Then I realized that Manuela, the witch who now hated me, was sitting front row center. Her arms were folded tightly across her chest.
Great. That wouldn’t be distracting at all.
“Welcome to the Vampire Trials,” Dashiell said simply. “As you know, this event is held approximately every three years as a way to solidify the unique arrangement that binds us together in Los Angeles, allowing us to share power.” I noticed he didn’t say share power equally. “As is our custom, we will have five hours of trials, including a break in the middle, followed by several hours of . . . socializing.” I couldn’t see Dashiell’s face, but I could hear the humor in his voice. “We will repeat this same schedule tomorrow night.”
A murmur went through the crowd, as people shifted in their seats and whispered to their neighbors. Dashiell held up a hand. “I understand that many of you have heard about an incident that took place yesterday evening near the University of Southern California. One of our vampires has been accused of killing a number of young women.” He paused, letting that sink in. In the front row, Manuela the witch glared at me with a renewed intensity. I barely suppressed the instinct to slump down in my seat.
When Dashiell spoke again, it was into a void of dead silence. “I can assure you that the vampire in question will be tried for the crimes of blood-gorging and risking exposure. I have scheduled her trial for first thing tomorrow evening.”
Another murmur, and maybe I was being paranoid, but this one sounded disappointed. The crowd wanted blood, and they wanted it now.
Dashiell gestured to his left. We had built portable wooden steps and set them at the corners of the stage, on either side of the gaping orchestra pit, so the litigants wouldn’t have to leave the auditorium and traipse through the backstage area. “These stairs will be for the defendant,” Dashiell announced. He gestured to his right. “And these will be for the accuser. Let us begin.” He nodded to a short, stocky vampire standing at the corner of the stage behind a podium with its own microphone. “Lawrence, please read us the first names.”
The rest of the onstage lights went up, and Dashiell took his seat between Kirsten and Will. Lawrence, one of Dashiell’s most loyal—and most sycophantic—vampires, opened the protective cover of a tablet and tapped at the screen. “Werewolf Travis Hochrest has been accused of theft by Witch Adrienne Pough,” he called grandly, as though he were announcing the arriving guests at a ball.
An ample woman in her forties and a skinny werewolf with a bulbous nose both approached their sides of the stage, making their way over to sit in the chairs on either side of me. I hadn’t met Adrienne Pough, but she gave me a prim nod and took her seat, her hands folded on the table in front of her. Travis Hochrest, on the other hand, tried to give me a fist bump. “Scarlett, my man!” he cried. “Long time no see!”
The audience tittered, and I smiled in spite of myself. I’d cleaned up more than one minor mess caused by Travis. I declined the fist bump, which caused him to plop down in the chair with an injured look. A wave of body odor assaulted my nostrils, and I was suddenly very glad not to have enhanced senses.
“Adrienne,” Kirsten began, “please tell us what happened between you and Travis.” We had agreed in advance that the leader for each party would be the first to address them, and that we would use first names, because most of the vampires only knew each other that way.
The witch beside me looked like she wasn’t sure whether to sit or stand. Kirsten gave her an encouraging smile as if to say, “Either way.” She stayed seated.
“I used to have a goat,” the witch said abruptly. She bit her lip, winced, and started again. “That is, until last year I kept a small goat in my backyard, for milk, mostly. At the Midsummer party, Travis Hochrest said he could smell it on me. He was really . . . interested.” A disgusted look crossed her face. “Anyway, I believe he followed me home that night, because the very next morning when I went out to feed Shelly—that was her name—she was . . . she had been killed.” Adrienne’s voice faltered as she got choked up. “And there were wolf prints in the blood.”
“Isn’t it possible that a coyote got the goat?” Kirsten asked carefully.
Adrienne shook her head. “No, ma’am. I grew up in Montana, see, and there are wild wolves there. I saw their tracks all the time. I know a wolf print when I see one.” She reached into her cardigan pocket and held up a cell phone. “I got pictures of them, too.”
Will held up a hand. “That won’t be necessary. I have seen Adrienne’s photos, and I concur that it was a werewolf.” He turned his gaze to Travis. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Like, it was a goat, you guys!” said Travis, and the audience tittered again. “I’d pay the lady for it, but I don’t have any cash right now. I actually, um, owe cash to a couple of the other wolves. We have this poker game and—”
“I think that’s enough,” Will said, after a glance at the others. “As alpha, I will pay my wolf’s debt to Ms. Pough.” He sent a kind smile across the stage for her. Then his eyes moved to Travis, and narrowed to something very lupine. I actually kind of felt bad for Travis, even though he was an idiot. “Travis, you and I will work out the details of your debt in private.”
I could actually hear Travis swallow next to me. And here I had thought that only happened in cartoons.
And so it went. The next two trials were fairly uneventful, though neither was as open-and-shut as the Case of the Pilfered Goat. One of the vampires was reprimanded for starting a fight at Hair of the Dog—why had the moron decided to hang out in a werewolf bar in the first place?—and two witches were admonished for trying to recreate a strain of an herb that was poisonous to werewolves. Their excuse—that they weren’t trying to breed anti-werewolf magic into wolfberry; they just wanted to make it tastier so they could use it in a homemade dessert wine—was so stupid and flimsy it almost had to be true.
We were listening to one of the vampires tell an elaborate story about why he should be allowed to record himself waking up for the night so he could study the footage when I heard a hiss from the wings behind me.
“Scarlett! Scar!”
I jumped in my seat, and the vampire next to me turned to look, too. Dashiell, who was rarely interrupted under any circumstances, much less in the middle of the Vampire Trials, glared at a spot over my shoulder. I turned—and saw Jesse standing fifteen feet behind me, gesturing frantically for me to come over there. Shocked, I shook my head slightly, but that only made him march forward. As he got closer I saw his rumpled, dusty clothes, his torn pants, and the look of desperate determination on his face. I held up a hand—stop—and turned around to face Dashiell again. He was still glowering, but he gave me a barely perceptible nod, and I pushed my chair back and stepped offstage, expanding my radius to keep the two people at the litigant table human.
“What the actual hell, Jesse?” I whispered, as quietly as I could. Most of the people in the theater had superhuman hearing, and they would undoubtedly be curious about us going off-script. “What are you doing?” Before he could answer, a new thought struck me and I added, “How did you even get in here?”
Understanding the need for quiet, he grabbed my arm and put his mouth near my ear. I was hit with his familiar scent—Armani cologne and oranges. “The bad guys took Hayne,” he murmured. “He’s alive, for now, but I don’t know what they’re planning.”
I tensed. Without giving it much thought, I whirled around and made my way to the edge of the stage, where I was still out of sight of the audience, who were now whispering amongst themselves. Dashiell, Will, and Kirsten were all staring at me, as was the vampire on trial.
I didn’t want to mouth words where the defendant could see me, so I just looked at the Old World leaders, lifted a flat hand and slid it across my throat, the international symbol for stop it. Then I mimed tipping my head back for a drink. “Getting a drink” was our code for an emergency meeting, since although I might conceivably get together with either Kirsten or Will to discuss something casual, there was no scenario in any dimension that would involve just the four of us having social cocktails.