The Problem With Black Magic Page 28

  ***

  Cassie never would have imagined that the details of demons trying to screw each other out of power and territory could have been so boring. Sure, there was interesting stuff going on in theory, but like any business, demons had plenty of their own jargon, and Cassie only understood maybe every third word. She thought there were a lot of cases dealing with familiar-napping, but they spoke in such impenetrable code she couldn’t be sure. What did “Unlawful access of a previously recognized wellspring without due diligence to cosigned petitions” mean?

  Next to her, Jay was riveted, even as the day wore on into the afternoon. Cassie thought she would have gone crazy if proceedings didn’t break for drinks and snacks once every few hours.

  To her surprise, Serenus was sitting at the dais with the board, something he hadn’t mentioned. As far as she could tell, he was a vital part of the proceedings, but didn’t chime in on any of the resolutions. She supposed it made sense that the Examiner would be a non-voting member of the board.

  Also surprising was the fact that most of the demons didn’t appear to have red eyes. Sam had dropped his disguise spell, which she knew he didn’t do lightly, so either disguise spells weren’t allowed at court, or were simply considered bad form. That meant that Sam, the chairman (who Cassie assumed was Arrigio) and a few demons here and there were the only ones who had them, since most of the demons in the room had normal eye colors.

  People came and went with the cases, but there seemed to always be a few hundred people in the ballroom. By four o’clock, Dwight, Khalil and Mike had returned from their sightseeing, quietly taking seats in the row behind her. Technically, they were there to support Sam as his entourage, but Cassie realized when Khalil and Dwight each put a calming hand on her shoulders that they hadn’t really come for the sightseeing; they’d come to support her. She briefly felt idiotic for not realizing it sooner.

  Khalil leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Status report: The Empire State Building? Actually quite tall.”

  “You don’t say,” she whispered back.

  When proceedings broke for the last time before Cassie’s hearing, she felt her mood instantly shift from boredom to terror. She wanted to run away, go to the ladies room and hibernate for an hour, but knew there was nowhere to go; in five minutes, they were going to be calling Sam’s name, and she would have to sit before the board. Whereas previously there had been empty rows, now the room appeared to be full to capacity as the demons and their entourages drifted back to their seats.

  She adjusted the hem of her dress, still not completely comfortable in it. She knew it flattered her, but Sam had barely looked at her when she came out of the bedroom with it, and had only shrugged noncommittally when Serenus had said she looked very pretty. Despite the fact that he was furious with her, or perhaps because of it, she’d been hoping for more of a reaction from him. I’m a very sick person, she thought, holding her third Shirley Temple that day like it was a lifeline.

  When the bell rang to indicate that break was over, Cassie swallowed a big chug of her drink that hurt going down. Watching the hundreds of people walk back to their seats from the cocktail area in twos and threes, she felt frozen, rooted to the spot. Khalil, looking more elegant in his black suit than she’d ever seen him, put his hand on her arm gently.

  “Chin up, baby girl; you’re up,” he said. Behind him, Dwight nodded.

  “You can do this,” said Mike, while Jay just grinned at her. Cassie was torn between affection and wanting to strangle him; he was still too dazzled by the novelty of the situation to have any inkling of what she was going through.

  Arrigio tapped his gavel and leaned into his mic; his deep voice would have resonated even without it. “Recess is now over. The chair calls the case of the son of Sammael and his familiar, in accordance with Section 223c of our charter. Sammael, please take your familiar and approach the dais.”

  Sam walked over to her and tilted his head in the direction of the dais, his red glare unnerving her even though she knew to expect it. Sharing a nervous grin with the guys, Cassie started to move forward, then stopped suddenly when she felt a warmth at the small of her back. Realizing Sam had put his hand on her, she turned to him with narrowed eyes. “Hey, watch it,” she said.

  To her surprise, Sam looked down at her body with a look that made her stomach flip flop, then slid his arm around her waist, his hand coming to rest low on her hip. With a quick, forceful motion, he pulled her against his side, then began to walk forward, leaving her no choice but to keep pace with him.

  “H-hey!” she exclaimed, hating how squeaky her voice sounded in her shock that he had just manhandled her. The feeling of her breast flattened against his side was making her dizzy. “What are you doing?”

  He didn’t look down at her again, his face impassive. “If this goes poorly, I may never get to touch you again. Have a little compassion,” he whispered.

  Cassie didn’t really hear anything for the next several minutes. She knew that Sam had guided her to the seats up front, right before the dais, and she heard the men seated above her spout some perfunctory sounding lines about a case number and the particulars of master-familiar law, but her mind was reeling. Never before had Sam made it so clear that he was attracted to her. Even last night, when he’d grown angry, it had seemed more like she had insulted his foolish, masculine pride than anything else; she hadn’t really believed he wanted her, specifically.

  It’s impossible, she thought, looking up at him; his face remained that same impassive mask. Whatever he was feeling, he had no desire to share it with the panel. Though they were sitting, his hand remained on her hip; even through the thin material of her dress, her flesh seemed to vibrate with an electric charge where he touched her.

  Did he act like he hated her guts all the time to camouflage how he really felt, or did he legitimately dislike her, but felt the attraction regardless? Or maybe it was a side effect of their magical bond? She had no way of knowing.

  Sam pinched her gently, and she realized that the red-eyed demon, Arrigio, had been asking her a question. She cleared her throat, hoping her face wasn’t as flushed as she felt.

  “I’m sorry, could you please repeat that?” she said, and a snicker went through the audience behind her. She bit her lip; she was afraid to look at Serenus for fear that he was banging his head on the dais at her stupidity.

  Arrigio gave her a withering look, which she had to admit she probably deserved. The demon, bald except for some gray whiskers at his temples, had a face that seemed to be made for expressing scorn: deeply crevassed with a long, crooked nose and beady little eyes. “This is your master’s hearing, miss; please try to pay attention.”

  “I will; I’m sorry.”

  “Is it true that on October 4th, you engaged in a power transfer with the demon sitting next to you, leading to a time freeze of 17 minutes, 34 seconds?”

  Cassie blinked; actually, that wasn’t quite true. “No…uh, no sir.”

  A murmur ran through the audience at her words; apparently, her denial was unexpected.

  The demon looked surprised for a second, then resumed his contemptuous glaring. “Are you saying a power transfer did not occur?”

  “No. I mean, yes, it did happen, but not like that.”

  Arrigio slammed his hand on the dais, making Cassie jump in her seat. “Explain yourself, girl,” he said quietly into his microphone. Somehow, his stage whisper was more threatening than yelling would have been. Cassie cleared her throat.

  “Um, Sam didn’t tap into me until time was already frozen. He needed me to stop a building from collapsing after the earthquake, not to stop time.”

  The low murmuring of the hundreds sitting behind Cassie increased in volume, and Cassie thought she determined a hint of panic. From the sound of it, this wasn’t going at all like the audience had expected.

  Arrigio sucked in his breath, and turned to Sam. “Sammael, is what your servant says true? Did you stop time in that radius without
the help of a familiar?”

  “It’s true,” said Sam. Cassie felt his hand tighten around her waist, and tried to fight the ensuing feeling of lightheadedness; she couldn’t afford to be distracted anymore. Some rational part of her, buried deep beneath layers of heat and sensation, registered that while his touch was addling her brain, he was probably touching her to help calm his own nerves.

  Arrigio turned to Serenus on the other end of the dais, a look on his face like he’d just swallowed a lemon. “Examiner, you knew of this?”

  Serenus shrugged. “I knew the chronology of that day’s events; no one asked me for it.”

  Some nervous laughter broke out behind Cassie and Sam; it was obvious from Serenus’ tone that he’d seen this coming.

  “You knew we would assume that the familiar had been tapped to provide the power to freeze time, and you said nothing?” Arrigio continued.

  “My job is to offer facts when asked, not to correct whatever assumptions you may have,” said Serenus pleasantly. The nervous laughter from the audience cut off at the enraged look on Arrigio’s face.

  Cassie looked at Serenus, looking as relaxed up on the dais as if he were in front of the TV watching football, not that she could imagine him doing such a thing. She was certain he had some kind of plan that Arrigio had played right into, but she had no idea what it was, nor why he wouldn’t have simply told them about it.

  Arrigio covered the microphone with his hand and muttered to the Asian man sitting next to him, who nodded in response. As they spoke, Cassie turned to Sam.

  “What’s going on? Serenus is up to something.”

  “I don’t know, but I think this stopped being just about you,” he said quietly, barely moving his lips.

  Finished with his private conversation, Arrigio addressed the room once again. “It seems like we were ill-prepared going into this hearing. I was expecting to deal with the assignment of a new familiar, but it appears we also have to deal with the issue of a full-blooded demon among us.”

  Sam’s fingers, which had been stroking her hip ever so slightly, came to a sudden stop. “I am not full-blooded,” he responded after a pause. “My mother is human, just like the rest of us.”

  “The interesting question of your mother aside,” said Arrigio, giving Serenus a sidelong glance that Cassie was sure was significant, “Performing a spell of that caliber without having to tap into a familiar is an indication that you fall into a different category than other half-demons— making legal precedent virtually worthless,” he grumbled.

  Cassie sat back, her mind racing. As far as she could tell, whatever their typical procedure with assigning familiars was, it didn’t apply to Sam because he was considered a full demon, not a half. From Serenus’ grin, she guessed he’d been counting on that fact.

  “He shouldn’t be allowed to walk free,” said a sandy-haired demon with thick glasses on Arrigio’s other side. “We should drop the question of his familiar and arrange proper custody for him, tonight.” Serenus’ smile wavered.

  Arrigio held up a hand to stop his colleague. “Graellen, one problem at a time. We’re here to deal with the familiar, and so we shall; A separate hearing can be arranged with how to deal with Sammael, if need be. Examiner, I believe you wished to address the court about this case?”

  She felt Sam relax next to her; she didn’t think he’d taken a breath since they’d referred to him as a full-blooded demon.

  Serenus stood and cleared his throat. “Gentlemen, despite whatever misgivings you may have about what you’ve learned today, your choice in this matter is clear. Section 223c of our charter states that a familiar with potential that exceeds normal levels, and I think we can all agree that’s the case here, must be reassigned to a master who can properly train her, if her original master is incapable.”

  “We’ve all read the charter, Serenus,” said the one called Graellen snidely.

  “However, do you know the intent of that subsection? To keep a young witch from overpowering her master, of course. A weak half-demon, and it pains me to say that many of us are, has no business guiding a witch. How could he teach her to control great power if he’s a stranger to it himself?”

  “But in this case, chance has provided Cassandra— the most promising potential witch we’ve seen in years, if not decades— with the finest master available. To create the strongest witch, shouldn’t the strongest of our kind be the one to train her?”

  There was a murmuring in the audience as everyone discussed the Examiner’s point. Cassie thought that she now understood what Serenus had been trying to accomplish: if the intent of the law was to keep powerful witches away from weak masters, the panel was going to look like idiots if they tried to reassign her from Sam mere minutes after the reveal that he was a full demon, in power if not ancestry.

  Arrigio pounded his gavel to quiet the whispers. “We will have silence. A compelling argument Examiner, except you err in one respect; that was not the sole intent of that clause. In addition to ensuring that a promising familiar be placed with a master strong enough to train her as a witch, it was also to ensure her safety. Even a powerful witch is no good to anyone if her master kills her before she can be of use.”

  Cassie swallowed, and Sam’s hand tightened around her waist. This was bad; Sam himself admitted that he didn’t have enough control over his powers. Whether they were genuinely concerned for her safety, or just looking for an excuse to reassign her to one of their trusted pawns, it was a legitimate reason to take her away from him.

  “Son of Sammael, do you believe your familiar is safe with you? Remember the consequences of lying to this court,” said the Asian demon.

  Sam grimaced. “With all due respect, sir, I don’t believe she’s safe with any of us.”

  “Answer the question,” Graellen snapped.

  Sam removed his hand from her; she was surprised to find that as much as she’d found it distracting, once he stopped touching her she immediately missed it. “No,” he said quietly, “she’s not safe with me.”

  Another murmur went through the audience, and Arrigio slammed his gavel again. “Silence. Why isn’t she safe with you?”

  Sam gritted his teeth, and looked down; Cassie was sure that there was nothing on earth he wouldn’t prefer to having to answer the chairman’s question right now.

  “Because she can make me angry; because I don’t think straight when she’s around. Because I don’t know what I’m capable of just by myself, let alone with a familiar or a witch. Because I don’t know what she’s capable of. There are so many reasons; I’ve just been hoping I can get everything under control, fast enough, that she won’t have to spend her life paying for my mistake. That she won’t have to abandon life as she knows it because of my weakness,” he finished quietly.

  Graellen snorted. “And how can we leave her with him after such testimony? He himself admits he’s not up to the task,” he said, gesturing to the rest of the panel.

  “Force any one of us to tell the painful truth, gentleman, and you know we would share many of the same concerns,” said Serenus, his face devoid of emotion. “Is anyone here immune from the emotional highs and lows that would come with raising a strong witch? Anyone who knows the full extent of their capabilities and keeps perfect control at all times? Of course not. If Sam isn’t fit to raise her, then no one here is.”

  “Actually, you’re wrong,” said the Asian man. Cassie fervently wished someone would call him by name already so she’d know who he was. “Nathaniel Lewis, please approach the dais.”