Fangs and Fennel (The Venom Trilogy #2)(74)

The judge whipped around to stare at my cousins, aunt, and uncle, along with Tad. Slowly, they all nodded.

The judge rolled his eyes. “Good God. I don’t want anything to do with supernatural infighting. Go back to your side of the Wall, and what you do there, keep it there. Case dismissed.”

Theseus gaped at him, and I took a step back while he spluttered, “But that isn’t fair. She’s a monster. My case is airtight! I have been planning this for weeks!”

Now that was interesting. Weeks would mean he’d been around before Achilles and I had had our fight. So he’d just let another hero take a fall?

The judge shrugged. “It’s a family feud, that much is obvious to me now. Families have a strange way of exaggerating things when they are angry at each other. And while I don’t like supernaturals, I can’t argue with what he’s suggesting.” He pointed at Merlin. Who’d essentially saved my bacon.

After I’d poisoned him with a cupcake. Why did that make me nervous? Merlin smiled and blew me a kiss. My stomach fell to my feet.

Theseus pulled a sword. “Then I say we need a new judge.” Watts’s face went white as Theseus pulled his arm back, prepping to throw the sword. The sword Beth had pointed at me with Athena’s crest on it.

I pushed with my good leg and landed in front of Theseus as he swung. I took the blow to my right shoulder, stopping it from hitting Watts. “No, I won’t let you kill anyone!”

The blade nicked me, cutting through both human skin and snakeskin, but it was a glancing blow, barely a scratch.

I shoved Theseus hard, sending him flying through the air. I glanced back at Watts. “Go, while you can!” He didn’t hesitate, but scrambled away, his black robe flying around him and flashing a pair of bright-orange undies.

I glanced at Remo.

“Run!” he yelled.

I bolted from the courtroom—okay, limped—bowling over several vampires, and then I ran into my Aunt Janice as she attempted to escape.

“Outta my way, brat!” she snapped, shoving a clawed hand into my chest that sent me flying down the hall. Away from the exit. Remo leapt over her and reached for my hand, pulling me to my feet. “We’ll find another way out.”

The ping of metal slamming into the ground at my feet drew my eyes. A perfectly formed metal feather quivered where it stuck. The screech of a Stymphalian bird snapped my head up. I didn’t know which of the girls it was, but a good guess was Beth was the one shooting at me.

I scrambled to my feet, and Remo helped me as we whipped around the corner. Beth was right behind us, slinging feathers like a machine gun. Remo grunted as a feather hit him in his right side, slicing across his ribs.

He healed, though, as fast as the cut appeared. At least my blood was good for something. We raced through the halls, Beth tailing us. Driving us.

“You’re going to have to fight her,” Remo said as we slid through a door and slammed it behind us. The thud of metallic feathers hitting the door echoed through the room.

Behind us came the shuffle of several sets of feet. I spun around, unsure of exactly what I was looking at. Cameras pointed at me, reporters held microphones toward me, and one brave reporter cleared her voice. “This was a landmark case. How do you feel about losing?”

Hold the powdered sugar, what in the world was going on?





CHAPTER 20


“I didn’t . . . lose,” I stuttered. Not really. Though I really hadn’t won either. The case with Roger wasn’t what they meant, of that much I was sure. This whole situation had been all about Theseus proving I was a monster, that I was worth killing. These were his final moves on the chessboard.

I stared at them, beginning to see just how he’d put things in place. “Theseus set you up here?”

The three reporters nodded and pushed their microphones closer. The one who’d spoken tried again, her eyes filled with what could only be fascination. “This is a live feed. Do you have something to say? The entire city is watching.”

Several more thumps hit the door, making me jump. Remo pressed a hand to my back and lowered his voice. “Talk to them, and make it juicy.”

I glanced at him and then back to the reporter. To the side of her was a sink. I hurried to it, limping. “My name is Alena Budrene, and I contracted the Aegrus virus four weeks ago. I didn’t want to die. While I was on my deathbed, my husband left me for another woman. Apparently he’d been boinking her long before I got sick.” I took a breath and gripped the faucet handle. With a quick twist, the water was running. I lifted my leg and jammed it under the flow of water as I went on, talking as fast as I could. I only had so long before we would be interrupted. Maybe I would die at Theseus’s hand, but at least the world would know something about me.

“So I took a chance and let a warlock turn me into a supernatural; that’s the only way to survive the Aegrus virus, you know. But now the courts say my two-timing loser of a husband gets everything. My bakery, Vanilla and Honey. My inheritance from my grandparents. And even the house my grandparents left me.” The door behind us shuddered.

The reporter nodded. “Go on.”

“I only want it to be fair. I want what is mine, nothing more. I’m not dead; I’m still me. I’m still a person too. Just because I’m different on the outside doesn’t mean anything.” I stared into the camera, begging. “I want to be acknowledged, no different than anyone else, and be able to say that I fall under the same rules and legislation, not some trumped-up ridiculousness saying that I”—I took my hands out of the water and touched my chest—“don’t exist.”