Лиза Смит - The Return - Midnight

“Do you recognize the boy you have named as your former boyfriend Matthew Jeffrey Honeycutt here in this room?”

“Yes,” the prickly nettle voice said softly. “He’s sitting at the defense table, in the gray T-shirt.”

Matt’s head flew up. He looked Caroline straight in the eye.

“You know that’s a lie,” he said. “We never went on one date together. Ever.”

The judge, who had seemed to be asleep, now woke up. “Bailiff!” he snapped.

“Restrain the defendant immediately.”

Matt tensed. As Gwen Sawicki moaned, Matt suddenly found himself being held while duct tape was wrapped round and round his mouth.

He fought. He tried to get up. So they duct-taped him around his waist to the chair. As they finally left him alone, the judge said, “If he runs off with that chair, you will pay it out of your own salary, Miz Sawicki.”

Matt could feel Gwen Sawicki trembling beside him. Not with fear. He could recognize the about-to-explode expression and realized that she was going to be next. And then the judge would hold her in contempt and who would speak up for him?

He met her eyes and shook his head firmly at her. But he also shook his head at every lie Caroline came up with.

“We had to keep it a secret, our relationship,” Caroline was saying demurely, straightening the gray dress. “Because Tyler Smallwood, my previous boyfriend, might have found out. Then he would have — I mean, I didn’t want any trouble between them.”

Yeah, Matt thought bitterly: you’d better walk carefully — because Tyler’s dad probably has as many good friends in here as yours does. More. Matt tuned out until he heard the prosecutor say, “And did anything unusual happen on the night in question?”

“Well, we went out together in his car. We went over near the boardinghouse… no one would see us there…Yes, I–I’m afraid I did give him a…a love-bite. But after that I wanted to leave, but he didn’t stop. I had to try to fight him off. I scratched him with my nails—”

“The prosecution offers Peoples’ Exhibit 2—a picture of the deep fingernail scores on the defendant’s arm—” Gwen’s eyes, meeting Matt’s, looked dull. Beaten. She showed Matt a picture of what he remembered: the deep marks made by the huge malach’s teeth when he had pulled his arm out of its mouth. “The defense will stipulate…”

“So admitted.”

“But no matter how I screamed and fought…well, he was too strong, and I–I couldn’t—” Caroline tossed her head in agony of remembered shame. Tears flooded from her eyes.

“Your Honor, perhaps the defendant needs a break to freshen her makeup,” Gwen suggested bitterly.

“Young lady, you are getting on my nerves. The prosecution can care for its own clients — I mean witnesses—”

“Your witness…”—from the prosecution.

Matt had scribbled as much of the real story as he could onto a blank sheet of paper while Caroline’s theatrics had gone on. Gwen was now reading this.

“So,” she said, “your ex, Tyler Smallwood, is not and has never been a”—she swallowed—“a werewolf.”

Through her tears of shame Caroline laughed lightly. “Of course not.

Werewolves aren’t real.”

“Like vampires.”

“Vampires aren’t real either, if that’s what you mean. How could they be?”

Caroline was looking into every shadow of the room as she said this.

Gwen was doing a good job, Matt realized. Caroline’s demure patina was beginning to chip.

“And people never come back from the dead — in these modern times, I mean,” Gwen said.

“Well, as to that”—malice had crept into Caroline’s voice—“if you just go to the boardinghouse in Fell’s Church, you can see that there’s a girl called Elena Gilbert, who was supposed to have drowned last year. On Founder’s Day, after the parade. She was Miss Fell’s Church, of course.”

There was a murmur among the reporters. Supernatural stuff sold better than anything else, especially if a pretty girl was involved. Matt could see a smirk making the rounds.

“Order! Miz Sawicki, you will keep to the facts in this case!”

“Yes, Your Honor.” Gwen looked thwarted. “Okay, Caroline, let’s go back to the day of the alleged assault. After the events you have narrated, did you call the police at once?”

“I was…too ashamed. But then I realized I might be pregnant or have some horrid disease, and I knew I had to tell.”

“But that horrid disease wasn’t lycanthropy — being a werewolf, right? Because that couldn’t be true.”

Gwen looked anxiously down at Matt and Matt looked bleakly up at her. He’d hoped that if Caroline were forced to keep talking about werewolves she would eventually start to twitch. But she seemed to have complete control over herself now.

The judge seemed furious. “Young lady, I won’t have my court made a joke with any more supernatural nonsense!”

Matt stared at the ceiling. He was going to jail. For a long time. For something he hadn’t done. For something he would never do. And besides, now, there might be reporters going over to the boardinghouse to bother Elena and Stefan. Damn!

Caroline had managed to get that in despite the blood oath she’d made never to give their secret away. Damon had signed that oath as well. For a moment Matt wished that Damon were back and right here, to take revenge on her. Matt didn’t care how many times he got called “Mutt” if Damon would just appear. But Damon didn’t.

Matt realized that the duct tape around his middle was low enough that he could slam his head against the defense table. He did this, making a small boom.

“If your client wishes to be completely immobilized, Miz Sawicki, it can be—” But then they all heard it. Like an echo, but delayed. And much louder than the sound of a head striking a table.

BOOM!

And again.

BOOM!

And then the distant, disturbing sound of doors slamming open as if they had been hit by a battering ram.

At this point the people in the courtroom still could have scattered. But where was there to go?

BOOM! Another, closer door slamming open.

“Order! Order in the courtroom!”

Footsteps sounded down the wooden floor of the corridor.

“Order! Order!”

But no one, not even a judge, could stop this many people from muttering. And late in the evening, in a locked courthouse, after all that talk of vampires and werewolves…

Footsteps coming closer. A door, quite near, crashing and creaking.

A ripple of…something…went through the courtroom. Caroline gasped, clutching at her bulging stomach.

“Bar those doors! Bailiff! Lock them!”

“Bar them how, Your Honor? And they only lock from the outside!”

Whatever it was, it was very closeThe doors to the courtroom opened, creaking. Matt put a calming hand on Gwen’s wrist, twisting his neck to see behind him.

Standing in the doorway was Saber, looking, as always, as big as a small pony.

Mrs. Flowers walked beside him; Stefan and Elena drew up the rear.

Heavy clicking footsteps as Saber, alone, went up to Caroline, who was gasping and quivering.

Utter silence as everyone took in the sight of the giant beast, his coat ebony black, his eyes dark and moist as he took a leisurely look around the courtroom.

Then, deep in his chest, Saber went hmmf.

Around Matt people were gasping and writhing, as if they itched all over. He stared and saw Gwen staring along with him as the gasping became a panting.

Finally Saber tilted his nose to the ceiling and howled.

What happened after that wasn’t pretty from Matt’s point of view. Not seeing Caroline’s nose and mouth jut out to make a muzzle. Not seeing her eyes recede into small, deep, fur-lined holes.