Fright Court

by Mindy Klasky

  “Your turn,” I said, pushing the bowl of numbers back to Allison. “Let’s see your future.”

  This time, she drew quickly, like an Olympics runner jumping out of the blocks. “Three,” she said. “A Bunny Bite.” The carrot cake morsel gleamed beneath its cap of cream cheese frosting. So. Allison’s future was going to be healthy? Nutty? A jumble of flavors, a combination of textures?

  “What do you think?” I asked, trying to gauge what Allison was feeling—about Steve, about Nora, about her life in general.

  She shrugged and eyed the cupcake as if it might be poison. “I don’t really know what to think.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “Come on, Al,” I said. “You’ve done nothing but think, ever since you ran into Kathy this afternoon. What conclusions have you come to?”

  I thought she wasn’t going to tell me anything. I thought she was going to shake her head and smile. I thought she was going to be the same Allison she’d always been, strong and decisive and capable and controlled.

  Instead, her eyes welled up with tears. Her voice, when she finally spoke, was little more than a whisper. “I thought that I could have it all. I could have the job I wanted, the baby I wanted, the … husband I wanted.”

  Her voice broke just before the word “husband.” I reached out and covered her hand with my own. “You don’t have to be perfect, Allison. You just have to be you.”

  She closed her eyes, sending one fat tear rolling down her right cheek.

  When I realized she wasn’t going to say anything more, I squeezed her fingers. “Just remember. I’ll always be here for you. For you and Nora, no matter what happens.” And I would be. No matter what craziness I faced at the Night Court. No matter what bizarre lessons James had in store for me. No matter what article Chris ended up writing about the court, about me.

  “Go ahead,” I said, when she stayed silent. “Eat the Bunny Bite.”

  She did. Her throat worked as she swallowed, and I suspected that carrot cake was never going to be one of her favorite flavors, not after tonight. In the end, though, she flashed me a winning smile. “Your turn again.”

  I could have said that I wasn’t going to draw another number. I’d eaten three miniature cupcakes; I didn’t need a fourth. But where was the fun in that? I drew a final slip of paper. Seven. The Lemon Leap—sweet citrus-scented cake topped off with tangy lemon curd, finished with tiny curls of candied yellow rind.

  “What does that mean?” Allison asked.

  With a wallop of deja vu, I could already taste the treat, the tart-sweet combination melting across my tongue. I knew that lemony perfection; I could smell it, inhale it through my pores. For just a second, the entire tray of cupcakes faded away, was replaced by a mahogany box, by a linen napkin that almost obscured some glinting metal.

  I shook my head, and the vision disappeared. “I have no earthly idea.” I saluted her with the Leap and finished off the cupcake in a single bite. As the flavor spread across the back of my tongue, I realized that I wasn’t remembering it, I wasn’t experiencing any sort of bizarre deja vu. I’d been dreaming about lemons for weeks. Lemons and endless, wind-sculpted dunes.

  At least we didn’t have any cupcakes that tasted like sand.

  I glanced at the clock above the stove. “Ach! I’ve got to run!”

  “Take some cupcakes?” Allison pushed back from the table.

  “Nope. I’ve had enough.” Besides, the treats were perfect tools for drowning sorrows.

  And I suspected that after I left, Allison was going to have quite a little pity-fest. Not that she didn’t deserve it, one hundred percent. I picked up my purse. “Are you okay?”

  She took a deep breath as she walked me to the front door. “I will be.”

  I hugged her close. “Call me, if there’s anything I can do. Any time. Any place.”

  “You know I will.”

  I wished that I could do more, right there, right then. I wished that I could tell her she was imagining things. I wished that I could tell her with absolute certainty that Steve was working hard on some obscure case, something that would amaze both of us when he finally came clean.

  But I couldn’t do that. I was pretty sure Steve didn’t have any reasonable explanation at all. There was only the truth—an uncompromising series of hard facts that would change Allison’s life forever. Allison’s life, and Nora’s. And all I could do was wait around, to help pick up the pieces after they both crashed to the ground.

  * * *

  Chris was waiting for me on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse, holding a large cup of coffee in each hand. “Pick a cup,” he replied to my surprised greeting. “Any cup.”

  “Any chance that either has extra cream?”

  “Both of them. Stirred five times, counter-clockwise.”

  I took one, but I frowned. He’d obviously paid attention—too much attention—when we had dinner at the Tabard Inn. Or maybe he’d zeroed in on my compulsive behavior at Nora’s birthday party. Either way, I was embarrassed that he’d noticed my silly traditions. “You’re teasing me. I can’t help it, with the stirring. It’s a habit.”

  “I know,” he said. “I stir seven times myself, but I guess five gets the job done.”

  I took a sip and was pleased to find that the coffee was still hot. “So? Ready for a full night of watching the court?” I asked.

  “Why do you think I brought the coffee?”

  I laughed. “You should have brought a pillow, too. Those benches get really hard.”

  “I’ll take a break every once in a while. Come bother you, out in the clerk’s office.”

  I told myself that I was ridiculous to be pleased by those words. Chris had already told me there wasn’t anything between us, that there wasn’t going to be anything between us. At least not so long as he was writing his article for the Banner. Nevertheless, a warmth spread through me that was far greater than mere coffee could account for.

  Before I could make a fool out of myself—strike that. Before I could make a greater fool out of myself, I led the way through the security checkpoint. Chris accompanied me to my office, where I quickly went through the motions of a normal work night, turning on the lights, waking up my computer, checking to make sure that the pen container was full and a stack of cover sheets was within easy reach.

  “Ready?” I asked, setting my coffee on the side of my desk. I nodded toward Chris’s beverage. “No food or drink in the courtroom.”

  He placed his cup on the corner opposite mine, edging it into position until it lined up precisely, both horizontally and vertically. I cast a quick glance at him, to see again if he was mocking me, but he only shrugged. “Can I leave mine here? Over the years, I’ve developed an unhealthy tolerance for cold coffee. I’ll drink it later, I’m sure.”

  I laughed. “Of course. Let me just set the hands on the ‘I’ll be back’ clock….” I matched actions to words, giving myself fifteen minutes to get Chris settled in the courtroom. I wanted to spend the whole night with him, keeping an eye out for anything strange, for anything out of place as the vampires played out their masquerade. I couldn’t do that, though. I didn’t want to raise anyone’s suspicion by spending so much time away from my desk. Besides, I really did have work to do, and there were certain to be new filings, as on any night.

  As we entered the courtroom, I focused on Chris, guiding him to one of the back benches, placing him that much further from the action, that much further from any tell-tale signs of my imperial colleagues. I watched as he took out his notepad and uncapped a jet black pen. He wasn’t allowed to record the proceedings electronically in this official forum; he’d be entirely dependent on his notes.

  “All rise!”

  I was so surprised that I almost cried out. That wasn’t Eleanor Owens at the front of the room. Not Eleanor Owens at all. The bailiff was a wizened black man. A wizened black human man. His shoulders were slumped over so far, I wanted to rush forward and offer him a chair. He wore a holster on his
belt, but his pants were pulled up almost to his chest. I was pretty sure he couldn’t draw his gun in less than a minute. His white socks blazed between his uniform pants and black orthopedic shoes, and he was so bow-legged that I thought I should look around for the horse he’d ridden in on.

  Where was Eleanor? Had Richardson’s men actually gotten to her the other night?

  I stood automatically, conditioned to the ritual of the courtroom. The substitute bailiff invited all people having matters before the Night Court of the District of Columbia, the Honorable, blah, blah, blah. I barely heard him, though, because I was staring at the court reporter, hoping that Alex could convey some private message to me here in the very public courtroom, that he could tell me what was going on with Eleanor.

  Which proved to be impossible because Alex wasn’t sitting at his station, either.

  A young woman stood beside the stenography machine—a young woman wearing a too-tight skirt, a low-cut blouse, and acrylic nails that looked like they’d be a match for any vampire’s fangs.

  Not Alex too? He had said he had a place to stay, a refuge where his companion would protect him. Had Richardson found it? Had one of the fires been Alex’s secondary haven, rather than the original sanctum I assumed had burned?

  The door to Judge DuBois’s chambers opened at the front of the courtroom. An iron lump had settled in my stomach, cold and heavy and so large that I could barely breathe past it. I caught myself twisting my coral ring as I waited to see who would emerge from the back, who would take the vampire’s place at the head of the Night Court.

  I needn’t have worried.

  Judge DuBois shuffled out of his chambers, every bit the frazzled, slumping, mousy-looking jurist that I’d come to expect at the human beginning of each Night Court session. He caught his robe on the heel of his shoe as he climbed the steps to his seat, coming close to falling. He shuffled papers around as if he’d never seen a legal document before. He pushed his eyeglasses high on the bridge of his nose, and he peered around the courtroom vaguely, apparently astonished to find people waiting for him. As he cleared his throat and hemmed and hawed before getting down to business, I focused on drawing a full breath, on riding out the almost-overwhelming wave of my relief. Whatever ill fate had befallen Eleanor and Alex, at least the judge had been spared.

  Chris leaned close to me. “Are you all right?”

  I could only imagine how strange I must look to him. My palms were clammy, and I was pretty sure my face was pale. I forced myself to smile and whisper, “I’m fine! I just have to get back to work.”

  Chris nodded, but the concerned creases didn’t disappear beside his eyes. I smiled again, trying to be reassuring, and then I slid off the bench. The courtroom door closed behind me as the ancient not-Eleanor bailiff called the first case of the night.

  I wasted no time getting to James’s office. He was sitting behind his desk, calm as always. Of course, he was looking up as I crossed the threshold; he’d probably heard me from the moment I left Chris’s side. I saw his nostrils flare slightly, and I knew that he smelled Chris on me, but I didn’t have time to waste on petty jealousy.

  “He got Eleanor and Alex?” I asked. “Richardson got both of them, and you didn’t tell me?”

  “Please,” James said. “Close my door.”

  I barely kept from slamming it. “James! You stood there in the Old Library last night and told me everything was fine!”

  “Everything is fine.”

  “Eleanor —”

  “Eleanor called in sick. We got a substitute bailiff from the day division.”

  Sick. Did griffins even get sick? “And Alex?”

  “He has several weeks of vacation coming to him. He decided to take a personal night tonight.”

  Relief unlaced the tendons behind my knees. I staggered forward to one of the chairs across from James’s desk. “I thought…” I said, but then I was afraid to say what I had thought. I was afraid to share the images that had melted through my brain. I closed my eyes for a single calming second, but I forced them open when I was sacked with a sudden memory of James’s hand on the doorsill of my bathroom, blooming red as the sun rose. But James’s hand had healed. He was fine, leaning back in his chair, arching his fingers in front of his chest, staring at me appraisingly.

  The posture jolted something loose in my memory—I’d seen him like that before; I’d watched him watching me. I couldn’t remember when, though, couldn’t place the first time I’d heard the precise tone of his voice, the smooth confidence of a trained expert asking a question that sounded like a statement. “You were worried about them.”

  I caught myself fiddling with my ring again. I consciously folded my hands in my lap. “I was. I mean, with Richardson out there… I feel like I should be doing something. Working to make it all better. To make it all safe.”

  “That’s my job, Sarah. And to ‘make it all safe’, I decided that we’d be more secure with a couple of substitutes on duty with Gardner in the courtroom. There’s no reason to parade imperials in front of a carefully trained observer for an entire night.”

  “But Judge DuBois?”

  “DuBois’s the most experienced imperial in the entire Eastern Empire. If he can’t fool your reporter, he doesn’t deserve to sit on the bench.”

  It was still hard for me to accept that Judge DuBois was so powerful a vampire. When he was collapsed inside his human guise, he looked so weak, so utterly ineffectual…. But that was all part of the judge’s power, wasn’t it? He had to be a master at dissembling, or James would have found some way to get him out of the courtroom, just like the others.

  “All right, then,” I said.

  “All right,” James agreed.

  I stood up and crossed to the door. Before I could open it, though, I whirled back to face him. “You know I didn’t plan this, right? I never would have invited Chris into the courtroom. Not in general. And definitely not after what happened the other night.”

  “I know, Sarah. Now get back to work. We have appearances to maintain.”

  His absolution shouldn’t have meant so much to me. But it did. I tried not to question why I cared, as I sipped my lukewarm coffee, back at my desk.

  For the rest of the night, there was the usual parade of mundane legal matters. Some group called Green Circle was staging a midnight march for environmental awareness. Even though we were still several hours shy of midnight, a number of arrests had already been made—apparently, Green Circle wasn’t above fueling its political passion with a bit of marijuana. In other news, four women were brought in, drunk and shivering after they’d decided to fill the Reflecting Pool with Jell-O and stage a wrestling contest. (I was pretty sure they would have realized that four boxes of gelatin weren’t up to the job, if only they’d been sober when they launched their brilliant idea.) Two genius teenagers had decided that they could keep classes from happening the next day, if they just blocked the doors of their high school with newspaper dispensers, stolen from street corners around town.

  As the evening wore on, the petty crimes became more and more bizarre. I handed out cover sheets to the regulars and to new attorneys alike. Around midnight, I actually had to close the office for fifteen minutes, so that I could print up more forms. I’d never seen a rush like this for Night Court services.

  I overheard one lawyer say to another, “Must be a full moon tonight. My client says he doesn’t know what came over him; he just had to try making a citizen’s arrest on that sleeping cop!”

  It wasn’t a full moon, though. In fact, the moon was almost totally dark. But I suddenly had my suspicion that there were other forces at work. Could James be purposefully summoning human cases, intent on keeping the Night Court busy until dawn? What better way to distract Chris, all while making the Night Court seem important, necessary, well beyond the reach of Dan Feld and any other political pressure? Were vampires stalking the D.C. night, Enfolding humans and convincing them to engage in petty crimes, to keep a constant strea
m of arraignments flowing for the Christopher Gardner Courtroom Show?

  I couldn’t prove anything, of course.

  I didn’t even really have a chance to dwell on the matter. I just gulped down my lunch of cheese and crackers while I typed in new case entries with one hand. I made a mad dash to the vending machines for a supplemental cup of coffee. I cradled the telephone against my shoulder while I pointed to signature lines on documents. I watched the line of waiting attorneys stretch out the door for almost all of the night.

  And finally, at four in the morning, I managed to wrap up all of the clerk’s office business. I held my breath, waiting for a fresh wave, but when I had gleaned fifteen consecutive minutes of peace and quiet, I gave myself permission to head down to the courtroom.

  I slipped inside as quietly as possible, trying not to disrupt the proceedings.

  The long night of human cases had taken its toll. Sheets of paper had been left behind, a patchwork white carpet created by attorneys, witnesses, and family members. A quick glance confirmed that the “no food” rule had been ignored by more than a few visitors—candy wrappers were shoved into the corners of benches, and at least three soda bottles rolled around on the floor. An abandoned ballpoint pen sat in the aisle, its cap chewed almost beyond recognition. My palms itched to clean up all of the detritus, but I dared not interrupt the case at bar.

  The elderly substitute bailiff looked like he was nodding off to sleep. The vivacious court reporter had lost one of her fake nails; her fingers looked out of balance as they tumbled over the keys of her machine. Judge DuBois was listening to some legal mumbo-jumbo, rubbing his hands from his chin to his forehead, as if he could force the case to disappear if he just pressed hard enough.

  Chris glanced up as I sat down beside him. His usual grin was subdued, and I hoped that the court had called a lunch recess so that he had received some break in the action. I suspected not, though. He’d never come back for his cup of now-ice-cold coffee.