High Stakes Trial

by Mindy Klasky

  Any vampire living in those rooms would be fried to a crisp.

  “The basement?” I suggested, but I couldn’t keep my voice was shaking. I’d been imprisoned in that basement. I’d thought my life was going to end in that dank, dark space.

  “I’ll check it,” Chris said.

  I melted. Chris knew what it had cost me to come here in the first place. He was searching for James, a rival who’d saved my life with vampire blood, a man who’d claimed my heart before I even knew Chris existed, certainly before I knew that Chris and I shared a sphinx identity. But to save me, to protect me, Chris was willing to enter the hellhole of that basement alone.

  “I’ll come with you,” I said.

  Chris led the way to the back of the house, where we were less likely to fall prey to prying eyes. As I concentrated on taking deep, calming breaths, he selected a rock from a decorative border, hefting it experimentally in his right hand.

  Approaching the back door, with its gingham-curtained window, he studied the frame. He pointed with his chin, indicating a sleek white rectangle attached to the glass. “The house is alarmed,” he said.

  “We can get in and out before the cops arrive.” I sounded a lot more confident than I felt.

  “Ready?” Chris asked.

  I nodded, not sure I could fake certainty out loud one more time.

  Shattering glass made a lot more noise than I expected. I was braced for a Klaxon to follow, but none blared.

  “Silent alarm,” Chris said. I wondered if that meant the cops would arrive sooner.

  Before I could ask, Chris reached through the broken pane and turned the lock. “Careful,” he said, leading the way over the shattered glass and into the kitchen.

  Of course I knew to be careful. I’d broken into a house before. I’d broken into Chris’s house before. But neither of us said anything to commemorate that stroke of awesomely bad decision-making.

  Instead, we hurried toward the basement stairs. We’d already announced our presence by shattering a window. There was no premium in stealth.

  Chris jerked the basement door open before I thought I was ready. He slammed on the lights, flooding the space below with a fluorescent glow. “On my count,” he shouted, as if he were leading a mercenary force. “One! Two!” He trailed off and threw himself down the stairs while I was still wondering if anyone could possibly be foolish enough to believe we’d arrived with reinforcements.

  I followed him down the stairs. Each step squeezed a little more air from my lungs. By the bottom, my ears were buzzing, and the roof of my mouth tingled.

  The room was empty. No work tables. No tool benches. No hint of the stolen books that had brought me to Richardson’s house the last time.

  I caught a whiff of paint, the chemical tang of latex. The walls were unmarked white; the floor had been coated with battleship grey.

  I forced myself to look across the room, to confront the silver cage in the corner. Its bars had been painted too; they were white now, as regular as the slats on a baby’s crib.

  The lights glared above everything. There was no place for a vampire to hide. No place for James.

  A part of me was relieved. I still couldn’t believe James had anything to do with Richardson. If I’d actually found him here, in this torture chamber of a basement… Something would have broken inside me. Something would have died.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Chris said.

  I nodded, but I couldn’t make my feet move. I stared at the cage, at the now-harmless snow-white bars. If they’d been painted the first time I’d been here, James would never have been burned. He never would have drunk from me to heal himself.

  “Sarah,” Chris said, and now there was real urgency in his tone. His fingers tightened around mine, and I wondered when he’d taken my hand. “Let’s go.”

  This time, my body obeyed his command. I climbed the stairs without looking back. I stepped over the glass in the kitchen. When I cleared the door, I started running, sprinting to the Corolla as if a thousand enemy vampires were clamoring for my blood.

  Chris didn’t hold my car door. Instead, he skittered on the driveway gravel, almost losing his purchase as he ran to his side. As I pulled my door closed, he slammed the key home and threw the vehicle into gear. The wheels spun the first time he pounded the accelerator; he needed to stop, reverse a few inches, then try again.

  Clearing the driveway, the tires bit hard into the asphalt of Foxhall Road. Chris gunned it until he reached the first stop sign; then, he squealed to a halt.

  Before he could start into the intersection, we heard it—a siren rising and falling in front of us. Chris took his hands from the wheel, wiping them hard on the thighs of his pants.

  It only took a moment for the police car to scream into sight. Its lights were flashing—red and white and a clear, piercing blue. Like good citizens, we waited for it to clear the intersection. I turned around to watch it spin into Richardson’s driveway.

  Chris looked left, then right, then left again. He let out a breath I hadn’t realized he’d been holding. And then we headed toward safety, toward his home.

  We hadn’t found James Morton. But we hadn’t been arrested for breaking and entering either. I was willing to embrace whatever victories I could find.

  13

  I went to work that night, because I didn’t know what else to do. The mundane part of the evening was busy with last-minute filings, lawyers who were intent on making end-of-the-month deadlines even if they needed to work late to do so.

  The imperial court was shuttered for the night. Announcements had been posted on various hidden networks—on Faebook and Wiccapedia and Snapbat.

  Local newspapers had risen to the occasion as well. The Imperial Inquirer had dispatched a succubus reporter to glean as many facts as possible about the shutdown of the court’s computers. She seemed disappointed to discover she’d have to deal with me to get information. I suspected she had better luck with the male imperials she interviewed.

  I only gave her the basic facts: The court’s computers were shut down, but our crack IT team was working on fixing the problem. We didn’t have an ETA for the fix. No serious legal matters were in jeopardy. There was no reason for any imperial citizen to worry about life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness.

  In a minor stroke of good luck, the reporter’s presence kept Angelique sequestered in her office. My boss wanted no part of the fourth estate. For all I knew, she spent the first half of the night filing her claws in preparation for ripping out the throat of whoever had brought us to a standstill.

  Shortly after midnight, Angelique was summoned to Judge Finch’s office. I gathered the judge wanted some reassurance that the Acting Director of Security was investigating the break-in appropriately.

  I waited until the sound of Angelique’s stilettos disappeared down the hallway, and then I dove into her office. Richardson’s foot soldier—or someone working with him—had done something in there that warranted dosing Angelique with Lethe. If I could figure out what had happened, I might be able to backtrack to James.

  I sat in the massive leather chair behind Angelique’s desk, gently opening her unlocked drawers. The first was filled with a jumble of office supplies—pens, pads of paper, and a three-hole punch that rained little white circles over an assortment of clips, staplers, and other debris. My palms itched, but I resisted the temptation to straighten everything. My goal was to remain undetected.

  The second drawer was devoted to official documentation—an orientation manual, human resources handbooks, and no fewer than ten different procedures manuals in various stages of completion. I riffled through them, taking care to leave the ragtag fringe of sticky notes in place along the edges.

  The third drawer held personnel files. I couldn’t resist finding my own—inexplicably placed in the middle of the alphabet, instead of under A, as my last name warranted. My fingers ached, but I didn’t return the folder to its proper place.

  I barely even
peeked inside. I just glanced quickly enough to see that Angelique had not added anything to the official reviews James had left almost a year ago. I eased the drawer shut, taking extra care not to shift any of the contents.

  Nothing in the desk was interesting enough to warrant a dose of Lethe—at least, nothing that remained. I couldn’t rule out the possibility that the intruder had taken something valuable—blueprints of the underground court structure maybe, or diagrams of the alarm system… Maybe even something Richardson could use to blackmail Angelique…

  Shoving aside that revolting idea, I looked for anything compelling on the surface of Angelique’s desk. A jumbled stack of legal pads revealed some remarkably detailed doodles, including several graphic depictions of canine autopsies. But no listening devices had been planted beneath the leather blotter. The brass pen and ink set were similarly clean.

  No miniature cameras had been affixed to the sealing. The credenza was bare. The cushions on the couch appeared undisturbed. Two hangers hung innocently on the hook behind the door.

  In short, my sleuthing proved useless. I could not find a single item out of the ordinary. I didn’t spot a single surveillance tool, or anything else that had compromised the Acting Director of Security.

  If I hadn’t seen the Lethe-ringed glass myself, I wouldn’t believe it had ever been left on Angelique’s desk. But I had seen the glass. Angelique had been dosed. I just wasn’t smart enough—or observant enough or something enough—to figure out why.

  Returning to my desk thoroughly out of sorts, I tried to take solace in the roast beef and cheddar sandwich I’d brought for lunch. By the time I’d corralled the crumbs into my trashcan, I’d come up with another approach.

  So far, I’d been thinking about the locked-down computers as a uniquely imperial problem. A vampire had locked our files, and so we were doing everything in our power to track down that vampire.

  But the Eastern Empire Night Court wasn’t the first entity to have its files attacked for ransom. It was time to do some research about hacking, ransomware, and Bitcoin.

  Two hours later, I felt a lot smarter. And a lot more terrified.

  Major US companies had been sabotaged in the past few years. Entire municipalities had had files held hostage. In virtually every case, the victims had paid a ransom to regain access.

  Sure, they’d hired computer experts after the fact. They’d removed vulnerable computer code and installed firewalls. They’d enlisted “white hat hackers”—guys who’d turned from their lives of crime to protect the innocent.

  But first and foremost, everybody paid.

  And with Bitcoin, those payments could never be traced. The words spun out before me—blockchain and cryptocurrency and digital assets. Half of what I read was hyperbole, and the other half was incomprehensible. Bottom line: Bitcoin transactions weren’t monitored by any bank or government.

  They were completely anonymous as well. No one could say who owned any specific Bitcoin account. If we somehow managed to pay our ransom, we couldn’t go running to the Empire Bureau of Investigation and ask them to prosecute the owner of Bitcoin wallet ZzZ9y4fRgvf5Rx4HupbE5JjQqXx.

  That last detail was a moot point, of course. The Night Court didn’t have an extra million dollars lying around. Hell, the court hadn’t issued raises to employees in the past five years. We were practically broke.

  With my research complete, I was firmly convinced that nothing short of a miracle would free our files. I didn’t bother making a report to Angelique. Instead, I headed out of the courthouse at the precise instant the clock ticked over to 5:00 am.

  The thought of retreating to my basement apartment was depressing. Instead, I walked back to Chris’s place. The early-morning air was cool, and the sidewalks were still mostly empty. Traffic was light enough that I could jaywalk across most of the intersections.

  I hoped that physical movement would unlock something inside my mind. I’d remember some detail I hadn’t consciously noticed when I fought the vampire intruder. I’d recall something James had let slip in the months we worked together.

  It seemed like years since I’d thought of us as a couple. Intellectually, I knew we’d been together for months. He’d frequented my apartment, with its painted-over windows that protected him from dangerous sunlight. We’d taken long midnight walks on my nights off. Once, we’d gone to the National Arboretum, viewing the trees by moonlight.

  But now, my memories of those nights seemed like half-remembered dreams. I knew James and I had talked—a lot. He’d lost his family, the wife and son who’d died over a century ago. I’d lost my mother when I was in college, long before I’d heard of Sekhmet and the shadowy Sheut. James and I had bonded through our loneliness, our differentness, our sense of never belonging.

  But now my morning perambulation did nothing to shake loose useful memories. I didn’t suddenly recall the address of a sanctum Chris and I could explore. I didn’t come up with a favorite haunt. James remained lost to me.

  I was more than a little frustrated as I climbed the steps to Chris’s front door. The Banner was missing from his doorstep. He was already awake.

  In fact, I realized after I let myself in with my key that he was already out on his run. Empty library, empty kitchen, empty office and bedroom.

  I thought about waiting up, but I was suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion. Maybe I was still recovering from my fight with Richardson’s minion and my short sleep the day before. Maybe I was tired of living on a hyperactive edge, waiting for Angelique to fire me. Maybe I was depressed, because I knew that the following night, I’d lose the only job I’d ever loved.

  Whatever the reason, I crawled into Chris’s bed. I pulled the perfectly centered coverlet up to my chin. I shoved the pillow into a more comfortable mound.

  Lying there, I kept hearing Richardson’s foot soldier hissing his warning: “Morton says to get out of town. Now. While you still can.”

  James had avoided me for ten months. Why would he care about getting me out of town before some shadowy, unknown disaster?

  Was he trying to protect me? Or was he trying to keep me from tracking him down before he… What? Before he took down the court? The entire empire?

  Or maybe he actually intended to implicate me. If I fled and more bad things happened, it would be child’s play to cast me as the ultimate bad guy.

  I’d already been thrown out of the Den. Maybe James was trying to get me banished from the entire empire. How deep was his need to avenge Judge DuBois’s death?

  I had no way of knowing. But that didn’t keep me from spinning out scenario after disastrous scenario, each one more convoluted, more dangerous, more deadly than the last. And not one contained a solution to the Bitcoin ransom clock that was scrolling down with every passing second.

  14

  I woke to the sound of fingers rasping against cloth.

  Automatically, I surveyed my surroundings. Late afternoon sun shone through the windows. A car alarm shrilled a block or two away. The bed beneath me was soft, as irresistible as a tractor beam.

  And those fingers… That cloth… I knew without opening my eyes that Chris had worked the buttons on his shirt, that he’d just slipped his arms out of the sleeves. I wasn’t surprised by the breath of cool air as he raised the edge of the comforter. I fully expected his weight on the mattress behind me.

  “Mmmm,” I murmured as he slipped an arm around my waist. He responded by curling around me, big spoon to my little spoon. “What time is it?” I asked, not wanting to break the spell by checking the clock’s angry red numbers.

  He nuzzled my neck. “2:30,” he whispered, just before he found the soft spot behind my ear.

  I stiffened. “You shouldn’t have let me sleep so long.”

  “You needed it,” he said, pulling me closer.

  The tingling along my spine worked wonders, making up for all sorts of lost sleep. I rolled to face him, letting the motion twine my legs between his. “We’re almost out of time,” I said.
“The computer files—”

  “I have someone else for us to talk to,” he interrupted. “But he won’t be home till six.”

  “Six?” I asked, even as hope flared high in my chest. I couldn’t imagine who Chris had found, what new route he’d discovered. But his fingers were doing distracting things, feathering across the small of my back. I shivered and said, “Then it’s awfully early for a wake-up call.”

  “So sue me,” he muttered against my lips.

  Litigation was the last thing on my mind.

  And when I woke a second time, almost two hours later, Chris was propped up on one elbow, studying my face.

  “What?” I asked, swiping at my hair to make sure it wasn’t doing anything bizarre.

  “I love you.”

  I love you too. That’s what I was supposed to say. I knew that.

  And I did love him, in all sorts of uncomplicated ways. I loved the guy who stopped by the courthouse in the middle of my shift, just because I’d forgotten to bring my lunch. I loved the guy who understood why coffee had to be stirred seven times, who didn’t get exasperated when I rearranged the silverware drawer so all the forks were in perfect alignment, who understood that each and every book had to be in its alphabetized place, spine set flush against the front of the shelf. I loved the guy who held me when I woke trembling, tangled in nightmares about Judge DuBois.

  But that wasn’t what Chris meant.

  Or rather, Chris meant all of that and a whole lot more. And this wasn’t the right time to discuss that more… Not when I’d been kicked out of the Den. Not when I was searching for Sheut, for my key to a past that I could barely begin to understand. Not when Mother Sekhmet had charged me with finding the Seal, whatever the hell that was. Not when Chris was pushing for his New Commission for every vampire in the Empire, including James.

  And not when the Eastern Empire Night Court files were going to be destroyed forever, in less than eight hours.