03 - Trial by Blood by Lizzy Ford

Author:Lizzy Ford [Ford, Lizzy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-12-10T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

We return to the office building where the council met. This time, however, I’m led to what appears to be a courtroom of sorts on the ground floor. Three familiar faces, belonging to council members, sit where the judge would in a human courtroom. Unlike a normal court, there are no lawyers and no witnesses.

I’m escorted before the three judges and released by Michel and Antony.

“Charges?” one of the council members asks, glancing at Michel.

“One count of homicide by feeding,” Michel replies.

“But –” I start to object.

“We’ll make that primary,” the woman interrupts. “The forty three thousand, two hundred and seventy seven other homicides are secondary.”

“The what?” I almost shout.

She looks up from the paperwork in front of her and glares at me. “The amount of vampire lives lost in the past thousand years, after the Kingmakers punished us for opposing the curse.”

My mouth is hanging open. Myca said half his people were wiped out, but the number is beyond my ability to comprehend.

The three judges talk quietly among themselves, then address Michel. I’m too confused and shocked to catch anything and finally manage to pull my numbed mind out of my thoughts.

“Your Honor or … whatever you’re called,” I interrupt their discussion and step forward. “I didn’t kill all those people!”

All five of them stare at me like I’m crazy.

“Hel-lo. I’m twenty three!” I exclaim. “I didn’t kill forty three thousand and however many vampires a thousand years ago!”

The woman running things leans over the wooden podium separating us and looks at my feet. “That,” she says, pointing, “tells me you did.”

I glance down at my dual shadows, barely visible in the courtroom’s lighting.

“We can’t charge you for their deaths as a primary crime. But according to vampire law, we can hold you accountable for complicity in a secondary crime for atrocities committed by your ancestors. How convenient that you would be a vampire when you chose to kill a human.”

What the fuck?

It’s a set up. Someone is framing me for Barry’s murder so the council can punish me for the deaths of their people. I miss my chance to object when she pauses and instead, can only stare at her, once more caught in the mindset of wondering if this is real or not.

“The Kingmaker curse has tormented us long enough,” the man beside her seconds.

“We can’t oppose it, but perhaps, in this way, we can eliminate it,” the other man agrees. “We’ll put you to earth as punishment, Miss Kingmaker.”

To earth?

Michel grabs my arm and starts to lead me away.

“Wait, wait!” I cry and pull free. “This makes no sense! I didn’t kill the human in my house, and I didn’t kill those people a thousand years ago. How can you charge me without evidence? Without a lawyer or … where the fuck is Myca? Does he know you’re doing this?”

“You are a vampire, which makes you accountable to the vampire council,” the woman replies. “Have you no shame, Miss Kingmaker? No remorse for the lives

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