by Jason Rose
“Anything else you can tell me about Makki?” I ask, trying to move on to another subject, as if this day hasn’t already been awkward enough.
“She’s a loner, not part of a pack or sleuth or whatever a group of wendigos is called.”
“Sleuth?”
“It’s what you call a group of bears.”
“I guess that’s close to a wendigo. Anything else?”
“Makki rarely takes on any cases; mainly uses her position as an Advocate for personal gain. Sells her vote to the highest bidder. Dad didn’t like her, he thought she was a bully.”
“She sounds like a peach.”
“She’s a bitch.”
“Great. Do you know why she took this case?”
“Nope.”
“Any chance you found out who any of the judges are?” I ask hopefully.
Sinn hesitates, “One.”
“Spit it out.”
Reluctantly she says, “Jacob Pa—”
“Your ex fucking boyfriend. Mr. Fancy-Pants, call me by my full name, Jacob fucking Paul Prestegard.”
Despite my best efforts to make eye contact, she refuses to look at me. “Yes, Jacob is one of the judges on this case.”
“Great,” I shout sarcastically. Jacob Paul Prestegard is a vampire, a douchebag of a fucking vampire who happens to be in the back pocket of my enemy Phulcus, a werespider responsible for killing a woman I worked with at the public defender’s office and cared a great deal for. I can’t stand the guy. He also happens to be Sinn’s ex-boyfriend. Daddy hated him, so . . . the blanks aren’t hard to fill in. They broke up right before Pavo used me as the tool for his suicide.
Sinn stops abruptly and crosses her arms. “Take me back to the office.”
“Gladly.”
I walk over to the nearest wall, the side of an old Spanish stone house and quickly sketch a door and a handle with my Advocate pen. The door opens to our office, Sinn quickly steps through the glowing gate; she looks back, expecting me to follow. I don’t; instead, I slam the door closed behind her. A momentary feeling of satisfaction at having gotten the last word in washes over me, and then it's poisoned by a warm stream of guilt for having acted like an asshole yet again. It’s becoming a pattern. A better man, a less childish man, might abandon his temper tantrum and apologize—I am not that man.
My phone vibrates and I glance down to see it’s a text message from Wilson that reads,
What did you do? She’s mad at you.
I write back,
You’re at the office?
Wilson replies,
Finishing up something, just heading home now.
Are you coming back here?
I don’t recommend it. She might hurt you.
I consider typing “she already did that” but decide against it.
No, Sinn’s car is there, she can drive home.
I’m going home from here.
Game plan remains the same.
We are all supposed to meet at the office in the morning before heading to court together. The Concordat courthouse is buried somewhere beneath Rome. It is accessible by the catacombs beneath Rome and by magic doorways. Each Advocate has their own door linked to their pen, and public doors are located in five major cities scattered around the globe—New York, London, Cairo, Mexico City, and Beijing—that provide access to any Concordat citizens who want to observe proceedings. Keeping the proceeding open to the public is one thing I believe the Magna Concordat got right.
10-4. You want me to swing by? You alright?
The last thing I want right now is to have to parade my rejection around my apartment for Wilson’s amusement. I just want to go home and get some sleep. It’s been a long day and I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be just as long.
No. I’m fine. See you in the morning.
Chapter Twenty-One
Wednesday Morning
My team, Sinn, Wilson, Joycee and I, are the first to arrive. Whenever possible, I prefer to show up early to court, before my opponent, to fortify my desk with purple sticky tabs, pens, and blue-lined yellow legal pads. I want my desk to be organized but also look lived in. I want my opponent to feel uncomfortable when they arrive, like they are entering my house, a place they’re neither welcomed nor wanted. Sometimes, I’ll even set up something in my opponents’ area, just so they have to ask me to move it. The practice of law is rife with petty mind games, and I’m the king of pettiness. The more preparations you can do when no else is around, the better. There is no faster way to lose credibility with opposing counsel, the judge, even the jury, than fumbling around with your materials in front of them like an idiot without opposable thumbs. It’s important to appear precise and intentional in everything you do inside of a courtroom.
A trial is a conflict and unless your strategy is to play the bumbling buffoon, you must be dug in and prepared for battle at all times. You never know when your opponent may launch an ambush or when they might leave themselves vulnerable to an early knockout. There are no timeouts in litigation. Once a civil case is filed, or a criminal complaint is served, war has been declared; and from that point forward, until you either win, lose, or surrender, you’re in legal combat and need to act accordingly. Like wars, trials are won through preparation and strategy long before a major battle has ever been fought. Most trials are won before the judge’s honorable ass cheeks ever even kiss their sanctimonious benches. I don’t know the statistics for Concordat court, but in United States courts, less than three percent of all cases actually start trial, meaning one side either gave up or a compromise was reached before the trial ever actually began. And most of those surrenders are negotiated in the stress-filled moments right before a trial is set to begin. Lawyers rarely like to agree on anything until they’re backed up against a deadline, like a trial date, always hoping factors will shift in their favor while they sit on their hands. Urgency can be a lawyer’s best friend or their worst enemy. If I ever get a dog, I think I will name him Urgency.
The great underground Concordat courthouse is undeniably impressive. It’s designed to intimidate, and it does its job well. The crescent-shaped judge’s bench, with seating for twenty-four, one seat for each Advocate, carved out of glowing white marble, rises out of the floor on one side of the courtroom. An empty space, the well, separates the bench from an encircled stone podium where witnesses give testimony. The podium is framed on either side by two large stone advocate tables, which are slightly set back to create lines of sight with both the bench and the witness stand, although from experience I know that during examinations, Advocates typically question witnesses while standing inside the well.
The massive magical marble dome has stylishly carved recesses for twenty-four advocate doors, each with a different rune above it. Each rune represents a different Advocate. When the corresponding Advocate is present in the courtroom, the rune lights up. The dome also has five gargantuan public doors, and a dark passage leading to the catacombs above, which all combine to give the room a feeling that you're constantly under siege. It’s as if danger can appear from anywhere, any direction, at any time. It’s difficult to be relaxed in a room this size with so many entry points. The Advocate tables, well, and judges’ bench are all separated from the gallery, where the public sits, by a low stone pony wall, which provides little protection for my backside. While standing at the stone Advocate table assigned to the defense, I constantly invent reasons to glance behind me. Advocates aren’t supposed to acknowledge fear since you have to kill your predecessor. You rarely get to become an Advocate without being a major badass—other than that rare instance when an Advocate uses you as a prop in their suicide. Advocates are expected to defend themselves and, at least in theory, are supposed to be the most dangerous individuals in the room. Attacking one should be unthinkable unless the Advocate is merely human, as most everyone believes me to be.
Unlike a typical courthouse, weapons are allowed here, even encouraged. And while the public may arm themselves and while
Advocates are expected to carry weapons when making appearances, it’s considered a display of weakness for an Advocate’s associates to appear armed. Whether my team packs heat has become a source of conflict between Sinn and me. Although appearances are important, at least in a courtroom where facts are malleable and bluster is part and parcel to breathing, I don’t care about looking weak, nearly as much as I care about the safety of my team—especially the human members who are at a disadvantage fighting hand-to-hand if something pops off. If something happens to me, Joycee and Wilson deserve better than to be left naked and afraid in a hall full of monsters, some with super strength, super speed and/or long sharp claws. Sinn disagrees, she believes appearing dangerous is just as valuable as actually being dangerous. She argues that I’m already a target and that I must do everything I can to project an aura of menace, and allowing my staff to be armed is counterproductive to that goal. She claims arming my staff indicates I’m afraid and/or insecure and argues that I’m unnecessarily painting a target on my team’s back. I think they’ve got paint on their backsides no matter what I do. In the short time I’ve been an Advocate, I’ve collected a number of enemies. I’m apparently an avid collector because my collection never seems to stop growing. After hours of debate over the past few months, we reached a compromise; my team, other than Sinn, carries, but nothing overt. They limit themselves to unassuming weapons easily concealed under their clothing and in their bags. While it's not a perfect solution, it’s one we can all hopefully live with.
I glance down at my cell phone; despite the fact we are deep underground in a magical stadium-sized courtroom, I have full bars. It’s 5:39 am Oakland time, which means it’s 2:39 pm here in Rome. We’re supposed to start in about twenty minutes. I‘m surprised none of today’s main cast is here yet. The courtroom is empty other than my team and the handful of citizens meandering about in the gallery. None of the runes, other than mine, which are carved into the stone above the twenty-four recessed Advocate doors, are glowing; meaning, I am the only Advocate currently in the room. A suspicious Advocate might speculate that his opponent must be meeting with the judges prior to the appearance.
“Why are we here so freaking early? Do you have any idea what time I had to get up this morning in order to make it to the office in time to catch our magic portal?” whines Wilson. “Why couldn’t court be at a normal time?”
Sinn shakes her head. “Stop complaining. Court is at a normal time. It’s almost 9:00 am in Massachusetts, where Eirik was served with the complaint. Since this court serves citizens who live all over the planet, the local time of the location where the complaint was served is used to set all court appearances in the case. Be thankful we’re on East Coast time and not Norway time.”
“Whatever. Why is there no coffee cart here? I could use a muffin. With all these hungry monsters about, I bet a coffee cart would rake in the dough.”
Sinn responds and then stops, likely concluding that nothing she can say will stop Wilson’s complaining.
I lean over and whisper to Sinn. “Are you sure we don’t need to pick Eirik up?” Although the courthouse is nearly empty, it’s a good idea to always act like someone is watching you and I’d rather not let anyone know that I still don’t know all the court rules and procedures. Although I’ve read the Concordat book of laws, cover to cover—another gift passed on by my late uncle along with the red stoned ring imprisoning my left ring finger—I haven’t memorized it. Regardless, it mainly contains the Concordat laws themselves, and contains little information on court procedures, which are primarily based on tradition; and since I wasn’t raised as a citizen and have only been practicing for a few months, I’m a little outside my wheelhouse. Were we playing Trivial Pursuit, I’d hope for a real easy question anytime I landed on the color synonymous with Concordat courtroom practices.
Sinn leans in. “Relax, the rune he was imprinted with will gate him here five minutes before we’re set to begin.”
“I am relaxed!” I grasp one of the purple tab dispensers and set it back down, perfectly aligning it with my pens and yellow legal pads, fighting back an urge to make a chain out of purple tabs by sticking them edge to edge.
Sinn’s pinched lips and the creases appearing on her forehead loudly communicate her assessment of my current state of relaxation. I can’t help it, I still get nervous before every big court appearance. You’d think after years of practice the butterflies would go away—they haven’t. It’s actually a good thing, though—they keep me on edge, sharp, like Roseanne Barr’s twitter fingers.
One after another, runes begin lighting up above Advocate doors as my colleagues arrive. I count six activations within a minute of each other. We must have some observers today as only five of us will be participating, three judges and two lawyers. The timing of the arrival is either one of those stranger than fiction coincidences, or everyone really is gating in from the same location. The more I practice in this courthouse, the more corrupt I find it to be. Strangely, I find the ostensible corruption comforting, as it’s not all that different from human courts. The trick isn’t to rage against the corruption—that will never get you or your clients anywhere; rather, it’s to discover what your enemies want to achieve with their corruption and try and use it to your advantage. My mentor at the public defender’s office used to tell me that when you can’t break the game, figure out how to flip it on its head and use it against your opponent. Rules are meant to manipulated; it’s the only way we can teach the rule-makers to make better rules.
Three Advocates take their seats on the bench. John Paul Prestegard, immaculately dressed in a flashy light-blue three-piece suit, with a thin, silver rapier strapped to his hip, which looks more decorative than functional, takes the middle seat. On his left is a slender, sharp-featured, green-haired woman, wearing a smart skirt suit, carrying a gold-tipped trident; and to Prestegard’s right is a small, nearly naked, dark-skinned creature, four feet or so in height, covered only by patches of grass and leaves which seem to grow directly out of its skin, and which conveniently cover its twig and berries. A length of thick, green vine attached to a bone handle is coiled around one of its shoulders. Two sharp boar tusks protrude from its lower mouth. Other than the fact it has two arms and two legs, nothing is human-looking about it at all.
Sinn whispers, “That is Seleena on the right, she is a siren. Don’t let her looks fool you, she is a killer. Mainly men and mainly by drowning them. In recent centuries, she developed a taste for drowning men whom she entices to cheat on their wives. She likes to drown them in hotel bathtubs as punishment for their infidelity. Her sexual appetite is only eclipsed by her appetite to punish. Don’t expect her to do you any favors. She thinks the world would be a better place if your gender was eradicated.”
“Terrifying, although she’s probably right about the world being a better place without men. At least less violent. Probably cleaner too. Maybe a little boring. And on the left?”
“Tavar. He is a Kokutani.”
“Kokutani?”
“Rainforest god, spirit, protector. Nasty little man-eating creatures that live deep in the jungles of Africa. By himself he is not the biggest threat, but where there is one, there are usually ten or twelve more.” Sinn nods towards the galley, where approximately a dozen more of the little fuckers are taking a seat. Each appears to be male and are naked except for the leaves that have sprouted forth from their loins covering their unmentionables.
“The vine Tavar carries is a living whip. An extension of his mind. It can move in unexpected ways. Treat it like you would a poisonous snake.”
“So stay the hell away from it?”
“Exactly.”
“Great, so one judge wants to tie me up and eat me. Another wants to castrate and then drown me. And yet another wants to drink my blood and then bang my law partner. Who do I have to bribe to get a new panel?” I ask sarcastically.
Before Sinn can respond to the dig about her ex-boyfriend, we’re interrupted by the arriva
l of what can only be opposing counsel. The tallest, thinnest woman I’ve ever seen, wearing a skintight pantsuit, approaches with her hand outstretched. Describing her as top-heavy would be the understatement of the century. She’s probably six foot nine and weighs in at around two-hundred-and-fifty pounds—two hundred of which is carried in her bosom. They don’t even have a category of porn for boobs this big. She has dark circles around her hollow black eyes, gaunt cheeks, and her arms and legs are as thin as pretzel sticks. Other than her bountiful boobs, she looks emaciated, like she hasn’t eaten in a century. Her Native American heritage is barely identifiable. You’d be hard-pressed to say she even resembles a human being.
“Holy mamma-jamma!” exclaims Wilson. “It’s like Jessica Rabbit and the Slender Man made a baby!” Wilson’s comment catches me off-guard. He knows better than to antagonize the monsters, but damn if he didn’t nail the description right on the head.
I turn to scold Wilson but, before I can speak, Joycee smacks him hard in the back of the head. “It is not okay to make fun of a woman’s body. Apologize!”
Wilson looks sheepishly at Joycee; she’s fuming, and she’s the one person he goes out of his way not to upset.
“Apologize—now!” she demands.
Wilson glances across the bar at Makki and says, “I’m sorry. That was inappropriate.”
Makki pauses for a moment as if considering the apology and then turns to Joycee. “Bitch, I don’t need you to speak for me. Keep your little man on a leash or I’ll flay him, string him up in a tree and listen to him coo as the winter birds peck at his living flesh!”
Joycee’s eyes widen in shock and Wilson starts to stand. Not wanting to allow anyone else to escalate the situation, I reach for Makki’s still outstretched hand and embrace her long-pointy nailed fingers and shake vigorously. “You must be Makki. I’m Colt Valentine. This is my partner, Sinn Palatinus. And those two humans work for me and are under my protection. Do you understand?” I squeeze Makki’s hand just a bit harder as a warning.