by Dante King
“What the hell happened?” the man asked, looking around the courtroom. “What the fuck is this?”
“Language,” Judyth said, but all the heat had gone out of her voice. “Maddie, you’ll go first. Use your glasses to see to the heart of things. See the truth—and dispense justice, the way the angels do.”
Maddie squinted behind the thick lenses. For a moment, I was sure she wasn’t going to be able to do anything, then her eyebrows shot up like someone finally able to see the shape inside of one of those Magic Eye puzzles.
“Your name is Clive,” she said, as if she were reading words floating over the man’s head. “Forty-three, construction worker. Fell from a girder while remodeling the second floor of a college’s gymnasium... broke his neck and died on impact!?”
The man on the witness stand looked even more shocked than Maddie. “Lady, who are you? The last thing I remember is... is…”
“Please try to ignore the witness,” Judyth said quickly. “What the condemned says isn’t as important as what you see within. Pierce the heart of the matter, Madeleine—you’re doing wonderfully so far. You’re a natural at this.”
Coming from the Headmistress, it was high praise. Maddie beamed as she leaned in further, squinting like she was trying to read a faraway sign.
“Adultery,” she finally whispered.
The man reacted as if he’d been struck by lightning. “Fuck you saying!?” He tried to rise, only to find his spectral form was unable to leave the witness stand. “I’ve never run around on Lisa, you bitch! I would never do that—”
“Three waitresses,” Maddie said, her voice growing sad at the mention of her former profession. “One of the secretaries at the construction office, several times during your lunch break. And... oh my gosh. The boss’s daughter!?”
“You can’t prove any of that!” the man thundered. He couldn’t seem to understand that it didn’t matter anymore. He was far beyond the point where any revelations could hurt him personally. In a very real sense, his future had already been decided.
“Very good!” Judyth said. She even clapped her hands. “The sin is adultery, yes. You’ve done extremely well to isolate and reveal it so quickly. Now, the punishment?”
Maddie shrugged. “There’s only one punishment. He goes to the other place, right?”
“Hey, hey, I’m a good person!” the construction worker protested. “I was a good Dad! I gave money to charity! I helped old ladies crossing the street!”
“Hey,” I said, waving a hand. “He doesn’t seem that bad. Maybe his wife was cheating on him, too? Shouldn’t we get some context for all this?”
“I told you,” Judyth snapped. “Try not to listen to the witness. The context is unimportant—the law is all that matters.”
“Wow,” Maddie said, taking a step back. She took the glasses off, and for her, the witness vanished. “Do I... do I really send him to…?”
“That’s already been done,” Judyth assured Maddie with a sympathetic look. “Done by professionals before you even got here. These are just... well, they’re kind of copies, I suppose. Like questions in a book.”
“Cool,” Maddie said, putting the glasses back on. The explanation had soothed her worry. “So, I got the question right?”
“Indeed you did,” Judyth said. “Luke, it’s your turn.”
With a little hesitance, I stepped up to the bench. This time a brilliant light flashed, and a young woman barely older than Maddie winked into existence in the witness chair.
Jesus, I thought. So young. What happened to you?
The young woman seemed less taken aback than the construction worker. She wore a workout top and a pair of yoga pants, as if she’d been in the middle of a jog or at the gym whenever she’d come to misfortune. Her long brunette hair had been tied up in a ponytail, without a single lock out of place.
“Hi there,” she said, her eyebrows furrowing together. “Who are you?”
“Concentrate,” Judyth said, cutting me off before I could say anything. “Use the glasses, Luke. See the truth.”
It took several moments before I understood what she meant. It really was like solving a Magic Eye puzzle—you had to relax your eyes and contract them in a certain way, until the rose-colored words emerged like a message written in invisible ink around the person’s head.
“Sarah,” I said, blinking rapidly. “Twenty-One. She was... oh fuck…”
“Read it,” Judyth said gravely.
I swallowed hard and continued. “Died in a fire. Burned to death. Shit, that’s so awful.”
I couldn’t imagine. I was glad this woman, like the construction worker before her, had no memories of her death. To have to re-live such a thing on the witness stand was the kind of pain no one should have to go through, regardless of what they’d done in life.
Then, to my shock, the woman straightened up. “It was.”
My jaw dropped open.
“I was on my morning jog,” the woman explained, her eyes going unfocused as she narrated the final day of her life. “My boyfriend got me this smartwatch for Christmas, and I’d been using it to track my exercise routine. See?”
She held up a bare wrist. Either the device had been destroyed in the fire, or things like that didn’t transfer along with the spirit on the journey to the other side.
“It’s nice,” I lied, fighting back tears. “Really nice.”
“Do not listen to the spirit’s words,” Judyth said from behind me, her voice as cold and sharp as a garrote made of ice. “You are only interested in the sin, Luke. Pierce to the heart of the spirit, and find out what they are to be judged for.”
That’s what I was supposed to do. Yet I found that I couldn’t. Judyth’s instructions were worse than useless—they were maddening.
“Did you cause the fire?” I asked instead. I heard Judyth groan.
The woman on the witness stand shook her head, her ponytail bouncing with the motion. “I was at the corner, about to start heading back, when I saw flames coming from the schoolhouse.”
“Schoolhouse!?” I was stunned.
“Luke,” Judyth said warningly.
But I wasn’t listening to Judyth any longer. My attention was on the woman on the witness stand, Sarah. And her incredible story.
“I could hear children screaming inside,” she said, speaking about the events almost as if they’d happened to someone else. “The rest of the classrooms were evacuated as soon as the fire alarm went off, but something happened in that room—one of the doors must have been blocked or something like that. I got it open, and I got the kids out, but then... it’s all fuzzy. Something fell on me, or right in front of me, and I was trapped. I could hear the fire trucks over the sound of the flames, so I got down on the floor and tried to keep calm. I remember telling myself they’d be there any second, that they were going to save me.” She stared straight ahead, the beginnings of tears in her eyes. “I guess they didn’t make it in time.”
“Fuck me,” I said, shaking my head. There were tears rolling down my own cheeks, too, despite what Judyth tried to tell me about not listening to what the spirits in the courtroom had to say. “You ran into a burning building to save kids!?”
The woman in the witness stand shrugged. “Of course. What else was I supposed to do?”
Behind me, Judyth cleared her throat. “All of this is beside the point, Luke. You need to pierce the heart of this woman’s existence, discover her sin, and pass judgment on it. Everything else is immaterial.”
I shook my head. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I snarled, my fingers at the special glasses. The image through the lens wobbled, blurry with tears, and as I lifted the eyewear up an inch, the bottom half of the spirit’s body disappeared. “I’m not passing judgement on this woman. She’s a fucking hero.”
A hand came down on my shoulder. I turned to see Judyth standing next to me, her angelic face contorted in a grimace. “Luke! This isn’t how we do justice.”
I couldn’t take
it any longer. I ripped the rose-colored glasses off, tossing them across the room. “Then fuck your justice!” I roared.
The Headmistress took a quick step backward, shocked by the depths of my demonic fury. Maddie moved in, doing her best to calm me down with the nearness of her body. I could feel an itch between my shoulder blades, aching to escape, and I knew without having to check that the wings trying to emerge from my back were anything but angelic in nature.
“I thought you got justice up here,” I said, staring down Judyth like she was the one personally responsible for all of this. “Silly, stupid me! I figured maybe, once you left the human world and all its bullshit behind, people would actually get what they deserve! But there’s no justice up here, is there? It’s all the law—it’s always just following the goddamn law!”
Judyth stared at me, her face paling to the color of milk. “Language,” she croaked weakly. All the heat had gone out of her voice.
“You were right the first time,” I growled, pushing away from Maddie. “This isn’t my school at all. This definitely isn’t my major, any more than self-control is part of my nature. For fuck’s sake, even the demons have a better idea of how to treat each other than you do up here!”
As I stalked off, Judyth got a second wind. She gripped the back of one of the room’s pews, holding it so tightly her fingers looked white. “Luke, stop right now! I demand that you calm down this instant, and cease besmirching the name of the Celestial Academy!”
Ignoring her, I turned to leave the courtroom. Only to stop when I realized the door already lay open.
A redheaded woman stood in the doorway, a faint smile playing over her features.
Chapter 10
“I came as soon as I heard the yelling,” the redhead explained. “I thought maybe you’d lost control of Demon Boy and he started torturing a sinner or something like that. But he doesn’t look bloody at all…”
The woman actually looked disappointed to find me in human form. No, not a woman, I thought, giving her a quick once over. A girl. Is she even old enough to go here?
Most of the students I’d met so far at the Celestial Academy looked like they could have been the same age as Maddie, but this was the first one I’d met to be straight-up younger than her. The ageless look the other angelic students wore had yet to settle on her face, probably because she hadn’t done enough aging for it to be necessary. She was college aged, to be sure, but only just.
She was also more slender than the average student. Her lithe, coltish body moved with staggering grace as she advanced into the room, a pair of short wings fluttering behind her back. Her halo hung from her crimson curls at a jaunty angle, framing a face that was truly cherubic in its dimensions. A full, pouty mouth, thick lashes, and rich chocolate-brown eyes completed her absolutely stunning appearance. Her simple black robes fit her like high fashion, wrapped around her slight curves in much the same manner as Maddie’s.
“He started listening to the accused,” Judyth said despairingly. From her tone, I could tell she knew this angel pretty well, and wasn’t terribly surprised to see her stalking into the courtroom. “Got on a tear about how we don’t really do justice in the Justice School, and how we’re all essentially frauds.”
“Did he now?” The redhead’s interest looked piqued. “How interesting. You wouldn’t be the first student of the Justice School to come away with that initial impression, although very few have ever made so much of a fuss about it. I could hear you all the way from the Advanced Courts, you know.”
I didn’t know. “Everything’s fine here,” I said, trying and failing to brush past the newcomer. Damn, how could such a small woman block my path so effectively? “No need for anyone to butt their wings in.”
“Luke, I believe introductions are in order.” Judyth was clearly thankful for the intrusion, as the social occasion put the Headmistress back onto firmer ground. “This is Raquelle, one of our advanced students majoring in Justice. She’s our local prodigy—began taking lessons at the Celestial Academy right after reaching her majority, in fact.”
“I see,” I said. Raquelle gave me a smug look, as if she were used to being talked up in this manner and didn’t particularly mind it. “No wonder everything’s so screwed up in here.”
Raquelle’s look of superiority vanished. “Look at you,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself. She spoke in an acid tone, her words calculated to hurt. “Do you truly believe you’re a better judge of right and wrong than centuries of tradition?”
I thought about the question for all of two seconds. “Absolutely,” I said, jerking a thumb back at the witness stand. “If you people are condemning women who save kids from burning buildings to the fires of Hell, then I know damn well I can do a better job judging character than you!”
The details took Raquelle back a bit, but she smoothly recovered. “Of course you do,” she said, her lips forming a tight little line. “Like father, like son.”
“Raquelle!” The Headmistress put her fingers to her lips, scandalized. “Bad behavior from one student does not excuse it in another!”
The redhead merely shrugged, giving me a look that under any other context would’ve been called a shit-eating grin. Such terms were forbidden of course by the Celestial Academy, even though I’d sworn several times during my anger.
“I’m not Lucifer’s son,” I said, closing the distance between myself and Raquelle. If I couldn’t intimidate her, maybe I could get under her skin in a different way. “I’m just the guy who’s going to be taking over Hell for him when he retires. If I’m going to be cracking the whip on all those frightened sinners, I want to be sure your people did a good job when you sent them down to me.”
Raquelle, to her credit, didn’t flinch. “Lucifer isn’t retiring,” she said, rolling her eyes. “He’s dying. And I’ve seen nothing from you that makes me think you have a shot at taking his place, Demon Boy. You need more than a cocky attitude and a few whores in your bed to fill those shoes.”
“Language!” Judyth shrieked.
She’s never seen her student go off like this before, I realized, noting the surprise on the Headmistress’s face. Suddenly, I realized I actually was making this Raquelle lose her cool a little bit. I wondered if I could push her even further.
“I’m sorry,” Raquelle cooed, not sounding it in the least. “But it’s not a swear, Headmistress—it’s the truth. Those women are whores. Any woman who goes to bed with a degenerate demon like this deserves every naughty word in the book.”
Well. That was awkward.
“Perhaps you’d like to meet Maddie, too,” I said, jerking my thumb in the angel’s direction. “She’s a new student at the Celestial Academy as well. She’s my girlfriend, actually.”
Raquelle’s eyes widened, a flush rising to her pale, freckled cheeks. “I see.”
“I see you just called me a whore,” Maddie said, taking a spot next to me. Together we looked fierce, like the warrior angels called to battle against hordes of demonic intruders. “You going to take that back, or are you just going to keep standing there with that smug little look on your face?”
Raquelle looked upset to discover Maddie and I were together—but not sorry about the original remark in the slightest. “I just find the level of vehemence displayed here against one of the four pillars of the Celestial Academy to be quite... disturbing,” the redhead purred, clasping her hands over her thighs like an innocent naïf. “If these so-called transfer students are willing to trash the very idea of justice right in front of the Headmistress of the school, there’s no telling what they’ll do when there’s not an authority nearby to check them. I wouldn’t welcome the fires of Hell into the Celestial Academy.”
Something about this girl really irritated me. Sure, she was hot, but she had this stuck-up nature about her that just made me want to bend her over my knee and spank her. If we were down in the Infernal Academy, it would be as easy as doing just that—or at least challenging her to a duel or somet
hing to bring her down a peg or two. Unfortunately, we were in the land of the angels now, and I had to just stand there and take it.
Or did I?
“We can all be thankful you have nothing to do with making the decisions around here,” I said, brushing her off with a smirk. “I have dispensation from on high to attend the Celestial Academy, and so does Maddie. You have a problem with that, you can take it up with the man upstairs.”
To say the atmosphere in the courtroom was charged would have been a major understatement. From the way she stared at me, her face warring between disgust and interest, I could tell no one had ever dared challenge Raquelle in this manner before within her own school. She was probably a wunderkind, the precocious kind of student who drove everyone mad when she noted at the end of class that the teacher forgot to assign homework. A stuck-up little brat, in other words.
It was like she read my mind. Her eyes widened for a moment as I thought the word brat, then an acid little smile spread across her face. “You want to back up those words, Demon Boy?”
“Any time,” I said, practically rubbing my hands together. I had no idea what I was signing up for, but backing down now would have been a major mistake.
Raquelle turned on a heel, leaning over to catch the eye of Judyth. “Headmistress, would it be alright if we gave our new student a taste of the advanced course?”
Judyth looked like she’d have rather done just about anything else, but it was obvious Raquelle was a student used to getting her own way. I got the impression that if the Headmistress had turned her down, she’d have bothered her about it for weeks.
“You’re not going to listen if I say no, are you?” Judyth said with a sigh. “And I suppose your pride won’t allow you to back down either, will it, Luke?”