I stood on top of a raised stage looking out at the banquet room.

Within half an hour, over a hundred members of the ‘family’ had been woken up and crammed in here. The men sat in rows, talking loudly, laughing, and practicing their tough guy looks. I don’t actually know about that last one. Looking tough and looking constipated weren’t all that different.

As I scanned the crowd, two pale men in the front row caught my eye. Their paleness wasn’t unusual, obviously. All these guys were pretty pasty. The difference was that they were holding a large framed picture in their hands.

“Those must be friends of the victim,” Violetta whispered next to me. “So… I guess that must be Nimeni.”

I focused on the picture. It was of a smiling young man with somewhat long, bleach blonde hair and a nose ring. Holy shit, his skin was tan. If he had lived long enough to be an old man, he would have been leather.

Wait a minute. Tan?

“Alright, I’m ready!” a voice came from behind me. I turned to see Hadria dressed in the white button up shirt and plaid skirt she was wearing when she picked us up. When she said she wanted to ‘be Lyili’, I thought she might… adopt her outfit. Not that I was hoping for that, of course. I was a professional or whatever. Yeah.

Alright, so I might have been a little disappointed.

I sighed. “I’m assuming you want to be the prosecutor?”

“Yeah, I’m doing the Lyili stuff.” Hadria gave me a toothy smile. “Don’t worry, they’re getting some stuff out of storage right now. We’ll have tables to pound on.” That sounded surprisingly sexual. Also, was that her biggest takeaway from the last trial? That we just pound on tables? This was going to be a disaster.

“Yeah… about that.” I cleared my throat. “I don’t really know if it makes sense to have a prosecutor in this trial.” Honestly, it didn’t even make sense to have a trial at all.

“Wait.” Violetta tugged on my arm. “Why not?”

“Because we’re missing someone essential,” I sighed. “A prosecutor needs someone to prosecute. We might have suspects, but you haven’t narrowed it down to who you think actually did it. Without that person, there’s no one for you to go after and no one for me to defend.”

“Oh is that all?” Hadria shrugged. “Okay, I choose Koln then.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Koln?”

“Yeah, the bald guy right there.” Hadria pointed to the bulkier of the men holding the picture.

“Uhh… What makes you think he was the one that did it?”

Hadria adjusted the purple bow in her hair. “I dunno, he’s kind of ugly so he probably did it.” Wow. Just wow.

This should have been the part where I told her that wasn’t a good enough reason to prosecute someone in a court of law. It should have been… but I was tired. Yeah, I was going to lawyer hell.

“Fine. I’ll be Koln’s defense then.” I rolled my eyes. “You have to let us talk to him for a minute before the trial starts though, alright?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.” Spoken like a true Lyili. No concern for demon life whatsoever.

“Oh, by the way,” Violetta said, discretely pointing over at the framed picture. “Is that Nimeni?”

“That’s him! That’s him!” Hadria sounded strangely ecstatic to be talking about someone that had been murdered literally the night before. “Pretty cool, right? Definitely one of the handsomer guys around here. Unlike Koln. He probably killed Nimeni out of jealousy. I know I would if I were that ugly. He’s one of the quiet ones. You know what they say about the quiet ones.”

“What… do they say?” Violetta’s voice quivered.

“You know…” Hadria fiddled with her eyepatch a little. “The quiet ones… they’re… really quiet. Like, they don’t talk a lot.”

“Oh my gosh…” Violetta gasped. “You’re right…” Truly a meeting of the minds.

“Anyway…” I glanced back to the framed picture. “Are you sure Nimeni was even a vampire?” Violetta jerked her head toward me with her eyes wide. I probably just asked the rudest thing in the demon world.

“Oh, he was a vampire for sure,” Hadria said, seemingly not offended. Then again, she probably wasn’t the best demon to look at when judging what was socially acceptable and what wasn’t.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“He, uh, had fangs.”

“Okay… but a lot of demons have fangs. Plus he’s really, really tan. Don’t vampires die in the sun or something?”

“If by ‘die’ you mean get super sunburned, the yes. Swimsuit season sucks for us.” Yeah, not really what I was talking about. “Nimeni was one of the few that could tan though. Lucky.”

“That’s not exactly the best evidence.” I ignored another crazed look from Violetta. “Without some proof he was actually a vampire, I can’t just assume that he died from garlic poisoning.”

“Oh, there’s proof alright. One sec.” As soon as the words left Hadria’s mouth, she dashed over to her father speaking with someone at the edge of the stage. After taking something from him, she rushed back over. “Check it.” She held out a photo.

Violetta quickly threw her hands over her eyes. “Oh my goodness!” Oh her goodness, apparently.

I brought my face down to look at the picture. It was of a pile of black clothing lying on the ground surrounded by gray powder. Was this… what I thought it was?

“He bit the dust,” Hadria said. “Or ash in this case, I guess.” Yeah, she basically already made that joke. I supposed vampire death puns were somewhat limited.

“Huh…” I stood back up straight. “Do vampires turn to ash from eating garlic?” Not exactly how I imagined it.

“Sure do.” Hadria stuck out her tongue. “And they’re the only demons that do, so yeah. He was a vamp for sure.” Well, I guess that theory was dead in the water. Dead in the holy water. Heh. Clearly the vampire death pun well had not yet run dry.

In any case, at least they had the sense to take a picture of the remains. Demon yakuza had more logic than the royal family did.

“Alright, I guess we can learn everything else we need to know during the trial.” I turned to Violetta. “You can take your hands off your eyes now.”

“Is… the picture gone?” she asked. “I’m really no good with this kind of stuff.” Really? A pile of ash? How was this more gruesome than Prowteg’s body during the last case?

Hadria held the picture up to her face with a smile, looked back up at us, and then back at the picture. Alright, I was getting a little creeped out now too. She was way too happy looking, even if this was the least scary corpse picture of all time. I took it all back. I would take the royal family over these freaks any day.

“We’re… going to go talk to Koln.” I took Violetta by the arm. “Tell your dad not to start the trial for a little bit longer.”

“Sure.” Hadria nodded, her smile growing even wider. Yeah, it was time to get away.

“Whoa,” Violetta said as I yanked her off the stage. I led her over to the two men in the front row and stopped in front of them. They looked up at me with entirely predictable scowls on their faces.

“Can we help you?” the skinnier one with short spiked hair asked.

“I need to have a few words with Koln,” I said. “Could we speak in private?”

The bald one, apparently Koln, was noticeably larger than most of the men in the room. In fact, he was built like a freight train. His suit could barely contain his muscles, his veins practically burst from his neck, and his sharp eyes cut into me like a sword through… uh… me. I was too intimidated to think of anything more creative. His tough guy face practice had clearly paid off.

“No point. Tell me here.” Koln’s voice was so deep it that… I don’t fucking know. It was just really fucking deep. Seriously, why did this guy have to be my client?

“Uhh... okay.” I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t know if you understand trials or not, but Hadria’s going to accuse you of Nimeni’s murder.”

“What the fuck did you just say?” The spiky haired one tried to leap up from his chair, but Koln held up a hand to stop him.

“Inel, it’s fine,” he said, still looking straight at me. “Go on.”

“Y-You see… I’m Ryley Allard,” I found myself speaking a lot faster than normal. “M-My assistant Violetta and I are r-responsible for defending you…”

“It’s n-nice to m-m-meet you,” Violetta added.

Koln didn’t budge in his seat. “I see.”

There was a moment of silence. Fuck it. I was just going to ask. “Did you… do it?”

“What the fuck did you just say?” It was 90’s haircut again, but before he could even try to get up, Koln spoke.

“Maybe.”

“M-Maybe?” Violetta clamped onto my arm, paying no attention to where her horns were going.

I moved my head to narrowly avoid ending up like Hadria. “What do you mean, ‘maybe’?”

“Exactly what I said.” Koln glared. “Don’t make me say it again.”

“O-Okay, got it.” Maybe? Maybe this trial wasn’t going to go as smoothly as I was hoping it would.

Suddenly, someone on stage clapped three times in a row. Everyone in the room quickly clapped back. Yep. An organized crime syndicate used the same strategy employed by kindergarten teachers to get everyone’s attention.

I would have to remember to laugh about this later too.

“Let’s get this started,” the Count’s raspy voice came through a speaker. “Mr. Allard, if you would.”

“O-Of course.” It was show time.

This trial shouldn’t have mattered. Koln obviously didn’t care if he was found guilty. I shouldn’t have cared either. I didn’t even have to try.

So why did I have this terrible pit in my stomach? And why… did I feel so determined to prove that he was innocent?