Barbed Wire Heart
Page 15
I stood and offered my hand to Dee. “Come on. Let’s go see what justice feels like.”
Like Sudie’s shop, the magic’s courtroom was in a space in the Torrance courthouse that seemingly didn’t exist in the ordin world. And like Sudie’s shop, the only way in was with spellwords.
The room wasn’t crowded when Dee and I walked in. The three judges, wearing purple cloaks, sat behind a long table on a raised stage. Jack was there, and the two MPs who’d accosted me on the beach. A small knot of maybe twenty people stood huddled together near the back of the room. A few of them spoke together in low tones that I couldn’t hear. Mostly they were silent and staring at the judges table. The energy roiling off them made my throat ache.
“Who are they?” I asked Dee, glancing their way.
His mouth tightened before he answered. “Sudie’s family and some close friends.”
“You know them?”
He nodded. “Most of them.”
In one corner of the room stood two large, rectangular somethings completely covered by black sheeting. My stomach clenched looking at them. I turned my gaze away.
I recognized one other person in the room, Celeste—the innocence speaker who read me at the Magic Police station. She stepped to the center of the room in front of the judges’ table and lifted her arms to get everyone’s attention. Every eye focused on her. The room went silent, as if each person were holding their breath. Celeste stepped away to stand at the side of the table.
A door opened in the wall to my left. Petra and the marid were escorted out, each flanked by two uniformed members of the Magic Police. The marid looked resigned. Petra carried herself with a haughty, defiant posture. They were brought in front of the judges.
Celeste stepped forward.
“Guilt has been pronounced on these two for the crimes of murder and the use of black magic,” she said. ‘As is our law, each judge will pronounce the sentence they feel is fitting.”
She turned and pointed to the first judge, a fifty-ish woman with dark skin and salt-and-pepper hair.
The judge drew in a deep breath and held it, as if trying to prolong the moment before her sentence was pronounced.
“Death for both,” she said.
Petra’s posture never changed. The defiant expression on her face only intensified.
Celeste pointed to the second judge, a bald man in his seventies or eighties.
“Death,” he said.
“Death,” said the third judge, a man with such a baby face that I couldn’t guess his age.
“The sentence is unanimous,” Celeste said, “and now will be carried out.”
The sheeting fell away to reveal a large tank of water and what looked a lot like a glass coffin.
“Do I have to stay for this?” I whispered urgently to Dee.
“No,” he whispered back, “but you should, to bear witness. For Sudie’s sake, for her family and friends.”
My shoulders had drawn up near to my ears with tension. My stomach felt ready to revolt. I shook my head and walked quickly to the door we’d come in. I’d worried I couldn’t open it since I didn’t know the spellwords, but it opened of its own accord as I approached. I rushed outside into the bright light of day.
Almost forty-five minutes passed before Dee joined me outside. God. Had it taken that long for them to die? Maybe there was other business to attend to after the execution. I really didn’t want to know.
Dee walked up next to me and wordlessly slipped his arm around my shoulders. We drove to his house in silence. He spelled the front door open and we walked inside.
We settled side-by-side on the living room couch, both of staring into space and neither of us speaking. Thoughts and blame-shame chased round and round in my mind. I wondered what was going on in his thoughts, thinking they must be much the same as mine. Or not. Dee and I often saw the world and events very differently. Still, the air in the room felt heavy with regrets.
“So, tell me,” he said finally.
I stared straight ahead. “I was thinking it’s easy to say, ‘actions have consequences’ when you don’t have to actually watch those consequences be meted out.”
He nodded. “It changes a person. And yet the sun keeps shining.”
“And joy will return.”
I shifted and looked him in the eyes. “Our actions have consequences, too. If we weren’t together, in a relationship, Petra couldn’t have picked us to find Mich. We were tailor-made for her—a psychic and a wizard who knew how to find people. I’m not sure either of us would have been as successful alone.” I took a breath and cleared my throat, feeling extra guilty about the next part. “If I hadn’t gone to see Sudie that day, putting her on Petra’s radar, she might still be alive.”
Dee shook his head. “Petra told you she killed Sudie to stop gossip about herself and Mich. If it hadn’t been us on the hunt, Petra would have found someone else to look for Mich—someone who maybe wasn’t as careful about not telling Petra all that they’d learned—and Mich might have died, too. Everything is on Petra and the marid. All we did, what you did, was end the bloodshed.”
I chewed on that.
His voice dropped low. “Are you sorry we met and wound up together?”
“No,” I said. “Not sorry. I could have done without a few things. Today, for instance. But all in all, not sorry—happy.”
“Good,” he said. “Because as far as I can tell, we’re stuck with each other.”
I smiled as best I could manage. I could think of worse things that being stuck with him.
Afterword
Thank you for reading this book. I would be most grateful if you’d take a moment to leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads. Thank you.
Also by Alexes Razevich
Ice-Cold Death – Oona Goodlight book one
The Ahsenthe Cycle
If you enjoy being immersed in an alien world and like stories with strong female characters, The Ahsenthe Cycle has everything you’re looking for.
Book one: Khe
Book two: Ashes and Rain
Companion story: Gama and Hest
Book Three: By the Shining Sea
The Girl with Stars in her Hair – Cassie Goodlight has one year to save her kidnapped brother. Magic is the only way. Not exactly a prequel to the Oona Goodlight stories, but interesting for those wanting to know more about Oona’s ancestors.
Shadowline Drift – A psychological thriller with science fiction and fantasy elements. Perfect for fans of Inception or Lost.
Jumper: A short story in which world-class shopper, Maddie Bresslin, accidently remakes the world. Magical realism, a little strange, and not for everyone. A nice read during a lunch break or while waiting at the doctor’s or dentist’s office.
Coming Soon: Vulture Moon – Oona Goodlight Book 3
Acknowledgments
Many thanks Richard Casey, Dan McNeil, my amazing editor, Christina Frey, and Graham Toseland for their help in shaping this story.
As always, much love and gratitude to Chris, Larkin, and Colin Razevich. I don’t know what I would do without them.
Cover by Deranged Doctor Design
Formatting by Josie Clement
About the Author
Alexes Razevich writes speculative fiction. She attended California State University San Francisco where she earned a degree in Creative Writing. After a successful career on the fringe of the electronics industry, including stints as Director of Marketing for a major trade show management company and as an editor for Electronic Engineering Times, she returned to her first love — fiction. She lives in Southern California with her husband. When she isn’t writing, she can usually be found playing hockey or traveling somewhere she hasn’t been before.
Email: LxsRaz@yahoo.com
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Website: http://www.alexesrazevich.com/
Alexes Razevich, Barbed Wire Heart