Chapter 27 #2
“You should have heard him scream. He actually thought you’d save him. But you didn’t. In fact, you killed his parents the very next week.”
I felt as much as saw all the blood leave Josh’s face.
While my attention remained focused on him, Beatrice Harker’s evil cackle filled the room.
Shouts rose. The gavel struck home again and again, adding to the cacophony.
At last, a soldier wrapped a hand around Josh’s arm and yanked him to his feet.
He went without resistance, looking more like a zombie than a living person.
The soldier was joined by others as Josh was forcibly removed from the courtroom to the backdrop of his mother’s sickening laughter.
Josh
I hung my head in my hands and struggled to breathe. The holding cell wasn’t the beacon of solitude I needed, though, and I couldn’t afford to break down in front of so many people. Despite that fact, my mind continued to spin around on its demented merry-go-round.
Zach was dead, and it was all my fault. I hadn’t stabbed him in the back myself, but I might as well have. It was my selfishness, my lack of foresight, my lack of planning… And his parents…
I smothered a groan of soul-deep guilt. I hadn’t known who they were, just that my mother wanted them dead.
Everything about the hunt was fuzzy. I didn’t even remember what they looked like.
The more I tried, the more the memory of Zach’s sweet smile and kind eyes resurfaced.
He hadn’t deserved to die; none of them had.
The cell door opened with a clang of metal, and I looked up, hoping to see Elijah. I needed him. Needed to know that what had been done to Zach could never be done to him, that somehow he would magically stay out of my mother’s clutches. Except it wasn’t Elijah standing before me.
“What are you doing here, Lombardi? Where is Elijah?” I couldn’t seem to shake the irrational fear that left unattended, Elijah would end up just as dead as Zach.
How different would things have turned out if I’d taken him up on his offer to date?
Would he still have come to the house? Would he have eventually lost interest and safely moved on?
Too many ifs spun around in my mind, keeping me untethered.
The pain in my heart spoke of a truth I’d been too scared to acknowledge at the time—Zach had been my first love.
And my love had gotten him killed, just like it would Elijah.
Without warning, I leaned over the side of the bench and retched.
The bile coming out of my body did nothing to purge my heart of the bile that had left my mother’s mouth.
A tiny, desperate part of me wanted to believe that none of it was true.
That if I asked Lombardi to track down Zach and his family, he’d find them safely sequestered in some mountaintop oasis.
But I knew better. Zach was dead, his family was dead, and I was responsible.
A kerchief appeared in my line of vision. I absently accepted the outdated square and wiped my mouth.
“While your husband insisted on joining me, I felt it was for the best that he not be here.” Lombardi’s response was calm and calculated as ever.
“Where is he? Is he okay?”
“He is not alone, if that is what you are concerned about. You are not the only one who keeps interesting companions. I doubt he is even aware that he is being watched.”
“Somehow that’s not a comfort.”
“Perhaps the fact that it is by Hyacinth Van Helsing herself will put your mind at ease.”
“And yet, it doesn’t.” Hyacinth hadn’t been seen or heard from since she’d fallen prey to her own family’s twisted warpath. “Tell me he’s safe.”
“Your partner is safe. I will not let what happened before happen again. Also, I would recommend that you refrain from eating lest you lose your stomach contents when you retake the stand tomorrow.”
I raised my head to look at Lombardi. “Tomorrow?”
“Yes. It seems your mother has caused quite a stir and, in her arrogance, confessed to substantially more than her original charges, namely her involvement with what happened on Klamath territory, among a few others,” Lombardi finished tactfully. I filed that tidbit away and wiped my mouth again.
“Will they be returning me to the Pit?”
“I assume so. Rest well, Joshua. You will need your strength tomorrow.”
I nodded and watched as Theodore Lombardi was led out of my cell and into the temple proper.
As he made his way through the room, people stepped aside to allow him passage, instinctively giving way to a more dangerous predator, though I doubted a one of them was aware of their subconscious response to the unassuming lawyer.
They didn’t take me back to the Pit.
Rest was a long time coming with the constant flow of bodies coming and going through the temple, but when it claimed me at last, I sank blissfully into its embrace.
It took a soldier shaking me awake the following morning to finally rouse me.
I groggily sat up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes.
My back ached from being forced to sleep on the unforgiving bench, and my mouth tasted vile from falling asleep after being sick.
The world offered a minor mercy in the form of a glass of tepid water.
I swished the liquid in my mouth and spat it out before passing the glass back to the soldier who had offered it, mindful of Lombardi’s warning.
This time when I was hauled to my feet, no spelled cuffs were forthcoming.
As one, my paltry half a dozen guards and I exited the cell and made our way to the courtroom for what could be the last time.
The room fell silent as I entered. The soldiers didn’t take me to my customary seat, though.
They led me to the witness chair, then hovered in the background once I was seated.
My gaze wandered over the panel and the mix of faces there.
The display of unity among races and species was nothing more than a facade, and thanks to the substantial media coverage, the whole world knew it.
The world will learn a lot more before this farce is through.
I shifted my focus to where Elijah sat, gripping the banister for all he was worth.
My spirits lifted at seeing him, even though he looked as haggard and strung out as I felt.
One day I hoped to pay him back for the light he’d brought to my life, even if it was just a matter of letting him live out his without me.
Camilla Hightower approached the chair once more.
Her tenacity somewhat dimmer than when this whole disaster had started.
She started slowly, reiterating the same questions as before in order to establish a baseline, until at last we arrived at the question that had shattered everyone’s expectations.
“Detective Hart, do you hate lycanthropes?”
“No. I do not hate werewolves. I never have.” The declarative statement was met with soft murmurs that quickly died down.
Hightower pointed across the room to where my spiteful mother sat like a queen awaiting petitioners. “Is this woman your biological mother?”
“Beatrice Harker may have given birth to me, but she has in no way ever acted like a mother.”
“That’s quite the statement,” Hightower mused aloud as she paced before me. “On what grounds do you make it?”
I turned my attention to the prosecutor, a little impressed by her approach. She had clearly done her homework and adapted her tactics admirably. “I imagine most mothers don’t beat their children for not wanting to kill something.”
“Are you implying that your mother was abusive?”
“I’m not implying. I’m saying outright that the first time my mother hit me I was less than five years old and had said a wolf was pretty.”
Murmurs multiplied like weeds, and several glances found their way to the haughty Beatrice Harker, who didn’t appear apologetic in the least. Unfazed, Camilla pressed onward.
“Did you lie about your age on your application to join the Lycan Detective program in order to further your family’s ancestral mission? ”
“I didn’t lie about my age.”
Hightower made a sweeping gesture, and my original application appeared on the screen for all to see. “Really? Because it says right here that you are claiming to be eighteen years of age. Are you defining a lie some other way?”
She had definitely done her homework. “I personally did not lie about my age, nor have I ever. Anyone who asked would have learned the truth. Director Starling, then Lycan Detective Starling, was the first such person to do so, and I told her the truth.”
“Then how do you justify the lie clearly entered on your application?”
I looked at Hightower, then steadily met the collective gaze of the enraptured panel. “I didn’t submit the application.”
“Who did?”
“Beatrice Harker.”
“Did you join the Lycan Detectives so you could further your family’s mission statement and commit genocide on a larger scale?”
“While the intent may have been to leverage the cover of a Lycan Detective to find and eliminate more targets, the actuality may have prevented it.”
“Please clarify.”
“Lycan Detectives are under constant scrutiny, if not by our own agency, then by others. Every kill I made in my position as Lycan Detective was clean and by the book. The fact that I rose to become the current top agent meant that I was called on to take more assignments, thus limiting the time that may otherwise have been used in pursuit of unsanctioned targets.”
Clearly growing frustrated that she wasn’t getting the answers she wanted, Hightower ceded the floor and allowed Lombardi to take her place.
“Now that we’ve established your oaths are very much intact, I’d like to double back over a few questions my colleague asked.”
I gave Lombardi a dubious look, not sure at all how this tactic fit with our game plan. Rather than meet my gaze, he kept his eyes fixed slightly above the ground.
“How many unsanctioned kills have you made in your lifetime?”
“Fifty-three.”
“And this includes your first kill at thirteen?”
“Yes,” I ground out.
“And how many sanctioned kills have you made since becoming a Lycan Detective beneath the watchful eye of our esteemed governments?”
“Objection,” Hightower interjected. “Relevance?”
Lombardi turned to address the panel. “There is a point, and these numbers are a matter of public record.”
“Proceed,” Senator Stevens said, though they looked less than pleased at the allowance.
“How many?” Lombardi repeated.
“One hundred and twelve.” Despite the fact that the number was accessible to the public, shock still rippled through the crowd in waves.
“You suggested to Councilor Hightower that being a Lycan Detective actually inhibited your ability to pursue kills off the books. What would you estimate your full count would be if you had never become a detective?”
“Easily twice that, if not three times.”
“That’s quite a lot of lycans you didn’t kill.”
“The purpose of this trial is not to establish how many weres I haven’t killed, but how many I have.”
Lombardi cocked his head to the side. “Is it?”
At the casual question, anxiety threaded through my chest. I dug my fingers into the arms of the chair and forced my breathing to remain even.
“How long have you known your mother was magically controlling you?”
“What are you doing?”
“Answer the question, Detective.” I glanced over at General Zarka, where he leaned forward in anticipation of my answer.
“Please don’t do this,” I whispered to Lombardi, not caring what other supernaturals were capable of hearing me.
“I believe the panel is awaiting your answer. When did you learn that Beatrice Harker was using a potent—illegal—compulsion spell to control your actions?”
I gritted my teeth and dug my fingers harder into the chair until it creaked in protest.
“You can either answer of your own volition or you can be compelled to do so,” the Ambassador of the Winter Court stated, cool as a winter frost.
“Last year.”
A collective gasp filled the courtroom, and Lombardi smirked. “And before that?”
“I didn’t.” The words fell out of my reluctant mouth to hit the ground like stones. “Why are you doing this? Stop.”
“You’ve executed a total of one hundred and sixty-five lycanthropes, but you’ve neglected to mention how many you’ve actively saved.”
My rebellious gaze sought my mother, even as a trickle of fear slid down my spine. Her face was a mask of pure rage. Her fingers like talons in her bunched skirts.
“How many, Detective, both through the course of duty and in your… extracurriculars? How many lycan lives have you spared in your thirty-four years as a legendary werewolf hunter?”
“Don’t do this.”
“We’re waiting, Detective.”
“Stop.” My gaze bounced around all the expectant faces until at last it landed on Elijah’s determined one. With sickening realization, I knew this was his doing. He was the only person to have ever made that connection.
“Answer. The. Question,” Lombardi pressed without mercy.
I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head. It was all in vain. Litral ice crawled along my skin while a band of air tightened around my chest. “One thousand and fifty-nine,” I gasped through strained lungs. The band subsided, and I blinked my eyes open to see flakes of ice melting on my skin.
“Consider yourself warned, Detective. This tribunal will not tolerate noncompliance.” I raised my head to meet Coven Leader Albright’s unforgiving gaze.
Beside her, Senator Stevens appeared shaken, as did the other senators at what they'd witnessed.
Another look around revealed countless eyes wide with surprise.
I sagged against the band still invisibly encircling my torso and hung my head.
All my efforts, and I was still going to get Elijah killed.
Relentless, Lombardi stepped forward. “And in all these years, how many lycans have you wanted to kill?”
“I’m begging you, Lombardi, please don’t do this.” The band re-tightened around my chest and I wheezed.
Lombardi’s hands came down hard on the arms of the witness chair, effectively caging me. “You are bound to the truth, Detective. How many lycanthropes have you wanted to kill?”
I sobbed softly into my chest, the air around my torso squeezing more with each second I delayed. “None.” I could scarcely hear the word myself over the wind spiraling around me.
“Louder, Detective, not all of us have enhanced hearing.”
My head shot up, setting free the tears I’d refused to cry last night.
“None! I have never wanted to kill a werewolf, a lycanthrope, a wolf, or whatever other term you want to use.” The shout crashed through the courtroom.
“Are you happy now?” The air encircling my chest vanished, and I pitched forward to hit the floor on my hands and knees.
“Yes.” Lombardi stepped back to allow the soldiers to take custody of me.
I’d never felt more defeated in my life as I raised my head to meet the impassive expressions of the panel. “I may not have wanted to, but it doesn’t change the fact that I did.”