“You’re… confessing?” the words fell out of my mouth like marbles.

“That’s right.” Koln looked straight ahead into the audience. “My friends couldn’t do that to Nimeni. So it must have been me. Go on, Nair. Get this over with.”

“No!” Violetta practically jumped over the table, causing her breasts to practically jump out of her robe. Yeah. We were still in the bathrobes. “You can’t do that! This trial isn’t over yet.”

“Yes it is,” Koln sighed. “I’m turning myself in. Continuing would be a waste of the Count’s time.”

The crowd started stirring, and several of the vampires stood up to scream obscenities. I wasn’t exactly sure if they were angry at Koln or if they were angry at me for not being able to defend him.

“That was a lot easier than I thought it would be.” Hadria shrugged. “Do I win? Hey, if you beat Lyili, and I beat you, does that mean I’m even better than she is at this?” Yeah, as if she had actually done something. This felt more like her entire family was against me. Hell, my own fucking client was.

“W-Whoa, hold on a second,” Violetta stammered. “Ryley, quick! You have to say something.”

I looked Violetta in her big, glassy green eyes. Say something? What was I supposed to say? This guy had a gun to his head and he didn’t even care. What was the point?

My mouth moved before my brain did. “Objection!” I slammed my fists down on the hard wooden table. Ouch. My body apparently moved before my brain did too.

“Holy shit, this is the thing!” Hadria hopped up and down. “A real objection thingy!” Yeah, except I had no idea where I was going with this.

The Count spoke into his microphone as the audience turned restless. “What is it, Mr. Allard?”

“Uhh… well you see…” Ugh. I sounded like a kid bullshitting through a presentation he didn’t prepare for. I basically was. “You know, just because someone admits to a crime doesn’t mean they did it.”

“Really now? Very interesting…” the Count’s raspy voice trailed off.

Suddenly, Hadria slammed her fists down on her table. “Objection!” she shouted. “A real objection! An actual one! An objection! For real!” Okay, but was it a real objection? My god.

“…What?” I asked.

“That glasses guy confessed in the trial earlier today.” Hadria’s red eye met with mine. “I didn’t see you objecting to that.”

Well obviously that was because his confession saved my ass, but I couldn’t just say that. More importantly, why the hell did she sound so serious all of a sudden? If this was her Lyili impersonation, she wasn’t doing a bad job.

“W-Well I object too!” Violetta said, once again dangerously close to slipping a nip. Not that I was watching for that.

“Uhh… you do?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Violetta clenched her fists in front of her. “I object to her objecting. She’s… being mean.” Best objection. Best assistant.

Hadria crossed her arms, looking Violetta up and down. “Well then I object to you objecting to my objection.”

Violetta’s cheeks flushed red. “Well then I… I object to you objecting to me objecting to… Uhh…”

Hadria took a deep breath. “Well I object to you objecting to me objecting to you objecting to me objecting!” Yep, it wasn’t a trial until I regretted every choice I had made since coming here. Where was a guillotine when you needed one?

“Well… Well I…” Violetta stuttered.

Were demons seriously this dumb? Something had to be in the water. Come to think of it, with no laws, who knew what they were dumping into their water supply? I shuttered. Note to self: boil everything.

In any case, Violetta’s dumb outburst had given me enough time to gather my thoughts. It was time to shut them up before one of them forgot to breathe and passed out.

“Look,” I sighed. “Sidkik’s confession came only after everyone else involved in the trial had spoken. It made sense because we had already exhausted all the other possibilities.”

The serious look in Hadria’s eyes vanished like vampire ash in the wind. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” I continued. “Now as I was saying… There could be any number of reasons why he’s saying he did it. Someone could be threatening him for all we know.”

“Forgive me, but I don’t see how that’s possible, Mr. Allard,” Nair spoke up, the smug fuck. “His life is hanging in the balance. What could someone possibly threaten him with to force a confession?”

“You heard it from Koln himself,” I said. “He cares about his friends more than anyone. Maybe someone is threating to kill the rest of them.”

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“Hmm… I suppose that’s possible…” The Count stroked his chin exactly the same way the king did. Were they part of some chin stroking club or something? Had they cracked the code to the most effective way to express deep thought through physical action?

While I was pondering these very important and completely relevant questions, a familiar deep voice spoke. The one I wanted to hear the least right now. “Count, I’m afraid it isn’t possible,” Koln said. “Because no one threatened me. No one’s making me say anything.”

Come the fuck on. Did he want a bullet in his head that badly? Couldn’t he just shut up and let me defend him?

I felt a tug on my sleeve. “Ryley, I don’t think Koln is going to open up to us,” Violetta whispered, partially concealing her mouth with one of her hands. “We should call another person to talk.” She was right. At this point, just letting him talk only hurt our chances.

“Count, I demand we hear from someone else,” I said. “I’d like to call one of the other vampires present at the ceremony last night to speak. Without more information, we can’t take Koln’s confession at face value.”

The Count’s already hard facial features grew even harder. “If Koln says he did it, I don’t see a reason to doubt him,” his raspy voice was like metal on metal. “That said, I think I’d sleep easier tonight knowing we heard everyone’s side of the story.”

“Yay.” Hadria jumped, her purple bow bouncing on her head. “I get to keep being Lyili.” Well… at least she was having fun. I mean, someone’s life was hanging in the balance but who cared? Not me, that’s for sure.

“Inel.” The Count pointed to the spiky haired man in the front. “I’d like you to come up to speak.”

The man looked like he had been in thought, because he jumped in his seat when his name was called. “Of course, Count.” He set his picture of Nimeni down, stood up, and took center stage.

“Oh, I have a good idea!” Hadria slapped her table a few time with an open palm. “Nair, you should hold your gun to his head while he talks!” Holy shit.

“As you wish, Madam.” Nair didn’t waste a second pointing his pistol to the back of Inel’s head, but like Koln, he didn’t flinch. Tough guy face practice, obviously.

“Uhh… you realize we don’t just put everyone in a guillotine that comes up to testify, right?” I asked. The fact that we put anyone in a guillotine in the first place was already pretty messed up.

Hadria puffed up one of her cheeks, turning her head to one side. “Yeah, I guess it does feel kind of off. Oh, I know!” Great. “Nair, you should point a gun at both of them.” Of course.

“Very well.” Nair reached into the other side of his blazer and pulled out another gun, aiming it back at Koln. Holding both guns with his arms totally outstretched, he looked like he was straight out of a shitty action movie. The kind where the protagonist gets surrounded by enemies and spins around, guns blazing as each of them runs directly into the bullets. Yeah. That kind.

Hadria gave her bodyguard a thumbs up. “Cool.” Whatever. This was fine as long as I could actually move this fucking trial along.

“Inel, I’d like you to tell me about last night,” I said. “All the details you can think of.”

“What the fuck did you just say to me?” Inel snapped. “I don’t appreciate your tone, punk.” Violetta quickly ducked behind my back.

The Count noisily cleared his throat. “Inel, enough. Mr. Allard is my guest. Treat him as such.”

“Of course, Count,” Inel’s voice changed back to a calm one right away. “I’ll… do my best to answer the questions.” Was it really that hard to just start off like that? Why was this always like pulling teeth?

“Honestly, I wasn’t really looking around at anyone else.” Inel scratched the back of his head around Nair’s muzzle. “I was too nervous to focus on stuff like that.”

“Nervous?” I asked. I was immediately met by a dirty look.

“Yeah, nervous. You got a problem with that?” A vein bulged on Inel’s pale forehead. “Joining the family… is a really big deal.”

“Why is it a big deal?”

“What the fuck kind of question is that?” Inel scoffed. “Joining the family is a huge decision…” He stopped midsentence and then started back up twice as fast. “I mean, it’s a huge honor. The ceremony isn’t the kind of thing you want to mess up.” There it was. An opening. Finally, I had something I could go off of.

“Stop right there,” I said. “Just now, you said that joining the family was a huge decision. What did you mean by that?”

“I misspoke. That wasn’t what I was saying.”

Yeah. I wasn’t buying that.

I took a moment to look out at the audience full of vampire gangsters. “I’m going to take a guess,” I raised my voice. “Before five years pass and you become a real member of the family, you have a chance to quit, don’t you?” There was a moment of silence in the room.

“They do…” The Count stood up from his chair. “Mr. Allard, my men are my family. And when I use the word ‘family’, I don’t use it lightly. I expect my men to take that idea as seriously as I do. Once you’re in, you’re in for life.” He glanced at Inel, smiling faintly. “So Inel isn’t wrong when he says joining is a huge decision. There’s nothing shameful about that.”

Inel lowered his head. “Thank you, Count.”

“That’s sweet!” Violetta gasped. “That’s sweet, Ryley.”

“Yeah, sweet,” I said dismissively, keeping my eyes on hedgehog head. “Did you have second thoughts about joining the family last night?”

Inel glared at me. “Of course I didn’t.”

“Interesting.” I leaned over my table a little. “Did Nimeni?”

Inel’s eyes immediately darted toward the ground before jolting back up at me. “N-Nimeni?”

“Stop me if I’m wrong,” I started. “But you weren’t nervous last night because you were worried about messing up the ceremony, were you?”

Inel didn’t say anything. Apparently, I wasn’t wrong.

“You knew that Nimeni was thinking about leaving the family, weren’t you?” I continued. “You were worried because he was going through with the ceremony. You were worried that he’d end up trapping himself in a life he didn’t want to live.”

“Objection! This is another real one!” Hadria shouted. Ugh, what now? “Ryley, aren’t you just putting words in Inel’s mouth now? You’re just trying to pressure him into agreeing with you. And stuff.” Holy shit, why did Hadria suddenly sound like more of a lawyer than me?

“Uh-oh.” Violetta whispered way too loudly. “I think she has a point.” Best assistant.

“F-Fine, I’ll give you that,” I tried to keep my confidence from breaking apart. “But I think I’ve at least… brought up the possibility.” It suddenly dawned on me that ‘I brought up the possibility’ was one of the worst arguments ever in the history of anything. I could have ‘brought up the possibility’ that potatoes are sentient and it would have had the same weight.

“Fuck yeah! A real actual objection,” Hadria said to herself. I noticed the Count smiling behind her. He was clearly rooting for his daughter. Yeah, always good to have a conflict of interest going on in trials.

“He said… he was thinking of quitting,” Inel’s uneasy voice cut through the air.

It took a minute for my brain to understand what he meant. “…What?”

“Nimeni.” Inel furrowed his brow. “Before the ceremony started… he told me he was thinking of quitting.”

Really? I couldn’t imagine why someone would be having second thoughts about joining a criminal organization that freely pointed actual loaded guns at their own member’s heads.

The crowd apparently couldn’t either, because they went absolutely ballistic.