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With Malice Towards...

By,

Absolom Nightwolf

A Free Knight Story

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger."

Friedrich Nietzsche

"Better to reign in hell, than serve in heav'n."

John Milton

1

...Everyone

"The Accused, Sarah Amelia Reigns, stands accused of three counts of Murder in the First Degree, and nine counts of premeditated murder. A plea of not guilty on the grounds of insanity has been entered into the official record. Let the record show that on December ninth, thirty-five-fifty-five of Old Terra's calender, that the accused took the lives of Isiah Reigns, Mary Reigns, and Joshua Reigns, the Accused's father, mother and brother respectfully. Over the following two weeks, the Accused is charged with taking the lives of her uncle, Peter Reigns, and one of his associates; three business partners of her father; one Henry Brian Williams; two officers of the New Berlin Police Department, second precinct; and one Marie Laura Francis. The honorable Judge Winola Ethel Von'Straub, presiding. Let all be heard and proper judgment be delivered."

The Judge, a human woman in her mid-forties with graying hair drawn up in a bun, looked through her glasses at the data on the screen in front of her. Her black robes swished quietly as she scanned the data, making a notation her and there with an electronic pen. After a moment, she looked up.

"Is the arresting officer here," she asked.

A human man in the dress uniform of the city's police stood up. His dark skin almost blended with the dark blue uniform, and his cap was in his hand, revealing his shaven head. The man looked to be in his early thirties, and sported a light, neatly trimmed beard. He had no side arm on him; it had been checked in with the bailiff.

"Here, Your Honor," he said in a deep, heavy German accent.

"I see here that you read the Accused her rights twice. Did she acknowledge these rights?"

"She never spoke, Your Honor."

"Did she acknowledge them in any other way; either through a nod, a shake of the head, or any other gesture?"

"Ah...," the officer started to say.

"Your Honor," said a white Guarden at the defendant table as he stood up. The Guarden stood six foot two with cotton white colored fur, his hair cut short enough that it blended in with his fur. Moss green eyes looked over his long snout, as he briefly looked down at his notes. His slender, neatly combed tail stuck out from the back of his flint gray slacks, while black loafers covered his feet. He had a coin gray dress shirt on, and a simple black necktie around his throat. Over this went a slate gray sports coat, the gold chain of a pocket watch running from his black belt to the right pocket of his coat. His hands were covered in rich, black designer gloves.

"As the attorney to the Accused, I will take responsibility for acknowledging her rights, and wish to enact her right to silence."

"Very well," the Judge said. "Let the record show that the Accused has been read her rights and that she has chosen to use her right to silence. Thank you, Officer. And you as well, Councilor. Please be seated."

The Judge shifted thru the data quickly, rearranged her notes, and then looked up at the Jury. Five humans, two Dragolians, three Guardens, and two Raccoonins looked back at her. They were roughly divided into half male, half female; seven males and five females. Three of the humans were female, one of the Dragolians, and one of the Raccoonins. The Prosecutor had objected to having any Guardens in the Jury from the first, but had been over ruled. While Guardens tended to have a tight knit community, they also, on average, had a high respect for the law. However, the local community did not have a high regard for its women, which the Judge found strange, as most Guarden families were Matriarchal in nature. This, of course, could work against the interests of the defendant, but there was no real way to prove if they had any ulterior motives. Guardens tended to take stoicism to the point of stubbornness.

"I would like to remind the Jury that they need to listen to everything that is presented in this trial. You must keep a clear mind and judge on what is right, as well as what is legal. Be mindful of your choices. Someone's life may depend on you." The Judge turned to the audience beyond the wooden barrier. "I must now ask all the news reporters to turn off their recording devices. Both visual and audio. If anyone needs pen or paper, please see the bailiff now."

There was a quick flurry of activity as reporters turned off their devices and some stood up and got pads of paper from the bailiff. Two guards went around the chairs making sure everyone had complied with the order. One man was lifted bodily from his seat, and both he, and his bag, a video recorder lens sticking out of it, were escorted out, with the reporter protesting all the way. Several of the lawyers chuckled, and there were a few jokes about what the next case would be. The guards returned a moment later and the bailiff closed the double doors. With a click, he locked the doors to prevent any interruptions. He then nodded to the Court Clerk and took his seat next to the Usher. The Court Clerk stood up and the room went quiet.

"Hear ye, hear ye. This court will now hear the case of the City of New Berlin against one Sarah Amelia Reigns for the charge of Murder. The Honorable Judge Winola Ethel Von'Straub is presiding. Mr. Wilhelm Vanderbilt will be representing the interests of the city, and The Crown. Mr. Lucas Wraithtail will be representing the interests of the defendant. Let all come forward and be heard."

Having done his speech, the Clerk then sat back down, adjusting the wig on his head. The half-Dragolian was old fashioned, and he liked things in there proper place. His light green scales contrasted greatly with the black court robe he wore, and the dragon like head was ill fitted to wear a wig, much less a borrowed one. His two swept back horns made fitting the wig to his head almost impossible, until the custom built one could come in. At six foot nine, his head came to the top of the Magistrates' Bench while he was seated, which made it easier for the Clerk to pass things to which ever Judge was presiding, but often unnerved the Judges who were not use to it. His long, slender fingers moved over the keys of his computer, as he adjusted his sitting angle to get his serpentine tail out from under him. He was glad he did not have the wings of his cousins, as he might bash the Judge and the Stenographer in the course of doing his job. He looked up at the Judge and nodded.

"Very well, let us get started. Mr. Vanderbilt, you may proceed," the Judge said.

Mr. Wilhelm Vanderbilt stood up. A human, with a shocking bright red head of hair, stood five foot ten, with pale, almost milk colored skin. A light beard of the same color as his hair decorated his face, as pale blue eyes looked out over his notes. He wore a pair of smoke gray colored slacks over a pair of black, hand stitched leather shoes. A teal colored shirt covered his chest, with a silver necktie, and gold cuff links. Over all of this went a navy blue sports coat. Several of the solicitors behind the Prosecutor's desk were whispering together, apparently pleased with who was going to be lead prosecutor.

"Thank you, Your Honor. Members of the Jury," he said in a light German accent, turning to face the Jury box, located to the right of his desk. "Let me paint you a picture. It is deep in the night. A man and a woman are in bed, fast asleep. Both are Guardens, and in the prime of their lives. Suddenly, the door bursts open and in steps their daughter, a gun in her hand. Her parents startle awake, see her raise the gun, and begin to plead for their lives. She does not listen to them, and puts two bullets into her mother and five bullets into her father. Their son, the defendant's own brother, hears the noise and comes running. He is not even through the door to their bedroom when his sister puts four bullets into him. Then she calmly steps over to the bed, and puts the last bullet in the gun into her father's skull; right between the eyes I might add. And what does she do after she had just murdered her whole family...she walks calmly back to her room and changes. Going down the stairs, she goes to her father's gun cabinet, from which she got the original gun, and pulls out a sniper rifle and a shotgun. Along with these, she takes all of the ammo in the cabinet, stuffs them into a bag, and leaves the house, with the front door gaping wide open."

The human paused and looked at each of the faces in the Jury. "Now, these are known facts, and they are undisputed. So what does she do next. No one is entirely sure, but what is known is that she goes hunting. And not for food, mind. No she goes on a manhunt. Her next target is her uncle, Peter Reigns. She goes to his house in broad daylight, the next day. Broad daylight, ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Reigns does not yet know that his brother, and his wife and son, are dead. He opens the door and his niece blasts him with the shotgun. Now, he has a guest using the upstairs restroom, and the defendant goes up and kills her. That is not the act of an insane person, but a cold calculated killer. It was a hunt launched as a murder intended mission. A hunt launched by that woman. Look at her, ladies and gentlemen. That is the look of a calculated killer." Mr. Vanderbilt pointed at the dock. In it, dressed in a short sleeved, orange prison dress, was a young, female black Guarden.

At only eighteen, Sarah Amelia Reigns was already tall, at six foot five, and the doctor who had examined her had said it was likely she would grow some more before she hit her mid twenties. Her slender figure, and ample chest, made the prison dress look both too small and too large. Her black fur had been cleaned, and its onyx color shined in the light from the overhead glow strips. Her waist length, crow black hair, had been washed as well, and combed out, in an attempt to prevent her from hiding anything in it. Her long, bushy tail had received the same treatment. But it was her teeth that worried the guards and the police that surrounded her. They had morphed from the standard wolf like teeth a week-in-a-half ago to something almost...draconic. She had, in fact, used them on her last victim. Added to this was that she was currently smiling, her mouth parted just enough to show her teeth, a slight gleam of light reflecting off them, pearly white. All the time the prosecutor had condemned her with his opening statement, she continued to smile. But when he had pointed at her, no one in the Jury had looked. They had already seen her when she had been dragged into the courtroom, and they had seen more than they wanted. It was not the teeth, however, nor the slightly wicked/mad seeming smile that deterred them from looking, but the gleaming crimson eyes, that glowed slightly from within, and look out over her wolf like snout through half closed eyelids. It was these eyes that kept them from looking back at her, for they glowed with a hint of cold madness that unnerved the Jury members.

Her lawyer had not been able to get one word out of her, and had not even gotten her to acknowledge her predicament. She had been put into jail absolutely filthy from two weeks of not washing, and she had made no attempt at cleaning up, even with the blood of her victims on her. In the end, Mr. Wraithtail had paid to have special attendants wash her, clean her up, and make her presentable. The attendants had ended up being a little rough with her handling, as she made no attempt to cooperate, but she had not resisted either. Sarah had stood in the shower, the attendants moving around her, washing her, all the while the guards, who were both male and female, had watched her. And she had watched them, a smile on her face, ignoring the attendants, even when they forced her to move around. The only time she had shown any emotions, other than the cold amusement she was now showing, was when they had laid out three different dresses for her to chose from, for her to wear at her court appearance. They had left her alone only for a moment, when there came the sounds of growling, hissing, and tearing cloth. The guards had rushed back and found her sitting, stark naked, on her bed, completely calm, all of the clothes, including the decent set of underwear, torn to shreds. The attendants then had brought her a plain set of cotton underwear, and the prison dress. They watched her dress without Sarah uttering a sound, nor showing any signs of an emotional outburst. The incident had been brought to the attention of her lawyer, who had then launched an investigation into her background with her family. It was still incomplete when they started the trial.

Sarah's attention came back to the present to find that the prosecutor was closing his opening argument.

"...and so, by the evidence we here will present, you will find the defendant guilty of all charges. Thank you."

"Thank you, Mr. Vanderbilt," the Judge said. "Mr. Wraithtail, if you please."

The white Guarden stood up. "Your Honor, I must remind the court that the investigation into my client is still on going and that-"

"Mr. Wraithtail," interrupted the clerk, "we have already gone over this. If you are not prepared to represent your client, perhaps you should-"

"Your objection has been duly noted, Mr. Wraithtail," the Judge said, interrupting the Clerk, who turned to glare at her. He got a glare right back, a warning hidden in the look. They would have words later. The Clerk gulped down his remaining words and returned his attention to his desk. "Please proceed."

"Yes, Your Honor," the lawyer said as one of the solicitors whispered something into his ear. "Ladies and gentlemen of the Jury, my college has done an excellent job of describing what has happened. As much as I would like to dispute some of his claims, I can not, as he will show when he presents his evidence. But what he had failed to show, is the why! As will be shown, everything that Miss Reigns did was motivated by a justice that she felt she could not get any other way. Now we all have dreamed of being vigilantes or super heroes at some point in our lives; its only natural in our society. Why, Mr. Vanderbilt had dressed up as Prince Sapphire last Halloween."

There was a burst of laughter around the courtroom, and even the prosecutor had to smile.

"But this does not excuse what Miss Reigns did," Mr. Wraithtail continued. "Again, this leaves the question of...why? Why would she feel the need to act so, especially against her own family. The answer is simple...she, herself, is a victim. A victim of her father's abuse. Her mother's..."

The councilor's voice faded from Sarah's conscious mind as she thought back. They had no idea. These fools could not conceive how much of a victim she was. She had been born to be a victim. It had started when she was ten, with her father grouping her occasionally, and smacking her when she asked him to stop. By the time she was thirteen, he was watching her dress and undress. Then came that terrible night when he had climbed into her bed, and took her. Shortly after turning fifteen, he was forcing himself on her in front of her mother, who did nothing but watch. Then her brother was forced to joined in, her father training his how to treat a girl 'properly.' He did not seem to object too much. When she became pregnant, her father took her to the hospital and had her given an abortion. It was a clear violation of Guarden culture, which valued all life, no matter the source. When she had turned sixteen, her father started to whore her out to his business partners for favors, and even to those two crooked cops, to keep his shadier business deals quiet. And the woman and her Uncle?

Uncle Pete had come over to the house to ask for some help with a car he was rebuilding. Sarah's father had been fucking her right in the middle of the living room when Uncle Pete had walked in. Instead of being repulsed, Uncle Pete had simply asked to join in, and so he became part of her special 'client'. Turned out he had been doing Sarah's mother with her husband's approval; trying to produce an heir for both sides of the family. And Marie Francois? She had been her father's secretary and mistress for several years, as well as being responsible for covering up for his illicit business dealings. She had died with Sarah's new teeth cutting into and crushing that pretty neck, all for standing there, watching as her father's partners took turns with Sarah, and occasionally offering suggestions. A victim, did the lawyer say? How foolish these people truly were.

Was she traumatized? Possibly. She did not feel so. Not any more. The psychiatrist that had been sent to see her had gotten no further than the lawyer had. After nearly an hour of trying to get anything out of Sarah, save a small toothy grin, the psychiatrist had given up. Sarah had been laughing inside her head the whole time. If these people wanted to know what she had gone through, they had better go and live her life. As for the judgment; she did not care. Let them go ahead and kill her. She was beyond having them harm her anymore. She might even welcome it. There was nothing keeping here anymore. Her family was dead, and society was sure to condemn her, even if the court did not first. Sarah's mind drifted more. She was remembering that night, a little over three weeks ago. How could she not remember it. It had been burned into her mind.

When she had been sixteen, her father had started dressing her in fancy, often revealing, outfits, with silk underwear and nighties. He had foolishly taught both of his children how to shoot, and Sarah had gone to the local firing range every weekend, working out her frustration. She had become a pretty good shot in the first year, and one of the owners had taken the time to show her other weapons, like the rifle and shotgun. When she had offered to pay him for the lessons, he turned it down, and when she had asked if he would like to sleep with her instead, he had been horrified. From that point on, he had gone out of his way to treat her as a person, not a thing. A year later, the two of them were secretly dating.

That night, the night of the murders, her father had just learned she had been dating the twenty-four year old Guarden from the firing range. How he found out, she did not know. The problem was that he had. He had come home drunk, and spitting fire mad. He had barged into her room, dragged her from her bed, knocked her around a little, raped her, and then knocked her around a lot more, shouting at her the whole time. He had destroyed most of the room in his rage. Strangely, Sarah had not felt the impacts like she usually did, and close to the end, when her father was running out of steam, the male Guarden had looked at his hand in total confusion. The hand looked like he had bashed it a couple of times against the furniture. His knuckles were bleeding, and one of the fingers look really crooked. Shaking his head in his drunkenness, he wandered off to his own room. Sarah had sat on her bedroom floor and looked at herself in the shattered mirror. Before her eyes, her blue eyes turned to a crimson red as the anger she had hidden for so long boiled to the surface. Now she knew what she had to do.

A couple of hours later, she went downstairs, unlocked her father's gun cabinet, and pulled out his nine millimeter pistol. Her father had thought the key was safe in the back of the top shelf of the spice cabinet, but had not been all that discrete about it. Still wearing nothing but the ruined nightie she slept in, which stayed on her body only by the right strap and where it bunched up around her tail, she loaded the gun and proceeded to walk back up the stairs. Her father was a heavy sleeper when he was drunk, and her mother and brother had become accustom to his nightly visits to Sarah's room, so it was no surprise when no one stirred as she walked into her parents room. They had laid there, sleeping soundly, and all these years, Sarah had lost sleep waiting for either her father or brother to show up in her room somewhere in the middle of the night. She had looked at her mother, sleeping quietly, looking content in her dreams. It filled Sarah with new anger.

Sarah leveled the pistol at her father and kicked the foot board, not even registering the fact that it cracked and splintered where she had kicked it. Her mother was the first to wake up. Taking one look at Sarah, she had screamed. That woke her father up. He looked up at Sarah, groggily, made a move to get out of bed, a scowl on his face and an insult on his lips, when he saw the pistol. His whole demeanor changed then. He began to beg for her to spare him, making promises she knew he would never keep. Then her mother joined in, telling her that Sarah 'didn't really want to do this', and that 'they should talk this out'. Sarah's anger rose sharply at that. Turning to her mother, her glowing eyes devoid of any emotions, Sarah had spoken.

'And what,' Sarah had asked, 'did you ever do to stop him, mother?'

She then turned the pistol on her mother and put two bullets into her chest, right where her heart should have been; if she ever had one. Her father moved to get up, to do what Sarah did not know, or care, and she pumped five rounds into his chest. Then came a pounding from the hallway as her brother, awoken from his sleep by the gunshots, came running to investigate what was going on, which made it easier for Sarah. That meant she did not have to hunt him down. The prosecutor had it wrong though; her brother had actually stepped into the room before she had killed him. It was only when the four bullets, fired in rapid succession, had struck him, that he was knocked back into the hall. He had looked down at his chest in surprise more than fear, as he fell to his knees, then up at Sarah in confusion. She watched his life drain from his eyes as he fell forward onto the floor, right in the middle of the doorway.

There had been a groan to her right, back towards the bed, and she turned to find her father still alive. He probably would not have lived much longer from the amount of blood he had been losing, but Sarah had not cared. She walked over to the side of the bed, placed the pistol against his forehead, and pulled the trigger. It was then that she had started to cry. Sarah had stepped back from the bed, slumped against the wall, and bawled like a baby. She did not know how long she had cried, but at one point, she began to laugh. Softly at first, it soon became hysterical, as if she could see some sort of cosmic joke that had been played on her. Sarah had looked at the bed as feelings of desperation, joy, and despair fought inside of her. But above all of them, was the feeling that she was free. Free for the first time in her life. She knew what she had to do now; what she had wanted to do for a long time. Standing up, tears forgotten, she had gone to her room, not bothering to clean up, changed into the first cloths she had put her hands on, and gone downstairs to the gun cabinet.

The first stop had been Uncle Pete, who liked it rough. That was why she used the shotgun on him; a mean weapon for a mean male. At the time, Uncle Pete had been 'entertaining' a fellow employee from his business. The woman, Sarah had forgotten her name, a human who had watched Uncle Pete have fun with his niece, and enjoyed it, had been upstairs in Pete's bed, not the restroom as the prosecutor had stated. Sarah had blasted her at the top of the stairs when the woman had come out to investigate the load noise. Her father's business partners? She had shot them in the middle of a conference, from the roof on the building across the street, using the rifle. One shot to the head of each of them. They had all died before they even knew where the shooting was coming from. And the human male, Henry Brian Williams? That had been an alias. Sarah had never learned his real name. He had been in charge of supplying young girls for her father's real business. Henry had gotten a turn with Sarah as part of a payment when her father had turned up a little short one month. She had thereafter became part of his bonus.

Sarah came back to the present slowly. Her lawyer had finished his opening argument and the Judge was scheduling the next session.

"The court will reconvene tomorrow at ten AM sharp, where the prosecutor will open his case."

"All rise," cried the Clerk.

Sarah was yanked to her feet by the burly guards who watched over her. As before, she made no effort to resist, but she made no move to help them either. Her smile broadened as then struggled to keep her up until the Judge was out of the room. Then struggling under her dead weight, they dragged her back to the holding cell. She had started laughing before they reached it. Oh, what fools they were.