“There is one exception to the Head Magistrate’s rule,” he said. “Those that are unrepresented and facing Feminera the Wicked get our best vintage—on the house.”
I sat down at the bar and took a sip of the wine, enjoying its incredible body and character. “This is good stuff indeed. What do you call it?”
“Hope and a Prayer,” the satyr replied.
I laughed. “Well, I have never been much of the praying type, so I will focus on the hope part.” I took another swig of the wine and lifted my glass. “To hope, may it always spring eternal.”
“Here goes hope,” I said to the satyr, who looked at me strangely. I turned to the crowd and yelled, “Is there any attorney, barrister, lawyer, or counselor that will represent me against Feminera the Wicked?” A brief silence from the din was my only response, and the room grew noisy once more. “Okay, then,” I said, turning back to the bar. “Satyr, do you have a name?”
“I am called Cabernet,” he said. “But you can call me Cab.”
“Okay, Cab,” I said. “I need your help. Surely there is someone that will go up against Feminera the Wicked.”
“Well,” Cab said. “You could try . . .” He shook his head violently as if he were trying to shake the idea out of his brain.
“What is it, Cab, tell me, before you shake that goat brain of yours right out of your head. Who can help me?”
Cab sat down, poured himself a drink, and took a huge gulp. “Ah, cabernet always gets me focused,” he said. “There is only one attorney with the legal knowledge, the brashness, and the sheer tenacity to go against Feminera the Wicked and win. And that is Maximillian Justice.”
“That is fantastic,” I said. “Where do I find Justice?”
Cab sighed. “No one knows. We haven’t seen him ever since he lost the Big One.”
“Every attorney loses cases,” I said. “Where is his office? I need to go there.”
“You don’t understand, vampire. He lost the Big One.”
“What do you mean the Big One?”
The satyr came around from the bar and took a seat next to me. He took an even bigger gulp of his drink and stared at the heavens, bleating unintelligibly under his breath. “Maximillian Justice was the best attorney ever seen in Immortal Divorce Court. He is a demon many thousands of years old, and he was blessed with incomparable wit and legal prowess. He was equally feared and revered by magistrate, litigant, and his fellow members of the bar. His practice was successful, and his accolades were many. Until one day, when there was a knock on his door that would forever change the very fabric of the world and Underworld. For storming into his office in a rush of fire and brimstone was Hades, the Dark Lord himself, with divorce papers from Persephone in one hand, and the charred remains of the faerie who served him in the other.”
I laughed. “That is kind of funny. How could Persephone divorce him? She has nowhere to go since she is trapped in Hell for six months of the year anyway. No one could mess that up, could they?”
Cab looked at me with a sheepish—nay, goatish—grin on his face. “Oh,” I said. “The Big One. Justice messed up Hades’s divorce, didn’t he? But how did that happen?”
Cab took another sip of his drink. “Well, as it turns out, it was not entirely Justice’s fault, since all Persephone really wanted was more time in the mortal world. Hades refused to give in since the Lord of Darkness is not one for compromise. It was his way, or the highway to Hell, or both, if you were his wife. He made Justice file a motion to keep her in the Underworld for the entire year. You know that expression, ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’? Well, it is even worse when she has to live there. Persephone was so mad that she went for blood and hired a new young attorney, Feminera.”
“Feminera the Wicked?”
Cab nodded. “She was just Feminera back then, hadn’t quite earned the Wicked yet.”
“So what happened?”
“Feminera and Persephone schemed to destroy all copies of the prenuptial agreement between Hades and Persephone. Using guile, deceit, and bribery, they destroyed all copies in the Immortal Divorce Court’s files. Persephone threw Hades’s copy in the River Lethe, and then came to pay Maximillian Justice a little visit. He opened his door to find Persephone, clothes torn asunder, hysterical as can be, and from her beautiful red lips, she told the story of how his client, the Lord of Darkness, was going to torture her for eternity.”
I gasped. “He wouldn’t?”
Cab snorted. “You have a lot to learn about women. Of course not, it was all a ruse. For unbeknownst to Justice, sneaking in the back door of his office was Feminera, who took the last copy of the prenuptial agreement and burned it in Justice’s own hearth.”
“Oh, that is wicked,” I said.
“And so she then was named,” Cab said. “For the next day, the Head Magistrate had no choice but to classify Hell as marital property and award half of it to Persephone for eternity. Which, if you are here next month, isn’t really all that bad, what with all the unicorns and rainbows and—”
“What happened to Justice?” I thought the satyr must be way too into the wine—unicorns and rainbows in Hell? Right.
“Oh, he was ruined,” Cab said. “Feminera’s reputation grew, and Justice now had made a very powerful enemy in the Lord of Darkness. Not to mention not being able to collect on his legal fees, what with the whole fear of instant incineration and eternal damnation, which even for a demon like Justice would be very unpleasant.”
“That is a great story and all,” I said, “but, how does that help me against Feminera? How can I find Justice and at least ask for his help?”
Cab shrugged. “No one knows.”
There was a great flash of light, and a clap of thunder silenced the bar. I turned to my right to find sitting on the barstool next to me a grinning demon dressed impeccably in fine golden robes. His pointy teeth glinted as if made from gold, as did the small horns that adorned the top of his head like a crown. “Sirio Sinestra, I am Maximillian Justice, and I will take your case against Feminera.”
I gasped in amazement, “You will? Against Feminera the Wicked?”
“Wicked my fork-tailed ass. But unethical? Well, now that is a certainty.” He smiled again and lit a clove cigarette with his index finger. “And I will do it for free. I hate that bitch.”
Chapter 4
The next day I ventured to a rather plain-looking stone building that served as Justice’s office, where he would prepare me for the next day’s hearing. I knocked, and a comely servant opened the small wooden door and led me into an atrium that stretched as high as the eye could see. It looked like you could fit a mountain in there, but how was that possible, since the building I entered was rather modest from the outside?
There was nothing modest about the plush carpets and ornate tapestries adorning the walls, the furniture of antiquity, and statues that were clearly older than me, or even the gold sconces that glowed as bright as day, lighting a path for the servant to lead me deeper and deeper into Justice’s abode. She came to a huge marble door that opened smoothly, and motioned me forward. I stepped into a cavernous chamber, seemingly hewn from a single large piece of gold. I heard the demon call to me from behind a wall of dusty books, which quickly turned into a maze of mustiness as I wandered to and fro trying to get to his voice. How big was this private office I wondered, traveling down aisle after aisle of what I assumed were legal books. “Over here, this way,” Justice called. “Come on now, we don’t have all day. I know you aren’t stopping to do a little pleasure reading. Will you come on! Good Lord, for a vampire tracker, you are unbearably slow.”
I finally rounded the last corner and found Justice sitting at a dust-covered desk. The massive wooden legs were carved intricately in the likeness of dragon feet, complete with very lifelike claws. The whole desk looked as if it could walk on those scaled, reptilian legs, and I mused t
hat perhaps it really could. It was littered with countless quills of all shapes and sizes, and spilled ink pots by the dozen. Parchment in varying states of use, disuse, and downright abuse papered the floor, the desk, and a large leather chair in front of it that he motioned me to sit on. Justice then ignored me and peered through golden spectacles at some legal tomes in front of him and kept muttering to himself. I thought I heard the distant sound of harp music, so faint that it tickled my ears as I strained to hear it. I brushed at my ears, but the sound remained.
I picked up a huge double handful of papers to gain some sitting room, and nearly jumped out of my skin as two caterpillars the size of hunting beagles slid from the chair and curled up at my feet. “What in the hell are those?” I cried to an oblivious Justice. The caterpillars, one black as coal, the other white as snow, stuck out their cute little pink tongues and began licking my legs, happily cooing like little bug doves. They were actually quite beautiful creatures to behold after the shock of first seeing them wore off. The black one, on closer examination, had thousands of gold sparkles reflecting off its skin, and the white one had an equal amount of what looked to be diamonds reflecting the light from its skin in a beautiful rainbow pattern on the floor in front of the chair.
“Oh,” Justice exclaimed. “I was wondering where those bookworms had gotten to. And, oddly, they appear to like you. I find that rather ironic because I don’t believe you have read one single book that wasn’t assassin related in your entire life, now have you?”
I chose not to answer my volunteer counselor of law, and instead brushed away several centuries of dust from the chair and carefully sat down, ready to tell Justice about my problems. But Justice just went back to perusing his tomes, and the bookworms seized the opportunity to crawl into my lap and curl up for some quality snuggling time. The black one migrated up my arm and began licking my neck, and the white one was successfully nosing its way under my tunic, where its little eager tongue found my bare stomach, causing me to break out into giggles, which only encouraged the little worm even more. “Justice,” I said. “Will you please call off your bookworms?”
Justice rolled his eyes and crumpled up some loose paper. He dropped it to the floor, and the worms crawled off me and began snacking on the paper. “Don’t complain,” he grumbled. “They tried to cocoon my last client!”
Finally, I could tell my new attorney about my problems, and eyeing the bookworms warily, I told Justice everything. When I finished he waved a dismissive hand. “This vampire, why is she going after you? Her case is weak, and her theory is improbable, unreasonable, and inconceivable. Am I missing one of my favorite ‘-bles’? No, I don’t think so. And you aren’t all that wealthy. So what is it?”
In all the time I had been served and journeyed to this deity-forsaken place, I had never considered why Bloodsucker Number One was going after me for gold. “I don’t really know,” I said.
Justice laughed and gnashed his teeth so hard sparks flew. “Vampire, I was not asking your opinion. My question was rhetorical.”
“Rhet-what?”
My demon counselor shook his head sadly. “When this is all over, do yourself a favor. Get an education. Pick up a book. Actually read said book. Eternity is a mighty long time to have a vocabulary limited to words solely related to fucking, killing, and drinking alcohol.”
I glared at him as my anger rose at his insult. “I meant to go to Hedley Edrick, but it just didn’t seem important since my assassin business was doing so well, all right? I am no idiot, Justice!”
Justice’s eyes literally shot fire as he sat up in his chair and pointed a flaming finger at my chest. “That’s debatable. Listen to me, vampire, I am doing you a favor here. You show your fangs in court tomorrow like that, and I cannot do a thing for you. The Head Magistrate will find you in contempt, and your bloodsucker and Feminera will walk out with your balls. Got it?”
I knew he was right, and nodded. “Apologies.”
Justice straightened his robe with both hands. “Now,” he said. “Let me tell you a little something about females. Cross them, no pun intended, and they will go for blood. And with a female vampire like her, it is a thousand times worse. And from the look of all the cases she has filed in Immortal Divorce Court, she is pretty darn good at it.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “She could not have filed any of those cases, because she said she had never been married.”
“Uh, yeah,” Justice said, rolling his eyes. “I sure wish I had a gold coin, or two, for every time I have heard that refrain from the men getting taken to court by your bloodsucker. Try maybe one hundred times over her years—that is one ancient, evil bloodsucker you chose to consort with, my friend.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Justice nodded in mock concern. “They never do. But when you walked out on her, it was only a matter of time before she was going to track you down and make your life, well, a living Hell.”
“But, she was the one being deceitful and having carnal relations!” I exclaimed.
He laughed. “Oh, that doesn’t matter. She has been preying on people for centuries. It is what she does, and it is what she is, and what she knows how to do best. Some women are whores, but your bloodsucker chooses to fuck them in a different way. The Immortal Divorce Court way.”
“I cannot believe I am in this mess,” I said. “I still rue the day that I met Bloodsucker Number One. I cannot believe this is really happening!”
Justice shrugged, “Oh, but it is,” he said. “Tomorrow after the bloodsucker testifies, you have to rein in your emotions, your anger, and your hatred, and tell the truth. Short of contempt of court, you should be walking out of there free of that bitch forever. Two vampires cannot beget an ordinary mortal. That goes against the law of Mother Nature.”
“Thank you for listening,” I said. “But, I have a question for you.”
“It is why we are called counselors,” he replied. “What is your question?”
“Why did you come back?”
Justice smiled, fire smoldering in his eyes. He gnashed his teeth so hard sparks flew from them and lit a candle next to him aflame. “Oh, that is easy,” he said. “Redemption.”
The next day I met Justice outside of the Immortal Divorce Court courthouse. We walked up the marble steps to the main entrance, and I glared at the smirking faerie deputy guarding the entrance. A table filled with an assortment of maces, swords, daggers, and other weaponry was manned by another deputy. The courthouse was ensorcelled so any weapon brought through the doors instantly burst into flame and melted. I could see a few charred spots by the entrance that marked signs of litigants who forgot or imprudently disregarded the power of the law. Those litigants that tried to appear via crystal directly into their courtroom were instead directed straight to Hell. This fact amused me since Justice had told me he had divorce proceedings that had lasted one thousand years, so how would the litigants know the difference in venue?
Then the apparently perma-smirking deputy laid eyes on Justice and nearly dropped his spear. “You,” he sputtered. “You are back.” Hades’s incineration of the faerie process server was legendary among the faeries, and Justice was still the attorney of record for the Lord of Darkness and, thus, was afforded all proper fear and reverence.
Justice smiled at the faerie. “I am indeed,” he said. “Better warn your brethren, I hear Persephone is filing some motions tomorrow. Hope that it is not your day to serve process, my friend.”
The faerie crumpled to the ground in a clatter of soiled armor, and Justice nimbly stepped over his inert frame. I followed suit, and found myself standing before the doors of the courtroom. The doors were each hewn from a single piece of obsidian and stretched nearly twenty feet high from the stark white marble floor to the ornate gold-tiled ceiling, which was embossed with the scales of justice on each tile. I sure hoped my Justice was going to prevail this day. But a second,
more studied look at the courtroom doors caused me to gasp. A myriad of visibly angry faces moved on the doors, each mouthing silent words that fell upon nary a mortal or immortal ear. The faces changed constantly, and it was then I noticed a few of the faces were seemingly happy. Apparently, some of the litigants in this courtroom actually did come out smiling. Who knew? The doors swung open of their own volition, and I followed Justice, but the last face I saw before I entered the courtroom absolutely destroyed any last vestige of nerves I had—for smiling back at me was the absolutely orgiastic face of Bloodsucker Number One. She was holding the gold coins of her past suckers, fools, rubes, and so on, and I imagined in this case that would be . . . me.
Justice motioned for me to take a seat next to him at one of the counsel tables. The room was empty save for us, and a lone faerie deputy jumped like he had seen his worst nightmare at the very sight of Justice and hurriedly left through a back door. Immediately, the court personnel filed in, all staring and pointing at Justice. I realized I was lucky that he was the only attorney that would take my case against Bloodsucker Number One and Feminera. He ignored the clerks and deputies’ collective whispers that grew steadily from a small din to an all-out roar. Finally, Justice removed the golden spectacles from his face and dropped them on his papers. His command of the courtroom was unparalleled as he made slow, deliberate eye contact with each and every person in the room. “Good morning, good court personnel of Immortal Divorce Court,” he said. “It is my great pleasure to see you all again. Let’s cross our fingers and hope for no godly immolation today. I represent this guy—gratis if you can believe that, because I know I can’t.”
Instantly, a gaggle of salutations and pleasantries were exchanged between Justice and the staff. I guessed they were happy that the Lord of the Underworld was not Justice’s client today. I noted the clerks were all elves, and even with my keen senses, I could barely make out the speed at which their nimble fingers filed paperwork and readied the Head Magistrate’s bench for the hearing. The counsel table next to us was conspicuously empty. Where were Bloodsucker Number One and her counselor? Justice must have read my thoughts. “She has two minutes,” he said. “Feminera is all about a big entrance, and I am not talking about her anus. And besides, they put in a request to use the disabled litigants’ entrance.”
My Ex-Wife Said Go to Hell Page 5
