12 Innocents + 1 Sinner
The tension in the courtroom was almost tangible, like the thing that only Joan Stolas could see looming over her brother. When he glanced over in her direction, so did it. His cold eyes, as gray as the jail cell walls he was about to be booted into, stared at nothingness. Joan remembered when those eyes were a warm brown like hers, full of youth and wonder. That was before it latched onto his shoulder like a cancerous tumor and pulled him into a life of crime.
Tumor. Cancer. Those were the first words that she learned because of how Seth was born. Until he was about 13, Joan’s brother had sickening growths on both his legs that prevented him from being able to play tag or try out for sports with her. Their parents had decided that amputating was far too risky (and on top of this, expensive) and that they would wait and see how his condition progressed. The family grew up fearing for when he would get his wish of meeting Hugh Jackman as Wolverine on his "last day" at age fourteen, Joan carrying more burdens than the average older sibling because of this. Fearing for when she would have to live on without him. Every night, she prayed to whoever out there would listen. Then, those wishes for Seth came true before the day of judgement. Joan retold that fateful night to every news station over and over, how he walked all by himself to her bedroom. How he showed off his perfectly normal legs to her right after she had been crying on the floor, surrounded by torn diary pages and blood from self-inflicted cuts. They had saved each other then.
But as soon as those tumors "miraculously" disappeared from Seth’s legs, the first thing that he did was kill. It didn't take long for the news articles about his pitiful condition and its overnight fix to be replaced with the names of his victims. The first person he stabbed was their youngest brother Gabriel, and Joan saw everything. By the time he was caught, it was Seth's twenty-sixth birthday and he had murdered 13 people, most of which were the doctors that didn’t do much for him when he was in a wheelchair. When Joan saw him for the first time in those 13 years behind bulletproof glass, he looked straight at her and blinked the last of the melanin in his eyes, revealing a blank stare. It, weighing down his shoulder so subtly that everyone thought it to be poor posture, mirrored this gaze. The police had to take her away when she began screaming, louder than she had when Gabe was murdered. She knew that the color in Seth’s eyes, and the color in his life, had been drained by it.
Joan had first seen it the day Seth could walk again, but assumed it to be nothing more than a shadow, a trick of the light. Now, it was the same size as him, an embodiment of his vantablack sins perched like a devil on his left shoulder. Joan could hardly see its face, but could tell that it was smiling at her back whenever she hesitated to speak on the case. Whenever she glanced at the balancing shadow, it would tap its claws on the table and tighten its hold on Seth’s neck. Joan hated it.
Joan had already earned a fair share of concerned looks from the other jurors (including her own family) when she stared over her brother’s grease-matted head, so she quit this pointless game quickly into the trial.
Most of the trial had gone by in a blur, especially since everyone was in agreement over Seth's fate. Even his defense attorney looked ready to surrender his uphill battle. Everyone on the same side, except for me. Her thoughts reflected her silence on the matter. Only I know the truth.
She had decided that she would drop the act toward the end of the trial, then execute her plan. The plan to get rid of it.
"Now, are there any last words from the jurors before the verdict is determined?" The judge's hand, trembling so slightly that only Joan noticed, was reaching for the gavel.
She had a good eye for nuances, which was the other reason why she was the only one in the room who could see it. The other reason would be her final words to the jury.
Joan had been counting in her head. 11, 12, 13-
"Actually, y-yes." Joan's words came out raspier than she wanted them to (after all, she had not had any of her glass of water these past hours), but she quickly recollected herself. "I have something to say. I believe that Seth is completely innocent."
She hadn't expected such theatrical responses, but her mom audibly gasped and one of the victim's family members spat out his water. To top it all off, her father fainted and Seth actually looked taken aback (but only for a few seconds).
After he was recovered, the court went quiet with the repetitive knock of a gavel.
"Is that so?" the judge remained emotionless, but his hands were shaking slightly more. "Miss Stolas, please elaborate for the eleven opposing jurors."
Joan stood up. "Your honor, mom, dad, the families of Drs. Nakir, Ramiez, Samya, and Zachary, this is going to sound unbelievable, I understand..." She faltered for a moment, tears pricking the corners of her eyes when she saw their expressions.
"Go on," the judge said. "I've heard plenty of bizarre stories."
"Yes, your honor. That being said, my brother is possessed. He is innocent, but the demon in his hold is definitely not."
The room briefly erupted before the gavel went down again. Joan hadn't noticed how silent the courtroom could get when no one spoke, but now even the judge was quiet. I’m sure he hasn’t heard this one before.
She continued. "13 years ago, I, like many others, was wishing for good health for my brother Seth Stolas. With the little free time I got between school and taking care of him- this was when I was sixteen-, I began to research ways to fix his condition.
"However, I wasn't researching cancer treatment methods like my parents and doctors, and not even alternative medicine. I was trying to find a... supernatural method of saving him. I was so moved by what I found that I stopped praying to God for Seth's wellbeing. I was sending my wishes to Hell."
Joan looked up to each of the other jurors. Her parents' faces showed anguish over the lack of supervision they had over their daughter. Everyone else was a mix of confusion or blatant fear.
She looked back down and went on: "The spirit I became acquainted with is named Barbas. He is a Goetian Great President of Hell, with the ability to cure any man's ailments. That night, I summoned Him in a fit of desperation. He ran to my brother's room as a lion before I could stop Him, as I was already regretting everything, from the blood sacrifice I had to do to the personal pages of my diary I had to rip to show Him. I was… I was thinking of everything but the consequences- what I had to give in exchange for Barbas’s services.
“In return, He demanded that my brother be the host of one of His soldiers, a demon from His 13th legion. That demon, resting on Seth's left shoulder to this day, is the reason why he murdered.”
Tears were running fast down Joan’s cheeks now, but she finished her story. “When I see him with... it today, I can barely recognize him. That’s not my brother, s-so pale with the eyes of a ghost! Your honor, that man is already a prisoner in his mind, a prisoner to something… to the promise of a normal life I wanted for him! Please try to understand."
A few of the other jurors were crying, either for or with the Stolas siblings. The defense attorney seated near Seth had looked hard into his clouded eyes before scooting his chair a little away from him in alarm. The gavel resonated before the court burst into chaos once more.
Joan counted another 13 seconds before the judge finally responded. "And do you have a way of proving such a claim in a fashion that will convince all eleven other jurors and myself?"
"Yes," she replied, before hastily adding, "your honor".
As Joan began to walk from her seat toward Seth, a group of security guards also bolted up to block her.
"No, let her go," the judge ordered.
"Yes, your honor," the guards mumbled.
Joan narrowed her eyes, pointing right at it. The defense attorney followed her finger to the air above Seth, squinting as if it would help him see the demon. "Worker of hellebore, you are ordered by your superior, Barbas, and the swear your host made upon the Bible before this court, to speak only truths. So, to start off- are you the one responsible for the deaths of 13 innocents through Seth Stolas?"
It seemed surprised by how direct she was being around a crowd of oblivious mortals. However, the creature kept its cool composure and nodded. The attorney seated next to the accused could have sworn he felt a small gust of wind in his hair.
Joan sighed. "Speak your truths verbally, for everyone to bear witness, please."
Its composure was quickly lost, replaced with an inhuman fury that seethed off of it in the form of a black mist. "Y e s ."
The jurors behind her exploded into a storm of shocked muttering. "Did you hear that-" "This can't be real-" "He had to have moved his mouth-"
Even the judge had no words. He didn’t dare reach for the gavel until the noise became unbearable in the stuffy courtroom.
"Now," Joan said. "You may answer this one visually. Do you look like your superior, a lion who can become a man?"
The demon was dragging its talons on Seth's face till he bled, expressing its now unbridled anger. As its body moved from being ultraviolet blackness (what only Joan could see) and entered the human eye's visible spectrum of light, the mangled hand that injured her brother was now in full view of the jurors.
Apparently, not even Seth had seen it before. He opened his cracked lips into a ragged scream, cut off by the monster clamping another one of its 13 hands over his mouth. This response of horror was shared with everyone else present in the trial, all 13 witnesses of the murders and a few expendable extras.
It was already beginning to see the humans around Seth as expendable. The demon had jumped down from his shoulder and held a few of them in its hold before the judge.
"Don't shoot!" Joan yelled as the first bullets from the security at the door left holes in the walls.
She tore past the decaying wings and limbs of the demon to the judge's podium, where he cowered behind with the gavel in his sweaty fists.
"Your honor!" She gasped. "I need that Bible."
He handed it to her without any questions asked. She could tell that this was definitely a first in his world of criminal law. She stumbled back to find more people, including Seth and a few of the jurors, under the demon's iron grip.
"Hey!" Joan held up the book with open pages, prompting hisses from the creature. "13 years and I had no idea how to get rid of you. But now, I realize it's because I never kept one of these handy!"
With one last burst of energy, Joan ran to the spirit and shoved the Bible in the monster’s chimeric face, ignoring its screams and the searing of its undead flesh. While she had also snuck in a vial of Romanian holy water in her jacket, she was confident that this would be enough to end the demon’s grasp. "1, 2, 3..."
Rotting claws and jaws were scratching and gnawing at her, but all Joan was focusing on was her counting. If she had been allowed to, she would have brought some wooden stakes to fight back more effectively with. "4, 5, 6..."
The demon was getting desperate, knocking over chairs and ripping at the carpeted floor. The screams of the hurt witnesses in the background were mixing with the screams of the damned in her split ears. "7, 8, 9, 10..."
Joan's windpipe began to crack as its last hand closed around her throat, but she felt it loosen as she chanted out those final numbers. "11… 12, 13-"
She let go, and so did it.
When her eyes could finally focus on the room's blinding lights, she saw the charred remains of both the Bible and the demon beneath her feet. Her ringing ears slowly picked up the sounds of the people around her coughing and sobbing.
"He...here." A warm hand helped her up, and it wasn't until she felt a cold, metal band around its wrist that she realized who it was.
She hugged the accused serial killer so tightly that the both of them fell back to the ground.
"It’s good to be ba-” Seth spat to his side, specks of blood staining the torn beige floor. “Ack.” He finished.
"That's probably just from your injuries or the possession, nothing t-"
Joan was cut off by him violently pushing her to the side, breathing shallowly. Her eyes followed down to his legs. It was her turn to melodramatically gasp.
"Shit, man." "Oh, God-" "What..." Dr. Ramirez's son and a few of the other eleven jurors gathered around to see what the commotion was all about.
Just like how Seth's eyes had gone back the way they had been before Barbas, so had the rest of his body. But today, it took a few more people than just Joan to help him up.
Once everyone, including the weakened Seth, was returned to their seats, the judge adjusted his broken glasses and cleared his bruised throat. "Now does anyone else have anything to say before we reach our conclusion for this... lovely afternoon?"
Another bout of silence.
Dr. Samya's sister got up so fast that her chair fell behind her, and she winced from her wounds. "I'll be the first one to say it: your honor, the truth is now as clear as day. Seth Stolas is obviously innocent due to being under the influence of... well, I'm not quite sure how it will be explained to the press... but even so, no one can say that this… handicapped man was responsible for so much death now."
Next was Dr. Zachary's nephew. "I agree, your honor. In a way, even though my uncle was killed so brutally all those years ago... seeing the real thing responsible for it get what it deserved was satisfying and takes away some of the grief. I say that we let Mr. Stolas, who also didn't deserve to go through such pain all this time, walk- I mean go- free."
One by one, each of the other jurors rose and said similar things. Even Joan's parents said that they forgive their son, but their daughter... could this be an example of involuntary manslaughter? A new trial would have to be set for her.
They’re never going to be able to look at their “Satanic” daughter the same again. Joan cringed at the thought.
Eventually, it came time for the judge to announce the verdict. "The decision from the jurors has been voted unanimous: Seth Stolas was compelled by a supernatural being to take into killing..." he sighed audibly, continuing. "But to the general public, he has been deemed physically incapable of performing such murders and will be given intensive care for his physical condition. As far as the press knows, the real serial killer is still being investigated, and we have been more than mistaken for accusing Stolas of such acts.
"The final verdict has been decided: Seth Stolas is a free to go, and financial aid will be provided to him for his treatment."
Despite everything going in his favor, Joan couldn't meet Seth's eyes anymore. After all, she had brought a lifeless limbo upon him for the past decade, and now returned back to square one in a hospital bed.
And along with this, Joan’s own punishment, whether it be imprisonment in her life or afterlife, was going to take its toll on her sooner or later.
***
The gavel’s echoing tap is all too familiar to her now. “Joan Stolas’s verdict has been decided: she has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in place of her brother Seth Stolas and will face a sentence of 13 years. If her cultic actions have ceased and she is no longer deemed a danger to society, she may go on parole in half this time. The jury is now over, all may leave except Miss Stolas.”
Joan let herself be taken away without any commotion. The night before her trial, she realized that jail will only be the beginning of her worries. Being locked up means preventing her escape the wrath of Barbas and his cronies, then who knows what the hell they will do to her.
But she had to accept this fate, because Seth had gone through everything while she had gone through nothing. If the concrete floor of her cell broke into a pit of fire and clawed hands reached out to drag her in, so be it. All that matters now is that her brother has been given life-saving surgeries that will let her see him on his feet in no time. Partially robotic feet, sure, but better than striking another deal with the devil.
So now she waits behind bars, replaying the day she convinced an entire jury of her blood’s innocence then defeated a demon in the same room in her head.