Lawyers in Hell (46 page)

Well,
he thought,
at least I have the memory.

*

The room was huge – enormous – far larger than any office he’d ever seen.  The panels of the drop ceiling were at least fifteen feet above his head.  The dark paneled walls formed a cube forty feet square.  Looking around, Monty noticed that the only furniture was the receptionist’s desk, a massive highly-polished redwood structure.  A computer monitor faced away from him at an angle.  The keyboard, mouse, and mouse pad sat neatly in the center of the far side of the desk.  A slender but well-endowed platinum-haired woman sat in a thickly-padded, oxblood leather chair while she typed, hunt and peck fashion, on an old IBM Selectric typewriter.  The woman looked familiar, but Monty could not figure out why.

Set inside recesses in the wall behind her desk on either side stood two massive oak doors.  Between them, in thick gold letters, were the words:

Asmoday, Amdusias, Amon, Marchosias,

Marbas Zepar

Attorneys At Law

Monty relaxed.  A law office!  At last he was on familiar ground.  A long, narrow carpet runner stretched from the elevator doors to the front of the desk.  It was a garish, imitation Persian design.  Twisted shapes in gold and crimson and black and orange turned and writhed like snakes or worms.  He walked gingerly toward the desk expecting to feel the reptiles wriggling beneath his shoes.  All he felt was solid floor.

“Do you have an appointment?”  The voice was sultry, Midwestern sexy, and full of feminine allure.  The receptionist had turned from her typing and now faced him.  Only now did he realize how petite she was.  He didn’t need a hairdresser to know that her hair came from a peroxide bottle.  Although she was very pretty – starlet beautiful, in fact – the retro thirties look with the too red lipstick and the rouge did nothing for him.  Still, there was something familiar, something about those wide green eyes…

“Jean, is my two o’clock appointment here, yet?” the intercom on her desk buzzed.

“I think he just arrived, Mister M.”  The woman replied, leaning forward to speak into the machine and giving Monty a generous view of her ample cleavage.  She looked up at Monty questioningly.

He shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I guess I am.  A moment ago I was sitting at my desk giving estate planning advice, and the next; I’m standing here talking to you.”

“It’s him, Mister M.”

“Very good, Jean.  Would you bring him to Conference Room B, please?  And, see what he would like to drink and get it for him.”

Monty glanced at a black nameplate framed in brass.  The engraved white read: 
J. Harlow
. Of course!  The original blonde bombshell of the 1930’s.

“Right away, Mister M.”  The woman stood and turned toward the door on the left.  “Would you follow me, please, Mister…”

“Montgomery,” he replied as he tried to race her to the door.  “Aaron Montgomery.  You can call me Monty.”

She beat him and held it open with her left hand as she slipped through the portal ahead of him.  He trailed behind while his eyes followed the figure eight movement of her almost perfect ass even though he knew it was pointless.  After two twists, they reached a conference room.  The room was large – forty feet long and twenty-five wide.  In the center stood a massive conference table.  The highly polished and oiled mahogany surface reflected the overhead fluorescent lights like a mirror.  The top was three feet wide at either end but widened at the middle to four feet.  A luxurious leather captain’s chair sat at either end.  Five leather armchairs graced each side.  One end of the room sported a huge whiteboard with markers in the metal tray along the bottom edge.  The wall opposite was plain with a low mahogany credenza between it and the end of the table.  Both long walls were wood framed glass panels looking out over rows of cubicles.

The receptionist indicated the nearest chair.  “Please have a seat.  Mister M will be with you shortly.  Would you like something to drink?”

What the hell,
he thought. 

“Would it be possible to get a small Scotch?”

“Certainly,” she smiled.  “Would you like that with cola, on the rocks, or neat?”

“On the rocks, please,” he replied barely concealing his surprise.

“I’ll just be a moment.”

He watched as she turned and gyrated through the door.

Five minutes later she returned, placed a napkin on the smooth surface, and set a heavy glass tumbler in front of him.  Ice cubes tinkled against the sides as Monty picked it up and took a sip.

He almost spit it out, but managed to gag it down.  It tasted like industrial sludge.  He wiped his mouth with the napkin and sat back.

He waited.

And, waited.

Thirty minutes passed.  Suddenly, he looked up as the conference room door slammed open.  The being striding toward him put him in mind of horror stories.  It stood a little over six feet tall and had a man’s torso, but that was where any species kinship ended.  Rising from the neck of the tailored suit was the head of a wolf.  A serpent’s tail exited the seat of the trousers and writhed behind the creature.  Griffin’s wings rose from between its shoulders.  It pulled a chair away from the table and sat next to Monty.

“I am the Marquis Marchosias,” said the demon as he extended his hand.  “I am one of the senior partners in this firm.”

Reflexively he reached for the creature’s paw.  As they made contact he felt its flesh squirm and shift.  Before he could pull back, however, the paw had changed to a hand and the winged werewolf to a well-dressed older – and
human
 – male with silver hair and glowing, red-flecked gray eyes.  The man was fit, too, judging from his grip.  His olive complexion spoke to a Mediterranean or even Middle Eastern heritage.

Although disconcerted by the shape change, Monty started to rise.

Marchosias shook his head as he released Monty’s hand and made an off-hand gesture for him to stay seated.

“My
legal
team
 – of which you are now the most junior – has been given an interesting case.  Since you were a defense attorney when you were alive, this should be right up your alley.”

Monty tried not to fidget.  This was a demon, after all, and according to all he’d ever read or seen in movies or experienced here, their acquaintance with the truth was distant at best.

“It’s a simple case.  A defamation of character suit.”  Marchosias smiled, showing a full set of lupine teeth bristling within his human mouth.  “The defendant, our client, is a writer named Bram Stoker.”

Monty groaned.  He could see where this was going and he did not like it.

“You’ve heard of him, then.  Good.  That makes it so much better.”

“Who filed the suit?” Monty croaked through his constricted throat.

Marchosias glanced at a document lying on the far end of the table.  “Let me get this right.  It says here Prince Vlad III Drakulya aka Vlad Tepes aka Drakulja, Prince of Wallachia and Transylvania.  I believe that is part of Rumania.”

Of course.  Who else could it be? 
Monty slumped in his seat.  “Not that I think it will matter, but who is the opposing counsel?”

The demon sat on the end of the table.  “It’s a team.  Two men – Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton.  From what I understand they are quite good, despite their differences.”

Monty looked up.  “Differences?”

“They’ve hated each other for over two centuries.”

“Maybe I can use that,” Monty mused.  He didn’t really believe it, but the thinnest of slivers looked like a raft to a drowning man.

“I doubt it.  They usually put aside their differences inside the courtroom.”

“This could be difficult,” Monty said, shaking his head.  “The historical – the
real
 – Vlad Tepes was many things.  He was never a vampire.  There’s no such thing except in horror stories.”

Marchosias leaned down until he was nose-to-nose with Monty.  “You’re a lawyer.  What does reality have to do with anything?  Besides, you misunderstand me.  I don’t want you to win this case.  I want you to lose it.”

Monty’s head snapped up from looking at the papers.  “Lose it?”

“Exactly.”

“But, he’s our client.”

“Yes.”

“We’re supposed to defend him.”

“And, we will.”

“But, you just said…”

“I told you that you must lose the case.”  Marchosias smiled.  “I fail to see your dilemma.  Defend him.  Just don’t win.”

“But, he’s our client.”

“So is the prince.”

Monty looked down at the paper.  This made no sense.  It was a clear conflict of interest.

Marchosias leaned close to Monty’s downturned face.  “Do not even consider recusing yourself or this firm.  That is not an option.”

Monty didn’t trust his voice so he nodded instead.  His nose wrinkled in disgust.  Didn’t anyone use breath mints in hell?

“I will leave you to your thoughts,” the demon said as he left the room.  “Just remember.  You must not win.”

Monty remained in the leather chair.  He stared at the white board while he collected his thoughts and tried to map a strategy.  Obviously, he could not prove the prince was a real vampire.  They did not exist.

He shook his head.  He couldn’t use that, anyway.  It would be a win.

How common was the name Dracula in Rumania?  Were the names spelled the same?

Stop it,
his mind screamed. 
That’s a winning strategy.

In the book, Stoker referred to him as Count Dracula.  The man suing Stoker was Prince Drakulya.  Obviously a count was lower on the food chain than a prince, so that was another difference.  How many more discrepancies could he find?  Monty glanced at the end of the conference table.  The legal paper was still there.  He leaned forward and pulled it toward him. He scanned until he found the name.  Drakulya. Prince Drakulya, not Count Dracula. He felt his hopes lifting.  Was it enough?

Quit thinking like that!

He needed to do more research.  Perhaps the library was open.  Although he’d seen tens of thousands of shelves filled with books and scrolls, and clay tablets and stone, he’d also seen computers.  If the database was up to date – a big if in this place – then it might not be such a daunting task.  He picked up the legal documents and quickly scanned the first page.

Monty sat in the chair for a long time, afraid to move, terrified to breathe.  He had time to understand one thing.

It was possible to be frightened enough to wet your pants, even in hell.

*

Monty sat at the defendant’s table with his elbows on the hard, wooden surface and his hands over his eyes.  So far this “cakewalk” case had been anything but.  With flowery, eighteenth century oratory, Aaron Burr had stipulated all of the damning history of Prince Vlad with indifferent aplomb.

Did he kill tens of thousands of Turks?  So stipulated.

Did he nail the turbans onto the heads of three of Sultan Mehmed II’s emissaries for refusing to remove them in his court?  So stipulated.

Was that really him depicted in the woodcutting eating his dinner while Turkish soldiers hung around him in a forest of poles, impaled and dying?  Again, so stipulated.

And, in the end, irrelevant.  Yes, he was a monster.  Yes, a tyrant.  And, yes, sadistic, even for his times.

But, was he a vampire as depicted by Bram Stoker’s infamous novel, the same book as the one lying on the evidence table and marked as Plaintiff’s Exhibit C?

Defense had yet to make its case.  Monty shied away from the discrepancies, although it went against every part of his nature.  His fiery, competitive nature screamed at him to go for the jugular.  The knockout punch was easily within his reach, but he dared not swing.  It looked like Marchosias was going to get his loss.

Monty glanced at his client.  Stoker was a well-dressed heavy set man in his mid-sixties.  He had a full head of dark hair along with a reddish brown beard and moustache.  He also stank.  His face bore swellings and nodules characteristic of tertiary syphilis, the disease that had claimed his life – or at least had contributed to his demise.  In life, these would have been unremarkable bumps and swellings.  In Hell, however, nothing was ever that simple or easy.  The bumps turned into pustules that burst and ruptured, oozing a noxious thick shiny liquid that made Monty wish he could smell the brimstone once more.

He stood and walked slowly toward the evidence table, more to clear his nasal passages of the stench of his client’s disease than because he had any clear strategy.  Without thinking, he picked up the book.

“This book,” he intoned as he absently opened the cover and slowly turned the first two pages.  “This novel is the crux of this case.”

He paused.  A paragraph caught his eye.  He read it twice, keeping his emotions in check.  Was the solution really this simple?

He looked to the rear of the courtroom, to the back row of seats in the gallery.  Marchosias sat in the far left corner.  How much loyalty did he owe to the demon’s cause?

Suddenly, Pazuzu’s words echoed in his mind: 
There will soon come a time when they pull you out of your current torment to have some fun with you.  They will probably put you into some kind of no-win scenario.  I don’t know what it will be, but I have faith that you will recognize it.

Marchosias stood for everything he’d endured since his arrival.  The Welcome Woman, the belittling, the lowly posting in the rest home – all of it.  What had Pazuzu done to him?  Besides yank him from that demeaning task, treat him like a human being, and give him a chance to at least feel like he had value?

A snatch of song –
Won’t Get Fooled Again
, by a group called the Who – ran through his mind:

Meet the new boss

Same as the old boss

Both regimes might be the same in the end but he knew one thing for sure.  The current regime was full of crap.