Chapter 78 Fine.
"No," Karl Krass growled around his cigar, smoke pluming around him like the clouds of an angry storm god. "It’s not good at all!"
Ava winced as the dwarf snarled the words. Spread on the table were the documents Riza had left behind, papers Karl had just finished going over.
As soon as Ava had recovered, she’d headed straight for the offices of the Morning Wood.
Then, a block out of the house, went back and got dressed, before actually managing to make the trip.
Karl loomed over the desk despite needing a specially made chair to sit at it.
The dwarf was bald but made up for it with his beard, his pinstripe shirt sliced by suspenders, a vein throbbing on his forehead.
Around the walls, framed pages of the Morning’s Woods many scoops were hung, including the one which had prompted the legal documents before them.
"But I didn’t lie about anything!" Ava said. "I never lie! Countess Vargaras was holding a sex cult in her manor! I was there! They tried to turn me into a vessel for their goddess."
"Of course you aren’t lying!" Karl snarled, slamming a fist on the table. "This is nothing less than an assault on the free press! An attempt to silence us! Censor us! Cut off our distribution and advertisers! Legal intimidation! You didn’t do a damn thing wrong, and we all know it!"
"Exactly!" Ava said, sagging in her chair with relief. "You got it! So, if we just talk to Riza-"
Karl snorted, is cigar wagging like a disapproving finger. "That won’t work, Ava. A truth before the people is very different from a truth before the law. And this is Riza von Lazarus! Vampire of the Courts! She’s not lost a case in two hundred years, and I doubt she’ll be dropping yours. She’s navigated those halls before half the city was built! She’s ancient, over four hundred years old!"
"Gosh," Ava said. "She’s so young!"
Karl gave Ava a look, reminded again of the difference between elves and others.
"Well," he said. "Humans live different lives. And so do the undead. She was the one who successfully argued for equal access of the differently deceased, as well as legal protection against stakings. Also got an injunction against the use of garlic by the city watch. She’s colder than the grave that spawned her."
"Then, what do we do?"
Karl smirked darkly around his cigar. "Simple," he growled. "We hire the one who beat her record. Groan Bones."
"Bones?" Ava said.
"He’s a zombie. Best lawyer in the city," Krass said as he spun through his rolodex, cards clicking as his stubby fingers danced. "Been around to see and argued the precedence of near every law in the book! No cultist and her pet bloodsucker is going to silence the Morning Wood! Not so long as Karl Krass is editor. Aha!"
Krass tugged a card from its place and passed it over to Ava. The elf took it, reading it.
Groan Bones
Esquire
No Truth Shall be Buried
"He sounds nice," Ava said.
"We don’t need nice. We need hard! And Bones is harder than tombstone, except for all his fleshy bits," Krass said. "Now, head to that address. Tell him Karl Krass sent you, and that we’re hiring him. And don’t take no for an answer!"
"Got it!" Ava said, jumping to her feet, fired with zeal and purpose. "I won’t let you down, Karl!"
Ava turned and sped from the office and back outside. She flagged down a carriage and swung herself into it.
"Rue Morgue!" she said.
The man glanced back, but shrugged an obeyed, the click clack of hooves soon ferrying Ava through the streets of New Larrin.
Rue Morgue wasn’t a specific address, more like half a district of old churches, graveyards, and tombs that overflowed from the upper districts and into East Under.
Centuries worth of the city’s dead had been deposited in those graves.
Sometimes the moldering remains were emptied into the crypts or the mazelike catacombs that stretched beneath the entire Rue Morgue.
Only the wealthiest and most prestigious could afford to keep their plots protected. Some crypts even growing like small castles over the years.
One such crypt belonged to Groan Bones, the last patriarch of the Bones family.
Though no longer a going concern, as such, the city’s greatest legal bloodline had amassed a great fortune during their time among the living. Enough to preserve their and his place in the Rue Morgue for many centuries to come.
The Bones family’s tomb was like a gothic fortress, complete with spiky towers, angelic statues, and stained-glass windows depicting great moments in the history of the Bones family.
There was a green and yellow window depicting the time Ichabod Bones overturned the conviction of a troll accused of eating a merchant.
A silver and violet window devoted to the time Madeline Bones settled a divorce between a princess and her doppelganger wife. But the masterpiece was a triptych of luminous windows depicting the legal victories of Groan Bones himself.
Ava stared up in wonder, ignoring the fell wind that stirred her hair. Unbothered by the mist that gathered among the tombs.
She was not even a bit concerned by the moans coming from the tomb. After all, the dead were the least threatening people in all of New Larrin.
The door opened with the lightest push of Ava’s fingertips. Cobwebs parted and hinges creaked. Candles sparked and caught fire as she entered the musty antechamber.
"Hello?" she called, her voice echoing. "Mr. Bones? It’s Ava Copperman, from the Morning Wood. I was wondering if I could..."
"Aaaaaaahhhhhh..."
A faint voice moaned and seemed to circle around her in the antechamber. Candles guttered. Some of them died, deepening the darkness around her.
"Hello?" she looked around. Backed away from the tomb’s door and deeper into the ominous structure.
A cobwebbed statue of Osiris Bones stood guarding the hallway to the depths of the tomb. He was a stern looking man with a big, beaklike nose and shrewd eyes.
"OoooOOOOOOooooo..."
The faint voice was louder this time. It seemed to be circling closer and closer to Ava as she backed up against the base of the statue.
"Are you a ghost? Um... I’m not afraid of ghosts. I would love to do an interview."
The cold breath of the darkness blew across Ava’s shoulders and swept the curls from the back of her neck.
A wisp of spectral mist caressed her bare skin. Cold. Making her turn with a gasp. She expected a ghostly figure but found nothing but the last two candles flickering in the whistling night wind.
"Who is it?" she whispered, a slight tremble in her voice.
"OoOOOOOooooosiris," came the warbling answer. "You’re a fine one, elfy."
Ghostly hands appeared at Ava’s hips, slipped under her blouse and crawled up her torso as she stood petrified in shock. Spectral fingers slid over her breasts.