“By the power vested in me as counsel of record appearing in this honorable Immortal Divorce Court, I call the Winter Witch by her true name, Victoria Jones, to the stand to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth. This I decree!” cried Justice.
Ordinary-sounding Tori Jones was the boil-inducing creature that cursed me and then tried to have me eaten by her shark familiar? The temperature in the courtroom dropped, my breath frosting the air. She was coming all right, and she was not happy about it. Wisdom and Knowledge huddled close to me for warmth, and that I was happy about. I looked over at the werewolf contingent, and true to form, they did not even bat an eye at the temperature change. Sir Gareth yawned and held out his hands to his clerks, who immediately and expertly began buffing his fingernails. Justice pointed a finger at the ashtray on his table and summoned a small fire to the delight of his law clerks and the dismay of the Head Magistrate’s clerk.
Suddenly the courthouse doors flew open, pushed by an angry blizzard of snow and wind that pelted all in the courtroom with its wintry fury, including the Head Magistrate, who immediately stood up at her bench and peered through the frosty precipitation to identify just who was invading her courtroom. Sauntering down the aisle strutted the Winter Witch, also apparently known as Victoria Jones, with snow forming a regal crown about her head and covering her body like a formal ball gown. In her arms she carried that accursed white cat, which, to my great pleasure, was wearing a patch over its right eye—the eye that I had stuck a sword in not so long ago when the cat familiar was in shark form. It saw me and hissed angrily, spitting and struggling in the arms of its master.
“Cease your magic, Miss Jones,” commanded the Head Magistrate. She motioned to the head deputy to approach the Winter Witch, and he began sweating profusely in the arctic cold at the prospect of doing just that. “Or I shall find you in contempt of court, and rest assured all your winter magic is no match for the fires of Hell!”
Just as quickly as the snow had come upon us, it vanished, leaving the Winter Witch in a staring contest with the Head Magistrate. The Winter Witch shook out her long white hair and pursed her blood-red lips, finally smiling wickedly at the Head Magistrate. “As you wish,” she said. “Why have you called me to this accursed place known as Immortal Divorce Court? And you people call me evil? Judgmental, no?”
She looked at the occupants of the courtroom for the first time, now that her snow show was over, and laid her eyes upon me and the Howler. “Well, that explains it,” she said. She turned to the Howler. “Honey. He is a cock in every sense of the word, but a good lay like that cannot be found just anywhere. Divorce—were you sure about that? I hate him for what he did to my sweet kitty, and would have gladly made him a gelding, but since his parts are enchanted beyond even my magic, I would still have him in the sack. Heck, even right here, right now.”
“Miss Jones!” said the Head Magistrate. “Show some proper decorum. You will follow my rules. This is my courtroom. You are here to provide testimony in this matter. You will take the stand. You will tell the truth. You will keep your magic in check. Do you understand?”
“Fine,” the Winter Witch answered. “Way to take all the fun out of it, Head Magistrate,” she muttered. She continued down the aisle and gave an exaggerated wink to Wisdom and Knowledge. She pushed through the swinging gate separating the gallery from the counsel tables and witness stands, and stopped as she passed our table. That stupid cat of hers was practically frothing at the mouth in its attempt to get at me, but the Winter Witch held her pussy fast. She reached into her cleavage and pulled out a small gold pin, which she flicked in my direction. “I believe that belongs to you,” she said. “Or better yet, you can return it to the sea whore that saved your ass. Or, most of it anyway.”
What was she talking about? As I grasped the pin, it morphed into the golden sword I used to wound her familiar. There was a collective gasp of shock from all the court personnel, Wisdom and Knowledge, and lastly—me! Weapons were not allowed in Immortal Divorce Court, and somehow the Winter Witch had gotten this sword into the courtroom—a sword that was about to shatter into a million fragments. Instantly, I draped my body over the sword, trying to protect Wisdom and Knowledge from the blast, and waited for the incredible, incomprehensible pain to come.
But all I felt was a tap on my shoulder, and Knowledge beckoned for me to get off the table, which I did sheepishly. “What happened?” I whispered. “Why didn’t this get destroyed?”
“I can answer that, Mr. Sinister,” said the Head Magistrate. “You really need to learn how to whisper properly. That weapon is known as the Blade of Truth. Its powers are many, and hopefully they are not lost on an assassin as unlearned as you.”
“Thanks,” I muttered. Did the Head Magistrate think I was that big of an imbecile? My question was quickly answered.
“It is more than just a sword. The Blade of Truth cuts deep and serves no master,” the Head Magistrate continued. “Wield it with care.”
I held the sword out and looked at it closely for the first time. Were there strange runes embossed deep within this blade? I peered at it and saw only my own confused expression staring back at me. The simple truth was that the Blade of Truth had me utterly befuddled.
Justice cleared his throat. “Head Magistrate, since this is one of the Seven Sacred Relics, I presume that my client will face no charges or a contempt sentence from being in possession of such a weapon in this court?”
“You are correct, Mr. Justice,” the Head Magistrate almost grumbled. “As you know, as one of the Seven Sacred Relics, it is immune to the powers of this court.” She looked at me with definite irritation. “Since you apparently know nothing of what we speak, Mr. Sinister, allow me to enlighten you. The Relic now in your possession chooses who wields it—and apparently, it has chosen you. But once its purpose has been served, and you are no longer in need, it will vanish, to be conveyed to its next rightful possessor.” The Head Magistrate sighed, then looked with great irritation at the Winter Witch. “And unfortunately for me, Miss Jones, and lucky for you, I cannot find you in contempt for that little stunt of yours, since you were returning one of the Seven Sacred Relics to its lawful possessor.”
The Winter Witch smiled at me and then bowed down deep and ever so mockingly to the Head Magistrate. “Glad to be of service to the court. But it wasn’t the first time I’ve given it to a hero,” she replied, adding, “The blade, I mean. I was certain that blade was his to possess.” Her words dripped with sarcasm, and she waited until the Head Magistrate glanced down at her papers, then looked to me, shaking her head and mouthing a definite no.
“Take the stand, Miss Jones, and you may consider yourself sworn,” said the Head Magistrate. “Mr. Justice, this witness is yours.”
Justice stood and took in the Winter Witch, who smiled at him. Clearly, she was enjoying herself. Justice was not amused. “Miss Jones,” he said, “did Angus Blackheart tell you where Mr. Sinister was imprisoned?’
“Yes, he did,” she said. “I just had to pay Mr. Sinister a little visit when I heard I had a captive audience.”
“So, he was chained when you arrived?”
“Delightfully so,” she answered. “And he was chained when I left.”
“Objection,” shouted Sir Gareth. “Move to strike her last retort as unresponsive. Justice never asked her that!”
“It is stricken,” said the Head Magistrate. “Continue, Mr. Justice.”
Justice nodded. “When you found him chained, what did you do?”
“I tried to cut off his manhood because I was mad at him,” she said.
“And you failed.”
I wiped a bead of sweat from my brow. Just hearing about what the Winter Witch had tried to do was making me perspire. Damn right she failed. Thank you, sweet Persephone.
“I did,” the Winter Witch said. She locked gazes with me. “No hard feelings? Well, that was ironic,
because if I had succeeded . . .”
“Miss Jones!” shouted the Head Magistrate. “This is your last warning!”
“Was he chained when you left him in Peel Castle?”
The Winter Witch nodded. “He was.”
Justice nodded and came back to our table. “I tender the witness to Sir Gareth,” he said.
Sir Gareth rose and came forward to stand near the Winter Witch. Foolishly, he reached out to pat the now sedate kitty, which lay half sleeping in her lap. It whirled instantly and slashed at his hand with a sharp claw, opening up a cut, which began to bleed profusely. One of his law clerks let out a shriek and fainted, falling to the floor with a thud, while the other came forward quickly with a handkerchief to staunch the blood. Sir Gareth hopped back and forth in silent pain and shook his hand, covering the wound with the handkerchief that soon grew red with his blood. “Sorry about that, Sir Gareth.” The Winter Witch’s look made it clear she wasn’t remotely sorry. “Though it does explain why you like dick so much, since this is how pussy treats you. And you are clearly more of a dog person, or persona, as it were.”
“Do you need a moment, Sir Gareth,” the Head Magistrate queried.
He shook his head no, but did pause for a moment to collect his thoughts before glaring angrily at the cat. “Miss Jones,” he said, his voice even and calm, “you did not see Mr. Sinister at any point after you left him chained him in the dungeon at Peel Castle sixteen years ago until now, correct?”
“No, that is not correct,” she said. “I came after him about five years ago with a little winter storm.” She looked at me this time with a look that remarkably resembled respect. “He is an able adversary. I magicked my pussy familiar into a great shark beast, and despite its best efforts, kitty could not kill him.” She stroked the cat’s eye patch regretfully.
“But you cannot tell this court that he was chained to the walls of the dungeon in Peel Castle for the whole twelve years before that, can you?”
“I cannot.”
Sir Gareth had recovered from the cat’s slashing, and pompousness had replaced pain on his face. “Very well, Miss Jones, very well,” he said. “I have no more questions for you.” He turned to walk to his table and then paused and turned back to the Winter Witch. “Actually, I do have one more question for you. You don’t have any knowledge of any person that can place Mr. Sinister in that dungeon for those twelve years, do you?”
The Winter Witch’s eyes sparkled like tiny drops of ice in the sunlight. “No, Sir Gareth, I do not—unless, that is, you consider a boil a person.”
Sir Gareth’s face grew pale, evident even through the copious amount of rouge that adorned his face. I looked to Justice, who merely sat with his hands folded, enjoying watching Sir Gareth squirm at this apparent error. But how did the Winter Witch bringing up the boil help me? It is not like that pus-spewing pustule could testify. Could it?
“Boils are not people, but very funny indeed, Miss Jones,” Sir Gareth said, sitting down.
Justice rose to his feet and could now barely contain his mirth and good fortune. “Perchance did you curse my client with a talking one-hundred-year boil?”
“Yes,” the Winter Witch answered. “Yes, I did. Right before I left him. If I couldn’t take his manhood, I was going to give him a living, breathing pain in the ass.”
“So the boil is sentient?”
The Winter Witch nodded. “Well, it was sentient,” she said.
“What happened to the boil?”
“As I said, I sent kitty in shark form to try and kill your client, and she failed to do so. But in the process she took from Sinister a large chunk of his backside, thus removing the boil.”
“So, the boil is dead—never to be seen or heard from again?” Justice said.
The Winter Witch scoffed at his seeming ignorance. “I did not say that, Mr. Justice. The familiar is a creation of my magic and, therefore, absorbed the boil, which was another creation of my magic. The boil is not dead, but merely in hi-boil-nation, so to speak.”
“Can you summon the boil again?”
Sir Gareth jumped to his feet, not liking where this line of questioning was going. “I object,” he said. “This is highly irrelevant. It does not matter if she can summon the boil or not. It is not a recognized sentient entity capable of testifying, even if she could summon it, and therefore, the boil cannot testify.”
“Your Honor,” Justice said. “It is entirely within your discretion to determine the competency of the boil to testify.”
The Head Magistrate nodded. “I agree with Mr. Justice,” she said. “And I am inclined to hear what the boil has to say about what it saw those years it was with Sinister. Miss Jones, can you bring forth the boil?”
The Winter Witch looked at me with absolute glee. Surely, I did not have to suffer that horrid indignity once again? The thought of dropping my trousers in open court made me feel ill. The witch felt about her person and realized she did not have her Dagger of Despair. “Drat,” she said. “Stupid, stupid, stupid court. I will have to put the boil on kitty, Your Honor.”
She muttered a few incantations under her breath, and the cat leaped from her lap onto the rail of the witness stand with a terrified yowl. A shower of cat hair cascaded onto the floor of the courtroom, and forming on a patch of new pink skin on kitty’s backside was the nasty two-lipped, pus-spitting menace that was the boil. “I am back!” shouted the boil, spitting pus happily. “But, on kitty? Mistress, but why?”
The Winter Witch looked at the boil with pity. “You are at the mercy of the Immortal Divorce Court, boil, so try and behave.”
The boil became more aware of its surroundings as the cat whirled to and fro in a futile effort to dislodge the boil from its backside. “Werewolves, demons, and vampires, oh my,” it said. “Whoa, who are those lovely creatures? Why couldn’t you have put me on the ass of one of them?” Knowledge and Wisdom looked absolutely disgusted and tried to sink down behind me. Then the boil realized it knew me. “Sinister,” it said. “Figures this mess was of your creation. Sorry I didn’t recognize you sooner, perhaps if you had been bent over?”
“Enough with your rambling, boil,” the Head Magistrate said. “Clearly you are capable of testifying, and I find you competent to do so. Deputy, swear in the boil.”
“Oh, you don’t have to swear me,” the boil said. “I can do it myself—bitch, shit, bastard, asshole, fuckface—how is that?”
The Head Magistrate hung her head for a moment, seemingly frustrated by her limited ability to control her courtroom this day. What was she going to do—threaten a talking boil that was living on the backside of a cat familiar with contempt? I would have loved to see the Winter Witch’s familiar become a whole lot more familiar with Hell. “Boil,” she said, “you are going to need to tell the truth.”
“Why didn’t you say that the first time?” the boil said, sputtering an increasingly nasty amount of pus all over the cat, the railing, and the courtroom floor. “What do you want me to tell you?”
“Mr. Justice and Sir Gareth are going to ask you questions,” she said. “All you have to do is answer truthfully. Mr. Justice, the boil is yours.”
“Boil,” he said, “where have you been these last sixteen years?”
“Oh, that is an easy one,” the boil said. “I was worried that I wasn’t going to know the answers. I was stuck to the ass of that ass Sirius Sinister up until the time kitty here in shark form took a bite out of said ass and ate me.” The boil paused for a moment. “Odd, and now I am on the ass of kitty, who knew? Life sure is strange! Full circle from ass to pussy, though truth be told, since I am under oath, tain’t a lot of space between the two!” The boil broke down in a spitting pus-fest of hysterics. “I am still hilarious!”
“Where was Sinister in the time you were attached to his backside?” Justice asked when the boil had regained what passed as carbuncle com
posure.
The boil chuckled and then spit a huge gob of pus that landed just shy of Justice’s foot. “That fool was chained to a wall in Peel Castle for just about all those twelve years, except maybe a week or so,” the boil said. “And I had to listen to his idle ramblings the whole time, with only those stupid faeries coming to visit to serve him or whatever. I did spit pus on them, but good though!”
“How did Sinister get free?”
“That man that knew not to come too close freed him with some kind of magical wine,” the boil said. “Sure wish I could have gotten a gob of pus on that pompous ass—he kept saying he was some kind of teacher or something.”
Justice looked at the boil, hesitating for a moment. “Do you know who this man was?”
“Mmmm,” the boil said. “Bad knees, bald head, reeked of goat sausage—was it Edly Headlick? No, no, that is not right. I know, give me a second. I know—it was Hedley Edrick!” A collective gasp echoed around the courtroom, and I could hear the clerks and deputies whispering loudly.
“Silence,” the Head Magistrate ordered. “Just because the name of the Scholar of Scholars is mentioned in this courtroom does not give you an excuse to titter like a bunch of washerwomen!”
Justice continued when the tumult had died down. “So, once freed by Hedley Edrick, the Master of Masters, Sinister did what?”
“He got on a boat to come back to London to get some gold and go hire you so he could get his children back,” spouted the boil.
“Objection, leading, nonresponsive, irrelevant,” shouted Sir Gareth. “Move to have that answer stricken!”
“The boil clearly knows where Sinister went, and it can thus answer,” Justice said.
“Overruled,” said the Head Magistrate. “Overruled.”
My Ex-Wife Said Go to Hell Page 29
