章 13: Guilty
I drew my fingers across the pages. Me dressed in a sundress, running in a field of flowers. Me sitting on his couch and laughing. Me and him, embracing, our lips pressed together.
I shuddered. My rage reached a blinding crescendo and I snatched up the papers and with a sob of despair I wreathed them in searing fire.
Crying out in anguish he leaped from the bed and fell across the desk, his hands scrabbling at the ashes falling from my fingers.
"Why?" he sobbed, raising his face to me, a face contorted in agony. "Why Hyacinth? Why do this to me?"
My rage was gone. At the sight of his pain it had fled away like a filmy miasma. I was just left hollow, icy inside.
"Because I am a demon," I said.
Then I melted away into shadow and fled, his voice calling my name after me. But I could not escape what I carried inside me. My agony came with me. My eyes continued to melt away, that liquid called tears spilling from them for the first time - but not the last.
I hid myself in the deepest, darkest shadows, deep in the earth, far from the upper world, far from Hell, far from humans and demons both. There I curled into a ball, clutching my knees and my tail to my aching chest, and wept, enveloped in my pain.
His face remained with me, the way he'd cried my name, the despair in his eyes. I couldn't escape what I'd done.
The weeping ended at last. I don't remember how long I cried for. And curled up there, in the darkness, I began to hear the strangest sound.
Th-thump, th-thump, th-thump... like the steady beating of some drum.
I opened my swollen eyes with difficulty. I was still alone, here in the preternatural darkness at the roots of the earth. I sensed no other being.
Th-thump, th-thump, th-thump....
My chest heaved.
"Unmistakeable," he'd said. "Th-thump, th-thump, th-thump. A heartbeat."
I lay there, the beat resounding in my ears. A heart. The pulsing, pain-filled tumour called a heart. I had grown it just in time for it to be broken.
I'd destroyed his drawings, destroyed him again, rescued him just to destroy him, because I was afraid. My heart would never let me forget it. My heart would continue to beat, beat in my ears, beat this swirling pain about my body.
At length I rose. I shrugged my wings, stiff with my paralysis, and flew back alone through the darkness, back home to Hell. I went straight to the authorities and confessed my crimes, handed myself over to punishment. And so that is why I am now standing before you, asking that you grant me mercy by sentencing me to the ultimate penalty: total dissolution." Hyacinth slumped back in her seat and lowered her gaze. "It's what I deserve."
"Very well," said Skelemis. He shifted behind his bench, discomforted. He turned to the jury who had listened to Hyacinth's final account in shocked silence. "Demons of the jury, we have heard Miss Thermise's testimony. It is time for you to retire and to consider your verdict."
The jury, still in a daze, left the courtroom. Voreus sifted the papers on her desk, smiling to herself with her shark teeth. Abraxas looked across at Hyacinth. The succubus did not stir from her seat.
"We should go, Miss Thermise," said Abraxas.
"There's no point," said Hyacinth. "They'll be straight back out."
Hyacinth was proven right. Just as Skelemis was getting up an imp hurried to him and he resumed the bench. The jury had returned.
"Miss Thermise, please rise."
Hyacinth rose, as did Abraxas beside her.
"Demons of the jury, how do you find the defendant?"
The speaker for the jury, a cacodemon, read from the piece of burning paper in his hand. "On the count of being seen by a human, we find the defendant guilty. On the count of feeling pity, we find the defendant guilty."
The crimes were read out. Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty...
Hyacinth relaxed, nodded at each of the verdicts.
At last the final verdict came. "On the count of Fraternisation with a Human in the First Degree, we find the defendant... guilty."
Hyacinth closed her eyes, her hands resting against the desk. Relief suffused her. The beating of that hideous thing in her chest would soon be stopped and she would be free.
Skelemis directed his gaze upon her. "Miss Thermise, you have been found guilty on all counts. It is the decision of this court that in view of your flagrant disregard for the demonic protocols you be taken straight from this courtroom and undergo immediate dissolution."
Voreus coughed. "Uh, excuse me, Your Horror?"
Skelemis looked at the prosecutor in surprise. "Yes, Miss Voreus?"
A thin smile appeared on her red lips. "The prosecution respectfully suggests that dissolution not be performed on account that the defendant seeks it willingly. As such, it would not serve as adequate punishment."
Hyacinth felt panic rise in her. "But Your Horror, I-"
"Silence, Miss Thermise. Miss Voreus is quite correct. In this particular case, a term of eternal imprisonment is a far more appropriate sentence."
Hyacinth, gasping, fell to her knees. "No! No! Please, Your Horror!"
Skelemis' eyes burned. "Silence! Hyacinth Thermise, having been found guilty of Fraternisation with a Human in the First Degree, we sentence you to be immediately taken from this place and..."
"Your Horror?" It was Abraxas' tiny voice.
"...transported to..."
"Your Horror?"
Skelemis stopped. He glared down at the little defence counsel. "What is it, Mr Abraxas?"
"We wish to lodge an appeal."
"An appeal?" Voreus burst out laughing. "Your Horror, really?"
Skelemis, his brow furrowing, considered the tiny demon. "An appeal, Mr. Abraxas? On what grounds?"
Abraxas shifted nervously in the judge's fiery gaze. "Your Horror, in cases of a capital nature the condemned may make a final appeal for clemency to the Lowest Court of Hell."
Silence fell over the courtroom.
"The Lowest Court?" Skelemis rubbed his chin with a talon. "True, but it is highly irregular..."
"But well in accordance with the Demonic Protocols, Your Horror," said Abraxas.
Voreus dropped her carefully arranged papers. "Your Horror, you can't possibly be entertaining..."
"Miss Voreus, it is well within Miss Thermise's rights to lodge an appeal." He turned to Hyacinth still collapsed against the desk. "Do you wish to do so, Miss Thermise?"
In a voice little more than a whisper, Hyacinth said, "I do wish it."
No sooner were the words from her mouth when a circle of fire burst into being in the centre of the courtroom and imps went scattering for cover. There was a rushing sound and the courtroom shook as an elevator, glowing red, exploded out of the floor and flung open its chained doors with a resounding clang.
Hyacinth stared at the elevator. With difficulty, she pulled herself onto her feet and turned to Abraxas. She placed a hand on the diminutive demon's shoulder.
"Thank you," she whispered
The shadow beneath Abraxas' hood smiled. "No, Miss Thermise. Thank you. For believing in me. And good luck. I hope Miss Lucy takes pity on you and that you find what you seek."
Hyacinth walked past the still flustered Voreus and with a nod of her head to Skelemis she stepped inside the elevator, the doors shutting behind her. It was a solid room of glowing hot metal with just one button on the panel and next to it, the label: Nadir.
She pressed the button and the elevator, with a strident screeching, began its rapid descent.
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