FM6 Cut Court Scene

 So, I don't think I've shown this.  Before I just did the 'fuck it' cut strait to the Paine scene in PIT OF NO RETURN, I did actually start putting some time into the whole Artificial Court aspect and show the next day of the trial.  This is obviously first draft material and not canon at this point and the jokes are...iffy, even for King Henry and it has writer's notes where I couldn't remember names or saved naming for later, but thought you might enjoy!

Of course, it also serves as another viewing of the messy sausage making process that is writing.

Copyrighted by me, Richard Raley, all rights reserved, do not copy and paste but instead link back here please, etc.

***

The coffee cup Val found me was the only thing keeping me upright at the moment.  Had trouble with that all morning.  Doesn’t help that in addition to all the stupid shit I’ve done in the last twenty-four hours,  the rotunda benches have no backs on them.  Wasn’t for Val or Ceinwyn reaching out to steady me I probably would’ve gone ass upwards into the second row by now.

Said crowd had grown from yesterday.  Only yesterday?  That was my whole morning.  Starting the trial was fucking yesterday?  Are you fucking shitting me?  But it was and today there was a bigger crowd.  More Artificers, more auxiliary members, more guests.  There was a literal royal princess in the audience.  No, I’m not saying what country; that would be rude.  Hint:  one of the ones who would do anal.  So not the one from England.  I’m betting…given how often she’s popping out kids.

But onto more important matters than whether the Duchess of Cambridge does anal or not…

No idea where Val had found the coffee at.  Maybe the Guild has its own Starbucks somewhere in their underground labyrinth; they sure are fucking everywhere else.  Had a cup with breakfast but caffeine’s effects didn’t last long when you stacked this many hours of wakefulness on top of one another.  Only managed a quick forty-five minute power nap before Watson banged on my cell door.  Had a cup of coffee and a tiny plate of toast for me.

Not even a single one of those too-small jam packets you get from IHOP.

Guessing my meager meal was another punitive measure at Massey’s order.  No English breakfast, no bacon, no sausage, not even the tofu kind until I play the part he wants me to.  Bad boy for taking Ceinwyn Dale’s help instead of mine!  No soup until you surrender.

I don’t surrender, Massey, just ask [Diamond Sword whatever they're called].

If he could find one of them that’s still breathing.

The race against the clock trying to clean up the evidence had been more worrying than the actual massacre.  Barely had time to register that, for the first time in my life, the answer to the question about how many men I’d killed was:  not a fucking clue.  Know how many I saved.  One templar, five Black Elf mothers, a grandma, a teenage girl, an adolescent boy, and a further mix of five children barely came to my belly button.

Didn’t stick around long; left to go grab Ceinwyn, so I could return her to Val’s apartment.  Didn’t stick around long there either.  Back across the valley of death I geo-surfed.  Saw a pair of bears fucking in the mushroom woods…guess that’s the circle of life.  Grabbed my extra change of clothes, careful not to get any blood on even the bag.  Crossed over into my cell, taking a shower by Magic Wand.  Change, quick trip to the Geo Realm to hide the bloody clothes and the towel I used to dry off.

Another hour checking over the hallways and bathroom for specks of blood while the shadows played tricks on me.

Collapsed into a chair, fell asleep.  Get awakened by a smiling, too-happy Canadian guardsman.

Deal with Massey’s bullshit trial while trying to stay awake.

While trying to deal with the fact how impossible the day before this one seemed, as engrossed in the mundane as I now was.  Was just yesterday that I made up with Ceinwyn, right?  Usually that kind of break with my past self took longer than a day.  I’m the same guy got off on being the first to cast a vote yesterday, right?  Same guy the day before finally told his girlfriend he loved her.

Felt in control then.

More in control than I do now at least.

My plan had a certain amount of acceptable Crazy in it, but we’d blown on through that fucker.  Pretty sure no one’s holding the steering wheel at the moment.  Also pretty sure we’re heading towards a cliff, kind with a waterfall and a ton of warning signs.

Stop while you can, bitch!

Hit the brakes, fucktard!

Hold on to your coot coot, grandma!

Of course Kate Middleton doesn’t do anal, you sexist pig!

Felt tired, not just because of the lack of sleep.  Felt like…I’d accomplished what I came for.  Did I really need to break into that safe when I’d already ransacked the breadth of the Vault?  Couldn’t I call it all off, leave that valley behind for whatever scavengers they had in the Geo Realm?  Sure I could.  I was leaning towards it even.

Sleep tonight.

All I want to do.

Don’t even want to wait until tonight, but I have to keep playing the game right now.

Trial, disciplinary hearing, shit show.  First two charges against me had already been examined.  Was expecting some anal probeage, but not for those two faces to turn up as witnesses against me.  Not a lot of choice if a mancer is called, just look at Plutarch forced to come all this way, but the second fucker, no excuses for you…I’m gonna remember this.

The first charge was the worst, because I had broken the letter if not the spirit of the law.  I made artifacts that could be considered weapons if you twisted the word weapon into a pretzel.  Fucking guilty.  It’s the rule I can’t that’s stupid as shit.  Not like I made a fireball pyro-bazooka or something, I made defensive tools interested with self defense.

That should be legal.

Common sense.

I’m sure a bulletproof jacket has killed someone once upon a time, maybe it sucked them down into a river or something, but it’s pretty hard to claim it’s a weapon.

Not the way MacNess explained it.  The Advocate laid out the case that SDRs were indeed capable of offensive use no matter what my opinions were on their purpose.  Jury nodded through it all, MacNess showing them diagrams and tables and some test results they ran on a pig.  Why a pig?  No clue, but the Mythbusters do it, so I guess it’s kosher.  To kill with an SDR by using it four times on the poor thing in half an hour.  Not to…like…eat.  Cuz…ya know, it’s a pig.

That make sense?

I’m fucking tired, okay?

Where were we?

Coffee.  Love my coffee.  Coffee and a bowl of chili, with a side of cornbread.  Ain’t exactly the most harmonious meal that’s ever been, but I ate it up.  Val sat beside me in the waiting room they’d locked the pair of us in.  Kept reaching over and running her hand over my hair like she could fix the mess of brown, but even she wasn’t that big of a Mary Sue.  Or maybe it was just her way to show affection for me without being able to say anything, since the both of us knew the likelihood of the room being bugged or having a secret peek hole was high.

Ceinwyn was busy doing Ceinwyn shit.

Political shit.

Greasing the wheels so that when we went to Massey at the end of this all and told him what was up, the other Guild members would vote for whatever bullshit agreement we came to.  Getting the shit beat out of me in the trial, but might get off with a slap on the hand still.  Maybe…depends on how Massey took the news about me knowing I’m a Maximus.  [Affluenza] strikes again and for the first time in my life I’m the one getting the Costco Executive Membership Card.

Felt wrong.

Felt as wrong as Val touching me felt right.

I wasn’t so tired I can’t even think, I’d give those peek hole watching fuckers a show alright, alright.

“Why don’t we just tell him now and we can catch a flight out of here in a few hours?” I’d asked that morning when my advisors arrived after my toast-sans-jam breakfast.

“That would be strong-arming him and stripping him of the cover he needs to keep on as Guild Master,” Ceinwyn explained.  “By going through with the trial and only then coming to him with our strongest response, we show him we could have used it all along and crushed him, but didn’t.  Alexander can be selfish, but he’s wise enough to know when he dodged a bullet.”

“So?” I complained.

“So by not making a fool out of him and showing him we didn’t make a fool out of him, he could be more disposed to make a preferable deal now and also in the future,” Ceinwyn tried again, holding back on comic references at least.

“Huh?” my sleep deprived brain still didn’t get it.

“It’s tactful,” Val translated.

“Oh…I see, yeah, I never bother with that shit.”

So baring some fireworks I had planned with the third and fourth charge, the plan was to give Massey his cover.  Meant me sitting on that bench, exhausted, as evidence piled up against me.  Meant mostly silence as the jurors questioned MacNess, passing over a million snappy interruptions I could have made.

Keep being a good boy, King Henry, means keeping your foul mouth shut for once.

I finished my chili and licked some cornbread crumbs off of my fingers.  Even love couldn’t keep Val from rolling her eyes at her caveman of a boyfriend.  Seen a bunch of cavemen yesterday, seen all sorts of horrible things happen to them, but none of it because of manners.  Happened to them cuz they chose to invade the wrong valley.  Happened cuz they thought they were invincible and they could do whatever they wanted.  Manners…don’t mean shit when your leg or arm gets blown off.  Still didn’t feel any guilt, hours later.  Might never feel any guilt.  Geo-crush with their armor at the end might have been a bit excessive.

You think?

True measure of a god is in how he spends his first hour.

Me…I made my enemies go pop.

Think that makes me a vengeful, jealous kind of god.

Hey, if Superman can kill a few million people killing Zod, I get to kill a few barbarians to save my friend.  Sure, all the comic fanboys hated that shit, but…fuck the fanboys, right?  Not literally…cuz…no one fucking ‘em is how they ended up fanboys.

Yes, I’m rambling, I’m fucking tired!

“You need to sleep tonight,” Val said after another moment with her hand working leisurely through my hair.  Felt so good I might drift away right then and there.

“I know,” I grunted, wishing I had another bowl of chili to eat.

“No staying up worrying about the trial.  Or anything else.  We have recess tomorrow, that’s when Ceinwyn will do most of her magic, then your testimony in your defense, and then the voting.  That’s three days to do plenty of thinking during the night, no need to do anything rash.”

“I know,” I repeated.  Or cornbread…just one more piece of it, that would be nice.

“Don’t worry about your friends, we’re all fine.  I called Tyson this morning and everything is fine with the shop.  Worry about yourself for one night.”

Speaking of T-Bone, Val’s a lot better with this speaking in code shit than he is and the two of us don’t even have a code set up.  Maybe T-Bone overdid it…just a tad.  Second pair of clothes sure did come in handy.  Think I’ll make a quick trip tonight to steal the rest of that beef jerky out of the cache too…using a World-Breaker to get a snack…sure it’s not the first time someone’s done it.  Bet [Horoto Arashi] was all about finding some steeltusk bacon at 3AM after he smoked some opium or whatever it was they used as drugs back in the day.

“You really think we’ll finish with the witnesses today?” I asked her.  She was right about sleeping tonight.  If tomorrow was a recess then I could even snooze through it, be bright and ready for my last day of thieving.  If I even did it.  Had some doubts about returning to that valley again.  Just a stupid safe.  What you need a safe for in the middle of a huge vault like that?  Bet it has naked pictures of Massey’s wife in it or something equally stupid.

Even if I didn’t go back to steal more information, I guess I did owe Poug a goodbye better than the hurried parting I gave him hours ago.  Hours…ain’t even a day away now, just hours.

“If one witness per charge keeps up, then yes, I think we might,” Val said, “You won’t be too surprised about the next two, right?”

“Know who they are.”

“Plutarch?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“You ain’t gonna like it,” I told her.

“Same level of dislike as you had for the first witnesses or even greater?”

Star Witness the First:  Estefan Ramirez.

*

Came out thinking he’d won the lottery.

Big ol’ important senior agent got to represent ESLED at King Henry’s trial.

Had that pretty boy smile on his face, his hand flying about shaking hands with everyone between the entrance and the witness chair.  Had so much product in his hair I wouldn’t be surprised if a stiff breeze’s friction caused it to catch on fire.  Sitting in said witness chair like it’s a golden throne, not some dinky wooden job.

“Please state your name, occupation, and your status as an Elementalist,” MacNess started.

Estefan was only happy to.  “Estefan Ramirez, Senior ESLED Agent in the West Coast Division, Stormcaller.”

“You were in the same school class as the Accused were you not?”

“I was.”

“Yet you still agreed to represent ESLED in these proceedings?”

Estefan nodded, looking at everyone but me, Val, or Ceinwyn.  “I was tasked as Senior Agent in transporting King Henry to the Guild.  A day after arriving in London I was retasked with cooperating with the Guild at this trial, including being a witness if required, by ESLED Director De Clermont.”

Ceinwyn leaned in to whisper, “This isn’t about you and Estefan, this about the usual Recruiter and ESLED pissing contest.”

“Figured he would’ve won that given he’s got a pointer and all you got it a sprayer,” I whispered back.

Ceinwyn’s smile twitched.  “You’d be surprised what a woman can do with a little aero-anima.”

“Might want to quit your day job and start charging to see that trick on the internet, here there’s more money in it.”

Val shushed the both of us, earning looks from both her boss and her boyfriend.  “This is important,” she pointed out.

“This is boring as shit,” I complained.

“How are you going to cross examine him if you haven’t listened to what Estefan’s said?”

I grumbled but shut up all the same.  Ceinwyn’s smile twitched again, having enjoyed getting me into trouble and not having to play the adult both.

Estefan and MacNess had gone on for a bit, mostly ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions about my time at the Asylum for now, many of those answers ‘yes,’ including about the waffle poisoning, the stripper thing, being lead suspect in having stolen the Staff of Rebirth…basically MacNess getting all my greatest hits on the record before turning to the SDRs themselves.

“Do you know what this is, Agent Ramirez?” MacNess asked while holding up one of the commercial variants of the SDR.

Huh, must have missed a Guild flunky, usually they’re pretty obvious and easy to kick out of the shop before they even see the merchandise, let alone buy any of it.

“I do,” Estefan said, “I’m wearing one right now.”

“I already provided evidence against this artifact that it was able to kill an animal in the Guild’s personal testing of it, have you ever seen it used in action?”

Estefan nodded.  “Twice.”

“Expound please.”

“I watched King Henry use it on a friend of ours.  They had gotten into a fight because King Henry is King Henry and his mouth is always going and King Henry zapped Jason unconscious.”

Beside me, Val covered her face with both hands.

“Well when he says it that way,” I grumbled.

“And the second instance?” MacNess pushed.

“Four months ago on a stop in New Mexico, my partner and I followed a lead to a group of Boar Nation thugs selling fauna-anima laced horse testosterone.  We jailed the faunamancer helping them and seized the horses, but had to destroy the stock.  Six Boars put up a fight and after my pool was exhausted I used my SDR to incapacitate the last suspect.”

“How long did it incapacitate him?”

“Twenty minutes give or take,” Estefan decided after searching his memory.

“So, not a simple stun gun voltage?”

“It has more of kick to it for sure.”

“What are ESLED operating standards concerning these SDRs?”

Estefan nodded like he got what MacNess wanted from him.  “To only use them after our pool has been completely exhausted and to only use them if we believe our life is threatened.  They also fall under statutes for general use of Elementalism in public and within the vicinity of a mundane and prohibited use against a mundane.”

“A higher threshold than even when mundane police officers use stun-gun devices then?” MacNess led.

“Yes, it’s considered lethal force equivalent to an electromancer.”

“Of which you are one.”

“Yes.”

“Could you kill someone with an equivalent usage of anima?”

Estefan nodded.  “I haven’t yet, but yes, I could.”

Crowd and the jury loved that…not as much as Massey did given the way his smile actually had some curve to it.

MacNess wasn’t even done.  “If you were in the same situation and it wasn’t just you who had one of these SDRs but also these Boar Nation thugs, would the situation have gone differently?”

Estefan finally glanced my way.  So there are limits to just following orders, I thought.  “It could have, but they didn’t.”

“There are variants of the SDR that are useable by mundanes or Weres however, aren’t there?  That use a pressure sensor or a lever instead of an anima pool to activate?” MacNess pushed.

“There are.”

“They’ve been found in use by the Coyote Nation, the largest Were Nation on the planet, have they not?”

“They have.”

Some gasps from the uninformed among the crowd.  The old Indian crone of a Guild-member and one of my jurors, Avani Sharma, scowled at me from across the rotunda.

“Artificer Price is selling SDRs to them.”

“We believe he is even if we’ve never confirmed it,” Estefan finally hedged.

“Why’s that?”

“Not priority,” he hedged some more.

“But it's illegal, isn’t it?  To provide artifacts to a Were Nation?”

“Usually, yes,” Estefan said to more gasps, before adding quickly, “However the Coyote Nation does have treaties with the Institution that other Were Nations don’t benefit from.”

“Well, that’s American politics, so I couldn’t speak to it,” MacNess waved it all away in perfect condescension.  “We certainly don’t make treaties with Were Nations on this side of the Atlantic.”

Some applause broke out above us, even nodding from the jury, especially Addington Muller, who was well known to aggressively dislike Weres and Vampires both, especially since Weres had been popping up in Europe and Africa more than ever.

Apparently finished with Estefan, MacNess took his seat beside Massey.   Yup, Cocksuckus Supremus has a big fat smile on his face, don’t he?  The Guild Master motioned to me, “Any questions Accused?”

Silence.

“Any questions Accused?” Massey repeated louder than he had before.

Val nudged me in the back, causing me to blink.  Right, that’s me…the Accused…so accused got me a capital letter.  “I got to stay sitting or can I prance about like your boy?”

The loudest gasps yet.

I glanced all around me, frowning.  “What the fuck I do?”

Ceinwyn leaned over.  “Didn’t bother mentioning it, but MacNess is one of Alexander’s bastards.  He’s unrecognized however and you just committed a rather big social faux pas as far as European mancers are concerned.”

“And you thought the Welfs were bad,” Val teased me.  “Imagine if you went to school here.”

Really don’t want to.  Also, just remembered I might want to think about telling Val about Catherine Hayes, even if it’s not my secret to tell.  Honesty, it’s a pain in the ass.  Just like manners.  I tried to show some.  “My apologies, Guild Master, I was only using the vernacular term for ‘my boy,’ as in friend or acquaintance, not in the sense that, ya know…you fucked his momma nine months before he was born…which you apparently did.  Sure explains how he became a Master Craftsman despite being an auxiliary, don’t it?”

Whole new round of gasps and muttering and some scowling from Avani Sharma.  Did get a little smirk from Persephone Godfrey though and Muller covered a barking laugh behind his ring-covered hand.

Massey refused to answer me at all, refused to even speak he was so angry.  If he could have ordered the security golems to kill me for walking about in the rotunda, pretty sure he already would have.  Me, I had my own little delirium fantasy of pulling out the World-Breaker and making Massey go pop like I had that Diamond King.

When I stood up, I swayed a little bit.  Ceinwyn and Val both put out hands to steady me.

“Prancing might be beyond you, Artificer Price,” Massey finally attacked.  “Having trouble sleeping, are we?  Guilt weighing you down?”

Ignoring him, I held up some fingers for Estefan.  “Five questions, Ramirez, then you can talk to the jurors over there.  Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle, I’m always a gentle soul, ain’t it?”

“No, Foul Mouth; never heard that, even from Boomworm.”

I took a circle around the rotunda, enjoying all those eyes on me.  Fame’s shit, but I love me some infamy.  Sure, I wasn’t looking my best, extra rumpled, hadn’t shaved whole time I been in the Pit, was soaked in blood not even four hours ago, but…felt good to do a little strutting.  “Question One,” I finally said, “despite all those adolescent pranks of mine MacNess made you tell them about, what rank did I graduate with from our year?”

“Second in the Year, somehow,” Estefan said.

“Question Two:  how many SDRs have I provided for ESLED to protect their agents in the field?”

“I don’t know the exact number, but over a hundred at least.”

My walking carried me behind Estefan now, near Massey, who simmered with rage.  “You okay?” I asked him.  “Wiggling so much looks like you have to pee.”

“Embarrassing me does nothing to save you or to win our bet,” he whispered.

“Nope, just fun,” I agreed with him.  Does nothing, but Ceinwyn wanting us to hold off on telling you my Get out of Jail Not-So-Free Card or not, wanting you on our side going forward or not, I really enjoying pissing you off.  Been such a fun six months of Massey Baiting, why should I stop now?

“Question Three:  One hundred prime, newly invented artifacts, all going to ESLED, know what the mark up on them was on construction and labor cost?”

“Only Director De Clermont or one of the quartermasters would know that,” Estefan tried to be truthful, too truthful for my tastes.

“Surely you’ve heard rumors, it being the Asylum and no one at the whole place keeping gossip to themselves,” I prodded him.

“I’ve heard it’s only ten percent…you’re almost doing it for free.”

Rumbling from the crowd.  Mueller liked the idea of mancer law enforcement being supplemented with artifacts judging by how he nodded, but weapons dealer Gregorios Pachis saw it as problematic for his own business and grimaced.

“Question Four:  the Guild made their own version of an SDR and also offered to sell it to ESLED, how much more expensive were they going to be than mine?”

“Almost triple…again from the rumors,” Estefan added.

More rumbling.  Couldn’t do anything to make them think they weren’t weapons, but I could make myself look like a decent citizen and the Guild look like shit in comparison.  Around the rotunda again, this time stopping right in front of Estefan.  I held up a hand with all five fingers out. “Question Five:  you said you only get to use an SDR when your life is in danger.  So…did it save your life?”

Estefan looked me in the eye and his face grew shamed.  “I don’t know.  Maybe.  The moment would’ve played out differently, maybe I could’ve gotten to my pistol in time or maybe I could’ve fought him off long enough to get a small pool, but…it sure made my job easier.”

I nodded as the rotunda took in the fact that my weapon saved lives.  Didn’t push any more than I had to, but I knew a few of them had to wonder what other artifact weapons might be able to do.  Guilty by the letter, free by the spirit.  Could be a lot worse, I guess, sure the jury ain’t about to help me.

I sat back down between Val and Ceinwyn.

Both of them gave me a pat on the back.

Across from me, Massey’s smile had lost all appearance of a curve.

*

“Greater than Estefan, lower than Javier Castillo,” I decided after Val returned with a second cup of coffee for me.  “Your Hate a Person Scale is a lot lower than mine, obviously, so I doubt you ever rise much above the general annoyance I have at the pretty boy.”

“He’s just doing his job,” Val pointed out, sipping from her own coffee.  Given the steam wafting off of hers it was probably hot enough to melt the table.  “I know you don’t like that excuse, but ESLED had to send someone and he’ll defend them before he defends you, and he did defend you at the end.”

“Barely,” I grumbled.

“Also, I don’t dislike anyone as much as you dislike Javier Castillo, much less all the others you have above him.”

“The Curator?”

“Okay, one, but I doubt just a tiny bit that the Guild would bring him in as a witness against you…so…who else could it be?” she asked mostly herself, head cocked as she worked through the options.

“Don’t know about that, they brought in Castillo,” I grumbled some more.  It was a grumbling kind of day.

“That was extreme and it came across exactly that way,” Val pointed out.  “They hurt themselves as much as they hurt you by involving Weres in mancer business.  Guild Master Massey didn’t look very happy about how the crowd took it either.”

 No, he didn’t.  Even got in some fierce whispering with MacNess, making the younger man glance away in shame.  His boy, I thought, his bastard.  More proof European mancers were just weird and old fashioned compared to their American cousins.  Keeping birthright laws that went out of style two-hundred years ago, why not?  Guess there are more names and more fortunes to uphold out here.  As conservative as some Old Mancy kids I grew up with were—outside of Welf—most of them only dated back to sixth or seventh generation.  In Europe you weren’t even considered Old Mancy until you hit the tenth.

Nope, crowd didn’t like Castillo at all after I was through with him.  The fucker.  Remember Javier Castillo?  Maybe you don’t.  Only crossed paths with him at the Ouroboros.  Tlacochcalcatl of the Jaguar Nation, Peruvian, hates him some Horatio Vega…remember him now?  No?  You been paying attention at all?  Don’t think you have as good of an excuse as I do, just having been up for twenty-four hours and having massacred all them Black Elf barbarians.

Pop Quiz:  what color eyes Val got?

Yeah, yeah, you’re probably sick of hearing about them.

Okay, I forgive you…but you’re on super secret probation going forward.

Next question I ask won’t be so easy.  Be like…who’s the head of the [Recruiter’s Midwest Bureau] or something like that.  Go all the way back to my old tapes.  Really fuck with your head.

So watch yourself.  Assuming I’m giving you a classic Ceinwyn Dale eye-see-you sign through the tape recorder.

Javier Castillo, talking ‘bout Javier Fucktard Castillo.

Javier Castillo…take my worst aspects and faults then you take the Guild’s worst aspects and faults, add ‘em all up…then you got Javier Castillo and his Jaguars.  He’s a pugnacious alpha male asshole, kind of bully I just can’t stand.  Worse, he’s deceitful as all fuck, kind of guy stab you in the back to watch you bleed out long as it made him twenty bucks.  On top of all that he’s a traditionalist.  Opposite side of the coin from the Guild; Were Strong, not Mancer Strong.  Maintains the old ways, believes in racial purity, specifically that the more true indigenous blood you got in you—not tainted by the usual European rapeage and slaughter—the stronger a Were you make and a better warrior you’ll be.

Also kidnaps mancers from Central and Southern American shitholes and ransoms the Ultras to the Asylum.  What’s he do with the Intras?  He sacrifices them.  Not just old school shit, ancient blood rite shit.  Guy is high up on the ESLED and the Recruiter Most Wanted posters, just under the Curator.  Way higher than Horatio Vega, makes Vega look reasonable in comparison.  Which my brother-in-law just fucking loves, cuz the more monsters out there making him look reasonable, the more illegal shit he can get away with. 

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

Kind of mood I’m in after listening to MacNess questioning Castillo for the better part of two hours.  My relationship as Horatio Vega’s brother-in-law is kind of an open secret at this point.  Lots know, but no one talks about it.  Only public declaration of the connection had come from Vega at the Ouroboros and most of the supernatural world was trying to forget about the Days of Supernatural Exhibition already…at least until they tried to hold a second one in a year or two.

Will not be attending…will not be defending my championship belt, even you put me in the ring with Paine.  Besides, by the time Paine and me finally fought it out, whole buildings would be crashing down.  “You hear anything from T-Bone on Pocket and Jesus and their vacation?”

Val gave me one of her what are you up to looks.  “Changing the conversation before I figure it out?”

“Just worried about them.”

Val smirked at me, still trying to figure out who would give testimony against me at a Guild trial.  Still, she said, “I called him when I got the coffee and they’re cutting the vacation short.”

“Huh,” was my opinion on that development from the other side of the world.

“At least they’re safe,” she said, taking another sip of coffee, “far better than the worst outcome either way…whether they found their special spot or not.”

“Suppose so,” I whispered.

Javier Castillo.

Oh, I haven’t forgotten the fucktard.  Told the Guild all about my relationship with Horatio Vega, about my sister being a Coyote, about how I started selling Vega SDRs recently, about how Castillo knew I’d won a lot of money at the Ouroboros and how it looked like a payoff, even started in on the floro-seeders and how Vega must be using them to grow opium or even [cocaine plants].

Made me look like shit.  Never mentioned anything about my business dealings being covered by the peace treaties and approved by the Learning Council.  At least the floro-seeders, never had bothered to ask permission about the SDRs.

Would’ve been enough to piss me off, but Castillo enjoyed it all, kept going.  Talked about how I was at both the Auction of Illicit Wonders and the Days of Supernatural Exhibition, despite both being declared illegal by the Learning Council.  How I was said to be passing off gold nuggets instead of cash nowadays.  How I killed Hector Vega while in the presence of a vampire baroness.  How I burned a man to death in the Ouroboros and it was all swept under the rug.  How I killed a fellow corpusmancer in a fight to the death.

Worst part was Castillo playing it up.  Knew all those Old Mancy fucks in the rotunda hated him, so he started siding with me, like he was impressed by it all.  Like I was one of the criminal players, a loose cannon, outside the law.  “More mancers were like him, maybe I wouldn’t hate you so much,” he ended to hisses from the crowd.

 “I don’t like this either, King Henry,” Val said, putting her cup of coffee on the table roughly enough that it sloshed wildly.  “Not being there, not even being here.  I don’t know how to be the homemaker girlfriend…that’s never been me.  Ceinwyn has the politics under control now, you’ve got the trial on your mind, Tyson and the rest are holding the fort down, and what am I doing today?  Fetching coffee?”

“You’re keeping me standing.  Very serious responsibility given how much I like to fall on my face,” I tried to get her to laugh.

No laugh, not even a smirk.  “I hate feeling like this.  It makes me think about what I told you…about what it’s like being a pyromancer and having no ability to fix anything.  That’s the one part of my job I like, that I have the clout to fix all the bureaucracy as long as I’m smart enough to find a way to undo all the knots.  But here, there’s no knots, there’s just…”

“I know the feeling,” I told her.

“All you do is make things,” she rebutted.

“There’s making and there’s fixing.  I don’t fix…I break.  Got me a big hammer.  I got exactly what you saying back then, about wanting to be a hydromancer or something like that.  Like when Jason was in that ring with Sapa and there was nothing I could do to reach him.  Being one of the whole sucks, Val.  Means we can’t ever be perfect.  No trying to guilt ya, but know how many times I’ve thought about how different that could’ve gone if you were there?  What if I was a pyromancer like Val?  Would Jason still be alive?”

“I wish I was there too,” she whispered, eyes-without-irises in the past.

I tried again to cheer her up, “Promise that the next time there will be less trials and more shit to go boom, okay?”

She smiled, barely.  “Fireballs of Doom for all?”

“Sure.  But for now…this coffee is making my day.  So, square peg in a round hole or not, you’re doing an awesome job.”

“I promise I didn’t drug the drink this time around,” she joked with me, while taking a loud slurp of her own cup.

“You’d be on the floor by now if you had,” I teased back.

“Rookie mistake.” Her eyes-without-irises glinted with mischief.  “Next time I’ll do better.”

“What you gonna put in it?  Viagra?  Ride me till I have a heart attack?”

She snorted.  “You need Viagra at your age and I’ll be dumping you.”

“Relationship’s are about more than sex, Val,” I said with mock sincerity.

She starting laughing so hard she almost chocked on her coffee.

Never did guess who would be the fourth witness, given the way she reacted when the name was called.

*

But first…

Star Witness the Third:  Plutarch.

Or as MacNess called him out—after giving a five minute preamble about why the Guild had laws about golems and the use of personal fairies dating back to its founding, including a story I’d never heard about an Artificer called [] who raised his own golem army—Head Craftsman Paul Nixon.

More blue balls!  That's where I stopped and went with the hard cut route!  Also the mysterious fourth witness was supposed to be Annie B.  So we never got that!  But I think we can all agree that PIT OF NO RETURN was plenty big already without a massive court chapter added on top.  Plus the hard cut into Paine was pretty cool . . .

But I hope you enjoyed it as a . .  . door not taken thingy that who knows what it would've looked like after I actually put a few more drafts and edits into it.