From The Nights Before Christmas © 2010 by Kerry Allen
Chapter Nine
The hearing took place in the chambers of the Honorable Warren P. Belcher. Bowe and Harvey stood on one side of the room. Three Council Elders stood on the other, wearing velvet robes that made a bold statement about their position on cross-dressing. One held a doll clad in a red dress trimmed with white fur.
A stranger with blood-red hair lounged in a chair between the two factions, his unblinking green eyes locked on Elder Jaden, who held the doll.
Elder Moro took umbrage at the scrutiny. “Who the hell are you?”
The stranger’s cheery smile bared fangs. “I’m the one who’s going to kill that asshole if he plays with his dolly a nanosecond before nine.”
Moro puffed up. “She’s forbidden to wield a weapon, including sentient ones.”
The smile vanished. “No one wields me. I volunteered to stand in because someone has to teach arrogant fuckers like you that torture is a no-no, and I’ve been waiting a long time to educate somebody.”
Bowe nudged Harvey in the ribs. “I like him. Friend of yours?”
Harvey didn’t know him, but he would accept aid from anyone who offered at this point. “Never seen him before in my life.”
She sighed. “I was afraid of that.”
Judge Belcher entered the room, settled into the chair behind his desk, and scanned the paperwork laid out in front of him. “I understand time is of the essence in this case. I’ve familiarized myself with the particulars of the defendant’s sentence, so you may concentrate on mitigating factors not contained therein, Mr. Doyle.”
Elder Feldin adjusted the cuff of his robe. “The Council does not recognize the authority of this court.”
“That’s fine.” Belcher leaned back in his chair. “You’re in my realm, meddling with the lives of my citizens. I can toss you in a cell for contempt if you fail to heed the ruling of this court, and you can contemplate my authority to do so between interactions with your cell mate. Begin, Mr. Doyle.”
Harvey had counted on the Council accruing bad will with Belcher in order to lessen the burden on Bowe, who hadn’t been conscious and attentive for a long enough span to be coached. He squeezed her hand and willed her to use her head before her tongue. “Tell him what you did.”
She said in an undertone for his ears alone, “I really don’t think that’s going to help.”
“You haven’t done anything terrible enough to deserve this. Tell him.”
She sucked in her lips and released them with a pop. “If you say so. Your Honor, these three Council members are the ones that ran away while I was busy killing the other twelve.”
The plummeting sensation he felt inside was not unlike that experienced when riding a roller coaster. Some people considered it great fun. Harvey associated it with imminent doom. “Tell him why.”
Though clearly bemused by his insistence on pursuing the issue of multiple murder, she did as asked. “They hired me to assassinate the organizer of an opposition movement which, if successful, would strip the Council of much of its power. I decided I’d rather not, but I’m bound by the assassin’s creed to bring the job to resolution by any means necessary, those means understood to be killing either the target or my employer. The Council hired me for the job, so the Council had to be terminated.”
Her matter-of-fact recitation of events wouldn’t earn her any sympathy, but the part she’d skipped might. “Why didn’t you want to kill the target?”
“I support his platform of elven civil liberties.” She shrugged off the importance of the rest. “He’s also my brother. The good one. The other one, who’s a jackass, I’d kill free of charge if someone offered me that job.”
He squeezed her hand harder. They’d established her motive and that she wasn’t a heartless, mindless monster. Now to persuade Belcher of the unfairness of the sentence. “Who wrote the creed that requires you to resolve the job by killing either the target or the employer?”
She squinted at him as if trying to discern when he had become so dense. “The Council. Same guys who write all elven laws.”
His organs buoyed on a triumphant tide. “Your Honor, they sentenced her to die when all she did was follow their rules.”
All three Elders reddened with rage. Jaden erupted. “There are other rules!”
And enough loopholes for the Council to slither through to arrive at whatever destination they favored at any given time. “Rules from which she’s been exempt when it was convenient for you.”
Bowe bobbed her head. “I’m simple-minded, Your Honor. I can’t be expected to keep straight when it’s okay to kill and when it’s a capital offense. It’s all very confusing.”
Feldin pounded one fist into the other palm. “She was assigned a task with clear consequences for failure to complete that task. She failed.”
Not from lack of effort on her part. She’d died three times—not counting the incidental expirations during recovery periods—in trying to fulfill her end of the bargain. By any standards, she’d gone above and beyond the call of duty to complete her mission. “The consequences were crystal clear, but the task was not. I don’t know what they expect of me, Your Honor, but I’m obviously incapable of providing it. The failure is mine. Release her and kill me instead.”
Her head whipped toward him. “What?”
Moro thrust a finger at her. “She failed, and she dies!”
Belcher folded his hands on top of his rounded gut. “Some consider the Christmas spirit one of giving, and Mr. Doyle is willing to give his life. In the eyes of this court, the terms have been satisfied.”
Moro and Feldin moved toward Belcher. “In our eyes, they have not.”
Jaden began chanting.
The other vampire shot across the room in a blur. The chair still bore an impression of his weight when he knocked Jaden to the floor and silenced him with a knife to the base of his tongue.
“That’s enough, Xain.”
All the room’s occupants froze, save for a collective shudder at the undercurrent of terrible power in that voice.
The other vampire shook all over, except the arm holding the blade. That remained sure and steady. “I respectfully disagree.”
“So do I,” Bowe forced through her chattering teeth.
A figure emerged from the shadows in the corner, tall, rail-thin, face gaunt with dark smudges beneath his eyes. “I knew putting you two in a room together was a mistake. It’s a miracle anyone’s left alive.” His black gaze drifted over Harvey en route to their target. “Bowe.”
Her fingernails dug into the back of Harvey’s hand. “Keran. You look like shit.”
Harvey choked. The legal system couldn’t save her if Keran tore her in two because of her smart mouth.
“And you, as always, are delightful as a hot poker in the eye.”
Harvey unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “You know each other?”
Bowe edged closer to his side. “Yeah. I’d have told you summoning him was pointless, at best, except I spent most of the day dead or with a mouth full of blood.”
Keran laid a hand on Harvey’s shoulder, prompting another shudder. “Are you certain you want to save her? Personally, I think she’d make an amusing ornament for my coffee table, dying in agony every few minutes like clockwork for eternity.”
The suggestion wormed its way into his brain and made itself at home. Why not? Her fate had been set in motion long before she forced him to become involved, turned his life inside out, and stripped him of his dignity. Stepping aside was the logical thing to do. The easy thing. Then he could return to his normal, quiet, orderly existence, just the way he liked it.
Bowe stared at him, eyes wide with terror, but said nothing.
That wasn’t right. Silence was a foreign concept to her. She even talked in her sleep.
Anger flared in his gut at the mental manipulation, at denying her the ability to speak in her own defense, but was quickly extinguished by a wave of nausea. If combat were the solution, Bowe could have saved herself. She needed a mild-mannered appeaser, not a brawler.
Plus, they all might live a little longer if Keran stayed in a good mood. “I want her to live. Please.”
“Very well, since you asked nicely.” Keran ruffled his hair as if he were a small child. “You’d be surprised how many don’t.”
Harvey had an overwhelming urge to peel his scalp from his skull and burn it to erase all evidence of that touch.
Moro steadied himself with a hand on the corner of the desk. “You have no authority in this matter, not even the flimsy claim of this court.”
Keran tucked his hands in his pockets, belatedly recalling contact with him tended to make lesser beings barking mad. “I have no interest in taking charge. I’m here merely to suggest an alternative.”
Belcher cleared his throat. “Please continue, Lord Keran.”
“If Miss Winderowe were to become something other than an elf, the Elven Council would have no authority over her.”
Hope sparked in Harvey’s chest. It was in no way the form of intervention he’d expected—so simple, in fact, he should have thought of it himself—but it would work. “I request an extension long enough to make her a vampire.”
Bowe extracted her hand from his grip. “I don’t want to be a vampire. I’m not cut out for living the way you do, pushing papers, following all those rules, giving up chocolate.”
“There are other options.” Options that would take her away from him, but at least she would be alive. As long as she had a future, he could kid himself he might someday be a part of it. “Shapeshifters more or less govern themselves.”
“But they smell and have fleas.”
Belcher cleared his throat again.
Bowe fidgeted. “Xain, be a dear and cut out my tongue next. It’s not good for much but digging holes deeper.”
Keran cocked an eyebrow. “There’s an idea everyone who’s ever met you would endorse, but since you’re unlikely to submit to mutilation or conversion, consider this.” He held a vial in his outstretched palm.
Bowe stiffened at the sight of it. “I already said no.”
“I said you’d come around, and here you are. Before you refuse me again, stubborn girl, think for a moment what will become of Harvey if you perish.”
Her nostrils flared. “He’ll get over it. He’s known me less than a day.”
“I knew you less than an hour, and my fascination hasn’t waned in eight centuries.”
She turned in response to the strangled sound caught in Harvey’s throat. “It wasn’t what you’re thinking.”
“I’m sure he understands how the swath of destruction you cut through a man’s life changes him in unforgettable ways.” The smile itself was benign. The context made it cruel. “Though not half as much as he’ll understand after you’re gone.”
Harvey would consider any and all offers. “What’s in the vial?”
“Blood.”
The contents appeared clear as water, not like any blood he’d ever seen. “Yours?”
“I’m flattered that you think I’ve ever been that pure. No, not mine.”
Bowe sneered. “Liar.” Harvey shook his head in warning, but she would not relent. “I know what it does. It has to be his.”
Keran raised one shoulder. “Very well, one drop.”
One drop of blood seemed a small thing to weave lies around. “Why not say so in the first place?”
Bowe gave him a look of disbelief. “Would you drink his blood?”
“There’s an interesting thought.” Keran shifted the offering toward Harvey.
Bowe stepped between them. “No! He’s too squeamish to do your dirty work.”
“He wouldn’t survive the first company picnic,” Keran agreed with a blatant lack of concern. “One of you hurry up and be a hero before I get bored and leave you to the nonexistent mercy of a lesser authority.”
Harvey reached for the vial.
Bowe slammed him against the wall. “You don’t even know what that will do to you. Are you insane?”
“Yes. Since about nine-thirty last night.” Every moment since then had been filled with wild, uncontrollable feeling—fear, pity, tenderness, passion. He’d take them all rather than live without the warmer ones again, which could only be described as madness. “I will not let you die.”
“Aren’t you the guy who killed me around that time?”
He cupped her cheek in his palm. “That’s when everything changed.”
Her brow furrowed, then her eyes narrowed to slits. “You dirty, lying blood-reader.”
He caught her fist before it plowed into his liver. “I said it was rare. I never said I didn’t see inside you.”
She didn’t wear her crass exterior like a suit of armor to protect her soft, sensitive insides. She was every bit the brazen, belligerent, frank, and foul-mouthed temptress she seemed. She was also loyal and courageous and compassionate to those who deserved it. Her role as an assassin put her in the position of political insider, and if she killed for money, at least she chose to kill those whose deaths improved the lives of many rather than serving the highest bidder.
She was worth saving, at any cost.
“If you’ve been nursing some misguided sense of guilt—”
“I’m not sorry. For any of it.” His hand slipped down to her throat, his thumb settling over his mark. His teeth clenched on a primitive, possessive thrill. “I took you. You’re mine. Nobody’s taking you from me.”
Her pulse picked up speed beneath his fingertips. “Wow, Harvey. You do a pretty good impression of an old-school, domineering, chauvinistic vampire when you put your mind to it, but this isn’t the best time for a game of ‘lord of the manor disciplines impertinent serving wench.’”
Keran regarded them with curiosity. “He means it.”
Bowe growled. “What’s that supposed to mean? Is there some bonded-for-life kissy-kissy-goo-goo bullshit attached to sucking somebody dry?”
Keran’s brows elevated “One of the lives in question is over by that point, and I lacked the foresight to account for the singular exception of a cursed elf when I jotted down the rules.”
Bowe returned her gaze to Harvey. “So, what? You want to get married and have babies and move to the suburbs?”
His attempt to envision her in that environment yielded a premonition of soccer moms fleeing from a minivan with a gun turret and a mushroom cloud in the distance. “I haven’t planned that far ahead, anticipating we’ll kill each other or wind up in jail before New Year’s.” Twenty-four hours earlier, the notion would have sent him running for the hills with the soccer moms. Despite his again wearing a suit and tie and addressing difficulties through proper legal channels, something had changed to make him see her as invigorating rather than horrifying. “It’ll be a hell of a week, though.”
“Alrighty, then.” She snatched the vial from Keran’s hand, broke the seal, and downed the contents in one gulp.
Yet she retained her ability to be horrifying. “What have you done?”
“It’s this stuff or die.” She licked a stray drop from her lip. “How bad could it be?”
“Just wait,” Xain muttered.
Keran retrieved the empty vial from her fingers. “Just what I need, another reckless, impulsive killer. I may be the one who ends up regretting this.”
Harvey put his arms around Bowe, though it was too late to protect her from her own recklessness. “What, exactly, is ‘this’?”
She retched. “Something I should have known better than to drink after the first taste.” Her knees buckled, and she dropped like a stone, dragging him to the floor with her.
He cradled her in his arms. A tremor vibrated trough her body. A thin trickle of blood ran from one corner of her mouth.
Her breath came out in a wheeze. “Odds of surviving this, Keran?”
“One in ten do. Of course, they’ve all been vampires, and you’re not in the best physical condition presently, so I’m as uncertain of the outcome as you are. One thing has been settled, however.” He pried the doll from Jaden’s fist and slit the back of the dress with a fingernail. The fabric parted as if sliced with a razor.
The constriction spell broken, Bowe’s dress reverted to its original form-fitting—not form-crushing—size.
“She’s mine now. Molest her in any way, and there will be unspecified consequences. You know my reputation; use your imagination.” Keran dropped the doll back on the floor. “He’s no longer a threat, Xain. It’s against the rules to kill him.”
Xain tapped his knife against Jaden’s teeth. “I thought there’d be an exemption for crimes against elfmanity.”
Bowe opened her blood-stained mouth. “Oh, let him go. He has a civil war to look forward to at home. Elfmanity can deal with him the way he deserves.”
Harvey pushed back her upper lip. Elongated canines had erupted from her gums, overlapping her shorter ones. “You have fangs.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.” She snapped her teeth at the offending finger. “Does this mean I have to drink blood now?”
“The others have.” Keran shrugged. “Then again, they did before the change. You’ll find out when you get hungry. Have you decided to survive, then?”
She patted herself down to make sure all the vital parts were present and functional. “It seems so.”
“Wonderful. I’ll be in touch. Do try to behave yourself.” He vanished, taking the three Council Elders with him.
Xain stared at the empty space beneath his knees. “Old man never lets me have any fun.”
Bowe sat up. “Do I get a name tag? Is there a secret handshake?” She explored the new geography of her mouth with the tip of her tongue. “How’s the dental plan?”
Xain frowned. “Do you not understand what you’ve gotten yourself into, or do you think you’re too tough to care?”
“I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”
He hurled the knife at her.
She plucked it from the air with two fingers as if it were no more dangerous than a paper airplane. “Told you.” She made to flick it back to him.
“Keep it. You can’t afford to be without a weapon ever again.” He got to his feet and walked to the door, where he paused. Without looking around, he said, “He can’t be trusted.”
She laughed. “I’m not the one keeping a seat warm for him when he’s running late for an appointment. I have every intention of dodging that crazy son of a bitch until doomsday.”
Xain nodded his approval and left.
Belcher scooped some papers into his briefcase and snapped it shut. “I deem this matter resolved. If you’ll excuse me, I’m late for dinner and a scolding from the wife. Take a minute if you need it, then show yourselves out.”
They remained sitting on the floor after his departure. Harvey shook his head to rid it of the confused buzz that had taken up residence. “What just happened here?”
Bowe stood, removed her belt, and dropped it in the wastebasket. “I’m the newest member of Keran’s kill squad.”
Staying in the same line of work should make the transition—whatever that might be—easier on her. “Who do you have to kill?”
“Keran.”
“Now who’s insane?”
“Keran,” she repeated. “Hence the reason Big Daddy has no friends and has to hire killers to play with him.” She peeled the dress from her shoulders with an ecstatic moan.
Much as he adored her lack of inhibition, she would have to work on observing basic social conventions. “You can’t walk through the courthouse naked.”
“I’ll let you carry me over your shoulder, but I’m not wearing this dress for another minute.”
“Security will arrest you for indecent exposure.”
She rolled her eyes. “Stuffy, law-abiding Harvey Doyle rears his neatly combed head again.”
“Stuffy, law-abiding Harvey Doyle just saved your ass.”
“This ass here?” She lifted her skirt to confirm that portion of her anatomy had escaped the jaws of death unscathed. “You did so by summoning a bad-nasty with blood sacrifice hoodoo, not with your mighty pencil-pushing powers.” The bodice crumpled around her waist. “Though I do suppose I owe you a grope for arranging to have my seams let out his morning.”
The reminder of her grisly death jolted him enough to distract him from his first glimpse of her bare breasts. “What about the immortality hex?”
“I want to keep it.” She pushed the dress down her hips and kicked the hated garment into a corner. The striped panties joined it a second later. The cleaning crew would have a field day when they got around to Belcher’s office. “I like your savage side. I’ll never see it again if you think it’s possible to permanently kill me with the full extent of your vampiric passion.”
He removed his jacket and wrapped it around her. If she were half a foot shorter, it might have concealed enough to avoid an indecency charge. “I can give you passion without killing you.”
“I vaguely recall a demonstration to that effect, but my memory needs to be refreshed.” She backed against the door and raised her arms above her head, spreading the jacket wide open down the front. “Take me, Harvey.”
“Oh, I’ll take you.” He held her face in his hands and gave her a long, lingering kiss. “To the mall. It’ll be open until midnight to accommodate last-minute shoppers and naked elfpires.”
Her arms fell to her sides. “That’s downright vicious.”
“I’m buying.”
“You’ll have to do better than that to make up for subjecting me to frenzied customers and overworked sales associates.”
“I’m not putting my mouth on another greasy Santa Claus to entertain you.” He grabbed her by the lapels and dragged her against him. “But it wouldn’t be too difficult to incite me to put my mouth on you.”
She put her arms around him and squeezed his butt with both hands. “Does this mean you’re not going to be a fuddy-duddy all the time?”
“One of us has to be, when it’s practical.” Besides which, they both enjoyed the process of coaxing out his less restrained side.
“And one of us has to make it known when it’s not practical, just lame.”
“We make a good team.” She would stop him from retreating into himself again. He would get her out of trouble when she inevitably plunged headlong into it again. “We might make it past New Year’s, after all.”
“Oh, we won’t kill each other.” She straightened his tie. “But we may very well spend Christmas in jail for what I’ll incite you to do as long as I’m naked in a dressing room.”
.
From The Nights Before Christmas © 2010 by Kerry Allen
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