By the time I reemerged, Cody and Chief Bryant had arrived. The latter greeted me with a nod and wished me a good morning before settling in a chair with a fly-fishing magazine.
Cody took a seat, too, but he was restless, slouching in his chair with one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, his foot jiggling. I wondered briefly if I should have tried the chief instead, then dismissed the thought. I’d been right to go with my gut on this one. Chief Bryant was a by-the-book kind of guy. There’s no way he would have agreed to my request without knowing why, and no way he would have allowed us to go through with it once he’d heard it.
No, Lee’s involvement notwithstanding—and the hacktivists of Anonymous, for all I knew—this was eldritch business.
We waited.
There was a clock mounted on one of the walls, and I swear it seemed like its hands moved backward. Time would have passed slowly anyway, but the dread I felt at the prospect of pulling off my stunt in the courtroom made it positively crawl.
At an hour and a half into our wait, Amanda and Stacey Brooks arrived. “Do we know anything?” Amanda asked tersely.
“Nope.” Chief Bryant turned a page in his magazine. “Still waiting.”
Stacey caught my eye and made a series of exaggerated facial contortions meant to ask if everything was in place for the plan—to which she’d obviously been privy as a new member of the gang, a development about which I had mixed emotions—to take effect. I put on a stoic look and gave my head a slight shake, willing her to back off. I had a feeling her mother would do everything she could to throw Stacey under the bus in the courtroom, and I felt bad about it, but I really, really didn’t need her drawing attention to our little conspiracy. I’d never thought I’d miss the old days, but it would have been a lot safer if she’d just stuck out her tongue and flashed devil horns at me.
A little over two hours had passed when Cody heaved himself out of his chair and began pacing the waiting room. When he paused at the water cooler, I went over to talk to him.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He poured himself a cup of water and downed it with a shudder. “Just feeling trapped in my skin.”
“Oh.” Of course, I hadn’t thought about how uncomfortable it would be for a werewolf to be stuck in mundane territory for a prolonged period of time. I’d never spent more than an hour with Cody outside of Hel’s demesne. “I’m sorry.”
“No big deal.” Cody gave me an unconvincing smile. “It’s not like I’ve never had to testify in court before. Comes with the job.”
“It sucks, though,” I said.
“Yeah.” He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Funny, I feel better with you beside me.” Realizing what he’d said, his expression changed. “Sorry, Daise. I didn’t mean—” He paused. “It’s just that . . . well, it’s true, but I didn’t mean to be thoughtless.”
“It’s okay.” I shoved my hands into my pockets, fingering the wrapped charm and the square of mounting tape. “It makes sense. Apparently, I carry my own personal underworld inside me.”
“Huh.” Cody glanced toward the courtroom. “So that’s what enables Dufreyne’s powers to function?”
“Mm-hmm. His, um, infernal battery’s probably stronger than mine, since he’s claimed his birthright and all,” I said in a light tone. “Care to put it to the test when you take the stand?”
Cody grinned at the thought of shifting in the middle of the courtroom—a real grin, fierce and wolfish, one that made my pulse quicken. “It’s an incredibly bad idea, but it would be a hell of a way to come out, wouldn’t it?”
I smiled ruefully. “Yeah, it would.”
The damned thing was, I felt better, too. I missed the partnership and genuine rapport that Cody and I had. This was the most civilized conversation we’d had in a long time, and it helped to ground me, helped settle my nerves.
That lasted all of another ten seconds, before the bailiff came and called me to the stand. “Daisy Johanssen?”
The courtroom was smaller than I’d expected and the atmosphere more ordinary. Given the scope of what was at stake, it should have felt . . . I don’t know. Bigger? But I could smell that not-actual-smell reek of wrongness that announced hell-spawn lawyer Daniel Dufreyne’s presence, and it took an effort not to lash my tail in response. Dufreyne was glancing over some papers and didn’t bother to look up as I was sworn in and stated my name for the court. Neither did members of the Pemkowet legal defense team, conferring in quiet murmurs. Judge Martingale, an innocuous-looking man in his late fifties or early sixties, gave me an absentminded nod as I took my seat on the witness stand, then adjusted his glasses and stroked his thinning gray comb-over. In the jury box, members eyed me with mild interest, hoping my testimony would alleviate their tedium.
Then Dufreyne lifted his head, meeting my gaze with his own too-black eyes and a bland smile.
I stared daggers back at him, wishing I had dauda-dagr on my belt, not safely stashed at home. I felt unprotected without it.
“Miss Johanssen.” He rose. “You’re a part-time file clerk for the Pemkowet Police Department—is that correct?”
“Yes.”
He arched one manscaped eyebrow. “But you have another title and a greater role in the community, don’t you?”
I shrugged. “Not on paper.”