Mina and Trudy remained the only people in the courtroom...with the exception of one questionable interloper. Legal Suit Larry packed up his brief case, and he kept his rear turned in their direction.

"Some great reward..." Mina remarked, averting her eyes. "Couldn't that sightless dreamboat prosecutor give me that view..."

"Work your way up to him," Trudy remarked, pulling out a bag of chips from her purse. "That's how you do it in a male dominated profession."

Once he closed his briefcase, Larry strolled over to Mina and Trudy. He offered a slightly shaky, clammy hand. "Good show," he remarked, an annoyed gleam in his eyes. "I admit. I never saw that coming. My arch-nemesis Raven was very set on having a little teeny bopper beat me."

"Uh thanks..." Mina said, refusing his handshake.

Larry withdrew his hand and began to mumble to himself. "Ravens are such irritating creatures. They perch over you and taunt you until you go insane. At least, that's what happened to Edgar Allen Poe."

He grimaced at Mina and swung his briefcase, nearly decking her. "If I was Poe, I would have kept a shotgun in my library. I'd have some nice gothic taxidermy for my gloomy little manor. "

"Are you done?" Mina asked. "I'm having Italian food with my best friend."

"Ahem," Legal Suit Larry said, and adjusted his glasses. 'I just wanted to welcome you into the world of law."

"And uh..." Larry zoomed in close, nearly bludgeoning Mina's eye with his large nose. "Get out while you can!" he exclaimed with a panicked expression.

"Get out while I can?" Mina asked raising her eyebrows.

Trudy rolled her eyes and continued to crunch her chips. "He probably means, get out before you become a washed up has-been like him!"

"You foolish girls!" Legal Suit Larry said. "You don't know who you put behind bars."

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"A nationality confused Frenchman from New Jersey?" Mina asked.

"Keeping him on the outside was probably the best for all of us!" Legal Suit Larry shuddered. "But now you've opened Pandora's box."

"I'm sorry," Mina said, firmly putting her hands on her hips. "I'm a defense attorney and I was simply defending my client. I'm not losing another friend to a criminal!"

"In an effort to do that," Larry screamed, "You've doomed us all! They won't like this at all!

"But don't worry," he said, stomping off. "You'll find that out soon enough."

Mina threw her arms forward. "If you're not gonna tell me who or what I should be afraid of! How will I know when they find me?!"

As Legal Suit Larry stomped out of the courtroom, he turned his head back. "All I'm saying is beware the aura!"

The doors creaked open and closed, and he was gone.

Mina was left alone with her anxious thoughts again. Dupree had clearly screamed something about "an aura" and he did seem to have a hired mime in the jury, but what French entertainers had to do with auras was beyond her. The only aura was the reeking waft of Dupree's cologne.

"Calamitous kitties!" Mina fake swore. "This is making my head hurt. Let's just get the Italian food already."

"That's fine by me!" Trudy smiled. "I'm all out of chips!"

***

A red and white checkered table cloth adorned Mina and Trudy's lunch table. Piles of crunchy pizza crusts filled each of their plates at Luigi's Pizza and Pasta. The two friends had just finished perusing the dessert menus. "One tiramisu for me!" Mina said politely to the tattooed, Mediterranean waitress.

"Nuthin' for me!" Trudy bragged. "I'm on a diet!"

The waitress collected the menus and as soon as she was out of earshot, Mina smiled. "I love Italian food so much more than French food."

"Why?" Trudy asked.

"They don't pretend bugs are gourmet food! Yech!"

"C'mon," Trudy said, "Escargot is so salty and good. It tastes just like the clams they serve here."

"More like escar-no!" Mina said before she was interrupted by the waitress.

"Here's your cake, miss!"

Mina closed her eyes and rubbed her hands as she heard the clink of the plate on the table. "And nothing beats a good Italian dessert!"

"Uh...Mina..." Trudy stammered. "What's that in your cake?"

Mina opened her eyes. Sticking out of the sweet icing was a tarot card. She plucked it out. "Hey waitress!" Mina asked. "I wanted tiramisu, not tarot cake!"

"Oh..." the waitress said, her brown eyes averting Mina's. "It just came out of the kitchen like that. I figured it was just a fancy thingy they put in the cake y'know."

Mina's eyes widened. The marking on the card was an astrology sign, but she hadn't read her horoscopes in so long she didn't know which one. However, she didn't need to know which one it was when she read the words. "Putting Aries behind bars was easy. He was the least of the signs. But your actions have been brought to our attention. Choose your career wisely before you challenge the Aura."