High Stakes Trial

by Mindy Klasky

  “Sarah,” Chris said, and the sound of my name pulled me back to the present. I knelt on a tile floor. Chris crouched beside me.

  “Sarah,” Chris said again. We were huddling in an aisle in the fourth-floor archives of the National Museum of Natural History. My hand was splayed across an empty field of cotton wool.

  I stretched my fingers, making a wordless sound. Somehow, Chris understood me. He unfolded his own fingers, revealing Sekhmet and Sheut.

  We’d found the amulet. And finding it, we’d failed.

  Like naive children, Chris and I had thought we could follow the amulet’s power to the Seal. We’d treated it like a lark, a jaunt in the park.

  But the amulet wasn’t a trinket, to be treated like a flashlight in the night. We would never control it. The raw essence of Sekhmet and Sheut was powerful beyond anything we’d imagined. We would never bend it to our will.

  By the same token, though, we couldn’t return it to its cotton-lined bed. It was a living thing. It could never be imprisoned in the dusty archives of a museum.

  I grabbed the amulet before Chris could return it to its drawer.

  “We have to go, Sarah.”

  Clutching the charm, I tried to stand.

  “No,” he said. “You have to leave it.”

  I pulled away from his solicitous hand.

  “It’s not safe,” he said. “We have to go out the main door, past all those guards.”

  I cradled the amulet close to my heart.

  Chris swore, shooting a glance at his wristwatch. I caught a glimpse of his insignia, the hematite and coral worked into the band. He was the Sun Lion. He had the emblems of his power as sphinx. He was unbroken, and yet he didn’t understand.

  “Sarah—”

  “No.” I put all my meager strength into the word, enough power that shadows surged across the periphery of my vision. Those weren’t Sheut shadows, though. They weren’t mysterious or comforting. They were a sign that my body was too weak, that I was about to faint.

  Chris’s lips twisted into a frown, but he didn’t try to argue any longer. Instead, he stood, stripping off his blue apron as he straightened his legs. He reached for my arm and hauled me upright, somehow holding me steady as he worked my apron over my head.

  I held the amulet fast, which couldn’t have made things easy. I didn’t care.

  “Come on,” he said, hurrying me down the aisle to the main corridor. When I stumbled, he caught me with a rough grip on my biceps. I wasn’t about to use my own hands to break my fall.

  “Give that thing to me,” he said.

  “No!” That seemed to be the only word I knew.

  “I’ll give it back,” he said. “We just have to get out of—”

  “No,” I repeated.

  “Fine!” he snapped. “Put it in your pocket, though. You can’t walk out of here holding it in plain view.”

  I shoved my hand in my pocket, but I wouldn’t let go of the glass. Chris duck-walked me to the yellow trashcan he’d left by the entrance to the Anthropology archives. He tossed our aprons into the plastic-lined maw and planted my left hand on the rim. “Come on.”

  We pushed the can together. Chris moved us forward, while I shuffled like a patient in rehab. Each step, though, brought more strength to my spine. Every rank of shelves we passed cleared my head.

  Bathrooms were located near the elevator. Chris pushed the trashcan into the men’s room, shoving hard enough that the door swung closed behind it. He slipped an arm around my waist, taking most of my weight as he pounded the button to call the elevator.

  As the doors closed behind us, I rubbed my thumb against the amulet in my pocket. I could feel the potential there, the vast stores of energy I had sampled mere minutes before.

  Sekhmet.

  Sheut.

  We reached the main floor, and Chris half-led, half-carried me out of the elevator. An announcement was squawking overhead: The museum was closing in five minutes. We stumbled past the elephant, past the mammals, past the ancient dinosaurs.

  A security guard stepped forward, his face creased with concern. “May I help you, sir?”

  Chris shook his head. “No, thanks,” he said. “She just needs some fresh air.”

  The guard looked doubtful, but he led us to the closest door, one marked Entrance Only. He pushed hard on the brass handle, helping us to pass outside.

  Chris slipped one arm around my waist, guiding me down the interminable flight of steps. My feet dragged, my toes catching on the smooth planks of granite. It took forever to reach the sidewalk and even longer to gain a row of parked vehicles.

  The breeze shifted, carrying the scent of cooking meat. We stood in front of a long line of food trucks, specializing in everything from tacos to Thai to mouth-watering kabobs.

  Chris dragged us toward the closest truck, barking out an order for lamb on a skewer. I mewed a protest, and he scowled, but he quickly changed his order to falafel.

  He handed over his money and collected the fried chickpeas, along with a monster-size Coca-Cola. We staggered to a bench, and he twisted the cap off the bottle, ordering me to take a drink. I started to shake my head, but my throat was suddenly raging with thirst. I downed a quarter of the bottle without coming up for air.

  As I drank, Chris tore a ball of falafel in half. He blew on the steaming food to cool it, testing it against his lower lip like a father protecting his toddler. He passed it to me, and I barely took the time to chew before I swallowed.

  Another bite, and I felt my body stabilize. A third, and I could sit up on my own. By the time I finished the falafel, and its pita wrap, and every bite of the accompanying lettuce and tomato, I was feeling close to human.

  But I wasn’t human. I’d never been human. Once and for all, the amulet hidden in my pocket had made that perfectly clear.

  26

  If Chris ever decided to give up his Sun Lion gig, he could get a great job as a general caretaker. After he finished feeding me falafel, he called an Uber. He helped me into the back seat, holding his hand over my head to keep me from bumping against the doorframe.

  I didn’t realize we were heading to my place until the car pulled up in front of my apartment. “I thought—” I started to say.

  “You’ll sleep better in your own bed.”

  I wasn’t sure about that. Chris’s bed was pretty damn comfortable. But I was far too exhausted to argue.

  Instead, I concentrated on maneuvering down the stairs, carefully placing one foot after the other. Chris hovered by my side, his fingers poised near my elbow as if he could pluck me to safety with the strength of his thumb and forefinger alone.

  Chris used his own key to let us in. It wasn’t until the door swung open that I had a premonition. Or maybe my common sense finally kicked in.

  James stood just inside the front door, feet planted, eyes narrowed. “What the hell did you do to her?” he snarled as Chris crossed the threshold.

  Chris stepped in front of me, as if I had something to fear from the vampire in my home. “Get back, Morton.”

  James expressed his fangs with an audible pop. Chris squared up, equally ready to take or throw a punch.

  “Stop!” I shouted. “Both of you!” I closed my hand over the amulet in my pocket, praying to Sekhmet for the strength to stay on my feet.

  “You,” I said to James. “Stand down. Chris didn’t do anything to me.”

  James gave an ostentatious sniff, as if he could smell magic on me. I straightened my spine, hoping to give him nothing more to comment on than fried chickpea batter and an extra helping of tzatziki.

  Clearly, James remained unconvinced. I straightened my spine and said, “Chris was just seeing me home. I put too much energy into a working this evening. He grounded me. I’m fine.”

  “You aren’t fine,” Chris said. “You need to sleep.” He turned a pointed glance on James. “So I’m sure you’re leaving now.”

  Predictably, James bristled. “Sarah and I have an appointment.”
>
  “Crap,” I said. I’d put James off so I could visit Allison, but I’d promised him we could meet on Saturday. I turned to Chris. “We’re going to Richardson’s tonight.”

  “Absolutely not,” he said. “You’re in no shape to walk across the room, much less drop in on the most heinous vampire in the city.”

  I actually felt my heels dig into the carpet. “Do not tell me what I can and cannot do.”

  “Sarah, be reasonable! You just—”

  “I just committed a felony on federal property. I just bluffed my way past dozens of security guards, carrying contraband that could have me imprisoned for years. I just ate a perfectly restorative dinner, and I’m feeling fine.”

  I wasn’t, not entirely. I was drawing on a tiny filament of energy, a thread of electric anticipation that sizzled like a fuse inside my brain. At least this wasn’t the trigger to forbidden agriotis. It was something new, something different. It must have been planted inside my skull when Sheut possessed my body.

  I suspected I would crash hard after I’d exploited this pool. But I still had the capacity of diving deep for a few hours more.

  Chris gave me a dirty look, and I realized he was embarrassed to have James hear about our exploits. But he said, “If you have to see Richardson, then I’ll come too.”

  “No,” James said, before I could begin to muster a response.

  “I’m the Sun Lion—”

  “I’m well aware of your title,” James said, somehow giving the impression that he was plucking a speck of lint off his lapel, even though he didn’t move an inch.

  “Then you’re well aware of the fact that the Den is responsible for vampires throughout the Eastern Empire. For every vampire. And even if you think you’ve somehow declared yourself exempt from oversight with your disappearing tricks and your abdication of responsibility as Director of Security for the Night Court, Maurice Richardson is still very much under our control.”

  “Vampires aren’t controlled by sphinxes,” James said stiffly. “At least those of us who aren’t bound by your goddamn Ancient Commission.”

  “Speaking of which—” Chris began, but I cut him off before he could raise the specter of his New Commission.

  “Excuse me!” I said sharply. “Do I have to remind you two that you’re standing in my living room? I’m the one who makes the rules here.”

  Chris ignored my declaration. “No time like the present,” he said pointedly—a not-too-subtle command to broach the subject of the New Commission.

  “We don’t have time,” I snapped. “Not right now.”

  James looked conflicted. Obviously, he was winning the battle with Chris. I was agreeing to visit Richardson. But he had to be intrigued by the broad hints Chris was dropping. James had to question what the Den—or, at least, the Sun Lion—was planning for all vampire-kind.

  I could stand up to the sparring Chris and James. I would manage the visit to Richardson. But I couldn’t fathom telling James about the New Commission. Not that night. Maybe not ever.

  I took a step toward Chris, determined to stop him in his tracks. At the last possible second, I softened my voice from the harsh command I’d tested in my head. “Go,” I said.

  “But—”

  “James wouldn’t take me there if it wasn’t safe.”

  Chris wasn’t buying it. “Until a week ago, James wanted your life in exchange for DuBois’s.”

  Well, that put the truth out there, in rock-hard black and white.

  Chris pressed his advantage. “Take a look in the mirror, Sarah. You’ll have a scar forever from James’s idea of safety.”

  I barely resisted the urge to raise my fingers to my throat. I already knew what I’d feel—a pair of scabs where James had bitten me. But he hadn’t meant to hurt me. And he was my only link to Richardson.

  My brain knew that Maurice Richardson hadn’t bought the auction lots of Egyptian artifacts. Mohammed Apep had. Chris had told me that.

  But my heart wasn’t ready to give up on the notion that Richardson had Sekhmet’s Seal. He was too embedded in every shadowy deal that took place in the Eastern Empire. Maybe he was the reclusive Apep. Maybe he’d spirited the Seal from Apep’s collection.

  Maybe I was absolutely, stone-cold wrong. But I wouldn’t put anything past Maurice Richardson. And I couldn’t hold back if there was a hint, a chance, even the vaguest suspicion that I could execute my goddess’s order by following James to Richardson’s camp.

  I cupped Chris’s jaw with my palm. The line of his flesh was different from the familiar feel embedded in my memory. He still wore the costume he’d donned for the museum’s security cameras.

  I still wore mine.

  I pulled my hand away and stripped off my wig. “Go,” I said again. “James will keep me safe.”

  He eyed the vampire, clearly doubting James’s ability to protect me. “At least tell me where you’re going.”

  “South East DC,” James said promptly, as if an entire quadrant of the city was enough of an answer.

  “Can I get an address?”

  “No.”

  Chris didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to trust James. But he was man enough, sphinx enough, to let me determine my own fate. After a long, silent moment, he nodded toward my pocket, toward the amulet hidden from the light of day. “Do you want me to take that?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve got it.”

  He hesitated for a moment longer, but then he stalked out the door.

  I was walking a tightrope. There were only so many times I could push Chris to his limits. Only so many times I could send him away, without regard for the emotions that flowed beneath his calm, orderly sphinx exterior.

  But I had my limits too. I needed to keep my word. I’d promised James, and I couldn’t go back on that now.

  I waited until the door closed before I looked down at my wig. “Give me a minute, okay?” I said to James. He nodded as I ran my hand through my sweat-dampened hair.

  Back in my bedroom, I peeled off the prosthetic nose. I reached into my mouth and snapped free the false teeth that had twisted my jaw. I folded the disguise into a tight bundle. I’d have to discard it outside the apartment, somewhere that wouldn’t incriminate me if it were found.

  Speaking of incrimination…

  I pulled the amulet out of my pocket. What the hell was I going to do with it? I couldn’t take it with me, not to Richardson’s lair.

  I pulled open the top drawer of my dresser. The sensation felt strangely familiar, and I realized that I’d opened and closed hundreds of drawers that afternoon, studying the museum’s holdings.

  In the end, I buried the amulet in a pair of socks, plain white anklets that I tucked into a corner of the drawer. My fingers tingled as I shut them away, and I wondered if I could harness the amulet’s inherent power to give it added protection.

  But even I knew it was too soon to call on my magic again. I couldn’t risk another conversation with Sekhmet and Sheut. I couldn’t chance going too far, too deep, and never finding my way home again.

  Rubbing my hands against my ragged jeans, I headed to my bathroom. I ran my fingers through my hair, massaging my scalp from the nape of my neck to my forehead. I washed my face with freezing water and brushed my teeth, twice for good measure. I pulled my hair up into a high ponytail.

  I considered changing clothes, but there was no need. No vampire would give a damn about my sartorial flair. Better that I keep wearing my comfortable clothes. Clothes I could move in, if the occasion required. Clothes I could fight in.

  I raised my chin and opened my bedroom door. James sat on my couch, patient as a statue. I tried not to squirm as he surveyed my appearance.

  “All right.” I said. “Let’s do this.”

  I turned the deadbolt as we left, pretending that would be enough to keep the amulet safe from discovery forever. Or at least until I was through confronting Maurice Richardson.

  27

  I expected James to lead me to his Me
rcedes, to the car that had always seemed to express his calm sophistication and his iron sense of control.

  Instead, he took me to a broken-down Ford Fiesta. The car had probably been red at some point in its life, but now it was rust-colored. Or maybe it simply was all rust. It took three tries to start, and from the underfed-Doberman growl of its engine, a tune-up was long past due.

  “Where in South East are we going?” I asked as James pulled into traffic.

  He ignored me. Or maybe he couldn’t hear me over the engine’s roar.

  In any case, it didn’t take long for us to reach our destination. James drove past Nationals Stadium, the ballpark dark after an afternoon game. The nightlife at nearby bars and restaurants was bustling, though. Customers and music alike spilled out into the street.

  We left the revelry behind and crossed the Anacostia River. On the far shore, we entered a different city—one that still called itself DC but played by a different set of rules. Irons bars covered the windows and doors of the narrow townhouses. At least one home in every block was boarded up, graffiti splattering the plywood.

  James turned onto a narrow street. The shell of a car rusted on the corner, all four tires stripped away. A fire hydrant leaked into the road, leaving a wet streak that looked like blood. The streetlamp in the middle of the block was dark, the globe around its broken bulb shattered into jagged teeth.

  The Fiesta looked perfectly at home when James maneuvered into a parking space. I winced as the tires crunched over a glass bottle that had been hidden in the dark.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  He led the way up the steps of a sagging rowhouse. Its tiny patch of lawn had long since turned to dust. The front porch was filled with a dilapidated couch and the stench of mildew.

  I almost missed the vampire lurking in the shadows.

  It was the foot soldier who’d attacked me at the courthouse. He didn’t seem aware of the fact that he’d lost his shirt. His ribs stood out like fenceposts, the slats made starker by the loose skin that dripped from his collarbones. His arms were wasted twigs, ending in broad, flat fingers.