A Candle in the Sun

by L. J. LaBarthe

  Adramelek quirked an eyebrow. “Isn’t that against the established rules of this procedure? Tzadkiel’s going to have a conniption.”

  “I wasn’t planning on telling him, and neither will you. Look, we didn’t have a lot of time to verify this, so I used my power. The man has no idea, I left no trace behind. I’m not a newborn angel, after all.” Raziel shrugged. “Small mercies, though—at least they didn’t ask the judges to have Hiwa show up and testify.”

  Adramelek groaned. “How is it that one of those two is nearly as pure as the driven snow and the other is almost as corrupt as Ondrass?”

  “You’re asking me?” Raziel laughed. “I have no idea. It’s not really important, though. I think we should make sure our rooms are warded like you said and just be ready for a harsh cross examination when the Venatores, Declan, and Liam take the stand on Monday.”

  Michael growled at that and Adramelek looked at him in surprise. “If my people or Gabriel’s people are harmed in any way, emotionally or psychologically, there will be a stern retribution.”

  “You have to let the legal process run its course,” Raziel said. “Listen, if Transom’s people don’t get at least life in prison, we can revisit the idea of taking over and dealing with it ourselves, as Archangels and with the Guild of Glass Knives. But until then, we have to let this play out for the greater good—for Earth, for all humanity, witches, and monsters.”

  Michael sighed. “As you say. I dislike this, however.”

  “I think I can say that we all do,” Raziel said.

  “Definitely,” Adramelek said. “All right, I’ll go and get the others and get to work on shielding up our end of things. When does court go back in session?”

  “Two hours,” Raziel said.

  “We’ll see you in there, then,” Adramelek said. “Gentlemen,” he added by way of farewell.

  “Adramelek,” Raziel replied, nodding once.

  Adramelek nodded in return and left the two Archangels, returning to his Guild.

  THEY ENTERED the court building in a tight knot, Angelique and Declan leading, Lily and Riley behind them, and Baxter and Liam bringing up the rear. Liam was not looking forward to this. He’d experienced enough law courts when he’d worked as a police officer, and while the questioning he’d experienced had been straightforward, he’d seen enough witnesses crumple beneath the weight of heavy questioning by both prosecution and defense. The knowledge that his brother, his friends, and his lover, not to mention he himself, were about to be in a situation similar to those he had seen many years before was not pleasant.

  Raziel met them at a pair of glass doors set into a dark oak frame. His expression was gentle, and he smiled at them as they stopped in front of them. “How are you?” he asked.

  “Nervous,” Declan said. “This place is pretty imposing, you know.”

  “Yes, it was designed to be that way. Quake and tremble before this grand facility of law,” Raziel said. “There’s been a development.”

  “Oh?” Liam wondered what had happened.

  “Court is in closed session right now. It’s just the lawyers and the judges. The Transom people are all in their cells and we’ve been asked to give the court members some privacy. It seems that your reports, presented by Michael only yesterday, have caused quite a stir.”

  “What does that mean?” Angelique asked.

  “It means, my dear, that you don’t have to testify. The judge from Kenya felt that it would be unkind to submit you to questioning about such a terrible situation when you had already prepared extremely thorough reports. The judge from the United States concurred, and the judge from New Zealand did too. So now they are in there, discussing sentencing.”

  “So why are we here?” Declan asked. Liam thought that was a very damn good question.

  “They asked that you remain in case there is a question they have about your reports. I don’t think there will be, personally, but it’s better to be certain. So, come inside and I’ll take you to the restaurant here, and we’ll wait until Tzadkiel finds us and tells us what’s going to happen. And,” Raziel looked long and hard at each of them, “I thought you might want to be present as observers for the sentencing.”

  Liam let out a slow breath. He hadn’t even thought about that possibility.

  “I want to see them get what’s coming to them,” Lily said. “Are the witches on trial too?”

  “All of Transom is on trial,” Raziel said. “From the CEO to the lab techs, and everyone in between. Anyone who was aware of what was going on and participated in it is on trial. A few of the witches have made deals with the prosecution and so are excluded from this round of legal procedures, but they will still have to be dealt with and will be in the United States.”

  “Oh.” Lily bit her lower lip and Liam reached out and touched her shoulder. She smiled up at him and then looked at Raziel. “Good,” she said.

  “Come along now,” Raziel said, opening the doors with a wave of his hand, “let’s get some coffee or tea if you prefer.”

  The waiting was the worst part. Liam found himself watching the large clock in the restaurant, watching the second hand as it slowly made its way around the face. Each second felt like eternity, and he wished fervently that something or someone would make time speed up. The little group he sat with said nothing, all of them lost in their thoughts, wondering what was happening, what was being discussed in chambers, what the outcome of that discussion would be.

  Around noon, Raziel suggested they eat something. Although Liam didn’t feel as if he could, he decided that it would be easier to just do as Raziel suggested than protest. The others seemed to feel the same way, for they all looked at each other and, as one, sighed heavily. Liam ordered the smallest thing he could find on the menu: a roast chicken salad open sandwich with fries on the side.

  When the food was brought, Liam was astonished to find he was ravenous. He ate with gusto, savoring the flavors, and as he ate, he felt a little better about the situation that he found himself in. Waiting had never been something he was good at, and he’d hated the long, drawn-out process of sitting in a car for hours on end doing stakeouts. That had been his least favorite part of being a cop.

  “How much longer is this going to take?” Angelique demanded.

  Liam looked at her, amused that she’d spoken aloud what he was thinking.

  Raziel shrugged. “I have no idea, to be honest. Let me ask Tzad.” His eyes grew distant as Liam watched and Liam leaned back in his seat. Baxter took his hand and Liam gently squeezed his lover’s fingers.

  “They’re coming out of chambers now,” Raziel said, and Liam jumped slightly.

  “What does that mean?” Declan demanded.

  “It means that they’re taking fifteen minutes and then they’re going back in for sentencing. Tzad says hold your horses a little longer, and in twenty, we can all go in and hear the verdict.”

  “About damn time,” Liam said.

  “Amen, bro,” Declan agreed.

  “I will be so glad to get out of here,” Angelique said. “Are we leaving for Puerto Rico from here, guys?”

  Liam shook his head. “No, let’s go from Salem. Dec and I need to pack a few things, anyway.”

  “Me too,” Baxter said. “I’m taking my surf board. You promised me waves, babe. And I want to see how good I am now that I’m the Million Dollar Shifter Man.”

  Liam laughed. “You’re still not getting me on that thing. I bet you’ll be awesome, though, prosthetic or not.”

  “A man can dream,” Baxter said, giving Liam a cheeky wink.

  They bantered for the next quarter of an hour, and Liam felt as if the mood at the table had lightened considerably. He still kept an eye on the clock, though, and as the minute hand ticked onto the quarter of an hour mark, his gaze slid to Raziel. Once again, the Archangel’s eyes were distant and Liam knew that meant that Raziel was talking to another angel. As he watched, Raziel slowly blinked once and then opened his eyes.

 
“All right, are you ready?” he asked them.

  In response, everyone got to their feet, the scraping of six chairs on the floor making a loud noise. Raziel laughed softly and got to his feet as well.

  “I’ll take that as a yes, then.”

  “Good plan, Raz,” Angelique said. “Let’s go, shall we?”

  The walk to the courtroom seemed the longest that Liam had ever taken. He held tight to Baxter’s hand as they made their way into the large room, and nodded as Raziel gestured to a row of chairs where they could sit and watch the proceedings unfold. The angel left them there, and Liam took a deep breath, forcing himself not to jiggle his leg in a display of nerves.

  The setup was certainly impressive, he thought. The three judges sat at the front of the room, the flags of all the member nations hung in rows on the wall behind them. The witness box was to their left, and the gallery for the jury was to the right. The box and gallery were empty. There was an open space between the judges’ boxes and then there were two tables, separated by a gap of perhaps four feet. At one table sat a group of lawyers; at the other sat another group, with all of Transom’s employees who were on trial seated beside them and behind them.

  The group on trial seemed pitifully small to Liam. He counted twenty-five men and women of various ages and nationalities, and he remembered that Raziel had said those on trial were those who had known what was happening and were actively in support of it. He supposed that would lower the numbers of people who were to be tried and sentenced, but it did seem disproportionate to the amount of pain and suffering Liam had seen inflicted by Transom in Yaak.

  The lead judge, a tall black man with graying hair, stood and looked around the room. He had a commanding air, and Liam found himself focusing completely on him and ignoring the lawyers and defendants.

  “We are gathered here for the final verdict and sentencing of the defendants,” the judge began, and then he listed off the names of the group seated with the lawyers.

  “There aren’t as many as I thought,” Baxter whispered to Liam. “And yet, that seems like a damn long list of names he’s saying.”

  “I know,” Liam said. “I was just thinking that.”

  “Hush,” Angelique said from two seats down, and Baxter mimed zipping his lips.

  “We have deliberated on this matter at length, and discussed it with the rest of the membership of the International Court. While this process is highly unorthodox, it is within the right of this body to conduct a trial in this fashion, pursuant to the amendments made during the Seventy Years War.

  “Therefore, I will get to sentencing. It is the decision of this court that all who I have listed are to be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in their home nations. Of course, your lawyers may wish to appeal, but my colleagues and I would still find in the same fashion. Dismissed.” The judge sat back down.

  Liam shook his head, unable to comprehend that justice had been done so smoothly and quickly. Down on the chamber floor, the lawyers were talking to their clients. Edwards and his colleagues began to shout at them, largely incoherent, but their intent was clear. Liam knew they would appeal, and he dreaded being called back here to testify if they did so.

  “Hey, babe, don’t think so hard,” Baxter said. “If they appeal, fine. If the appeal is granted, that’s another thing. And even then, there’s nothing to say that we’ll need to testify. Getting to appeal could take years, and they could die in jail before that.”

  Liam looked at Baxter, gazed into his warm blue eyes. “You are amazing,” he said.

  “I think you’re a bit blind.”

  “I see fine, thanks.”

  “So why am I amazing?”

  Liam smiled at him. “Because you made me feel a million times better with a few sentences.”

  “Oh. Well, I’m not a lawyer, so I could be wrong, but that’s how it usually goes, from what I’ve seen on TV. Okay, okay, from what I’ve read in the paper and seen on the news, too, so not so much TV dramas.” Baxter touched Liam’s cheek with gentle fingers and Liam leaned into it. “Let’s get back Stateside, babe. Then we can go have some much needed R and R in Puerto Rico.”

  “I love the way you think,” Liam said.

  “Right now, I love that plan,” Angelique said. “Let’s go home, boys.”

  BAXTER LAY on his back gazing up at the canopy of leaves on the branches of the tree he was sprawled beneath. He felt very good, better than he had for some time, and a large part of that was the man who sat beside him, leaning against the trunk of the tree. The other part of what had him feeling so good was being here, in Puerto Rico, in the small farm owned by Jake and Selana, Liam and Declan’s adopted parents. Now that his mind wasn’t full of tactics, worry and stress, he was able to reflect back on his life and he realized that he’d adjusted to living with a prosthetic faster than he’d thought.

  It was something that Baxter didn’t want to talk about, though. His relationship with his prosthetic leg was between him and it and his physiotherapist. The worst part had been getting used to switching between his human one and his wolf one. That had taken some time. But neither of his legs—human nor wolf—had any of the pain that amputees described as part of their life, the phantom sensation of a missing limb for example. Baxter knew that he had Raphael to thank for that. Apart from the itching in summer, when his leg sweated against the plastic and steel of the prosthetic, he had found that not much in his life had changed. Most importantly was that Liam still loved him and didn’t see him as anything less of a man, and that really was all that Baxter cared about.

  He turned his thoughts to Puerto Rico and the present. The arrival of himself, his pack, Declan and Liam in Santa Isabel four days ago had been met with warm hugs and kisses and such a friendly outpouring of joy that Baxter had felt shy in the face of it. He wasn’t used to such open-handed friendliness, to being greeted and accepted for who and what he was. He knew that Jake and Selana were aware of the Venatores, but their easy acceptance was unfamiliar.

  “What’s up?”

  Liam’s voice cut through Baxter’s reverie, and he smiled as he rolled onto his side to look at his lover. “Not a lot. I was thinking. You probably heard the noise of rusty gears turning.”

  Liam rolled his eyes. “You’re not an idiot, Bax. I know you’re not. You don’t need to put yourself down.”

  Baxter sidestepped that. “I was thinking about your family. You’re so lucky: you’ve got these amazing people who raised you and Declan and taught you about magic and stuff, and you hung out with angels. And okay, yeah, you told us about that back in the States, but it’s one thing to hear it and another thing to see it, you know? Especially when they’re so kind and welcoming to all of us, and they don’t seem to care that we’re all shifters.” Baxter remembered the warmth of the hugs and kisses that had been bestowed by Jake and Selana on all of them, not just Liam and Declan. He remembered how they’d smiled and laughed, how they’d hugged everyone and teased Declan about being in love, how Declan had blushed like a stop light. Baxter suppressed a cackle at that thought. He’d never seen Declan so red in the time he’d known him.

  Liam smiled. “I take it you guys don’t generally get such a happy welcome.”

  “Not usually. Usually, we’re going somewhere on a mission, and everyone who happens to still be alive is already terrified. Regular folk—since the war—are hostile, because I guess they think being a shifter means we’re going to wig out and bite off their legs or something. Maybe that’s just my experience. I don’t know. Just… this, here? You’re very lucky.”

  “Yeah, we are.” Liam reached out and took Baxter’s hand. “I’ve always known we were lucky. Okay, so just after Mom and Dad died, we didn’t feel so lucky. But as we got older and our grief faded, we realized just how good we had it. Jake and Selana are the mom and dad we know. Our blood relatives, we’ve only got hazy memories of them. I wish we’d known them for longer, but I love our adopted parents. I have fantastic memories of childh
ood here.” He laughed suddenly. “After school, me and Dec, we’d go hide in the next door tomato plantation. Jake was working there in those days. So we’d go hide and we’d steal tomatoes and eat them. And Jake would find us, covered in tomato juice, and he’d sigh the most epic of sighs and carry us home.”

  Baxter laughed as well. “I can’t imagine little you and little Declan covered in tomato juice.”

  “Selana’s got photos. Ask her and I bet she’ll pull them out.” Liam gave Baxter’s hand a gentle squeeze.

  “I’ll do that. And you know, they’re so awesome to my pack. I think Angelique almost fainted when they spoke Spanish to her. She told me they remind her of her abuela and abuelo, and I know how much she loves her grandparents. Riley… man, I have never seen Riley so calm. And he hasn’t stuttered once! And Lily… she’s looking happier than she has since Yaak.”

  “They’re good folk,” Liam said. “Selana can read a person’s aura like you and I can read a book. She probably knew exactly what everyone needed as soon as she saw you all.”

  “Jake’s not a magic user, though, is he?”

  “Nah. Jake’s a regular guy. He’s tough, but he’s fair. And he makes a mean asopao de pollo.”

  “Is that a chicken soup?” As Liam nodded, Baxter grinned. “My Spanish isn’t as rusty as I thought, then, to remember what soup and chicken are.”

  “Or you just remembered the Spanish words for foods,” Liam teased.

  “More than likely,” Baxter agreed. “I do like food. So how long do you think everyone will be in town?”

  “Probably until sundown,” Liam said. “Declan was going to take Angelique to his favorite part of the beach, and Lily and Riley were going to help Jake and Selana with the shopping.”

  “And we stayed home,” Baxter said, wriggling closer.

  “We did. Is there something you wanted to do?”

  “I’ve got a few ideas.”

  “Oh yeah? Like what?”

  “This.” And Baxter pounced, moving with speed that was part shifter, part human. He was on Liam’s lap and kissing him hard as he pressed his lover down sideways to lie on the long grass.