“I have a solution.” I smiled as I straightened up, my head swimming with pride and ease of keeping my giraffe form at bay.
Draevus and Esmeray shot me unconfident glances, eerily similar.
“I have a port leading back to my office at home in the trunk of my car. It’s not big enough for me to travel, but I can pull my documents and ingredients out with it.” I led the way, puffing with a little pride at the convenient spell. Under the floor mat of my car’s trunk, I kept a portal that I could switch to a few places back home, and upon presenting it, I pulled through the original copy of my work log and a legal pad of notes I’d taken on my entire arsenal of phallic spellwork. None of which was negative. Diana herself might come down and tear up our contract.
Esmeray smiled, his lips turning up in a genuine twist. Draevus brightened, apparently impressed. Esmeray’s smile drew a long gaze from him, and he returned it, sadness fading from his gaze.
“Well done.” Draevus nodded as we made our way outside to my car. Draevus drove much better than I did, my vehicle being several years old but clean and impeccably maintained according to the manufacturer’s specifications. It kept the warranty intact, at any rate.
Lacking all the documents I needed in a quick grab, I huffed and glanced in further.
I shifted as I leaned farther into the trunk, pushing my head in deeper. “Apologies for the show.”
Draevus grunted in irritation as I stretched my neck through, the fuzzy spot in space yielding to my presence as my head hovered above my desk. There, I nipped a few things up, pulling them out one item at a time before I stacked them neatly.
I gathered my things and shut the trunk, walking away as I hit the lock button on my car. A slip of my thumb struck the automatic start button, and a sharp whine pierced my earsa second before I threw my hand out, instinct taking over. “Xira’ce!”
Magic poured from me and the usual blue light I had become accustomed to blossomed out with black and pink at the edges, a multifaceted shield folding out before me with a twist of ancient sigils in the air. My shadow tainted the shield and reinforced it just in time for an explosion to ring out, the elastic surface of my magic bowing under the blowback as chunks of asphalt, landscaping, and brickwork sprayed around us and rained from above, sliding off my shield.
Draevus was a step behind me, fingers forming a shape in midair. Dark energy, not unlike my tainted shadow, flared up, a sigil of the eighth realm of hell forming a blockade to back up my shield. “Good thinking, mage!”
Mage.Even locked into a contract with his son and deserving of his ire, he didn’t refer to me poorly. He didn’t call me half-breed, hybrid, mongrim, just what I chose to be, a mage.
Esmeray, for his part, shrouded himself with Ausmius, the shadow cocooning him like armor that had no work to do, thanks to the dual nature of our shields. “What the hell happened? Did your spell backfire?”
“This isn’t magic. Spells don’t backfire like this… Well, not any spells I know of. There’s alchemy but by the scent…” I took a deep breath and frowned. “Accelerants.”
“You remote started your car… We were lucky it didn’t blow when we left earlier.” Esmeray sighed heavily as I dropped my shield with Draevus. The demon rested a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “I’ll stay here. You and Esmeray get your asses to court.”
He pulled out his phone and dialed a number, letting it ring a few times before telling whoever was on the other end to bring the car around. It’d been in the garage all day and supervised. The town car needed to be inspected.
We’d wasted time. Someonereallydidn’t want us getting to court.
Which was all the reason we needed to be there.
We made haste, climbing into the car as it pulled around, documents clutched in my arms. We had time to spare, and I was tempted to get the coffee I wanted earlier, but spare time was something we needed.
“So, this is just a preliminary. Fuck. Father knows I’m better at data aggregation than cross-examination. And this is mage court, too, so traditional law and repose go out the window.” He rifled through my papers and grumbled.
“Seeing as you were dead just yesterday and my car blew up less than ten minutes ago—I think the judge might be willing to push this back.” I grinned hopefully.
“Fat chance. We have Judge Torsten. He wouldn’t care if the Rapture happened. He’d be shouting up at the sky telling you to get your keister back down here.” Esmeray patted his pockets down and growled. “I don’t have my phone!”
“You can borrow mine?” I offered him my phone, and he took it, fishing into my email to sign into his own account, brow furrowed.
“What happened to my phone when they found me?” Esmeray thumbed through his emails, downloading a few documents to peruse. Case notes, mostly. “And what happened to your files I had?”
“Good question. We can ask your fa—” I suggested, but he silenced me with a raised hand before calling his dad to have a hushed conversation that amounted to his phone wasn’t found, and some of the files he had of mine were missing.
“Okay. I’d like to know which ones were taken when you have time. We’re nearing the courthouse. Thanks, Father.” Esmeray hung up and stacked my documents once more before tucking my phone in his shirt pocket aimlessly. “Father says tokeep our relationship under wraps. He’s your lawyer after this session. I can’t represent you moving forward after this.”
We made it to the courthouse steps in record time, rushing up through crowds of milling people. I kept an eye out for something specific—whoever appeared surprised to see us.
As expected, as we bustled into the courtroom, Lymmings and his attorney wheeled around, both doing their best to tame down their surprise after but a breath. Esmeray led the way, grabbing onto my hand as he brought me to the little table up front where the people on trial usually sat. He ushered me into a seat and sat beside me, sitting up with a blank face.
The judge stared at us with unease. “Mage Hawthorne?”
“Yes, Your Honor?” I acknowledged him by standing politely and earned a slow nod as he turned attention to Esmeray. “Young Faust? I was under the impression Draevus was handling this case.”
