A voice echoes into the endless void of Yesenia’s existence. “Awaken.”

 

She curls up tighter into a resentful ball. Despite her best efforts, her edges take shape, her mind coalesces into a personality, her general attitude goes from neutral to bad. Her body is a compact round brown 5 foot 4 inches of rage topped with a mop of black loose black curls. She lashes out with her foot at the insistent poke she is getting on the side of her hip. Her foot is grabbed, and she finds herself being dragged behind a willowy black man wearing a judge’s robe.

 

When he turns to look at her, his eyes are twin flames that burn blue with purple edges. He has a massive wound in his upper chest that spreads to his neck. The wound’s edges are grey and the torn flesh inside has a milky pearlescent sheen. He has no smell. Nothing does. He smiles and when he speaks the darkness in his mouth holds stars and infinite universes. Whatever he is, he is not human. His voice hurts her bones. It is at a pitch that penetrates flesh. “It is your first day in the Courts of Infinity. Try not to be late.”

 

With a mighty heave he flings her down the middle aisle of the courtroom that appears mistily around them. She lands hard in a stenographer’s chair at the base of the judge’s bench. It is still taking shape and clasps her like a wooden lover. It molds itself into a teacup around her bottom. Made to fit, yet still Puritanically uncomfortable. The hulking Minotaur serving as the bailiff to her left sniffs. “You’re late.”

 

She glares. “I’m dead. I’ll always be late no matter what.”

 

The bailiff draws his massive figure up and bellows, “The Court of Infinity is now in session. All rise for most honorable Judge Anubis.”

 

The courtroom comes into being with a rustling and coughing of beings who are still forming. When silence descends and all are standing, Judge Anubis takes his place behind the bench and smacks the gavel in front of him. He announces with a bone shaking bass voice, “By the authority vested in me by the all-powerful Ma’At, I call this court to order. You may be seated.”

 

He gestures to the scowling woman to his left in the stenographer’s chair. “Transcripts will be recorded by Thoth’s acolyte…” He pauses.

 

“Yesenia.”

 

He nods. “Yesenia. Let’s begin. The first case on the docket is Infinity Court vs. The Furies Tisiphone Punisher of Murderers and Alecto the Unceasing over the disappearance of their battle sister Megaera the Grudging. Are the defendants present?”

 

The defense lawyer is a being with a barrister’s wig that perches on a head that has the face of a praying mantis, and their body is draped with a flowing black robe. They stand beside two women dressed in black stolas. Tisiphone has the head of a wolf and Alecto is pale faced with ruby lips. Her black heavy hair twists into multiple loops that shift and ripple around her head and shoulders, like snakes. Their lawyer gestures to them and replies, “Present and accounted for, your honor.”

 

Anubis nods. “Thank you, Themis. How do they plead?”

 

Themis glances over at the stoic women then returns his gaze to Anubis. “Not guilty, your honor.”

 

Anubis raises his eyebrows. “Interesting.”

 

Yesenia finds her fingers flowing over the strange blocky keyboard, like she had done this for decades. She knew without knowing and finds that deeply irritating. She records the Not Guilty plea and internally notes the skepticism in Anubis’s voice. Anubis informs the prosecution and defense he is ready to hear their opening statements.

 

The prosecuting lawyer is dressed like Themis. A barrister’s wig balances on their head and their shoulders are draped in a long black robe. Their head is a white bird with a long-curved beak that is dagger sharp. They stand, shake out their robes, and go to stand in front of a jury of shifting black shadows. The bird’s beak doesn’t move when they speak. The words come from the surrounding air, like a tinny speaker hidden out of sight. They point at the two women sitting at the defendant’s table and address the jury.

 

“Good day blessed jury. My name is Ibis, and I am here on behalf of the Immortals. What you see before you is the betrayal of a sisterhood that has existed since the minds of humans could perceive the idea of justice. They betrayed not only their compatriot, but the honor of all demi-gods. They most perniciously plotted against their sister. Removed her powers and disposed of her body in multiple pieces throughout the universe to guarantee she could never be brought back. This not only destroyed the triumvirate of retribution, but it also endangered every immortal being in the pantheon. At the very least they should be stripped of their powers and damned to the fields of Tartarus, weighed down with chains of shame. We have a witness to the deed and a record of discord between the trio going back for hundreds of years.”

 

Ibis wraps their robe tightly around themself and gives a tight bow to jury and judge before returning to their table. Once sitting, they remove a white quill from their sleeve, sharpen it with a nearby penknife, dip it in the inkwell in front of them then noisily unroll a parchment. They glance over to Themis and put the quill tip to paper.

 

Themis’s eyes crease with a slight smile, before standing to approach the jury. They pause to rap their knuckles twice on the table in front of Ibis. Ibis tilts their head. Themis leans over and whispers. “Ready?”

 

Ibis uses the quill to push Themis’s hand from the tabletop before answering. “I’m always ready.”

 

Themis turns to the jury. “My clients are innocent. They have done their jobs in good faith for centuries. Whatever happened to Megaera was not of their doing. The witness the prosecution is providing is human, whose recollection is dicey at best. They can believe they’ve seen all manner of things with very little effort. There are holes in the prosecution’s case I could drive a river barge through. Yes, the fact an Immortal is missing and/or dead is worrying, but that is not the fault of my clients. It is a matter that will have to be addressed, but that is not what we are here for. It is not how Megaera has ceased to exist, but who did it.”

 

Ibis loudly scribbles throughout Themis’s speech and at the end they set their quill down to cross their arms and watch Themis return to their clients’ side. Ibis looks back to the jury and shakes their head, dismissing Themis’s words.

 

Anubis looks at Yesenia. “You got all that?”

 

She nods.

 

He sits back and raps the gavel once. “Right. That’s lunch, people. You have forty-five minutes to do what you need to. Ibis, you’re on when we get back.”

 

Ibis nods. Yesenia stands and stretches. The bailiff motions for her to follow him. They go through a shifting hallway of grey smoke. She finally smells something. Stale coffee. Bailiff leads her to a grey green room with folding chairs and card tables that has tiny flowerpots with fake sunflowers on each table. He grabs two coffee cups, drops brown tabs in each then puts a little water in each one from an electric kettle on the counter. The contents of the cup he hands her smoke and bubble like it has dry ice in it. She asks, “What’s your name?”

 

He blows into the cup and smoke billows over the sides. He takes a deep sniff before answering. “Ted. Go ahead. You can’t eat or drink here, but the smell is quite restorative.”

 

She sniffs deep. He is right. Her body (no matter how incorporeal) recognizes the nutty burnt smell of freeze-dried coffee, the cheap industrial kind that gives you the shits after two cups. She sighs. “So, what do you think of the case? Do they look innocent to you?”

 

Ted shrugs, “What does guilty look like? When you spring from the blood of castration, nine times out of ten, you’re probably someone who’s seen some things. They’re guilty of a lot of things, but murdering their sister in battle? Who knows? Weirder things have happened.”

 

Yesenia sighs. “Why am I here?”

 

Ted says, “Well, you don’t end up here if you were a good person, so…”

 

Yesenia nods and takes another deep inhale of the coffee. A thought occurs to her…” Hey Ted, do they have cigarette tabs over there?”

 

Ted grins. “Yep.”

 

They return to the courtroom settled but not satiated. Being comfortable is not the goal in this reality. Everyone takes their places. Ted calls out, “All rise for the honorable judge.”

 

Anubis sweeps into his seat. “Be seated. Ibis, call your first witness.”

 

Ibis snaps their fingers. A woman in her 40s forms out of mist in the witness box. Her green scrubs are torn and bloody, a compound fracture sticks out of her right forearm. She has white freckled skin with brown frizzy hair matted to her head. She looks dazed. Ibis approaches her and says, “You can only tell the truth here.”

 

She gazes down at her knees and in Ukrainian mumbles, “I can only tell the truth here.”

 

“Please identify yourself to the court.”

 

She looks up and her eyes clear for a moment. “My name is Dr. Olena Ivanov. I run the NICU at the Regional Hospital in Bakhmut, Ukraine.”

 

Ibis turns to face the jury. “What did you see from the basement window the night the bombs fell?”

 

She raises a shaking hand to her forehead. Her fingers smear the blood dripping down her cheek. Her hand falls back into her lap. “I saw…I saw…”

 

Her voice trails off.

 

“You saw?”

 

“I saw some people in the courtyard behind the hospital. One was a wolf, one had crazy hair that moved on its own, the other…the other had pieces missing from her face. Her skin was hanging off and bone was showing.”

 

“Are you sure you saw them clearly?”

 

“Only a moment. A bomb dropped and the place lit up like it was day right when they walked past the window. They were carrying a body between them.”

 

“Are they in this courtroom now?”

 

The woman looks over at the defendants and nods.

 

“You have to say it out loud.”

 

The woman points at Tisiphone and Alecto. “That’s them.

 

“Let the record show the witness identified the defendants. What happened next?”

 

The woman presses her fingertips to her eyes and shivers for a bit. Her hands drop again. Her eyelids are rimmed with blood. “I’m not sure. It looked like they built a fire beside a table. They placed the body on the table and they…they did things to it.”

 

“What things?”

 

“I’m not sure. It was dark and the fire hurt my eyes.”

 

“What did it look like they were doing?”

 

Themis didn’t even glance up from their notes before saying, “Objection your honor. What this woman thinks they were doing when she clearly isn’t sure has no bearing on the truth.”

 

Anubis rapped his gavel. “Sustained. Rephrase the question.”

 

Ibis tilts their head and clicks their beak for a moment before turning back to the woman. “What can you tell us about what you saw.”

 

“One of them got on the table beside the body. They took things from the body and placed it in the woman. Then they took things from the body and burned them.”  

 

“Is there anything else you remember?”

 

“Yes. The flames burned blue.”

 

Ibis slaps one hand into the other. “The flames burned blue, beings of the jury. Blue. Magic was afoot.”

 

Themis’s mandibles click. Ibis wraps their robes tighter and stands tall. “No further questions, your honor.”

 

Anubis pointed to Themis with his gavel. “Redirect?”

 

“No, your honor.”

 

The witness holds up her hand. “I have a question.”

 

Ibis nods, “Yes?”

 

Anubis makes a gesture to Yesenia to stop typing. The courtroom leans forward to hear the question.

 

She asks. “Am I alive?”

 

Ibis shrugs, “Yes, in a manner of speaking. The building you’re hiding in was struck by another bomb. The load bearing beam above you broke and pinned you underneath it with three other nurses. The makeshift NICU you set up is blocked off and all of you have about three more hours of oxygen before you perish. But suffocation is preferable to the invading troops finding you. I’ve heard it’s peaceful at the end. Try not to panic.”

 

The woman’s gaze drops to the floor. “Oh, thank you.”

 

“For what it’s worth. You did your best.”

 

She smiles, reaches in her pocket, and scatters something on the floor in front of her. Anubis motioned to Yesenia to start typing again and said, “The witness is dismissed back to her own reality.”

 

She evaporates, leaving behind a small pile of sunflower seeds on the floor.

 

“Next witness.”

 

Ibis walks back to their table and consults their list. “I only have one more. The Furies have had multiple caretakers over the millennia, I call to the stand: Margret the blessed.”

 

Margret does not appear out of thin air. She marches up the center aisle of the courtroom. She is tall and broad. She is wearing a grey camo uniform, has a buzzcut, and is chewing on a short fat cigar. Her sleeves are rolled to her elbows showing off brown muscular forearms. She sits down in the witness chair. Ibis leans forward to administer the oath. “You can only tell the truth here.”

 

Margret takes her cigar out of her mouth to reply, “I ain’t scared enough of any of you to bother lying.”

 

Anubis says, “Good enough.”

 

Ibis glares at her. She glares back. Ibis leans on the railing in front of her and asks, “How long have you been the Furies handler?”

 

“Handler, armorer, and quartermaster thank you. Six hundred years, give or take.”

 

“Apologies. Have you observed discord between them during that time?”

 

“You ever have roommates, Ibis? Of course, they fought. It would be weird if they didn’t.”

 

“Just answer the question yes or no. You don’t need to qualify it.”

 

“Yes. I’ve seen them fight. I’ve seen them burn entire towns to the ground during a fistfight. I’ve also seen them walk through fire to find the other.”

 

Anubis tells Yesenia, “Strike everything after ‘yes’.”

 

Margret’s eyes narrow. Ibis turns to Themis. “Your witness.”

 

Themis stands and approaches the witness stand. “Thank you for coming in, Margret. Along with the discord, did you observe anything else with the trio?”

 

“Yes, Megaera started losing it.”

 

“Losing it?”

 

“She started losing her nerve. You must understand, these demigods have been at ground zero at the worst moments of human history. I started noticing her glitching soon after I joined them. It was the War of the Roses when I found her clutching a dead infant to her breast trying to suckle it. All three of us fought to get it away from her. She carried that thing like a teddy bear until it liquified and fell apart. She started going off book during assignments. She burnt down a First Nation orphanage in the 1800s, because ‘they wouldn’t want to see what was going to happen to their people anyway’. She sunk slave ships to spare the people inside their futures. She collapsed buildings, blew up harbors, all manner of chaos. And she wouldn’t stop pretending she knew the future. She told me she had seen it all and humans had become predictable. I think she couldn’t stand inevitable tragedies.”

 

Ibis raises a finger, “Objection. Conjecture.”

 

Anubis replies. “Sustained. Strike the last sentence.”

 

Margret takes a moment to glare at Ibis before continuing. “She was exhibiting what all soldiers eventually get: shell shock.”

 

“At any time did you hear the other two plotting against her?”

 

“No, the other two kept their heads down and kept working. We were worried, but what could we do?”

 

“Thank you. I have no further questions.”

 

Anubis says, “You’re dismissed.”

 

Margret doesn’t spare the two defendants a look, she stands up and strides out the way she came. Ibis stands up and says, “I’d like to call the defendant Tisiphone to the stand.”

 

Tisiphone takes the stand and agrees to speak the truth.

 

Ibis asks, “Did you kill Megaera?”

 

“No.”

 

“But you were present when she died.”

 

“She’s not dead as far as I know.”

 

“Where is she then?”

 

“No idea.”

 

“She no longer appears in the immortal scrolls, ergo she is dead.”

 

Tisiphone smiles, showing her elongated canines, “As far as you know? Do you have a body? We have been brought here erroneously; our duties interrupted on a mere supposition. If you were not a fellow immortal, I swear on Uranus’s balls they wouldn’t even find a feather if I ever get my claws into you.”

 

Ibis turns to Anubis, “Permission to treat the witness as hostile.”

 

Anubis nods. “Granted.”

 

Ibis slams a hand down on the railing in front of Tisiphone. “You are bound to tell the truth and now is the time to do it.”

 

Tisiphone covers Ibis’s hand with her own and squeezes until her knuckles turn white, “I have.”

 

Ibis yanks their hand away with difficulty, “What were you and Alecto doing by that fire?”

 

“Attempting to heal our sister’s mind.”

 

“You say that, but she has been missing since that night.”

 

“These things take time.”

 

“What things?”

 

“The things we did.”

 

“I have no further questions for this witness.”

 

Anubis asks, “Themis?”

 

“No further questions.”

 

Anubis asks, “Ibis?”

 

“The prosecution rests your honor.”

 

Anubis leans back in his chair. “The defense may present their case.”

 

Themis looks at their legal pad and announces, “I’d like to call my first and only witness. The body.”

 

A woman appears at the back of the court, wearing a black stola. She makes her way to the front and takes the witness stand. The jury whispers, and Ibis goes through their notes, with a great deal of rustling. “Your honor, I do not see this witness on my list.”

 

Themis replies, “I was only just made aware they were available.”

 

Anubis sucks air through his teeth a moment then says, “I’ll allow it.”

 

Themis approaches the stand, “Please state your name for the court.”

 

“Zlata the unceasing. I have replaced Megaera.”

 

Ibis barks, “Impossible!”

 

Anubis doesn’t even glance at him. “I decide what is possible and impossible in this court.” He motions to Zlata. “Please continue.”

 

Themis even looks surprised. “Replaced her? How did this happen?”

 

Zlata says, “I had been captured with my fellow soldiers by the Russians. They were desecrating our bodies before marching us to a mass grave.”

 

“And when you say desecrate?”

 

“They raped us. First with their bodies then their guns. The details are hazy for me. I was slipping in and out of consciousness. When they forced us to our feet and pushed us outside, I realized we were near a hospital. Bombs were still falling nearby and the concussions from the impact deafened me. Some of us couldn’t stay on our feet. The soldiers shot the fallen when they refused to move. I don’t know how I stayed upright. As we passed the hospital courtyard, another bomb fell. This knocked everyone off their feet. A portion of wall from a nearby building fell, taking out more than two thirds of the column, both soldier and prisoner. The rest of us were covered in blood and soot. Most wandered off. The wolf headed woman grabbed my arm,” she points at Tisiphone, “and told me to follow her.”

 

“What did you do?”

 

“I tried to follow, but they ended up having to carry me. I couldn’t see, I could barely hear, and I was numb all over. They laid me on a table over a fire. A woman laid down beside me. She was rotting. Her jawbone was showing, and flaps of her skin were hanging off her.”

 

“What happened after that?”

 

“They healed me. They coated me in a foul-smelling grease, threw powder over me then set me on fire.”

 

“This healed you?”

 

“Not at first. It turned my outer layer to hard ash. They did the same to the rotting woman beside me, who I found out later was Megaera. When the flames died out, they took a dagger and broke off the piece on our chests. They cut out my heart and placed it in Megaera’s chest. Then Alecto reached into my belly and ripped out my intestines. She placed those into the fire, and it turned blue. She and Tisiphone dressed me like a deer, removing all my organs. I could still see and hear, but I could not speak or move. The only thing they let me keep was my brain. They stitched me up with a bit of rawhide.”

Zlata opens the top of her stola to reveal her breasts and a jagged seam that runs from her breastbone and disappears into the bottom half of her dress. “It goes all the way to my groin. They sewed that up to.”

 

“For what purpose?”

 

“If nothing living remained there would be nothing to rot. I might have mourned this, but I was beyond thought or feeling at this point.”

 

“Then what happened?”

 

“Those two smashed the hard ash covering me, freeing my body limb by limb. I was still weak. They left Megaera on the altar. When I returned later, she was gone.”

 

“Why did you return?”

 

“To see if it was a dream. Once I became unceasing it was as if I always had been.”

 

“What did you find?”

 

She smiles, “A pile of ash. Nothing more.”

 

Ibis stands and shouts, “This is ridiculous. A farce. Grease and powder cannot kill a god. You’d need a Ophiotaurus and there hasn’t been one since the gods fought for Olympus. I haven’t seen any creatures with the head of a bull and the body of a snake.”

 

Themis shouts back, “She cannot lie.”

 

He turns to Anubis. “No further questions.”

 

Anubis looked at Ibis. “Your witness.”

 

Ibis waves a hand. “I have many questions, but none this witness could answer.”

 

Anubis tells Zlata, “You’re dismissed.”

 

She descends and goes to sit in the galley behind the defendant’s table. Alecto leans over to Themis and whispers in their ear. Themis nods and says, “For my final witness I call Alecto to the stand.”

 

Alecto takes the stand, crosses her legs, and jiggles the sandal of her raised foot lazily. She takes the oath and waits for Themis to start questioning her.

 

They ask, “Did you perform the Deiphoni, the god killing ceremony?”

 

“No. We did not set out to kill Megaera. We tried healing her and we couldn’t. The only thing left was to take her powers and make her mortal.”

 

“And did you?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“How? Did you find an Ophiotaurus?”

 

“In a manner of speaking.”

 

Themis cocks their head. “Explain.”

 

Alecto smiles, places her elbow on the railing in front of her and leans forward to rest her chin on her hand. “What I find amusing about immortals who never walk amongst mortals is that they take everything literally. The universe is built on beliefs as much as facts. You can do or find anything if you think hard enough about it. And symbolism is just as powerful in spells.”

 

“I still don’t follow.”

 

Alecto leans back and rests her hands in her lap. “It’s simple. We didn’t need an Ophiotaurus. A Pituophis catenifer sayi worked just fine.”

 

Anubis asks, “Please clarify for the court what that is.”

 

“It is large nonvenomous gopher snake from North America more commonly known as a bull snake. We wrapped it in Zlata’s intestines and burned it as the sacrifice. Megaera was willing to try anything, and Zlata’s presence here tells me it worked.”

 

“But where is Megaera?”

 

Alecto closes her eyes. “I don’t know. I don’t care, but I wish her the best.”

 

~ * ~

 

Baja, Mexico

 

She sits at an open-air bar on the beach with a sketchpad, a plate of shrimp tacos, and a pitcher of beer in front of her. The local cats wind around the legs of her barstool, fighting over the occasional scraps she tosses to them. The sound of ocean waves fills the air and the smell of warm briny salt rides the breeze that dries the sweat on her skin. The bartender brings over a fresh pitcher of beer and stops to admire the ornate drawing of an animal with the head of a bull and the tail of a snake.

 

“Es muy bonita,”

 

She smiles, “Gracias. Yo soy Meg.”

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