Something Wicked (6 page)

That first day, in which Mr. Jennings walked us through Diana’s murder, was both disturbing and encouraging. Di’s head had been smashed in
with a hammer,
after all. How could anyone hear that and not see the need for a trial?

One day down, so far, so good. I went to work that night satisfied that at least we were doing
something.

The next morning at the courthouse, I ended up in line for the same elevator as Ben. Today he wore a beige blazer over his T-shirt. We exchanged quick, polite smiles. It didn’t feel like we were mere acquaintances. But that was probably due to the spell work. I’d been doing regular protective spells for him since Nonna showed me how.

That’s not wholly legit in our tradition—doing magic for people without asking their permission, I mean. It goes against free will. But since my recent magic was to protect him from my earlier magic, and since I had no intention of mentioning the curse, I was willing to take the karmic risk.

It’s not like I had a spotless karmic record, since the curse. What’s another pound to an elephant?

When we ended up squished close to each other in the same elevator car, I just had to ask, “How’s your car?”

Ben smiled, shrugged. “I’m taking the El a lot, lately.”

“Other than that, things are…?”

“Fine. Yeah.” He bounced slightly on the balls of his feet. “You? I mean…other than your sister, of course….”

“I’m taking it day by day.”

He nodded. “I get that.”

We arrived on the third floor.

“You’re testifying today, right?” he asked as we got out. When I nodded, he said, “Good luck with that. I mean—God, that’s not…” Then he reconsidered. His chin came up, as if he’d made a decision. “Really. Good luck with that.”

He sounded sincere—and his dark gaze sure looked it—but…“Even when it puts your brother away?”

“I’m hoping it gets my brother some help.”

I stopped dead. People had to veer around us like a river parting around a boulder. “You aren’t saying…” I had to swallow, hard, to keep down a surge of anger. “He’s not going to say he’s innocent because he’s crazy, is he?”

“What if…?” But I’d already known Ben wasn’t stupid, and he proved it by not going there. “No,” he admitted instead, holding my gaze. “Victor would never say that.”

But Ben might? Unwilling to even consider that, I ducked past him and into the courtroom. As long as Victor went to prison and never left, I didn’t care whether shrinks tried to “help” him or not. But I wasn’t about to see him go free.

No matter what it took.

Other than the expected stage fright, up there in the witness box in front of everyone, my testimony went fine—as long as I was answering Mr. Jennings’s questions. I haltingly described how I got home, what I’d found, what Victor had done and said, and how I recognized Victor in the lineup. I even got to point at him when Jennings asked if the killer was in the courtroom, like on a TV show. For the briefest moment, I saw pure loathing in Victor’s gaze. I met it, hatred for hatred.

I never mentioned the curse to the authorities. Apparently he hadn’t, either.

“Nothing more,” said Jennings, and I foolishly relaxed.
For every moment of happiness you’ve stolen from my sister and me, may you know years of misery.
Life in prison would be an excellent step in that direction. Victor was going down.

Then I got cross-examined.

“The intruder said he was Ben Fisher?” asked Sherman Prescott, Victor’s attorney. I remembered him from the second lineup. He reeked of self-importance, and not just because of his sideburns.

“He lied,” I said.

His snapped “Objection!” made me jump.

The judge gently told me to answer yes or no.

“Yes, he
said
he was Ben Fisher.”

“And when you participated in the first of two lineups, whom did you point out as—and I quote—‘the man I saw?’” asked Prescott.

Jennings had prepared me for the questions, but not the outrage I’d feel. “I didn’t realize they were—”

“Objection. Nonresponsive.”

“Ms. Trillo,” prompted the judge.

I became more aware of the whole crowded courtroom watching me. Some people were actually
sketching
me as I sat there, losing my cool in inches. “I chose Ben,” I admitted through my teeth. “That time.”

I could tell Prescott didn’t like that addition. “Now Ms. Trillo, will you share with us what your sister was?”

What?
I narrowed my eyes. “A blonde. An Aquarius. An organ donor. A florist.”

“I’m referring to her occult interests…?”

“Objection!” At least that one came from our side. Mr. Jennings stood, saying, “Irrelevant.”

But Prescott had a way around that, too. “This goes toward the victim’s lifestyle, Judge.”

“The victim is not on trial here!” Jennings looked as stunned as I felt when the judge allowed it.

Prescott continued, “Is it not true that Diana Trillo was a practicing witch?”

“Objection!”

“Counsel,” warned the judge—
to Jennings!
“You aren’t playing to a jury, here. Tone it down.”

I remembered something Diana used to say when people got snarky about her beliefs, and I said it. “Goddess worship is one of the fastest growing religions today.”

“Nonresponsive,” said Prescott. “Move to strike.”

I noticed Ben Fisher frowning. He leaned forward and said something sharply to Victor, who shook his head and grinned. Damn, I hated that grin. He’d stolen all Diana’s smiles forevermore. He didn’t deserve more of his own, not a one.

But by now, I knew the drill. “Yes. Diana was a practicing witch.”

Prescott smiled evilly. “And as such, with what manner of people did she normally associate?”

It went downhill from there, despite Jennings’s damage control on redirect. Prescott was lucky I had to go to work so soon after the hearing, while I was still in full temper, or I would have seriously considered doing another curse. On him. The
bastard!

The next day, it was Ben’s turn. Jennings called him up first, to establish that Ben had attended a small gathering of friends that night and that no, he’d never asked around about goddess cups and no, he didn’t know Diana.

Then Prescott went after him, too. “Mr. Fisher, do you work?”

“Objection!” protested Jennings. “How is this relevant?”

“Please, Judge. A little leeway here?”

And the judge nodded. I saw Jennings’s fingers dig into the table in front of him.

Ben leaned forward to the microphone. Despite being awkward one-on-one, he seemed far less intimidated by the crowd than I’d been. “I work all the time.”

“Let me rephrase. Are you currently employed in a salaried position?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“When would I find the time to work?” Ben seemed startled when some people in the gallery laughed. Apparently, he hadn’t been joking, and he tried to explain. “I’m self-employed.”

“About how much do you earn?”

Ben made a guess based on royalties and ad revenue off the radio show and the companion Web site. It was about twice what I earned, so I was particularly annoyed when Prescott said, “Not much, then.”

“I also have a trust fund.”

“That you share with your brother, right?”

“Objection,” protested Jennings. “How is
any
of this relevant?”

Again Prescott said, “It goes to credibility, Your Honor, and to motive.”
Motive?

“I’ll allow it,” said the judge.

“Why?”
I whispered, but Jennings just shook his head, his jaw clenched. Aunt Maria—who’d managed to come today—patted my hand in a way she thought was comforting.

It wasn’t.
Hurting something
would be comforting. Hurting Victor and Prescott would be even better. Me. Bad guy. Remember?

I sure as hell did.

Prescott continued. “You live with your grandparents, don’t you, Ben?”

If I’d needed proof that Ben Fisher didn’t have a poker face, I was getting it now in his obvious annoyance. “On their property, yes. Not in—”

“And—” started Prescott, but Ben forged on.

“Not in their house.”

“Move to strike,” said Prescott. “Argumentative.”

“You’re making me sound like some crackpot,” Ben protested. “This shouldn’t even be about me.”

It went downhill from there, too. On redirect, Jennings was able to establish that Ben had his own home on his grandparents’ property, that he was considered an expert in his field, and most important, that he’d never met Diana in his life. But it didn’t sound as powerful, after Prescott’s hatchet job.

When Ben finished testifying, he left the courtroom. I thought he’d left the courthouse, too, and wouldn’t have blamed him. But when I excused myself to head to the restrooms, there he stood, brooding against the wall by the water fountain.

I couldn’t just walk past him without saying, “Hey.”

“It’s not the way he made it sound,” he told me, an edge to his tone as if I’d made accusations, too. “I live there so that I can keep an eye on them. It’s not like I live in their basement, or my old bedroom. Not that—”

“Prescott’s evil,” I agreed.

“And real education consists of more than degrees.” Prescott had also brought up Ben’s hit-and-miss college career. “I’ve got more hours than Vic does.”

“He twists everything. Diana’s not some blood-drinking, orgy-having Satanist, either.”

“Doesn’t he realize that even the U.S. Army recognizes Wicca as a legitimate religion?” Ben shook his head, frustrated. “But he just cares what will win the case for him. That’s his job.”

“Because he’s evil,” I said again, wanting an amen.

But Ben shook his head, still scowling. “No. Evil is something people do, not something they are. Otherwise, Vic….” He trailed off.

Not soon enough. “Victor’s evil, too!”

“I’m not saying he didn’t kill your sister!” Ben shoved a hand through his unruly hair. “Or that he should go free, or even that he didn’t
do
something evil. But how, Katie? How can someone become that, do that? We had the same parents, the same opportunities, almost identical DNA. Doesn’t it make more sense that he was influenced by something outside himself? That maybe he’s a victim here, too?”

“The only thing that makes sense is for him to be put behind bars. Forever.”

“Do you hear me arguing with that?” He spread his hands and, since he couldn’t take a step back, took a step sideways, as if to distance himself from me. “Look, I’m trying to get my own brother put into prison. Maybe for life. What you’ve been through is horrible, but—” Again, he shook his head. “He’s still my brother.”

I didn’t like this conversation. I couldn’t hear Ben say anything kind about Victor, anything at all, without imagining that it would somehow lead to his brother’s release.

Hadn’t we started out by agreeing on something?

“The judge can see through Prescott’s lies,” I said, after a long moment. “Right?”

“I hope,” said Ben, glum and tired.

So at least we were on the same side there. Sort of.

Maybe too much so.

I was surprised to be called back on the stand that afternoon. For the defense.

I was even more surprised by Prescott’s triumphant first question.

“Just how well do you know Benjamin Fisher?”

P
rescott murdered Diana all over again.

“Did you not meet with Ben Fisher just last week? Before you answer, let me remind you that there are accident reports at a certain diner—”

“I never said I didn’t meet him last week. But it wasn’t planned.”

“And we should believe you why?”

“Objection!” protested Jennings. Like that helped.

“Is it not true that you and your sister were the joint recipients of a rather large inheritance?”

What?
“Mom and Dad left us the house and a life insurance policy.”

“Both of which are now yours. And speaking of life insurance, how much do you receive from your sister’s murder?”

“Objection!”
yelled Jennings.

I couldn’t believe Prescott had actually asked that. I had to have imagined it. And yet when my gaze found my aunt’s, in the gallery, her wide eyes showed similar shock.

No,
I wanted to scream.
You don’t understand. Diana was everything I had left!

But I could barely draw enough breath to stutter, “I don’t know, but—”

“Your Honor,” continued Prescott, as if I hadn’t spoken, “the greatest weakness in this case—and it has many—comes down to motive. My client had no reason to know Diana Trillo, much less to kill her, while the only so-called eyewitness, her own sister, stands to gain a great deal from her death—”

How did I gain anything but misery?

“Objection!”
insisted Jennings. “Your Honor!”

“—just as Victor’s twin, his
identical twin,
stands to profit equally from his brother’s ruin. The fact that the witch’s sister—”

Lady help me,
I thought—and my breath returned with a whoosh. “Her name’s Diana! Stop calling her ‘the witch!’”

Prescott smiled, as if to say that I’d admitted there was something wrong with being a witch. “Judge, add the fact that the witness and the defendant’s brother are well acquainted—”

“Objection!”

“But we aren’t!” I protested. “We barely even—”

The judge’s gavel interrupted me, and Prescott, and Jennings, and even the people in the courtroom, who had burst into excited murmurings. Reporters scribbled frantically. Ben, who’d stood toward the end of Prescott’s rant, was pulled slowly back down by his concerned grandmother.

Victor looked stunned, hurt, outraged. It was as fake to me as if he had another neon sign over his head that read,
Acting.

“Enough!” insisted the judge. “Don’t make me clear this courtroom. Counselors, approach the bench.”

The bailiff helped me down from the witness box. Aunt Maria met me with a hug, just as she’d met me at the emergency room over two weeks earlier. And I felt no less in shock now than I had then.

Me and Ben? Conspire to kill my sister and frame his brother for it? And people called a belief in magic crazy!

Jennings and Prescott were arguing animatedly with each other, falling silent only as the judge spoke sternly to both of them.

I looked across the gallery and found Ben Fisher watching me. He still looked as stunned as I felt. He shook his head, as if to say,
I didn’t know….

Somehow I managed to nod. I believed him.

Then Prescott returned to the defendant’s table, and Jennings came back to his. The judge pounded his gavel once more, to get everyone’s attention.

Jennings said softly to us, “I’m sorry. I tried.”

What? Still numb, I couldn’t begin to process what he meant until the judge began to speak.

“It is the finding of the court, based upon the facts presented, that there is not enough evidence at this time to warrant a trial of Victor Fisher for the death of Diana Trillo. The district attorney’s office is welcome to refile charges if and when more evidence comes to light at a later date. Until then, Victor Fisher is free to go.”

And that was it. It was over.

As abrupt as the strike of a gavel.

The courtroom erupted into chaos, but the judge was leaving, so he didn’t bother to stop it. Me, I barely heard anything at that point. How could this happen? As inconceivable as it was to live in a world without Diana, it was even more incomprehensible to live in a world where her killer could so easily go free.

Aunt Maria asked Mr. Jennings the questions I couldn’t—what about the fingerprint? What about the eyewitness testimony? But apparently there’d been a technicality with how the print was recovered, and now my testimony left too much room for reasonable doubt. Jennings tried to be encouraging. Because this hadn’t been a trial, double jeopardy wouldn’t apply if we found more admissible evidence. But his glumness contradicted his encouragement.

What were the chances that more evidence would show up, if it hadn’t been found by now?

I felt dizzy. Sound seemed distant. Images weren’t focusing. This wasn’t real. Damn it, I’d
cursed
him!

But I’d also cursed myself.

“Ms. Trillo?” said someone through the mist. Like on a time delay, I belatedly turned. Then I felt more confusion, to be standing so close.
Ben…?

But—suit. Gelled hair. Absolute poise.

It wasn’t Ben.

“I just wanted to assure you that there are no hard feelings,” said Victor, loudly enough that the waiting reporters could hear. “You’ve suffered a terrible loss, I know how that can distort a person’s perceptions. Good luck finding your sister’s real killer.”

He sounded so very sincere. He even offered his hand.

I didn’t take it.

“I’ll be raising a cup to her memory,” Victor assured me softly with a dimpling smile, and held my gaze just long enough to make sure I
got it
before he turned away, into the arms of his lying girlfriend and the back-slapping, cheering company of his colleagues.

Raising a cup? A
goddess cup,
maybe?

“Why did you take it?” I demanded, loudly enough that he would hear me. “Nothing was worth her life. What could you have wanted with some stupid chalice?”

But Victor and his lawyer friends exchanged confused,
damn, she
is
crazy
looks, and kept going.

He thought he’d won. He had literally gotten away with murder, and there was no real justice in this world…

Unless I wielded it.

A deadly calm overcame me, then. I’m sure I managed a few “No comments” to the press who crowded around me as Aunt Maria and I left the courthouse. I must have responded to whatever comforting things my aunt was telling me, on the way to my car, or she would never have let me leave alone. Apparently I managed to drive without breaking laws or hurting anyone.

But inside, I was planning darkest magics.

So being witches hurt our credibility? I’d show them a witch! What good was it to reconnect with my magical heritage if I couldn’t even avenge my murdered sister? Maybe I’d botched the first curse—it had felt damned powerful at the time, but how else could Victor have gotten off? This time I had a better idea what I was doing. This time, I would use the right name, I would use the right ingredients.

Hekate was Queen of the Underworld? Good. Then I would call down on Victor’s head all the powers of hell.

I’ll use my own blood,
I thought, taking the closest available parking spot to my house, in front of Mr. Lane’s.
I’ll use the little ring of braided hair Diana gave me, that time she donated hers to Locks of Love. I’ll use the black candles in her magic cabinet. I’ll cut one of the pictures of Victor out of the newspaper, so that every bit of horror falls directly onto him, him, him.

And if I have to take the magical backlash?

Bring it on.

I barely noticed that it had started to snow again, a light dusting of white across the sidewalk and the yards. I was too busy ignoring the tiny voices protesting my plans.

One voice sounded like Nonna’s.
The Goddess is not ours to be ordered about.
But Nonna had also said that we were Hers. And if that was the case, why
wouldn’t
Hekate want to make Victor Fisher suffer for the destruction of Her priestess? Hekate wasn’t known for her sweetness and light. She would probably welcome the invitation to rain misfortune down on Victor’s head.

Another voice sounded like Diana’s.
Victor Fisher would have killed you if you hadn’t stopped him. But this time isn’t about self-defense. It’s about revenge.
To which my answer was,
Yeah, it is.
I’d tried playing by the rules, letting the Fates couch our revenge in the no-real-justice system, and it hadn’t worked. Now he would reckon with me.

The whole damned world had turned out to be a place where evil thrived. So why the hell not join it?

But as I headed up my front walk, a third voice—one I didn’t recognize—said simply, “Circle to circle.”

What?
I stopped, confused…and realized that I was standing in the middle of a circle that had been drawn into the snow, just before my front steps.

That, and the voice hadn’t been in my head.

I looked up—and took a step back, out of the snow circle.

My first, crazy thought was,
the Goddess!

But of course the woman who separated herself from the shadows of my brick stoop was human. She wore a deep blue cape with an attached hood that half hid her face, and she held a thick cane. When the wind caught a flurry of snow onto my stoop, her cape flew out like wings. Her hood blew back, releasing a halo of medium-length brown hair and revealing a solemn face far younger than the cane had me expecting.

She couldn’t be much older than Diana was.

Than Diana had been.

“Hello, Kate Trillo,” said the mystery woman.

“Go away.” I sounded childish, I knew, but
hello
—I needed to call the darkest powers I could command down on Victor Fisher while my fury was fresh. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

I liked saying that. I almost wanted to say it again. Instead, I mounted the stairs and started to shoulder right past her on the stoop. But…

She turned sideways as I passed her. Somehow I ended up farther from the door instead of closer.
What the hell?

“I think I do,” she answered evenly. “Your name is Kate Trillo. Your sister was a priestess of Hekate. And her grail was stolen by the man who murdered her. Is that about right?”

I stared.

The stranger took a deep breath, her blue eyes somehow both sympathetic and respectful. “I am so very sorry for your loss. I wouldn’t have intruded if the need weren’t great.” She reached out, as if to put her hand on my shoulder—and the rage in me broke. I slapped her hand away, then shoved her backward, as hard as I could with one hand, toward the steps—

Or that had been the plan. When I shoved outward, it’s like suddenly she wasn’t as close as I thought she was.
I
was the one who ended up stumbling, with nothing to brace against.
How had she done that?

However it was, it pissed me off. I bodychecked her—

Or that was the idea. Again, with a simple turn, she stopped being immediately in front of me. I hit the cold brick pillar and spun. I glimpsed that another strange woman had gotten out of a car across the street and was approaching the house. Backup. They were ganging up on me. All my damned helplessness—on the witness stand, against Victor, against death itself—screamed out of me.

“What the hell do you want from me?”

The first woman shook her head toward her backup and put her hand on my shoulder—not to push me, or direct me, just to touch me—and something happened.
Magic.
I felt stronger. I felt less alone. I even felt the tiniest hint of something that, before I’d turned to the dark side, I might have called hope. Like maybe everything wasn’t lost yet, after all.

I didn’t like that feeling. It was a lie. But instead of pushing the crazy lady off the stoop—or trying to—I caught back a sob.

Before I knew it, she’d dropped her cane and had a grip on my other shoulder. “Kate? Kate, I’m so sorry for your loss….”

I know this sounds crazy. It
was
crazy. But it felt as if my sister held me, and I missed her so badly, and I felt so guilty that her killer was now free….

The next thing I knew, I was in this stranger’s arms and I was crying. The whole story spilled out—the murder, the hearing, Prescott’s attacks, Victor’s freedom. She held me, and made the right sounds of horror or outrage at all the right times, and somehow the weight on my shoulders eased a little.

I wasn’t just crying. I was being comforted—and healed. By a complete stranger.

“Shhh,” she soothed, petting my hair, rubbing my back. Her tummy pressed roundly against mine—was she pregnant? “Shhh. You aren’t alone, Kate. You don’t have to do all of this alone….”

I finally managed to catch my breath enough to snuffle, “Katie.”

“Pardon?”

“My sister used to call me Katie.”

The stranger drew back far enough that I could see her face, and she smiled. She wasn’t classically pretty, but damn, she was somehow beautiful.
The Goddess,
I thought again.

“Maggi,” she said, by way of introduction. “I’m Magdalene Sanger-Stuart.”

And since we were no longer strangers—not on the soul level—I invited her into my house.

Waving her backup back into the car, she accepted.

“You really have no reaction when I say ‘Circle to circle,’ huh?” she asked, as I took her cape and scarf from her. She was taller than me—no surprise there—and what looked like seven months pregnant. Thank heavens I’d never actually connected with her, when I’d tried to shove her off the porch! She wore a pendant like mine, the
vesica piscis,
overlapping-circle thingie. She also wore a stunner of a wedding ring set on her left hand.

“What kind of reaction should I have to it?” I asked. Like this meeting wasn’t weird enough.

“It’s a rhyming game that some, uh, friends and I learned as children,” she explained. “‘Circle to circle, never an—’”