High Stakes Trial

by Mindy Klasky

  They called my name, trying to get me turn around for a photo. “No comment,” I said.

  They asked me if I’d seen the cover of The Post. “No comment.”

  They told me I had a chance to tell my side of the story, to get it out there before anyone else told theirs.

  Anyone else. They meant Chris. Chris who’d just thrown me out of his house.

  “No comment.”

  I got the door open before they could come up with another gambit, and I darted inside. I locked it, turning the deadbolt and sliding the security chain.

  And I found James Morton sitting at my kitchen table.

  His fangs were out. He’d stripped off his tie, dropping it into a tangled pile beside an array of papers. His palms were flat on the table, as if he were willing it to hold him in place, as if he were fighting the urge to slice open my jugular before I could speak.

  I gazed down at the brochure from Empire General, the hospital pamphlet I’d taken from Chris: Welcome the Night.

  Chris’s sphinx-neat notes sprawled across the back cover. All vampires, he’d written for my edification. Clearance program. License. Annual re-certification. And in capital letters, underscored twice: New Commission.

  “You’re putting me in a goddamn prison.”

  “It’s not a prison,” I said, and then I recognized my mistake. “I’m not doing anything. This is just an idea Chris had. Something to help vampires.”

  “Chris Gardner.” James’s sneer echoed in my mind, and I realized he’d used the exact same tone that Chris had, not an hour earlier, when he’d dismissed the possibility of James’s good intentions.

  “He wants to help,” I said.

  “And you think enough of his idea that you kept this…garbage in your nightstand.”

  “You had no business—”

  “Did you or did you not agree to help the Sun Lion create this prison program for all vampires?”

  I had, but there were extenuating circumstances. I didn’t have a choice. I only wanted to help James, help him and vampires like him.

  The words caught in my throat. I knew them. I might even believe them. But I knew James would never understand, no matter what I said, no matter how I tried to explain.

  “Those vampires we saw last night,” I finally said. “The ones in Richardson’s lair. If they’d had a program like this, if they had the New Commission to support them—”

  “If they’d had a sphinx control them, instead of a vampire!”

  “It’s not like that! Mother Sekhmet—”

  “So your goddess demands this.”

  “She told me I can save her children.”

  “You honestly believe—”

  This time it was my turn to interrupt. “I just need to find the Seal. Then Sekhmet says I’ll be able to save everyone, the vampires and the sphinxes.”

  James stared at me as if I were speaking in tongues. “You honestly believe that crap?”

  “It’s not—”

  But he wasn’t listening. His hands moved faster than my eyes could follow, ripping the brochure in half, in half again, one more time. He threw the resulting confetti onto the table.

  “Don’t you dare hide behind some religious hocus-pocus,” James spat.

  “It’s not—”

  He threw back his chair and headed for the front door.

  “James!” I shouted. “Wait! Don’t go out there! There are reporters—”

  But it was too late. He’d thrown back the chain, slammed back the deadbolt. And he bared his fangs for all to see as the paparazzi converged.

  I heard their panicked screams and the thunder of their feet as they fled down the sidewalk. I waited for James to come back, to curse me, to engage me in a physical fight.

  But James was gone. The reporters too.

  I closed my door and locked it, no longer bothering with the chain.

  And I sat, alone, at my kitchen table until the sun rose, trying to figure out how I’d destroyed my life so completely.

  31

  It took me about half an hour to realize I couldn’t stay in my basement apartment. The paparazzi would return, or they’d be replaced by other reporters. The amulet story wasn’t going away.

  But more importantly, I was going to be hauled in front of the Eastern Empire court to answer the charges in the new complaint. Earlier that night, Eleanor had let me go because I was a citizen in relative good standing.

  Now, I was an imperial who’d called mundane attention to my activities. The Banner had me on the front page, and it wouldn’t take much for imperial legal eagles to conclude I’d dragged Chris into the mire.

  Judge Finch would waste no time throwing me back into a cell beneath the courtroom. This time, I couldn’t guarantee I’d have a lawyer to represent me in the courtroom. I couldn’t be sure when I’d be released.

  I ran into my bedroom and ransacked my closet, throwing random clothes into a backpack. I scared up a phone charger and the extra hundred dollars in cash that I kept at the back of my nightstand drawer.

  At break-neck speed, I flew to my dresser. I shoved underwear into my backpack, along with a couple of bras.

  Only then did I force myself to slow down, to take a few deep breaths and steady my shaking hands. I reached back into the dresser and gently shifted my socks, selecting three pairs to add to my bug-out bag.

  The only thing left to secure was the amulet. I lifted it carefully from its improvised nest in my terry anklets. With trembling fingers, I wrapped it in a fleece sock. Then I planted it in the middle of the backpack, taking care to cushion it completely.

  Standing at my front door, I realized I’d forgotten one thing. I dashed back to the bedroom and collected the photograph by my bed, the one of my mother holding me as a swaddled newborn. I slipped it into the backpack’s front pocket. Then there was nothing left to do but grab my denim jacket from its hook by the door and head into the city streets.

  As I hurried away from my home, I imagined Empire Bureau of Investigation cars screaming around the corner, complete with agents leaping out to kick in my door, to drag me off to justice. I quickened my pace, putting several blocks between me and my sage-painted walls.

  Only as I reached the wide stretch of Massachusetts Avenue did I admit the truth to myself. I didn’t have anywhere to go.

  I couldn’t bring my troubles to Allison—not when she had to protect Nora. Especially when I wasn’t sure if we were even still friends.

  Chris and James were both out. I’d careened from the potential of two—what? Boyfriends? Suitors? Lovers? I still didn’t have a suitable word. But that problem hardly mattered now. I didn’t have either man in my life, and I couldn’t imagine I ever would again.

  I couldn’t sleep at the courthouse, in my office or in the Old Library. I couldn’t set foot in the Den.

  For one insane moment, I thought about breaking into the National Museum of Natural History, about returning to the scene of my crime, stealing a blue apron, and finding a corner of the Smithsonian to hole up in. They didn’t have my real face on film—only the disguised one. But surely someone would check to make sure the museum was empty at night. I’d only compound my problems with another charge of trespassing.

  I didn’t have enough cash for a hotel, and I was afraid to use my credit card, for fear of being traced by law enforcement authorities, imperial or mundane.

  It was well past midnight now. A stiff breeze had picked up, amplified by the tall office buildings on either side of the city street. I shoved my hands into my pockets and hunched my shoulders to better settle the backpack.

  My fingers brushed against cold metal.

  Car keys. The keys to James’s Prius, which I’d left on a street a few blocks from Chris’s house.

  If I circled around and approached the car from the north… If I avoided Chris’s street entirely, stayed out of the way of any reporters or police who might be staking out his home…

  Once I had the car, I could go anywhere. Anywhere I
could reach on a hundred dollars of gas, anyway.

  But I didn’t have to spend my money on fuel. I could stash the car in one of the countless parking garages downtown. Garages only required payment upon exit. I could hide out until I’d built up a hundred dollars in parking fees—longer, if I was ready to flee pursuit the instant I used a credit card to get the car out of hock.

  If I chose a garage near a hotel—one fancy enough to have an attached garage, but not so swank as to require valet parking—I could take advantage of public restrooms. I could probably snag a few free meals as well, helping myself to buffets set up for business meetings.

  It was far from a perfect plan. But it was the best idea I had.

  I headed toward the convention center, figuring I’d be more anonymous in the ever-changing crowds of conference attendees. Choosing the Grand Duke at random, I pulled into the garage. I slipped my white parking ticket under the sun visor, so I could find it easily if I ever got my life in order.

  I drove down the ramp, circling three levels before I found a space in a conveniently ill-lit corner. I backed the car in, so I’d have a better view of anyone who approached. I turned off the engine and settled back in my seat.

  Pulling my jacket close around my waist, I told myself everything was going to be all right. I was friendless, homeless, and practically broke. But I’d think of something.

  I leaned my seat back and tried to relax. Every time I heard a car squeal as it rounded the ramp, though, I sat up and looked around.

  No one was coming for me. No one had the faintest idea of where I was. I repeated those words like a mantra a few hundred times.

  Finally, though, I gave up. I reached into the backpack, and I took out the amulet, cupping it in my hand as if I could keep it safe forever.

  I wanted to commune with Mother Sekhmet; I wanted her to tell me what I should do. I longed for the tingle I’d felt in the museum, the flare of indescribable sensation that had told me Sheut was near.

  Maybe the amulet was silent because I was forty-five feet underground. Maybe it held its counsel because I’d stolen it from its rightful home. Maybe I’d imagined all of it, my conversations with Sekhmet and my discovery of Sheut.

  Maybe I was insane.

  But I didn’t have any better option. So I held my blue glass charm. And I reduced my prayer to two words: Mother Sekhmet. Mother Sekhmet. And I tried to believe that somewhere, somehow, some way, everything would be better in the morning.

  32

  I spent a week living in James’s Prius.

  I didn’t stay in the car the entire time. I ventured out a few times each day, haunting the conference floors of the hotel. Every afternoon, I moved the car to a different location in the garage. I figured if any staff was keeping an eye on the hybrid with Florida plates, they’d think I was a long-term tourist with a dedication to seeing every last site in the nation’s capital.

  I’d grabbed my phone charger before I left my house, but after thinking things through, I was afraid to use my cell. I was fairly sure the EBI had the technological acumen to triangulate my location from any tower I accessed. I knew the mundane police could track me that way.

  Once, almost a year ago, I’d bought burner phones to avoid police detection. They’d allowed me to communicate with Chris and to coordinate an entire skirmish with James by my side.

  That time seemed like ancient history. Even if I’d been able to find burner phones in the strange, suspended world of the convention center hotel, I didn’t have anyone to call.

  Left to my own devices, without a job to wake up to or friends to socialize with or real meals at specific times and places, I quickly lost track of day and night. My two years of working at the Night Court had conditioned me to sleep during the day and to be awake at night. Mostly, I kept to that schedule at the hotel, making suitable adjustments to raid conference meals.

  When I had to, I spent some of my meager cash. I didn’t dare leave the hotel, but there was a Starbucks in the lobby, along with a gift shop that charged criminal prices for candy bars. Stressful times called for desperate measures. I splurged on a Snickers. Or two. Or three.

  Early on, I fished a discarded room key out of a trashcan in the lobby. It wouldn’t get me into a guest room, or the luxe fitness center advertised in the elevators. It wouldn’t even open the door to the business center. But I quickly discovered that other hotel guests held doors for me when they saw that piece of plastic nestled in my hand.

  I used my ill-gained computer access to help pass the time, reading countless articles on topics as varied as spring planting schedules in colonial DC and the ongoing debate about whether Pluto was a planet. Along the way I slipped in searches for information on Sekhmet, on Sheut, on anything to do with the darkest, most distant days of ancient Egyptian civilization.

  After a week, there wasn’t much more for me to discover. Worse, I was starting to attract unwelcome attention from the front desk staff, who studied my comings and goings with a bit too much attention. Worst of all, I was losing the hygiene battle after my countless “cowboy baths” in the restroom. Even the Grand Duke’s plush terry hand cloths weren’t a substitute for a real shower. My scalp itched, and my hair was starting to look as bad as the wig I’d worn inside the natural history museum.

  I had to face reality. It was time to move on. I had to blow my cover and use my credit card to get the car out of hock. While I was at it, I could use my ATM card to stock up on cash. The only question that remained was where I would go when I fled, and whether I’d be fast enough to get there ahead of the EBI and mundane law enforcement.

  Eyeing the blind glass globe of a surveillance camera in the business center, I debated reading my personal email. On the one hand, I was about to surface to the mundane and the imperial world. On the other hand, I dared not give away a single second of my head start.

  But I had to know the status of the imperial cases against me. The imperial press—The Paranormal Post and the Imperial Inquirer and all the other papers that had staked out my home and Chris’s—were blocked from mundane browsers. I couldn’t reach them from a public access computer.

  I had another option, though. I could go directly to the source for my information. I could check the court’s own records.

  I wasn’t brave enough to log in to any imperial network as myself. But I could pose as Angelique Wilson. I’d helped her to log in often enough when she first took on her job as Acting Director of Security.

  Working fast, I typed in an IP address I’d memorized long ago, a numeric code that corresponded to the computer system humming beneath the courthouse. Once the screensaver showed up, the familiar image of a sword piercing a sheaf of parchment, I was prompted to enter a username.

  Catching my lower lip between my teeth, I typed angelique.wilson. I tapped the Return key quickly, as if the speeding electrons would somehow minimize my invasion of Angelique’s privacy.

  The computer asked me for a password.

  If James were still in charge, the password might have been changed. He’d issued orders on a regular basis, requiring all staff to update their security protocols.

  Angelique, though, hadn’t required password changes in all the time I’d worked for her. I crossed my fingers, hoping she’d maintained her lax stance for the past couple of weeks.

  I picked out the letters and numbers I’d memorized in Angelique’s service: G3rm@nSh#ph3rdD0g

  The screen wavered for a moment, and then I had access.

  “Ma’am?” The question came from the doorway of the business center. I swallowed a surprised gasp and looked into the earnest eyes of Samuel, the most worrisome of the front desk clerks. He took a step into the room, and the overhead light glinted off the lapel pins announcing which languages he spoke: German, French, Italian, and Spanish. Over-achiever.

  “Yes?” I responded, pretending that I had every right to be sitting in front of the computer.

  “Is there anything I can help you with?” Samuel’s voice
was sharp with fake concern.

  “No thank you,” I said. “I’m just finishing up some work for the office.”

  I could tell he didn’t believe me. I thought he was going to insist on my leaving, but he merely nodded and backed out of the doorway.

  My fingers flew as I dove into the court’s filing system. I typed my own name and was immediately treated to three files, the names printed in scarlet. Bench warrants had been issued for my arrest. I was a fugitive from the Eastern Empire Night Court.

  I should have expected as much, but actually seeing the words displayed on the screen felt like a punch to my solar plexus. That shock, that sense of unfairness and abandonment, was the only reason it took me so long to realize there were three cases. There should have been two—the murder charges regarding Judge DuBois and the trespassing charges from deleting Richardson’s records.

  My whole arm shook as the cursor hovered over the third case. I clicked and blinked twice before I could make sense of the words.

  The Clans of the Empire Empire v. An Amulet in the Form of Two Egyptian Gods.

  Without thinking, I slipped my hand into the pocket of my denim jacket, closing my fingers around the amulet. I carried it with me everywhere; I didn’t dare leave it in the car, in case the Prius was towed away as an abandoned vehicle. In just a few days, the amulet had become my secret habit, my worry stone, helping diffuse some of the stress of my strange new life.

  My thumb automatically surfed over the smooth shape of Sekhmet, coming up short at the jagged line where Sheut’s head had once been attached. As I had every day since I’d huddled with Chris in the museum, I waited for a rush of power, for the secret flame that had nearly consumed me.

  Nothing.

  The amulet was dead.

  Worrying at the glass with my thumb, I skimmed the documents that some substitute clerk had added to the database. Weeks ago, when I’d tried to track down information on Sekhmet’s Seal, I’d searched for just this type of litigation, where a legal action was brought against an object.

  It seemed that an overzealous prosecutor had initiated the case to lay the groundwork for a criminal action for Mundane Exposure, for displaying the paranormal world to humans. I was listed as a potential party, as was Chris. The only reason he hadn’t been dragged into the courtroom already was that the amulet itself was owned by a human, by Mohammed Apep. The Eastern Empire Night Court had to tread carefully to avoid exposure.