a disaster in so many ways. The whole Old World would think Dashiell had been in on it, because how else could anyone sneak out through his security system? They’d definitely believe I was involved. Faith in the Old World leade
rs, and the Vampire Trials themselves, would be completely destabilized.
And, of course, Count Asshat would kill Molly.
But only if he could get in. Would Hayne really give up the code to the gate, and show Count Asshat and his thugs how to dismantle Dashiell’s wards? I just couldn’t see that happening, even if the vampire pressed Hayne. I’d always heard you couldn’t press a human to go against their core self, and Hayne’s loyalty to Dashiell ran as deep as his blood. Maybe if the bad guys had Kirsten or Ophelia, their daughter, at gunpoint, but Ophelia was on a weeklong trip to Sweden with Kirsten’s cousin Runa. The arrangements had been made months ago to make sure Kirsten would have time to concentrate on the Trials. I seriously doubted Count Asshat had found a way to abduct Ophelia from the Swedish witch clan.
“Abigail,” I said out loud, and the others stopped talking. Whoops. Thinking with my mouth again; never a good idea. “That’s how they’ll do it,” I said to the others. “Abigail’s on duty tonight, right? They’ll stand at the gate with a gun to Hayne’s head until Abigail lets them in.”
Kirsten’s already-pale face went a shade whiter. “Will she?” she whispered.
“Yes,” Dashiell said shortly. “The security people would only sacrifice their lives for either Beatrice or me. Abigail knows that. She’ll trade Molly for her brother.”
Suddenly I didn’t feel like calling him Count Asshat anymore. “Call Abigail,” I said to Dashiell, but he was already touching the screen of his phone.
“No reception,” he said, annoyed. At one point, the lack of cell phone service in the theater had seemed like a huge benefit to the Trials—we’d figured it would be an excellent way of keeping the proceedings quiet and orderly. But now I would have given an awful lot of money for us to be doing this anywhere else.
“There’s a landline!” Kirsten said, already spinning, her skirts swirling around her, toward one of the makeup stations. I hadn’t even noticed the small filing cabinet sitting unobtrusively under the counter. Kirsten yanked open the drawer and pulled out a dial telephone that had probably been designed in the 1990s. There was a long cord attached to it, and a phone jack next to the filing cabinet. “I saw it when I was looking around,” Kirsten added, dropping to her knees to plug in the cord. Her usually nimble fingers were trembling. Jesse took a step toward her to help, but she got it plugged in and began to dial. Her back was to us, and I squirmed from the suspense. “What about the Trials?” I asked Dashiell quietly. “Do we cancel tonight?”
Midnight Curse (Disrupted Magic Book 1) Page 20
