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House of Cards
C.E. Murphy


New York City's only legal counsel to the fabled Old Races, Margrit Knight is levelheaded in all matters extraordinary.But when she's summoned to negotiate a peace treaty among rival factions, her own mortal world threatens to fall apart. Margrit's been in hot water before, but reentering the underworld brings a new set of problems. And a new set of friends and enemies, including a ruthless vampire mobster, a dragonlord who won't take no for an answer, a band of subversive selkies. . . oh, and Alban Korund, the sexy gargoyle who got her into this mess–and whose granite-strong touch still haunts her every fantasy. . .












Praise for C.E. MURPHY and her books


THE NEGOTIATOR

Hands of Flame “Fast-paced action and a twisty-turny plot make for a good read … Fans of the series will be sad to leave Margrit’s world behind, at least for the time being.” —RT Book Reviews

House of Cards “Violent confrontations add action on top of tense intrigue in this involving, even thrilling, middle book in a divertingly different contemporary fantasy romance series.” —LOCUS

“The second title in Murphy’s Negotiator series is every bit as interesting and fun as the first. Margrit is a fascinatingly complex heroine who doesn’t shy away from making difficult choices.”

—RT Book Reviews

Heart of Stone “[An] exciting series opener … Margrit makes for a deeply compelling heroine as she struggles to sort out the sudden upheaval in her professional and romantic lives.” —Publishers Weekly

“A fascinating new series … as usual, Murphy delivers interesting worldbuilding and magical systems, believable and sympathetic characters and a compelling story told at a breakneck pace.”

—RT Book Reviews








Author’s Note

“Where,” comes the dreaded question, “do you get your ideas?”

The Negotiator trilogy originally sprang from a Beauty and the Beast-with-gargoyles idea a friend and I discussed. The resemblance between that initial discussion and the story you’re now reading is pretty much imperceptible. Well, there were gargoyles in the original idea, so I suppose it’s perceptible, but only just.

I came back to the idea a couple of years later, having realized that if there were gargoyles, there were probably other nonhuman races littering the planet, as well, and that an interesting way to learn about them would be to put an ordinary human woman in their midst. Margrit Knight arrived fully formed in my head one morning, and from there I essentially never looked back. (I rewrote a lot, but I never looked back!) Discovering her world and embroiling her in the Old Races’ politics has been a fantastic journey for me. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have!

Catie




HOUSE OF CARDS

C.E. MURPHY






www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)


For Trent

(Although some may call him … Tim^H^H^HPaul) I wouldn’t have made it through this one without your help, man. Thank you.




ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


First off, I would like to say to my editor, Matrice: Did you not read the last set of acknowledgments? The ones that said, “Please don’t ever make me work this hard again”? But it’s a much, much better book for it, so thank you.:)

My Live Journal friends list came through en masse with New York details, information about the legal system, about high-quality pens, about seventeenth-century London … and every single question they answered got cut in revisions. Regardless, I am extremely grateful to them all. If I were slightly more competent I’d have prepared a list of people who were particularly and especially helpful, but I wasn’t that together this time around. Next time, I promise.

Chris McGrath has provided me with another gorgeous cover, and I can’t wait to see it wrapped around my words. It’s one of the best parts of being a writer.

Trent was my much-belabored usual suspect this time around, while Ted, as usual, patiently offered plot ideas when I got stuck. I also owe a huge debt of thanks to Team Whac-A-Mole (Alison, Anna, Catherine K, Catherine S, Erica and Neal) for whacking spam moles on cemurphy.net.:)




ONE


HUMANS WOULD CALL it a catch-22.

He’d read the book the phrase came from, even sympathized with the protagonist, a man desperate to avoid fighting in a war but with no recourse to do so except claim insanity. The difficulty lay in the military’s own desperation for warriors. If he said he was crazy and wanted to fight, all the better; they would take him. If he didn’t, that was simply normal, and they’d conscript him regardless.

Gargoyles did not find themselves in such situations.

Alban’s shoulders slid down as he passed a hand over his eyes. Gargoyles didn’t find themselves in such situations, and yet. And yet.

A woman ran on the pathways below him, finding her stride without fear in the March night. She ran as if Central Park were her demesne and the things that stalked it too slow or thick-witted to capture her. She’d done it before she knew he was there, watching and protecting her. She would have continued long since, had he never revealed himself to her.

But he had, and now she knew. Knew about him and his people, and knew that he soared from treetop to treetop, keeping her safe from monsters worse than him. Knew that his nature demanded he protect her, once he’d chosen her as his ward.

He’d walked away from their impossible relationship, certain that leaving was the only way to allow her a life with any meaning in her own world. In introducing himself to her—necessary as it had seemed—he’d also introduced an overwhelming element of danger into her human experience. She had accepted that, even embraced it, but he could not. He was a protector, and to protect her, he had to leave her behind.

Doing the right thing shouldn’t leave such a taste of coal at the back of his throat, burned and ashy. For a span of a few brief hours—days, but in a life as long as his, the hours meant more than the days—he’d flown with her, shared laughter and fear, even known the touch of death and the shaking relief of life in its aftermath. Better to let it go, the memory bright and untarnished, than wait and watch as she inevitably realized she could never fit into the half-life that held him captive.

And she, with the safety her clean, well-lit world offered to her, defiantly began her late-night sprints through the park again. She seemed utterly confident—confident of her own speed, confident of the park’s gentle side, confident that he would not abandon her despite his protestations.

To his chagrin, she was right.

A gargoyle should not find himself in such a situation.

Muttering a growl deep in his throat, he flexed his wings, catching the wind and letting it carry him higher into the sky than necessary. He was a pale creature against night’s darkness, broad wingspan and powerful form easily visible, but humans rarely looked up. Even if someone did, he would be gone in an instant, a flight of imagination so potent few would dare voice it. Rationality and human experience demanded that he couldn’t exist. No one valuing his job or social standing would insist he’d seen a gargoyle circling over Central Park, and should the park’s less favorable denizens see him, well, no one would believe them, either.

And Margrit, should she look up from racing insubstantial competitors far below, would never tell.

She still watched the sky as she ran.

She knew better. She knew better for a host of reasons, the most obvious being that if a gargoyle watched her, he would keep out of her line of sight so they could both pretend he wasn’t there. Twisting to catch him not only invited injury, but collided thoroughly with the other obvious reason she shouldn’t watch the sky: to run safely in the park she had to move like she knew what she was doing. Aggressors wanted victims who wouldn’t cause a problem. She’d learned to keep her eyes straight ahead and her chin up, ears sharpened for sounds above those of her own labored breathing. She wore no headset when she ran at night; that was a luxury reserved for daylight hours. Running made its own music in her mind, a cadence she could lose herself to. Words pounded out to her footsteps, broken down into syllables. Law review sometimes, but as often as not a single word caught in her thoughts. Ir. Ir. Ir-rah-shun-al.

Irrational.

Alban.

Memories of the gargoyle did more than linger; they waited until she thought she was free of him, then announced themselves again with distressing clarity. Even after weeks of not seeing him, she could bring to mind his strong features and white hair more easily than anyone else’s.

Margrit shook her head, trying to chase memories away. The hard motion put a wobble in her run and her foot came down badly, tweaking her knee. She dropped into a walk, swearing under her breath. Her heartbeat ached, less from the run than from wariness that bordered on fear. The park seemed a haven only when she ran through it. Walking off an injury felt like announcing she was too slow and cumbersome to avoid danger.

Worse, though, would be not giving herself the time to recover, and damaging the ligament so badly she couldn’t run at all. The idea felt like prison walls closing in. Margrit shivered the thought away, flexing her quads to test her knee. The sharp ache had already faded. She slowed more, then stopped, bending to rub her kneecap. It felt normal, no swelling or stiffness telling her she’d twisted it a moment earlier.

An inconsequential injury, nothing more. Just a twinge to warn her, not something worse that healed itself more rapidly than logic could account for. It’d been the same with nicks from a razor blade, or paper cuts sliced through a fingertip, the last few weeks. The damage had been too slight to justify concern.

Margrit licked her lips as a gag-sweet taste of sugary copper rose in her throat. It carried with it the image of a slight, swarthy man opening his wrist and pressing thick welling blood against her mouth. Only after she’d swallowed convulsively had he looked pleased. Folding his sleeve back down, he’d told her what he’d shared: one sip for healing.

Such a gift as a vampire gave.

Margrit shivered, scrubbing her palm over her knee one more time. It’d been a tweak, nothing more. She straightened, chin lifted in defiance of her own disbelief, before she went painfully still, watching a blond, broad-shouldered shadow part from the trees.

Hope crashed as fast as it was born, leaving disappointment in its place. The man was younger than Alban, his hair very short and bleached rather than naturally white. The jacket he wore was leather, not the well-cut suit Alban preferred. Anger and fear curdled Margrit’s stomach as she took one cautious step back. The man had the height advantage, but she trusted her own speed. She shifted her weight again, ready to spin and run as she took one more step back.

Body heat warned her an instant too late, hands closing around her arms. Margrit shrieked and flung her head back as hard as she could. She encountered resistance and crunching bone, the hands on her arms loosening in a bellow of pain and outrage. “Fucking bitch!”

Margrit flung herself to the side, powered by adrenaline and instinct, and made herself small as the first man lunged for her. She rolled to her feet just out of his grasp, heart pounding as she danced backward, making enough space to turn and run.

A bright streak fell from the trees, bringing both men to the ground. Membraned wings, so thin that park lights glowed through them, flared alabaster in the dark, then were gone. A man stood within the space they’d encompassed and lifted her attackers by their napes, clocking their skulls together with slapstick ease. One groaned. The other made no sound at all as they slid bonelessly from her rescuer’s grip.

He rose, teeth still bared as if in attack. His breath came hard as he looked at Margrit, frustration darkening his eyes. She nearly laughed, able to read all the reasons for his dismay.

He’d blown his cover. She’d forced him to show his hand again, making him reenter her life as a physical presence instead of only a wish. But a gap still lay between them, his nature against her own. He’d chosen to accept that divide, even when she would not have. She had no more idea than he how to bridge the distance, but the desire to do so stung her.

He was beautiful. Whichever form he took, he was beautiful. Long pale hair was tied back from his face, showing clean lines of jaw and cheekbones that, even in the human shape he wore now, might have been chiseled of stone. Margrit’s fingers curled with the impulse to explore that face, to slide her fingers into his hair and loosen it from its tie. Remembered warmth tingled through her hands, as if she did as she imagined. The recalled scent of him was delicious—of cool, moonlit earth. Tightness banded her chest, hungry want born from time apart and feeding on the last vestiges of fear from the attack. Nothing negated danger as exhaustively as passion. For a heady moment she thought she saw the same need rise in Alban and took one rough step toward him.

The gargoyle spread his hands, a singular admission that he had been found out, then closed them in abrupt denial. Gaze torn from Margrit’s, he crouched and leapt for the trees again, a smooth motion that left no time for words.

Defeat crashed through hope. Margrit ran forward, fists clenched as she bellowed after him. “Alban! Alban! Goddamn it, Alban! Come back here! Alban!“

Not so much as a whisper of branches or a flash of light on an outstretched wing came back as an answer. She whipped around, fists still knotted, and nearly kicked one of the supine men in anger. Protocol told her to call the police and make a statement, though no one would believe a story of an unknown hero dropping out of the trees to save her, much less the detailed truth. Maybe she could lay praise for her escape at the half-legendary Grace O’Malley’s feet, though the tabloid-styled vigilante was known for saving teens from the street, not adult women from Central Park’s violence. Still, the papers would have a field day, and enhancing Grace’s reputation might help her cause.

Three minutes later Margrit made an anonymous call to the cops and stalked home, shoe tongues flapping.

“She left them tied to a tree. With her shoelaces.” Alban turned on his heel, stalking across the confines of a small room, wings clamped close to his back so his abrupt turns wouldn’t knock over piles of precariously stacked books. Candles flickered, their thin flames threatened by Alban’s strides. There were no windows, but he hadn’t lived in a home with windows in over two centuries, and the lack went unnoticed. A bed, more perfunctory than necessity, was lodged in one corner, its foot flush with a short bookcase.

A blonde woman perched easily atop the shelving unit, arms looped around a drawn-up knee as she watched Alban with open amusement. “It doesn’t suit you, love.”

“What?” He wheeled again, wings flaring in surprise. The woman curved a broad smile and mimicked walking with her fingers.

“Pacing. Gargoyles are suited to hunching and brooding, not pacing and swearing.” She hopped down, leaving the shelves without a wobble. Grace O’Malley was perhaps the most graceful human Alban had ever known, almost as unfettered by bonds of earth as one of the Old Races. She slunk around him, languid humor warming her porcelain skin and curling her full mouth. Another man caught at the center of her prowling might have felt like prey. Alban’s stony form, though, stood easily a foot taller than Grace, and her slim body was no match for his in strength.

Not until she’d made a full circle around him did she come to a halt, hands in the pockets of her black leather pants. “Why fight it? Your Margrit’s in it up to her neck no matter what you do. She made her own promises to the dragonlord Janx, without part or parcel of you, so there’s no escaping the Old Races, not for that one. If you want her, gargoyle, pursue her.”

“It is not so simple as that.”

“You’ve said the vampire gave her blood for health. Another sip brings long life, and he’s hungry to have a hook in her. You can get what you want, Alban, but not by sulking belowground. I offered you shelter in return for helping to watch over my children. I didn’t mean for you to pull the streets over your head and pretend the world wasn’t there. Go live. You might find it suits you.”

“How do you know what you know, Grace?”

“What?” She launched herself into motion and had her hand on the doorknob before he spoke again.

“How do you know these things about the Old Races?” He had no illusions that the power of his voice might stop her, but he asked regardless. “That two sips of a vampire’s blood brings long life, or that I chose Margrit over one of my own. I’ve told no one that. You’re not one of us, just a human wo—”

“Just.” Grace turned her profile to him, pale and sharp. “Now there you might have a problem with your lawyer lass, my friend. Humans don’t take kindly to being just anything.”

Alban gritted his teeth with a sound of stone grinding on stone. “I meant no offense. You are a human woman beneath the streets of New York. Such people aren’t expected to be conversant with the Old Races at all, much less possessed of intimate details about us. How do you know so much?”

“Grace has her secrets, love.” The answer came back to him coolly. “Living a half-life like this one, trying to give kids shelter and food, and keep them out of the gangs and in the schools, means learning things however you can, and playing what you’ve got for all it’s worth. That’s what brought you here.” She turned her gaze on him, eyes brown and calm beneath the startling whiteness of her bleached hair. “My knowing about your kind was enough to give you something to trust. That’s how we survive down here, gargoyle. I learn things and I keep my mouth shut. It’s hours till dawn,” she added as she pulled the door open. “Stay in like a sullen child if you will, but a man would find it in himself to step outside and take a stand.” The door closed behind her with a resounding clang, leaving Alban to bend his head.

“You forget, Grace,” he murmured to the echoing chamber. “As does Margrit.” He lifted his head again, straightening to his full height of nearly seven feet, and spread taloned hands to study them in the candlelight. “You forget.

“I am not a man.”

The blankets weighed an inordinate amount, as if they were warm stone pressing Margrit into the bed. Flowing heat tickled her fingers, running over them like water. It contrasted deliciously with cold wind, though the chill was only a memory. She recognized strong arms and the clean scent of stone: the smell of the outdoors and wilderness wrapping her close and safe. Raw, sensual power, housed in such grace it hardly seemed he could be dangerous.

Her heart beat faster as she shifted closer to her captor, desire building even through the confines of sleep. She knew the long hard lines of his body, harder than ordinary humans had words for. She had shied away from exploring those lines more than once, uncertain of how to breach a distance she barely understood. Now, though, she let herself be bold, pressing herself closer to brush her mouth against a stony jaw. Soft skin tasted of fine grit, like the rich flavor of dark earth and iron. He was too tall, even in flight, and she pulled herself up his body, an open act of intent as she hooked a thigh over his hip. His grip changed, holding her in place, and stone encompassed her as city lights spun below her, broad wings spread to keep her aloft with the man—

Not a man, he whispered.

Is this my dream or yours? Margrit demanded. Surprise coursed through her, then a wash of laughter rough as sand in water.

Neither, I think, he replied. I hadn’t meant to think so strongly of you. Memory rides us. Forgive me, Margrit. Goodbye. A faint hint of wistfulness accompanied his final word: Again.

The dream turned to falling, a short sickening plunge. Margrit jerked awake, covers clenched in her fists, breath cold and harsh. A nearly inaudible click sounded, followed by her radio alarm increasing in volume as she lay on the bed, staring through darkness at the ceiling.

Irrational.




TWO


“MARGRIT?” HER NAME came through the door, hoarse with sleepiness. “Hey, Grit? You awake?”

Margrit bundled herself in a towel, hair dripping in corkscrew curls down her back, and ran to yank the door open. Cameron, the taller of Margrit’s housemates, leaned on the frame with the telephone pressed against her pink-robed shoulder. Her eyes, barely open, closed all the way as a huge yawn squeezed tears from their corners. A second yawn overtook her as she thrust the phone at Margrit. “For you.”

“It’s six-thirty in the morning.” Margrit took the phone in astonishment, putting it against her own shoulder to block their conversation from the person on the other end. “Who’d be calling at this hour? What’re you doing home?”

“My six o’clock client canceled.” Cameron yawned again, this time shoving away from the door to stagger back to the bedroom she shared with her fiancé. “I’m supposed to be sleeping in. G’night.” She crashed into the door frame, muttering a complaint as she reoriented herself and made it through the bedroom door on the second try.

Margrit watched Cam go, then brought the phone to her ear. “This is Margrit. Mother?”

“Oh dear,” a pleasantly light-voiced man said, his voice infused with mirth. “No, I’m afraid not. I’m sure I could arrange to have her call, if you’d like, but it seems as though it would be rather melodramatic. To do it properly I’d have to kidnap her and make her call, angry and frightened, from the wa—”

“Janx.” Margrit closed her bedroom door and slid down it, digging her fingers into her hair to hold her head up. “God forbid anybody should ever subpoena my phone records. Why are you calling the house instead of my cell? How in hell could I explain getting six o’clock phone calls from someone like you?”

She avoided more descriptive terms deliberately, though they danced through her mind. Crimelord was the only one she was willing to give voice to, but it didn’t scratch the surface of what Janx really was. The handful of times Margrit had been in a room with him, it had been all she could do to keep breathing, his presence burning up the air. As well it should have: she’d gone in knowing he was of the Old Races, but not that she was dealing with a dragon. A red dragon, if ginger hair and flame-green eyes told the truth, though Margrit had no idea if it did, or if it mattered.

“It’s six-thirty,” Janx said in injured tones. “And I tried calling your cell, but you didn’t answer. I thought young people today were connected twenty-four–seven. I’m very disappointed. But I could kidnap your mother,” he offered. “If you need the phone records explained, I mean. Or I could—”

“You may not kidnap my mother, Janx.” The absurdity of chiding a man of Janx’s position—either crime-lord or dragonlord—struck Margrit, and she steeled herself to keep a trace of laughter from her voice. “What do you want?”

“Oh, Margrit, you hurt me. Can’t an old friend call up to say hello after a few weeks’ absence?”

“Old friend?” Margrit kept her voice down with effort. “Pit vipers would be safer friends than you, and old friends don’t call at six in the morning unless they’re in real trouble. You can’t be in any trouble I could possibly help you with. The world’s not that capricious.” The accusation left aside the middling detail that Margrit, despite her better judgment, rather liked the fiery-haired dragon. “What do you want?”

“Capricious,” Janx said with admiration. “Well done, for someone who protests she’s just been wakened.”

“I’m a lawyer. I’m supposed to be capable of conversing with an augmented vocabulary in order to obfuscate an argument without exerting myself. Besides, I was already awake. What do you want?”

“Better than a circus act,” Janx said happily. Then his bantering faded, a note of tension replacing it. “I require your services, Margrit. A balance has changed.”

Margrit coughed in disbelief. “You called me up at six-thirty in the morning to give me cryptic messages? �A balance has changed’? What the hell does that mean? A balance changed in January when you had Vanessa Gray killed, Janx. Alban told me that you’d breached protocol by doing that. You’re not supposed to go around murdering people’s assistants, especially when they’ve been assisting for over a century. It’s not playing fair, or something.”

“Margrit, my dear, I would never murder Eliseo Daisani’s assistant. That would be an inexcusable act of warfare.” Teasing lightened Janx’s voice again. Margrit groaned aloud and shook her head against the door.

“Right. You don’t kill anybody yourself, right? You just hire people to do it.” Janx had all but confessed to arranging Vanessa Gray’s assassination, and it had been through his cell phone records that Margrit had helped the police track down the hired killer. The man had never gone to trial. Instead, shortly after his arrest, he’d been found spread in grisly detail across the Rikers Island prison courtyard. Rumor said the inmates were told he’d been arrested for child molestation, and had meted out their own justice. Margrit had no intention of asking whether Daisani had taken matters into his own inhuman hands.

“Don’t be silly, Margrit. Of course I kill people.” Janx sounded downright cheerful, enough that she pulled the phone away to eye it. Uncomfortable as she was with the thought of the Old Races facing the human justice system, Janx’s bald-faced admission was beyond the pale.

“I am a lawyer, Janx. You shouldn’t go around telling me you kill people.”

“You’re not recording this conversation, are you?” Thin tension came back into Janx’s voice at the question, lifting hairs on Margrit’s arms. The dragonlord had rarely been anything but ruthlessly chipper in her experiences with him. She was certain she didn’t want to know what was making him cautious, and equally certain she would find out.

“I don’t usually record my home phone calls, but if you’re going to be calling up regularly to make blanket confessions, I might start. What’s going on?”

“We’ll discuss it this evening. I’ll send a car for you.”

“Just as long as Malik’s not driving.” The djinn, Janx’s second in command, had none of the dragonlord’s peculiar sense of honor. That Malik coveted power had been obvious in Margrit’s first meeting with him, but he was no match in personality or intellect for Janx. A nasty, cruel man, he exercised what power he had over those he considered inferior, and Margrit numbered among them. Janx might play with her, cat and mouse, more interested in the game than domination, but Malik would simply hurt her until she broke or died. She had stood her ground against dragons and vampires, but it was the djinn who frightened her.

Too late, she grimaced at the implied consent in her answer. “Don’t bother sending a car. I’ll get there myself.” Then impulse caught her and she asked, “Tonight?” with as much wide-eyed ingenuity as she could. “You don’t think my boss would be okay with me cutting out for a few hours to visit the notorious House of Cards and rub elbows with a gangster?”

“If I’d gotten to him first,” Janx said mildly, “I have no doubt it could have been arranged. The situation, I fear, is otherwise, and so I’ll see you this evening. Goodbye, Margrit.”

“If you’d—What? Dammit!” Margrit glowered at the silent phone, then got to her feet and stomped around the apartment as she finished getting ready for the day.

A Town Car idled on the street, its driver leaning on the hood so he could watch her building’s front door. As Margrit exited, he snapped to attention, calling, “Ms. Knight? I’m your transportation.”

Margrit looked both ways along the street, as if someone else might appear and answer to her name. “Are you talking to me?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He was a few years her elder, far too young to call her ma’am.

Margrit glanced up the street again, a terse smile forming. “I’m sorry. There must be a mistake. Excuse me.” She turned and managed a few steps before the driver moved in front of her.

“I’m supposed to give you this if there’s a problem, ma’am.” He offered a sleek cell phone, so small that his palm dwarfed it. “The number you want is programmed in.”

“The number I want,” Margrit echoed disbelievingly, and took the phone with dismay curdling her stomach. A glass of orange juice had seemed like a good idea minutes earlier. Now it felt like a bottle of acid had been poured into her belly and left to churn. She pressed the dial button and raised the phone to her ear, wincing preemptively.

“You have a problem, Miss Knight.” Eliseo Daisani sounded distressingly pleased to make such an announcement.

Margrit, prediction fulfilled, bit her tongue and waited until her impulse to respond with sarcasm faded. “Good morning, Mr. Daisani. Coming from you, that’s an alarming statement.” Coming from Eliseo Daisani, almost anything could be alarming. The appalling quickness with which he moved came back to Margrit as forcefully as the taste of his blood had the night before.

“Good morning,” he said, undeterred by her stiffness. “I think you’ll want to come to my office to discuss your problem, rather than stand there on the street.”

“It’s a quarter to eight, Mr. Daisani. I’m on my way to work.” It was an obligatory line of defense that allowed Daisani to chortle indulgently.

“Of course you are. I’ve already spoken with Mr. Lomax,” he assured her. Margrit bit her tongue again, this time on an exclamation of understanding. Daisani had gotten to her boss first, forcing Janx into the situation he called otherwise. “He can spare you for an hour or two,” Daisani went on. “Obviously, your ride is there, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Clichéd protests leapt to Margrit’s lips. “You can’t do this, Mr. Daisani,” was first and most obvious of them, though it was abundantly clear that he could, in fact, arrange her schedule to his liking. “I’ve asked you not to call me at work,” ran a close second, foiled by Margrit neither being at work yet nor having had the foresight to make that request. She said neither, clenching the phone and staring at the Town Car as people rushed by.

Getting in constituted Daisani winning a round. Margrit ran her thumb over the phone’s number pad with a half-formed thought of calling her boss and asking if the business mogul had indeed arranged for her to come in late. She had no doubt, though, that he had, and that Russell would tell her not to be absurd by refusing the vehicle Daisani had sent for her. She’d end up going regardless, and only arrive at Daisani’s stunning corporate headquarters breathless from walking. Margrit flipped the phone shut and let the driver open the car door for her.

Minutes later, the security guard at Daisani’s headquarters waved her in without asking for identification. Though it told her there was no chance she’d have turned Daisani down, not having to sign in made her feel better. She pushed the elevator button hard enough to hurt her finger, making a face at her own inconsistency.

Polished brass walls inside the lift reflected her sour-faced image back at her. Margrit drew herself up, shaking off the countenance of ill temper. There was no point in facing Daisani already on-edge and sulky. When the doors whisked open, she stepped out with at least a semblance of good nature in place.

On the surface, the front lobby of Daisani’s suites hadn’t changed since the last time she’d been there. It was opulent, with an enormous curved desk of pale wood dominating the room. No one sat behind the desk, and an embossed brown leather appointment book lay at a careful angle on its otherwise empty surface. The rest of the room was equally ostentatious, all the chairs antiques, many of them covered in rich red velvet that Margrit knew was as soft as it looked. Hardwood floors reflected inset lights from the ceiling, but not harshly; the whole room glowed with a warm, winning ambience.

Because she knew where to look for it, a slightly paler patch on the wood-paneled walls revealed where a portrait had once hung. Margrit walked around the desk and touched the spot gently, unexpected regret rising to clog her throat.

“Miss Knight.”

Margrit flinched, yanking her hand away and twisting it behind her back as she faced Eliseo Daisani. “Mr. Daisani. I didn’t hear you come in.”

The doors behind him, nearly twice the height of normal doors, were open just enough to let him step through. Their size emphasized his: Eliseo Daisani was not a big man, barely taller than Margrit herself. Framed by the doorway, he appeared almost delicate.

“You look well behind that desk, Miss Knight.”

Margrit managed a faint smile and stepped out from behind the desk. “You haven’t replaced Ms. Gray yet?”

“Ms. Gray was irreplaceable. I believe I’ve mentioned that.” His glance skittered to the pale spot on the wall and he inclined his head slightly. “Perhaps I’m sentimental. The photograph is in my office now.”

“I think even a vampire is allowed to be sentimental when somebody who was with him twelve decades dies, Mr. Daisani.”

“When someone has been murdered.” Daisani’s words were gentle, but his expression contorted, barely holding back rage before a fresh facade of good nature rose to replace the darker emotion. “You’ve become bold since the last time I saw you. You wouldn’t have thrown that word around so lightly, before.”

“I’m feeling reckless,” Margrit admitted. “What do you want from me, Mr. Daisani?”

He came forward, offering both his hands to her, a gesture that could be equally welcoming or condescending. She put one out in return and he clasped it, his touch disconcertingly hot as he all but bowed over her fingers. “The first time we met I offered you a job. I’d like to say that offer still stands, but circumstances have changed.”

“Mr. Daisani.” Margrit withdrew her fingers from his grasp as politely as she could. “I told you. I’m happy with my job. I’m not interested in coming to work for your law branch.”

“No.” The word was clipped, Daisani’s pleasant front slipping again to reveal anger. “As I said, the circumstances have changed. I find myself in a unique situation, and, to your dismay, you’re the person best suited to helping me with it.”

Caution chilled Margrit’s hands and she forced herself not to take a step back, though Daisani’s phrasing brought an unwilling smile to her face. “To my dismay. You’re probably right about that. Mr. Daisani, I don’t owe you anything. I did what you asked in helping to find Vanessa’s murderer. We’re even.”

“I require a personal assistant.” Daisani went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Thus far, a suitable candidate has not yet accepted the position.” His eyebrows quirked upward and he confessed, “Nor applied. Miss Knight—Margrit, if I may—you’ve proven yourself to be delightfully discreet and levelheaded regarding extraordinary matters.”

Margrit wished abruptly that she had remained on the far side of Vanessa’s desk, so she might use it as a prop and lean on it for emphasis. On the other hand, remaining there, where Daisani wanted her to be, would only enforce his argument. “You mean in the face of learning about the Old Races, and finding out that half the power in this city isn’t even human?”

Daisani waggled a finger. “Don’t be absurd, Miss Knight. There are only one or two of us who aren’t human.”

“It’s enough. Mr. Daisani.” Margrit made his name into hard sounds, stopping him when he would have gone on. “Mr. Daisani,” she repeated more quietly. “I owe a dragonlord two favors, and the gargoyle who got me into this mess won’t talk to me.” Surprise flickered across Daisani’s face and Margrit cursed herself for letting go a piece of information he’d lacked. “I’m not foolish enough to think the Old Races are done with me. Alban thought he could get you and Janx off my back—”

Another hint of surprised interest crossed Daisani’s face, and Margrit broke off, setting her front teeth together and pulling her lips back in sheer frustration. Laughter suddenly danced in Daisani’s eyes and he clucked his tongue. “Humans are the only species on this planet who have forgotten that baring teeth is a sign of aggression.” He stepped forward, raising a hand so quickly she barely saw the movement, only became aware that he’d brushed her jaw when she felt the resulting warmth. Conflicting impulses froze her in place, outrage that he should feel free to touch her, coupled with white fear at how fast he’d moved. “Let me remind you of what I am, Miss Knight. Let me warn you that one of my kind might see such a raw expression as an invitation to courtship.”

Her fear dissolved, washed away by a sense of the absurd. Margrit lifted a hand slowly, and put it against the inside of Daisani’s wrist. His pulse was desperately fast beneath her fingertips, the beat of a small frightened mammal, not an adult human. But then, he wasn’t human. She pushed his hand away with gentle determination, her jaw set. “One of your kind knows better than that how to read human expressions, Mr. Daisani. Don’t touch me again.”

Astonishment splashed over Daisani’s face, brightening it until his smile was wide and genuine, showing flat, human teeth that seemed at odds with every story Margrit had ever read about vampires. “Bravo! Bravo, Miss Knight! Without a hint of fear! Bravo! How do you do it?”

“That would be telling.” The moment of conflict was gone, and Margrit’s heart started to accelerate, her body reacting too late to the stance her intellect had taken. She could answer his question—had answered it, when a green-eyed dragon had put it to her, but Janx had taken it as part of a favor owed. Margrit wasn’t going to make that bargain again.

“Mr. Daisani, I don’t want to work for you. Right now I don’t owe you anything, and you’re not going to talk me or coerce me into quitting my job. If that’s all you had to discuss with me, I think you’re wrong. I don’t have a problem. You do. It’s been very nice to see you again, sir. Good day.” She inclined her head and turned toward the elevator.

“Miss Knight.”

Margrit stopped with her hand over the button, waiting.

“Alban Korund has made no effort at all to get me off your back, as you so eloquently put it. You may wish to reconsider where you place your faith, young lady. Unlikely as it may seem, there are worse choices than Eliseo Daisani.”

She nodded noncommittally, pressing the elevator call button. A moment later the door chimed and opened and she stepped in, not yet willing to draw a breath of relief.

A breeze stirred the elevator’s still air, and Daisani stood beside her, smiling. “By the way, Margrit, do give your mother my regards. A remarkable woman. Remarkable, indeed.”

Then he was gone and the door closed, leaving Margrit to stare, wide-eyed and silent, at her reflection in the polished brass.




THREE


MORE THAN ONE speculating glance followed her when she arrived at the Legal Aid offices. Whispered conversations broke off until she’d passed, leaving little doubt that Daisani’s arrangement with Russell Lomax had slipped out. Knowing any response would be protesting too much, Margrit nodded greetings and made her way to her desk. She had a trial to prepare for, defense for a rapist who claimed his innocence with sneering mockery. Evidence, to her private relief, was on the prosecution’s side, but her job was to defend, not judge.

She flipped the case file open, skimming through material she’d long since memorized in search of any errors she might’ve made that could lead to appeal. There were none; she knew it as well as she knew her own reflection. It was habit, the ritual she went through the day before a trial.

“Ms. Knight?”

“Grit.” Margrit looked up to find a youthful receptionist leaning over the edge of her cubicle. “You can call me Grit. Or Margrit,” she added, at the look of bewilderment on the young man’s face. “If Grit’s too weird. What’s your name?”

“Sam.” He stepped around the cubicle, an envelope in one hand and the other extended for Margrit to shake. “I never heard Grit as a nickname for Margrit. You really know Eliseo Daisani?”

Margrit sighed and closed her case file as they shook hands. “We’ve met several times, yes.”

“What’s he like?”

“Short, and accustomed to getting his own way.”

Sam grinned. “You don’t think much of him, huh?”

“I’d never be impolitic enough to say that.”

“There’s a betting pool on how long it’ll take you to go to work for him.”

Margrit laughed. “Really? What’s the buy-in?”

“Ten bucks. A couple people’ve got you pegged for handing in your resignation as soon as the Newcomb trial is over.”

Margrit reached for her purse. “Come on, I’m made of sterner stuff than that. I give me at least four months. Just don’t tell anybody else I’m betting on me.”

“Four months?” Sam looked dismayed. “And I’d already signed in for five.” He took the ten she handed him anyway, stuffing the cash in his pocket. “Oh! This is yours. A courier brought it by before you came in.” He offered the envelope, marked with an NYPD stamp across the seal. “They say you’re going places. That you’ve got a lot of friends in the police department, and that the mayor knows your name, too.”

“�They’? What am I, notorious?” Her cell phone rang and she dug it out of her purse, lifting her chin to dismiss Sam, though she added, “Four months. Don’t forget,” as he waved and disappeared down the corridor. Margrit smiled, tilting her phone up to check the incoming call.

A knot of tension she didn’t know she’d been carrying came undone at the name on the screen and she answered with a smile. “Tony. Thank God. Somebody I want to talk to.” Wanting to talk to the police detective was a good sign, though a flash of guilt sizzled through her. Tony Pulcella represented the ordinary world, separate from the one she’d been immersed in since Alban’s reappearance the night before. For a moment she wasn’t certain if it was Tony she was glad to hear from, or if it was simply a reminder of reality that was calming.

“It’s only twenty after nine, Grit. It’s that bad already?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” She slid down in her chair, head against the padded rest. “It’s good to hear your voice, but aren’t you supposed to be out catching bad guys? Is something wrong? Are we off for dinner tonight?”

“I’m sorry,” he replied, answer enough. Margrit’s smile fell away. She had no name for what their relationship had become over the last months: more than friends, but no longer lovers, with a weighty question mark hanging over whether they would be again. Innumerable things had changed the shape of their romance, most of all the pale-haired gargoyle who’d haunted Margrit’s dreams the night before.

Alban’s image lingered in her mind as she brought her attention back to the phone call. “I’m sorry. What did you just say? I wasn’t listening.”

An edge of concern came into Tony’s voice. “You okay, Grit?”

“I’m fine.” She straightened in her seat, deliberately shaking off the gloom that had settled over her. “Say that again. Something about a party?”

“Yeah. You ever heard of Kaimana Kaaiai?”

“Nope. Should I have?”

She could almost hear Tony shake his head. “Me either. He’s some philanthropist out of Hawaii, one of those kinds of guys who rents his mansions to homeless people for almost nothing, because he can’t live in all seven of them at once, anyway.”

Margrit’s eyebrows shot up. “I’d be willing to try being homeless in Hawaii … .”

“You and me both. Anyway, apparently he’s got this thing about early-twentieth-century architecture, and he’s in town for a week to do some glad-handing and donate some funding for that speakeasy down in the sewers.”

“The subways, not the sewers,” Margrit said pedantically. “Cam never would’ve gone with me to look at it if it’d been in the sewers. Besides, sewage probably would have ruined those amazing stained-glass windows.” They were more astonishing than anybody knew. Although abstract at first glance, if the three windows were layered over one another, they showed representations of the five remaining Old Races in glorious, rich color.

“Right. Well, I guess the city needs money to put in a seriously high-class security system down there, and they’ve been negotiating with this Kaaiai guy over it.”

“Okay. What’s that got to do with dinner tonight?”

“The guy’s got a security detail, but one of the things he does is always get a few locals to work on it. He feels like he gets a better sense of the city that way, and besides, locals recognize the real trouble.”

“And he wants you?” Margrit laughed at the incredulity in her own voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so surprised. I’m sure you can do it. It’s just—”

“Just that I’m a homicide cop without any high-reaching connections,” Tony finished. “Six brothers and sisters and none of them are in anything like this league for casual socializing. I have no idea how he came across my name.”

“Have you asked?”

“I haven’t met him yet. He comes in this afternoon.”

“Aha. So we’re off for tonight. Well, damn.”

“I can make it up to you.”

Margrit tilted back in her chair, an eyebrow arched. “How?”

“The lieutenant says she’s heard Kaaiai is generous to the people who work for him, and I guess he is. He’s issued a package of invitations for the events he’ll be attending while he’s in the city. Theater, dinners, lunches, concerts—the guy’s booked. Looks boring as hell to me, but the point is I can bring a date.” Wryness crept into his voice. “Anybody who passes the security clearance and doesn’t mind her date working all night and not paying attention to her.”

Margrit laughed. “You know anybody like that, Detective?”

“I had a girl in mind,” he said good-naturedly. “She works for Legal Aid, but I think this is probably her kind of thing. She’s gotten kind of high-profile lately.”

“Really?” Margrit’s laughter left a broad smile stretched across her face. “What’s she done?”

“Got the governor to pass clemency on a murd—”

“Self-defense.”

Tony hitched a moment before agreeing. “Self-defense case.”

Margrit leaned forward in her chair again to put an elbow against her desk and press her fingers into the inner corners of her eyes. Long before the Old Races had interfered in her life, her job had been the major crack in her relationship with Tony. Coming, as they did, from different angles on the same side of a flawed legal system, the topic incited them to breakups as often as passion got them back together.

The case she had on the table was the sort they could never discuss. The very necessity of building a decent defense for a rapist was offensive to the cop in Tony. Margrit sympathized, even wondered sometimes if he was right, but her ability to abhor the crime and still do her job effectively was a dichotomy Tony could barely fathom. Arguing that anything less than her best would create an opportunity for appeal or mistrial fell on deaf ears.

Curiosity tickled her, making her wonder if Alban would have the same difficulties. The world he came from might be so different from Margrit’s own that no evident double standard in human behavior could distress him. Margrit curled her lip, trying to push the thought away as she listened to Tony’s amused litany.

“Then she took on the richest guy on the East Coast over a squatters’ building, and he backed down. I think she’s got some high-minded ambitions. Hanging out with this kind of crowd might be good for her career.”

“She sounds like somebody you wouldn’t want to mess with.”

“I dunno, I kind of like messing with her. Whaddaya say?”

Margrit laughed. “I think it sounds fantastic, but isn’t offering tickets to exclusive events very much like bribing an officer of the law?”

“I’m not getting any personal gain out of it.” A thin note of strain sounded in the words, as if Tony was censoring himself on the topic of how he might be rewarded. Margrit pinched the bridge of her nose harder. Weeks ago, he’d used her to set a trap for a killer, and she’d lied to him consistently about Alban, leaving them both regretful but not repentant. Their relationship had been rocky since then, as they tried to work out with words what they’d always solved before by going back to bed together. But too much had changed this time for such an easy resolution, and while Tony had agreed, she thought he’d expected a quicker return to the intimacy they’d once shared.

She put on a smile and deliberately lightened her voice, forcing pleasantry back into the conversation before it soured too much. “It’s a date, then. Or not, as the case may be.”

Tony hesitated a barely noticeable moment before responding in kind. “Great. I sent a courier over with the invitation—”

“I got it a few minutes ago. Hadn’t opened it yet.”

“Good. I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

“I look forward to it,” Margrit said, and hung up the phone with a silent chastisement. There were things Alban could never offer her, just as Tony couldn’t spread wings and fly with her above the city. Tony was solid and reliable, and when something came through from him, it was tangible: evenings out, time spent together, and in this case, a deliberate attempt to help her career. That was selfless, especially considering the ease with which they argued over her job. There were things to be said for the ordinary. It would stand her well to remember that.

The memory of a kiss, stolen in the midst of flight, heated her skin and made Margrit knot her fingers around her phone. Alban’s body playing under hers as muscle bunched and stretched, bringing them in leaps from danger into safety. The sting of air imploding against her skin as he shifted from one form to another, becoming more and less than a man within the compass of her arms. There was nothing ordinary in those memories, and the ache of desire they brought didn’t belong in the workplace. Margrit caught her breath and spat out a “Dammit!” that did nothing to relieve the pulse of need that had caught her off guard.

“Margrit?” A coworker’s concerned face appeared over the edge of her cubicle.

Margrit put on a smile. “Sorry. I’m fine.”

“It’s okay. Hey, have you finished the paperwork on the Carley case?” He tapped his finger nervously on the cubicle’s metal frame and Margrit started, shaking her head at the reminder.

“Sorry, no.” She dug the files she needed from below a stack of papers. “I’ll have it to you by five.”

“Thanks.” He beat the flat of his fingers against the cubicle edge twice, then scurried off. Margrit tucked an errant curl behind her ear and moved the files again, hunting for the courier package and the evening’s agenda. A moment’s search told her the soiree was at eight. Plenty of time to go home after work, get a snack and find something appropriate to wear to a high-society function.

She puffed her cheeks out and exhaled noisily. Plenty of time. The only problem was squeezing in a dragonlord who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Janx was not going to kill her. Margrit smoothed a hand over her stomach, the nubbly silken fabric there sending a wave of chills up her arm. Janx was not going to kill her for the same reason Daisani wouldn’t: she was useful to him. Especially to Janx, because she owed him two favors of incalculable size. At worst, he would be irritated.

At worst. Margrit’s stomach flip-flopped, another shiver washing over her. At worst, a man whose presence could eat up all the air in a room would be irritated with her. At worst she’d annoyed someone who considered her life to be an amusing trinket to play with.

She hadn’t left work on time, research for the Carley case turning out to be more time-consuming than she’d expected. Then she’d found a deep stain on the dress she’d intended to wear, wine discoloring creamy velvet. Margrit had stood over the dress for long moments, too frustrated to move on. Finally she’d called, “Cameron?”

Her housemate, clad in a T-shirt and workout shorts that showed long legs and a dramatically scarred shin to great advantage, appeared at the bedroom door. “What’s up?”

“Do you have anything I could wear to a posh reception at the Sherry-Netherland?” Margrit expected the laughing response. The other woman was eight inches taller and had a fashion model’s slender build, in contrast to Margrit’s hourglass curves. “I need a dress by eight.”

“Nobody expects you to be on time,” Cameron said airily. “Get shoes, put your hair up and we’ll hit Prada.”

“You’ve got a lot of faith in my credit line.”

“Well, you can’t go to the Sherry in something less,” Cam said pragmatically. “Fear not. I’m the world’s most efficient shopper. We’ll be out of there in twenty minutes. Get your shoes.”

Margrit got her shoes and Cam proclaimed them capable of going with anything, then hauled her across town to a boutique fashion shop. In the space of three minutes, she dismissed everything Margrit’s eye landed on, instead settling on a white, knee-length raw silk dress. The saleswoman, whose expression on their arrival had indicated it was too close to quitting time to have to deal with customers, looked startled, then approving. Margrit fingered the dress gingerly, its long, off-the-shoulder sleeves and straight neckline unexciting to her eye. “Are you sure it’s dressy enough?”

“I’m certain. Trust me on this, Grit. You’re going to be overwhelmingly understated. Put it on and see if I’m right.”

And she had been. The dress snugged against Margrit’s curves as if it’d been made for her, a six-inch kick pleat behind the knee allowing her room to walk despite the hip-and-thigh-hugging fit. Margrit pinned her hair up before leaving the dressing room, letting a few corkscrew curls fall down her back, and came out with a guilty smile. “You were right.”

“I’m a genius,” Cameron said with satisfaction.

Margrit ran her fingers over the raw silk, tempted but still hesitant. “You sure I shouldn’t just go for basic black?”

“You should never wear black.” Cam put a fingertip against Margrit’s bare shoulder, leaving a white mark against cafe-latte skin when she released the pressure. “Not with skin tones like that. You’ve got drama inherent in your coloring. Crimson and cream, that’s what you should wear.”

“I have a lot of those in my wardrobe,” Margrit admitted. “I always thought of them as being battle colors, though, not playing up my skin.”

“Really.” Cameron’s eyebrows quirked, a smile darting into place. “You have a lot of wars to fight, Margrit?”

“Against the man, every day, sistah.” Margrit made a fist and thrust it toward the sky. Cameron laughed then Cam caught Margit’s hand to study the slight point the dress’s long sleeve came to over Margrit’s wrist.

“You need a ring. How much time do we have?” She looked for a clock, then clucked her tongue. “I know a great costume jewelry place a couple blocks from here. Let’s pay for this and go.”

“I like how you say that like we’re both paying for it. It’s seven-thirty,” Margrit said in despair. “I’ll be late.”

“Nobody expects you to be on time,” Cameron repeated. “And we are both paying for it. See?” She ushered Margrit to the saleswoman and handed over Margrit’s credit card as if it were her own. “You’ll show up at eight-thirty and make an entrance. It’s what all the stars would do.”

And it was what she had done. The evening had passed in an exhausting, exciting blur. Margrit proved a terrible New Yorker, blushing and stuttering at coming face-to-face with a handful of genuine celebrities. Tony caught her once, his wink making her blush harder.

He could have been a celebrity himself, wearing a tuxedo that made his shoulders a dark block of strength, as if he’d stepped out of a Bond film. Genuine delight had lit his eyes when Governor Stanton, arriving without his wife, had squired Margrit around the room for half an hour, making introductions.

She liked the tall, unhandsome politician, their camaraderie genuine. They’d greeted Mayor Leighton together, Margrit focusing hard not to wipe her hand on her dress after she extracted her fingers from his clammy grip. Stanton had pursed his mouth curiously at her expression, but said nothing, his silence conveying a subtle sense of agreement with her feelings toward the mayor.

He introduced her to Kaimana Kaaiai before excusing himself. The philanthropist struck her as Daisani’s nearly perfect opposite: a big man with very dark eyes who spoke with an easy Pacific Islands lilt, he seemed almost embarrassed by the attention his money brought. Margrit felt an unexpected rush of sympathy for him, and, as if he sensed that, he gave her a rueful smile before turning to the newest group to be introduced. Margrit slipped away, finally at ease, and spent hours chatting with people, until she realized the reception room was beginning to clear out. Only then, noticing how badly her feet hurt, did she retreat to a corner to remove her shoes. Even accustomed as she was to both running daily and wearing heels, stilettos still made her feet ache. “I should’ve brought tennies to wear home,” she mumbled to them. “I’ve already lost all my cool points by taking my shoes off at the Sherry.”

“On the contrary. Think of it as a … humanizing factor.” Eliseo Daisani’s Italian leather shoes came into Margrit’s line of sight and she ducked her head.

“Something you know a lot about, Mr. Daisani?”

“You might be surprised. I’m impressed, Miss Knight. I believe you’ve conquered a good portion of the city’s elite tonight. Was that your intention?”

“Saying so either way would be imprudent, don’t you think?” Margrit looked up as she slipped her shoes back on. In her heels, she was a little taller than Daisani, and the idea of letting him catch her literally flat-footed made her uncomfortable. “You didn’t come say hello to the governor. You must be the only person here who didn’t.”

“Jonathan and I greeted one another.”

“You made eye contact. I saw that. What’s the story there, Mr. Daisani?” She stood, hardly expecting an explanation.

“Perhaps you’ll learn the answer to that someday. I don’t suppose you’ve reconsidered my offer since this morning.”

“I don’t suppose I have,” Margrit agreed. “I know you’re richer than God, Mr. Daisani, but I went to a fair amount of trouble to earn my law degree. I don’t want to use all that education being your personal assistant. Besides, I’m finding out you’re a terrible nag. Who’d want to work for a nag?”

Surprise creased Daisani’s forehead and he gave a quick dry huff of laughter. “I see. Well. Having been put thoroughly in my place, I think I’d better bid you good evening and retreat to reconsider my strategy. No nagging.” He bowed from the waist, never breaking the eye contact that let Margrit see his amusement. “Until later, Miss Knight.”

Goose bumps lifted on Margrit’s arms as she watched him walk away, not daring to breathe, “Not if I see you coming,” until she was confident the noise in the hall would drown her words. Only then did she let her shoulders relax, and lift her gaze to look over the people left at the reception.

Out of dozens present, two watched her with clear and open curiosity. Governor Stanton might have been expected, as he’d attended to her for a good portion of the evening. The second, though, made a stillness come over Margrit when she met his dark, liquid gaze. After a moment the Hawaiian philanthropist smiled and looked away.

Her breath caught as if she’d been released from a hold imposed upon her. Janx had done something similar, his use of her name weighing her down so thoroughly she had been unable to walk away from it, or him.

Janx. Margrit’s fingers curled in recollection and she looked at her aching feet apologetically. “Sorry, guys. The night’s not over yet.”




FOUR


“MARGRIT KNIGHT.” JANX rolled her name in his mouth as he always did, as if it were a morsel to be savored. His gaze took her in precisely the same way, inch by inch, judging and admiring what he saw. “I am not a man to be kept waiting, my dear, but I think in your case I will make a rare exception. For me?” He opened his hands to encompass her silk dress and upswept hair, then brought them back in, folding them over his heart. “Such beauty is well worth waiting for. Do let me take your coat, so I can admire you properly.” He stepped around the cafeteria table that served as his desk, leaving thin wisps of blue smoke behind, and slipped Margrit’s coat from her shoulders. “Exquisite.” The word was murmured above her shoulder like the promise of seduction. “The color is lovely. So few women can wear white convincingly.”

Margrit groaned and walked away to move paperwork and sit on the table, facing Janx as she loosened the straps of her heels and dropped them on the floor. Hard metal folding chairs were the only seating in the room. She hooked her toes under the nearest and pulled it closer, then planted her bare feet on its cold seat with another quiet groan. For a moment she just sat there, reveling in the chill that soothed the ache in her soles. “What do you want, Janx?”

The dragonlord murmured, “Ah,” with such disappointment it might have been a child’s aww. “It is to be strictly business tonight? How unfair, to arrive so late and so lovely, and then to deny me my little pleasures.”

Margrit propped her elbows on her knees, rubbing her face delicately and watching Janx through her fingers. His dark red hair had grown since she’d seen him last, falling across his cheeks in slashes that played up the green of his eyes, even in the smoky room. He wore a priest-collared shirt and slacks, both hanging well and making her realize he was broader of shoulder than she remembered. His hands were in his pockets, his stance casual and beguiling, and the pout playing his mouth was neutralized by the laughter in his eyes. Margrit had yet to see something erase that perpetual amusement for more than a moment, and hoped she wouldn’t. She’d managed once to make Eliseo Daisani laugh in the midst of a crisis, but even that had ended in a threat against her life. Repeating the experience with Janx wasn’t a risk she wanted to take. So long as he found her entertaining, she was safe.

Which gave her the courage to drop her hands and say, dryly, “I’m so sorry, Janx. What was I thinking? Maybe we should do a waltz or two around your office before we get to the nasty matter of business. I’d hate for you to think I don’t adore you.”

He wasn’t as fast as Daisani. Margrit saw him move, quick long strides that somehow suggested a larger creature transferring its attention from one spot to another. His approach was consummate grace, fire flowing across an open space like a living thing. Then he was beside her, making the air crackle with dry heat.

“I prefer a tango. Tell me, do you dance?” His pupils dilated as her heart cramped and missed a beat for the second time that day. Eyes half-lidded, like a snake’s, he stepped back with a smile that revealed curving eyeteeth, and offered her a hand. “Dance with me, Margrit Knight.”

She straightened her spine by slow degrees, the threat of imminent danger making her light-headed. The taste of reckless abandonment was always tempting. She’d spent the evening smiling and greeting people who might help her career, people who could keep her climbing the narrow hard road of success. Few of them, she thought, would have to fight the impulse to dance with the devil. The urge that pushed her toward agreeing was the same one that kept her running in the park at night. A life as focused as hers was made worth living by the risks she took outside the structure.

She slid the chair away and dropped her feet to the floor. The burnished steel wall of the room showed her dull reflection as she stood and took one step forward, her hand poised above Janx’s. His smile curved wider, surprise and delight in it. Margrit tilted her head, and asked, very softly, “Is this your second request, dragonlord?”

For one astonished moment the glee drained out of Janx’s face, leaving his eyes brimming with jade outrage. Then his lip curled, and in a voice unlike any Margrit had ever heard from him, he said, “Oh, you’re good. You’re very good.”

It was not a compliment. Margrit let the corners of her mouth flicker in acknowledgment, and kept her hand in the air above Janx’s. His nostrils flared and he dipped his other hand into a pocket, coming out with a cigarette that he lit with a scrape of his thumbnail against his forefinger. The breath he exhaled an instant later sent streams of thin blue smoke swirling around him, and then a smile as thin as the smoke played over his mouth. He took her hand, bowing over it. “To business, then, my dear lady. To business.”

Not until he had walked around her, returning to his place at the table, did Margrit allow herself to draw a careful breath and lower her hand. Facing him was an exercise in small movements.

His usual amusement had returned in full by the time she’d done so. “You are so terribly brave, Margrit Knight. Is it truly honor among thieves that makes you so?”

“I don’t see any thieves around here, Janx. In fact, I don’t see anybody at all. Where is everybody?” Margrit glanced at the windows overlooking the empty, darkened casino on the warehouse’s bottom floor, then brushed the question off as she sat down again. “We’ve been through this. I trust you to keep your word, which doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate that you’re dangerous. You were also annoyingly cryptic on the phone. What’s going on?”

“How much do you know about us?” The question, put forth bluntly and with none of Janx’s typical humor, made Margrit’s shoulder blades pinch. She felt as if she’d been called on by a law professor whose expectations outstripped her knowledge of the subject.

“You mean the Old Races?” She hid an irritated moue, knowing she was stalling in order to come up with an adequate answer. Janx nodded, gesturing for her to continue with a fluid motion that sent smoke swirling around his head.

“There are five of you. Five left, anyway. Dragons and djinn, selkies and gargoyles, and the vampires.” She listed them the way she’d first heard them named, with dragons and djinn woven together, wonderful to pronounce. “There used to be others. Mermaids, anyway, and Bigfoot.”

Janx’s mouth flattened with vague insult and resigned acceptance. “Siryns and yeti.”

“Siryns and yeti. Sorry. Anyway, I know the dragons came from some volcanic area and spread out because they don’t like company. I got the idea it was the Pacific ring of fire, but I don’t know why.” She wrinkled her eyebrows curiously, but Janx passed a hand across his chest, refusing the question.

Margrit shrugged disappointment, but went on. “Djinn are from the deserts and selkies are from the sea, if there are more than one or two left. Gargoyles came from the mountains.” She hesitated, remembering Cara’s reluctance to say more.

“You’ve left one out,” Janx said lightly. “The vampires. What do you know about the vampires?”

Margrit smiled uncomfortably and shook her head. “That they say they don’t come from this world at all.”

“And what do you believe?”

“I wouldn’t even know where to start, Janx. I’ve seen a selkie change skins and a gargoyle transform in my arms.” Color suffused her cheeks as heat ran through her body at the sudden, shocking memory. More than just in her arms. Alban had transformed as she’d clung to him, arms around his neck, legs around his waist. The implosion of power had been an erotic charge lancing through the core of her, enough to make her blush even now.

Curiosity lit Janx’s eyes to pale green, and Margrit forged on before he could speak. “Malik turned me into fog and hauled me through the city, and I’ve seen Daisani move so fast he looked like he was in two places at once. What I believe is you people aren’t human. Anything beyond that I just don’t know. Why?” she added warily. “Is there a vampire army congregating in the Hellmouth?”

“Not,” Janx said, smiling, “as far as I know. Do you know how many of us there are?”

“A countable number. In the thousands, maybe, not even tens or hundreds of thousands.” She wet her lips, studying the red-haired man across from her. “I got the idea there were maybe only dozens of dragons left, but I don’t know why. Fewer than anybody but the selkies, though. Maybe it just seems like dragons would be hard to hide.”

“The dark ages were not easy on my people,” Janx admitted in short tones. “Your Saint George, to give an example.”

“If there really was a Saint George and a dragon, or dragons, why don’t we have bones and fossils?” Margrit leaned forward, eager for the answer.

Humor came back into Janx’s gaze. “You’ve been waiting to ask that, haven’t you? We know when one of ours has died, Margrit Knight. We come and take his body to the boiling earth he was born of. There’s nothing left for your scientists and tabloid reporters to find.”

“Tabloids,” Margrit echoed. “So some of you have died recently. I’m sorry.”

“Are you.”

“Yeah. Yes, actually, I am.” She lifted her chin. “This world of yours, the world the Old Races belong to. A few months ago, I didn’t know it existed, but now that I do, despite everything, I wouldn’t go back to not knowing. You … make things possible, Janx.” Margrit heard the note of longing in her voice and cleared her throat, trying to modulate it. “I used to read stories about the Loch Ness monster. I never believed them, but I wanted to. I wanted there to be something incredible in the lake. It just wasn’t rational.” A smile curved her mouth until her eyes crinkled, honest delight flooding through her. “I’ve seen six impossible things before breakfast, now. I can believe in the Loch Ness monster if I want to. You—all of you, Alban and Daisani and even Malik—gave me that. You might see me as a pawn to be played in some enormous game I don’t understand, but you’ve made it possible for me to believe in magic. I regret the passing of anything that takes the magic out of the world, even if it’d bite my head off as soon as look at me.”

Blue smoke sailed from Janx’s nostrils, paling his eyes to granite-green, making them unreadable. “I think I begin to understand you, Margrit Knight. Stoneheart was wiser than he knew, breaking centuries of silence with you.”

“Why do you call him that? You call me by my full name and you give Alban nicknames. Why do you do that?”

Janx smiled, revealing curved eyeteeth again. “Who’s to stop me? What you don’t know, or understand, about the Old Races is this,” he said abruptly. Ice skimmed over Margrit’s skin, reminding her that easy banter and Janx’s playful manner were not the reasons she’d come to an East Harlem warehouse at two in the morning. “We keep ourselves in line through a series of checks and balances. Everyone owes someone something. It keeps us honest, for the most part.”

“God,” Margrit said involuntarily. “I’d hate to see you with free rein.”

Something nasty happened to Janx’s smile, a reptilian coldness coming into it. “Yes,” he agreed. “You would. It begins to look something like this.”

He stood with startling abruptness, scooping up the paperwork she’d shifted earlier. He flipped open a folder, dealing mug shots out of it as if they were cards from a deck. Each photograph landed with astonishing precision along the edge of the table before her. She touched the second one, frowning at it. “That’s … I know him. He’s the man you were going to have drive me home in January.”

“Patrick. He’s dead.”

Margrit jerked her hand back, her gaze skittering to Janx, then to the other two photographs he’d dealt. “They’re all dead,” he confirmed. “Patrick, to whom you showed so little trust—how shall I put it? He oversaw the day-to-day aspects of financial fecundity.”

“He shook people down for the money they owed you,” Margrit translated.

Janx exhaled, a sound laced with acid humor. “He oversaw that arm of my organization, yes. You ought to have trusted him,” he added petulantly. “Patrick never looked for trouble. He only hurt people when it was strictly necessary, and I can’t imagine you’d have made it so.”

“How reassuring. What happened to him? Them,” Margrit corrected. The faces of the other two men were unfamiliar. One was extraordinarily good-looking, charismatic even in the unflattering light of a mug shot. “And who were they?”

“I assume you’re more interested in their positions than their names. The handsome one ran one of my larger substance rings, and the third—”

“I really shouldn’t have asked. I swear, Janx, all I need to do is wander in here with a tape recorder sometime and you’d talk yourself right into a jail cell.”

“Electronic devices tend to come to a short end around here, Margrit. You know that. Besides, you wouldn’t really put me in jail, would you?” Janx’s eyes widened, a protestation of hurt innocence that belied any care for the dead men whose photographs lay on the desk.

Margrit worked her mouth, trying not to let herself laugh, then avoided the question by tapping Patrick’s picture. “So what happened to them?”

“Margrit.” Janx sounded both disappointed and annoyed. “Eliseo Daisani happened to them, obviously.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Are you sure?”

“Am I—Margrit,” he repeated. “Aside from the fact that no one else would dare, do you really think Daisani would allow Vanessa’s death to go unpunished? It’s tit for tat, nothing more. My lieutenants for his woman. I might even call it a fair trade.” His voice, usually oiled with humor, betrayed the faintest scratch of discord.

“I take it they’re all human, then.” Margrit spoke through her teeth, anger rising on behalf of the men Janx dismissed with only a hint of regret. “God, you people are bastards. These men probably had families, Janx, people who cared about them.”

“They did. But then, I like to imagine their loved ones knew what kind of men they were. Drug dealers and thugs are expected to come to a bad end, Margrit. Who could really be surprised? This is very much the natural order of things in the world, my dear. People die and ambitious new men replace them. Frequently their deaths are thanks to their replacements.”

“So how do you know that isn’t happening now?”

“Because there’s a pattern to these things, Margrit. I control my people. I watch for the ambitious ones, and when they’re strong enough, I present an opportunity for advancement. One does not replace three men in five days, when doing this. I need to be sure each new piece fits in with the whole before I’m ready to change another aspect of my organization’s leadership. This is not ambition. This is revenge.”

“And a fair trade,” Margrit said sharply. “So what do you want from me?”

“You have no idea how much I would like to burn that second favor on something as delightful as a dance.”

“I don’t need poetry, Janx. Just tell me what you want.”

“Humans,” Janx said without distress. “So demanding, so shortsighted. You want everything so quickly. You must learn patience, my dear. It would stand you well in dealing with the Old Races.”

“Janx, you’ve got a hundred of my lifetimes to look forward to. I’ve got threescore years and ten. Maybe that’s why I don’t want to waste time with you flirting around the subject.”

“Margrit.” Janx turned the corners of his mouth down, a picture of injured feelings. “I’m not flirting.” Charm and lightheartedness slid from his eyes, cooling their color. “I’m trying to soften the blow.”

She braced, as if what happened next might be a physical attack. Jade glinted through Janx’s eyes again, a smile playing over thin lips. “I do like that about you, Margrit Knight. You transform fear into defiance so quickly. Does it cost you?” He dismissed the question as easily as he asked it, brushing it away with long fingers. “Vanessa Gray was Daisani’s right hand for over a century, but she was only human. Forgive me,” he said with an upward dance of his eyebrows, “but from our perspective you are—”

“Pawns,” Margrit said flatly. “Easily played and easily discarded, just like your lieutenants. I get it, Janx. What do you want from me?”

“Malik is my right-hand man.”

Margrit stared at the dragonlord without comprehension, then came to her feet, shoulders rising with tension. “Malik’s one of you. Djinn. Daisani can’t do anything to him. It’s against your laws. The price of killing one of the Old Races is exile. Nobody’d deal with Daisani anymore.”

“Eliseo Daisani will hardly fail to avenge his lover of thirteen decades over something as desperately irrelevant as race or exile. I have no proof that he’s behind these murders, and he’s hardly going to provide it. Nor will he be so clumsy as to leave a trail back to him in Malik’s case.”

“If he was going to, why wait? It’s been months.”

“I believe a tool for revenge has only recently arrived.” Janx’s voice went quieter yet, a song in its softness. “The djinn are a desert race, Margrit Knight. Amongst the surviving Old Races they have only one natural and true enemy.”

Margrit spread her hands, then slowly closed them, grasping understanding. “The selkies. Water creatures.” Surety filled the guess, and Janx’s brief smile confirmed it. “I thought there weren’t any left.”

“Margrit. Don’t be disingenuous with me.”

“Well, that’s what everybody keeps telling me. I met one, but she disappeared. I didn’t think there were enough left worth mentioning. I thought that was the whole thing about them. They crossbred with humans and died out. What’s that got to do with Malik? What’s it got to do with me?”

“You don’t know.” Amusement washed through Janx’s expression as he approached her, leaning against the table and folding his arms over his chest. “That’s lovely. Margrit, my dear, all I care about is that I believe Malik’s assassination is in the making. I expect you to stop it.”




FIVE


MARGRIT’S LAUGHTER SHOT high, hurting her throat. “Me? I’d just as soon stick a needle in my eye, Janx. Or better yet, in his.”

“I know.” Janx beamed. “That’s what makes it a favor. Isn’t it wonderful?” Delight leached out of his mercurial voice, leaving it heavy. “I could make this a demand, Margrit, not a favor. Be grateful I’m inclined to play fairly.”

“Is that a dragonly trait?” Margrit asked tightly. “Does your hoard only shine properly if it’s gotten through fair trade?”

“Not at all. But jewels, once obtained, must be treated with care so their gloss remains unmarred.”

Another laugh broke free, horror mixed with shock. “Am I a jewel in your hoard?”

“Be grateful that you are not gold, my dear. Gold is soft, and easily distorted.” Before the threat settled in her bones, Janx went on, voice light and casual, though the words carried weight. “Jewels crack under pressure, but retain their heart until shattered. I’ve made Malik’s life your responsibility, and you can’t refuse me.”

“How exactly do you expect me to keep him alive?”

His beatific smile darted back into place, lighting his eyes. “That’s not my problem, is it? Consider yourself fortunate. As a human, you have no constraints on what you might or must do to ensure his survival. Not, at least, in regards to the Old Races, and our lives are lived enough in shadow that I think human justice will never see any transgressions you may be forced to commit in my service.”

“What—” Margrit’s voice broke and she swallowed, clearing disbelief and fear away. Her blood raced until she itched with it. Aching feet or not, the impulse to bolt into action, to run as far and fast as she could, was barely held in check. “What do you expect me to do?”

“Whatever is necessary, my dear. Whatever is necessary. Malik will be your constant companion—”

“Like hell.” Margrit stood, painfully aware the heaviness of the action was nothing like Janx’s fluid movements. “Like hell. Absolutely not. I will not have him following me around. For one thing, I can’t do my job with a minor gang lord hovering over me. It’d ruin my career. For another, Malik hates me.”

“You had the nerve to put him in his place, Margrit.”

“And I’d do it again. That’s not the point. I’m not exposing myself to his presence. You might order him to leave me alone, but if he disobeys—”

“It might be hard on him, but it’ll be infinitely worse for you. I believe you’ve used that argument in the past. Refusing me may be just as bad for you as Malik’s company.”

“I can live with that.” Margrit set her teeth together, then beat Janx to the punch: “Or not. I’ll …” Her hands cramped and she looked down to see them fisted so tightly that, unfolded, they showed nail marks in her palms. She watched the half-moons change from white to red, using the changes as a timer with which to gauge her own temper. Only when they’d returned to her natural color did she trust that her thoughts were under control again, rational thinking overcoming blunt panic. She raised her eyes to find Janx with his feet kicked up on the table, fingers steepled in front of his mouth as if to hide the smirk that shaped his lips.

“Two things,” she grated. “First, forget the whole favor-owed thing for a minute. I will not have somebody like Malik following me around. If you want me under a death sentence, carry it out yourself, Janx. Do me that much honor, at least.” Her pulse slowed in her throat as she met Janx’s gaze, fatalism outweighing fear.

He folded his fingers down until only one remained pressed against his pursed lips as if he’d whisper, “Shh.” After a moment his eyes lidded, catlike, so slowly Margrit couldn’t be sure if she saw a subtle nod accompanying the action. He curved his finger down over his chin, then did nod, another small motion. “If it comes to that, perhaps I will. But how do you propose to keep Malik safe if he isn’t at your side?”

“How do you think I propose to keep him safe even if he is?” Margrit asked incredulously. “The second thing is I don’t know what the hell you know that I don’t, but you’d better fill me in, starting at the beginning. Even if there were any selkies left, it’s just as much against your rules for them to kill Malik as it is for any of the other Old Races. Why—”

“What few of them may be left are already exiled. The selkies, as a people, have nothing to lose. Imagine you’re one of the very last of a dying race, Margrit. Imagine you’re a young mother with a child, and what you might do to protect that child. And imagine what incentives a man like Eliseo Daisani might be able to offer you to shatter one last taboo.”

“You can’t possibly think Daisani’s going to send Cara Delaney after Malik. Cara’s—” Margrit broke off, remembering the fragile selkie girl’s huge dark eyes and shivering fear. That was the impression that haunted her when she thought of Cara, but the girl had shown an unexpected strength, too, the last time they’d spoken. “If Daisani’d gotten his hands on her, he wouldn’t have given me back her selkie skin,” she said, trying the argument out on herself.

Janx quirked an eyebrow, his thoughts clearly following hers. Margrit bared her teeth and glanced away, nodding. “Unless they’d agreed to hand it over to me as a red herring. It breaks up any link between them that a lawyer—well, I—might find. I don’t believe it,” she added more sharply.

The dragonlord spread his hands, neither agreement nor disagreement. “But let us say Cara’s appearance sparked the idea that it was possible. If she lives, then others do, and Daisani’s a resourceful man. We call in favors from afar, when circumstances warrant it.”

Margrit shivered, unsubtly reminded of the assassin Janx had hired to murder Vanessa Gray. “And you think there’s another selkie in New York now. A selkie methodically whacking your lieutenants as he works his way up to the top. Why not start with Malik and be done with it?”

“If it were my hit, I’d use a series of unrelated killers assigned to specific, select targets. I wouldn’t waste Biali on the mundane task of taking out a pimp, for example. The point is not to deftly remove one man, but to cause chaos in my organization and fear amongst my people.”

Margrit held her breath so long her heartbeat echoed in her ears with increasingly urgent thuds as she stared at Janx. The sudden inhalation that followed made her lungs ache. “I really do not want to know what you would waste Biali on, but it’s killing me not to ask.” She held her breath again for another moment, then shook off temptation as best she could. “So I’m supposed to find this selkie and dissuade him? Just for the record, what happens if I fail?”

“You don’t want that to happen,” Janx murmured.

Margrit snorted a laugh and nodded. “Any idea where I should start?”

“You’ve a tendency to be refreshingly direct, Margrit. You could simply go to the source.”

“Go accuse Daisani of plotting murder? You’ve had better ideas.” She stood, shaking her head. “Why don’t you just keep Malik under wraps for a while and see who comes looking?”

Janx’s mouth twitched with rueful humor. “If you have any suggestions as to how to keep a djinn in a bottle, I’m willing to listen. No one likes to be caged, but short of putting him in a box made of salt water, I don’t think a djinn can be. Stop this unraveling from happening,” he said more quietly. “Too many more losses, Malik or not, and my House will not stand. I need assistance, Margrit Knight, and you have a soft spot for the Old Races. Help me.”

She sighed explosively. “You know I’ll try.”

Janx’s smile lit up again and he stood, bowing gracefully in farewell. “I have every confidence that you’ll succeed.”

That was more confidence than Margrit had. Janx’s words echoed in her dreams and followed her into the office the next morning, after far too little sleep. She’d had more than one half-formed plan since leaving the House of Cards, ranging from taking Janx’s suggestion and arriving on Daisani’s doorstep to demand to know if he was behind Janx’s lieutenants’ deaths, to a somewhat more pragmatic visit to Chelsea Huo’s bookshop to ask the little proprietor if she had any information about selkies, to standing on a rooftop bellowing for Alban. Instead, she’d gone home in the cab Janx called for her and collapsed, falling asleep so quickly that when morning came she was surprised to discover she’d undressed the night before. Now she sat at her desk, cheek propped on her hand and her eyes not even halfway open, tired mind humming with the same possibilities that she’d considered the previous evening.

A new stack of papers, topped with a note claiming “Urgent!” had arrived on her desk since she left work yesterday. The note was now half-hidden beneath a cup of coffee, the rare indulgence her only chance of making it through the morning.

“Russell wants to see you.”

“What?” Margrit flinched upright, rubbing her face and clutching her coffee. Sam offered a sunny, morning-person smile over the edge of her cubicle.

“Russell wants to see you in his office. Morning, Margrit.” His grin got broader. “Late night, huh?”

“Way too late.” She stared at her coffee a moment, then lifted the cup with focused determination, taking a large swallow before bumbling down to Russell’s office to lean in the doorway. He invited her to come in with the same gesture that told her to wait a moment for him to get off the phone. She sank down in a chair, fingers wrapped around the cardboard coffee cup, and watched the man in silence.

His curling hair had been clipped short recently, a Caesar cut that emphasized the gray. It succeeded in making him look distinguished, that enviable stage aging men seemed to reach more easily than women. His linen shirt was still crisp this early in the day, and the suit jacket that hung over the back of his chair had threads of silk in it, details that reminded Margrit that her boss dressed better than a public employee was assumed to be capable of affording.

He hung up the phone, nodding at her coffee cup. “You’ve had a lot of those lately. Thought you didn’t drink caffeine.”

Margrit squinted. “I don’t think I’ve had a cup of coffee since January.” Not since a series of late nights tangling with the Old Races had worn her out. It was her fault the meeting with Janx had been set so late, but blaming the dragonlord was more appealing than admitting her own culpability. “You’ve got a mind like a steel trap, Russell.”

“Well, someone’s got to remember the details. They seem to think I’m the best man for the job.” His eyebrows rose. “Good party last night?”

Margrit’s own eyebrows drew down. “It was, but how did you know …?”

Russell slid a section of newspaper across his desk, rotating it to face her. Margrit, on the governor’s arm, was in the forefront of a color photograph, reaching out to shake Kaimana Kaaiai’s hand. The caption beneath it proclaimed: “Legal Aid counselor Margrit Knight, escorted by Governor Jonathan Stanton, makes an impression at a private reception for philanthropist Kaimana Kaaiai. Kaaiai is in New York for ten days to meet with city officials regarding a donation for the recently discovered �subway speakeasy.’”

Margrit huffed and looked up with a smile. “At least it isn’t lurid.” Russell’s return smile was perfunctory and left his eyes judging. Margrit set her coffee cup aside, eyebrows wrinkling again. “What’s wrong, Russell?”

“You’ve had a good few months, Margrit. The Johnson clemency case, then the scene with Eliseo Daisani. It’s made you high-profile.”

“You put me on the Daisani case, Russell. That was your decision, because the clemency case had gone so well. If I’m high-profile it’s in part because of choices you’ve made.”

“It’s an observation, Margrit, not an accusation. But I’m curious. Everyone here knows Mr. Daisani’s been wooing you toward his corporation, and this—” he tapped the society page of the paper “—is professionallevel glad-handing. You’re too young to be bucking for my job. I’d like to know where you see yourself going over the next few months and years.”

“I’ve been thinking about a vacation to Bermuda.” Margrit held up a hand to ward off Russell’s displeasure. “You sound like Mr. Daisani, Russell. He thought I’d get one or two particularly attractive cases under my belt and bail for something with better pay and an office with a view. I’m not planning on leaving Legal Aid anytime soon, but don’t get me wrong.” She sat forward to plant a fingertip against the photograph. “I like this kind of exposure. I didn’t go to the party last night to hang out with the governor, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I had a great evening with a powerful man, and if something positive comes out of it, I’m not going to reject the possibility out of hand.” She sat back again, putting on a smile she didn’t entirely feel. “Do all your employees get this kind of hands-on career counseling?”

“Only when they appear to be on the verge of becoming a shooting star. Why did you go, Margrit?”

She leaned forward again, glancing over the photograph until she found the man she was looking for, his face mostly obscured by someone standing in front of him. “That’s Tony, Russell. He’s on Kaaiai’s security detail, and he got me an invitation to the reception. That’s all.”

“Really.” The fine skin around Russell’s eyes tightened. “That’s all?”

“Scout’s honor.” Margrit held up three fingers in a pledge as she sat back again.

Russell nodded slowly. “Then would you like to tell me why Mr. Kaaiai has specifically requested a meeting with you this morning?”

Margrit laughed out loud, hoping surprise was more attractive in laughter than in jaw-dropped gaping. Russell’s expression tightened again, Margrit’s burst of humor unexpected and clearly unwelcome. “I’m sorry,” she said, genuinely meaning it. “I have absolutely no idea why he wants to see me. Are you sure?”

“His secretary called my private line a few minutes before you got in. Margrit, far be it from me to stand in the way of your ambitions, but—”

“I’m not leading you on, Russell.” Margrit heard her voice go flat. “I know it’s hard to find good people for Legal Aid, and you want to hold on to me. I think if I intended to leave I’d have the courtesy to tell you early enough to allow you time to find a replacement. But I honestly have no plans to leave, and I really have no idea what Kaaiai wants to talk to me about. If he makes me an offer I can’t refuse, you’ll be the first to know, all right?”

Russell’s mouth pursed before he sighed and nodded. “All right. He’d like you to meet him at ten-thirty.”

“Where?”

“He’s staying at the Sherry. Suite 1909.”

Margrit twisted her mouth. “His hotel. Maybe there’s a perfectly disgusting animal reason he wants to meet with me.”

“Business meetings at reputable hotels, Margrit, are not—”

“That was a joke,” she said. “A joke, Russell. Sorry. I won’t make one again.” She collected her coffee cup as she stood, glancing down at herself. Taupe skirt with a matching jacket, white blouse. Flats instead of heels; her feet still hadn’t forgiven her. “Will I do?”

Russell looked her over critically, then nodded. “Go on, Counselor. You’ve got worlds to conquer.”

Margrit took a gilded elevator to the nineteenth floor, trying not to laugh at herself as she all but tiptoed down the silent hall. She felt like an intruder into a private world as she tapped on the door to Kaaiai’s suite.

A plain woman with rich brown hair opened the door, stepping out of the way to invite Margrit in. Margrit smiled her thanks and absorbed the room at a glance—two sets of doorways leading to other rooms; overstuffed couches; a bar of beautiful glossed wood—before Kaimana Kaaiai was on his feet, striding across the lush carpet to clasp Margrit’s hand in his. The woman who’d opened the door became part of the background, ready to be called on without being obtrusive.

“Ms. Knight. Thanks for coming on so little notice.” Kaaiai sounded genuinely glad to see her.

“It’s my pleasure, Mr. Kaaiai. I didn’t imagine I’d get another chance to speak with you.”

“I bet you didn’t.” Despite his easygoing lilt, he seemed to select his words with care, as if trying to leave an impression of being one of the boys. He carried his weight as if it were comforting, tailored suit adding to his imposing size without making him seem fat. “Tea or coffee? I only have half an hour to give you right now, but there’s no point at all if we can’t sit down and have a drink.” He motioned her to one of the couches, settling down on its far end with a grace that belied his size. His assistant went to the bar unbidden.

“Just water would be fine, please. Even tap water. I’m a native. I can take it.” Margrit offered a smile to the woman, who opened the bar refrigerator and took out a bottle of water without changing expression.

“She doesn’t smile,” Kaimana confided. “I try to break her resolve, but it only works on bank holidays and leap years.”

Margrit laughed. “We don’t have bank holidays, Mr. Kaaiai. Or has Hawaii adopted them without telling the rest of us?”

“Sadly, no, so you see my problem. Thank you, Marese.” He accepted a cup of coffee from his assistant, who nodded gravely as she offered Margrit a glass of water and the half-empty bottle.

Margrit murmured thanks as well, then brought her attention back to Kaaiai, who regarded her steadily over the edge of his cup.

“I saw you speaking with Eliseo Daisani last night, Ms. Knight. You’re friends with him?”

Margrit blinked, reaching for the coffee table to set her water aside. “I’m acquainted with him. The idea of being friends with Mr. Daisani is alarming.”

“How closely acquainted?”

Caution held Margrit’s tongue as she studied the man who questioned her. Thick black hair, sun-browned skin and dark liquid eyes made a reassuring package. “We’ve spoken in private a handful of times,” she said carefully. “Why do you want to know?”

“Someone suggested you might know more about him than he’d want made public,” Kaaiai said easily. “That might be useful if it’s true.”

Margrit’s thigh muscles bunched, announcing their readiness to run. She relaxed them deliberately, as much because she was on the nineteenth story of a hotel with nowhere to go as the sheer impracticality of running in slip-on flats. “Who told you that?” She kept her voice light and curious, noncommittal.

“A girl named Cara Delaney.”

“Cara! Do you—you know—do you know where she is? I’ve got her—I need to see her immediately, if you know where she is.” Margrit came to her feet, hands clenched with passion. “Please, she disappeared weeks ago and I’ve been trying to find her. She was a—” She broke off, searching for the right descriptor.

“A friend?”

“A client. A confidante, maybe. Please, if you know where she and Deirdre are, it’s imperative I see them. At the very least I have a delivery for Cara, something of hers I’ve been waiting to give back.”

“How well acquainted with Mr. Daisani are you, Ms. Knight?”

“I’m—” Understanding caught Margrit unawares, a weight bouncing inside her chest where her heart ought to be. Janx’s mild chastisement, don’t be disingenuous with me, rang in her ears as she wondered if he’d known. She discarded the idea almost instantly; his theory as to Daisani’s incentives wouldn’t appeal to a rich man, and the dragonlord would have gained nothing by leaving Margrit to find out on her own. Janx was looking for Cara’s equivalent, not Kaimana Kaaiai.

“Does it not show up on television?” she asked distantly. “The way you move? Because I know you’ve been on TV.” And it seemed impossible that Janx wouldn’t have watched footage of the man funding security for the speakeasy, which had once been his and Daisani’s meeting place. Margrit found herself looking at Kaaiai as if she could see through him, as if answers lay beyond him somewhere. “Your eyes are like Cara’s. So dark they’re all pupil. I don’t know the password, Mr. Kaaiai. I don’t know if I should assume everyone here is on the same page.”

Kaaiai glanced toward Marese, then back at Margrit. “You can make that assumption, Ms. Knight. Marese is discreet.”

“So was Vanessa Gray.” Margrit folded her fingers into fists again, then released them. “If I were to say �dragons and djinn,’ or that it’s all wrong that Eliseo Daisani doesn’t go bump in the night, or that outcasts seem to be my specialty, would that tell you I’m part of your secret club?” She sat down again, one leg folded under her, and her hands clenching the couch cushions. “You’re one of them, aren’t you? You’re like Cara. A selkie. I thought you were all Irish.”

“We have a legend among our people.” Kaimana’s expression gentled, aging and growing distant, as if he looked back through time and memory. “That once we all came from the same place in the sea, but over thousands of years we spread around the planet. Some of us went north and across the frozen oceans, living on the edges of the world. Even now the Inuit tell stories of seal skin-changers, as much a part of their legends as the selkies are of Irish lore.” He sighed, passing a hand over his eyes with a gesture born to water, its fluidity beyond human measure. “Only the gargoyles know for certain, but we believe that even if we’re not all born in the same part of the world, we still belong to the same culture.”

Silence followed his story, until Kaaiai brought his focus back to Margrit and smiled suddenly, grounding himself in something closer to her world. “That will do, as a password. And, no, it doesn’t translate well on television. We’re all equal in the camera’s eye, it seems. Why?”

Adrenaline burned out, leaving Margrit sinking under a wave of exhaustion. “Nothing important.” Even if Janx didn’t know about Kaaiai’s heritage, it seemed impossible that the selkie would trouble himself with a crimelord’s people.

Unknotting that tangle would wait. Margrit drew in a deep breath and still couldn’t raise her voice above a scratchy whisper. “Mr. Kaaiai, I have Cara’s sealskin. If you know where she is, I’ve got to return it to her. I promised. I know she said she could survive without it, but that must be like being a bird with clipped flight feathers. Surviving isn’t flying. Do you know where I can find her?”

Pleasure emanated from the selkie. “You’re not curious as to why I think your acquaintance with Daisani might be useful? Just Cara? She’s your only concern?”

“She told me Deirdre would die without her sealskin. Maybe Cara’s not that vulnerable, but I made her a promise and I haven’t been able to keep it. So, yes, right now all that really matters to me is being able to return it.” Embarrassing sentiment stung Margrit’s nose and she looked away. Nerves prickled along her back as she heard one of the suite doors open.

“I told you,” Cara Delaney said in a soft voice. “I told you she was one of the good ones.”




SIX


“CARA!” MARGRIT JOLTED to her feet for the second time, this time rounding the end of the couch to skid across the carpet toward the petite selkie girl. She seized Cara’s shoulders to hug her, then, appalled at her own rudeness, released her grip. Cara laughed, stepping forward for a gingerly embrace.

“I’m sorry,” Margrit blurted. “I didn’t mean to manhandle you. But I was afraid you were dead, with your neighbors tearing your apartment apart and then you disappearing. Where did you go?” She released the other woman, giving her a scowl disrupted by delight.

“It’s all right.” Cara’s dark eyes were full of pleasure. “I don’t think anyone’s ever been this glad to see me. A few of the others came just after you left, and took us away. I’m sorry if you were worried, but once we had Deirdre’s skin we thought it was safer for us to disappear, so Daisani couldn’t get to it again. You won the fight against him.” Admiration lit her irises to amber. “Even without me you kept fighting for the building. Thank you, Margrit.”

“The building wasn’t about you at all.” Margrit pulled her into another impulsive hug, surprised to find herself trembling with relief. “Daisani just got lucky with his workmen finding your skins, Cara. He was having a temper tantrum,” she said, only considering how ill-advised the words were after she’d spoken. Damage done, she shrugged, glancing toward Kaaiai. “It turned out it was actually over the speakeasy down in the subways that you’re offering security financing for. It used to belong to Daisani, and he was pissed off at Grace for giving it up to the public. She—”

“Grace,” Kaaiai interrupted. “Grace O’Malley? They told me about her in the grant for financing. I can’t understand why anyone would let themselves be saddled with a name like that. The real Grace O’Malley was a brigand and a murderer, not a hero.”

Margrit crooked a smile. “Humans do that, Mr. Kaaiai. We make romantic heroes out of violent, awful people. Billy the Kid. Bonnie and Clyde. Captain Jack Sparrow,” she added with a wink. “Anyway, the modern Grace is a sort of vigilante. Maybe she’s trying to redeem the name.”

“Vigilante implies violence,” Kaaiai said with a note of disapproval. “I was given to understand she eschewed violence.”

“I’ve met her. She says she doesn’t kill people.” Margrit shuddered and brushed her fingertips over her forehead, where Grace had once pressed the barrel of a gun. “I don’t think she does. I think she just scares them. She’s been trying to get kids off the streets for years, from the bottom up, literally. She’s got areas staked out in the storm drains and tunnels under the city. One of them was under your building,” she said to Cara. “Daisani was after it, not you.”

“All of this,” Cara murmured. “All of this because of a mistake?” She glanced toward Kaaiai, apology written in her eyes. “Maybe—”

“No,” he said with gentle certainty. “No, Cara, you were right to come to me, and right to suggest what you have. I apologize, Ms. Knight, go ahead. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Margrit glanced between the selkies, curious, then offered a smile to the girl who’d been her client. “I don’t have it with me, Cara, but your sealskin is safe at my apartment. Daisani gave it to me. I earned it,” she corrected, watching Cara’s eyes darken further. “I remember what you said about owing him, and I took the warning to heart, but I think it’s too late for me.”

“Not necessarily.” Kaaiai stood, inserting himself back into the conversation physically as well as vocally. “If you’re on our side, Ms. Knight—”

“Your side?” She shook her head, stepping away from Cara to face the broad selkie male. “I don’t even know what sides there are. I’m not on anyone’s side.”

A memory of alabaster skin seared her, carved angles of a wide, beautiful face whose blue-tinged shadows would never know sunlight. Desire flared at the remembrance of a scent like sun-warmed stone and strands of heavy white hair flowing over her fingers. A tremor had caught them both as she’d brushed fingertips over the soft membrane of wings, a sensual, silken touch. She’d made her choice to stand beside Alban as his advocate, first when he’d asked for her help, and later when he’d rejected it. If there were sides to consider, Margrit already knew where she stood. “I’m not on anyone’s side,” she repeated without conviction.

“Cara tells me you’ve spoken with Janx. I know for myself you talk to Daisani. My official job here in New York has nothing to do with the Old Races, Ms. Knight, but having an attaché like yourself who can move between the two of them freely would allow me to accomplish some other business while I’m here. Unless you have a specific loyalty to one of them that could compromise your position as a negotiator?”

“A neg—Mr. Kaaiai.” Margrit put all the firmness she could into his name. “I think you’re overestimating my ability to influence anything in your world. I owe Janx two open-ended favors. Eliseo Daisani gave me a drink of his blood because I caught a bad guy for him, and he’s trying to get me to work for him. At best I’m walking a high wire between those two. You want me to start running back and forth on it playing messenger?”

“What if I could turn that high wire into a platform?”

“Can you?” Margrit’s voice was dubious. “I don’t know what it would take, but I don’t think a handful of selkies are going to be able to pull off that kind of trick. I’ve already had one misguided gargoyle try to rescue me, and all it’s done is drag me deeper into the hole.”

“Alban Korund.” Kaaiai said the name thoughtfully. “I’ve got more experience at this sort of thing than he does, which probably doesn’t reassure you.”

“Not really. What?” Margrit asked, with a glance toward Cara. “You don’t curl your lip and call him �the outcast’?”

Kaaiai gave Cara a brief smile. “Young people are staunch in their prejudices.”

“I’ve noticed old people are, too,” Margrit said dryly. “It just seems a little weird to me that a people who’ve chosen exile for their whole race would call Alban’s kettle black. I don’t even get the idea that he broke one of your laws, just that he walled himself off from his people.”

“To a gargoyle, there’s not much worse. I think none of us can understand.” Kaaiai indicated not only himself and Cara, but Margrit, with a small circular gesture. “None of us share the intimacy gargoyles do, with their ability to exchange memories and thoughts. Deliberately exiling ourselves from the Old Races was a choice we made as a community. It didn’t leave us alone in the fashion that Alban Korund keeps himself. I think it would be like cutting away your hand, or your heart, to do what he’s done.”

“And it’s unforgivable?”

“It’s incomprehensible. There aren’t many of us as a whole, much less within the individual races. The idea of turning our backs on our people …” Kaaiai shook his head. “Whether it’s forgivable is for the gargoyles to say, not me.”

“What would you say, if it were up to you?”

Kaaiai lifted a big shoulder and let it fall. “I would welcome any of my people back with open arms, but we’ve lived apart from the rest of the Old Races for a long time. We may no longer think as they do. Which brings me to the point of asking you here, Ms. Knight.”

Caution spilled through Margrit in cool waves. Janx’s theory sat badly with her, but Kaaiai’s easy admission that the selkies had changed gave it weight. She glanced toward Cara, whose eyes shone with enthusiasm as she looked from Kaaiai to Margrit and back again. The desperation that had once marked the young woman was gone, girlish hope replacing it. Even when fear had driven her, though, she’d advised Margrit against bargaining with Daisani. Cara’s conviction had seemed unalterable, and all appearances suggested her situation had only improved since then. If she, desperate and afraid, refused to work with Daisani, then it seemed unlikely a man like Kaaiai, clearly a leader, would condone or participate in the murder of Janx’s lieutenants.

“I’m listening.” Margrit focused on Kaaiai, putting thoughts of Janx away. There would be time, and if Janx’s fears were right, the more information Margrit got now, the stronger her hand would be later. “What do you think I can do?”

“We’ve spent generations hiding ourselves in our fight for survival. It’s time to challenge the order that has held the Old Races in place for millennia, and decide how we can best approach a new world. We need an advocate, Ms. Knight, and you’re the obvious choice.”

Margrit left Kaaiai’s suite with her thoughts in chaos and closed the door gently, as if doing so would hide the way she grasped the knob and sagged against it. The security guard posted in the hall slid her a sideways glance, impersonally curious. Margrit arranged her face in the semblance of a smile, then gave it up and exhaled heavily, still leaning on the door.

Alban’s sharp-cut features played in her mind’s eye. Of the Old Races’ three worst offenses, the gargoyle had broken two of them for her: he’d told her about their existence, and then he’d killed one of his own to protect her. The laws, Margrit had argued, were antiquated, but he’d insisted on enforcing his own exile. And now a selkie presented her with a chance to face those laws and do her best to knock them down.

Intellect warred with ambition. She had no birthright to so blatantly and deliberately challenge their traditions. But she wanted to, and a better opportunity would never be offered. Laws were meant to be tested and changed as time passed. The ability to help shape a future for the Old Races was as much a brass ring as anything she coveted in her ordinary life.

Her own arrogance was breathtaking. Margrit tilted a smile at the ceiling. Perhaps that was one of the reasons behind the Old Races’ law of not telling humans they existed. The almost assured destruction of their peoples, should humanity learn of the monsters that lived with them, was the obvious reason for secrecy. But the belief that humanity’s path was the better one was as much a danger to the fabric of the Old Races’ society as outright exposure. Margrit might well be doing none of them any favors by taking the stand that Kaaiai had offered.

None of them save one, and there was no indication he would appreciate it.

The elevator dinged, music muffled by the carpets. Margrit shook off the stillness that held her and managed a step or two away from the suite doors just as Tony Pulcella emerged from the elevators. They stared at each other, equally startled, before Margrit laughed. “Tony!”

The big Italian cop grinned and came down the hall with long strides, pulling her into a hug. “What’re you doing here?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing.” Margrit smiled up at him, dusting imaginary motes off his shoulders. He wore a suit without a tie, looking well-pressed and handsome. “I forgot you were on security detail.”

“Still don’t know how I got the job.” Tony gave a good-natured shrug.

Margrit’s smile died abruptly, leaving her mouth curved but empty of emotion. She shot a glance over her shoulder at the closed suite doors, anger bringing color to her cheeks. It was almost impossible Kaaiai had asked for Tony by chance, without knowing his erstwhile girlfriend had had dealings with both Janx and Daisani.

“Gotta say it’s less stressful than homicide, though. Maybe I oughta take a turn at doing this for a living. The hours are still crazy, and it’s boring as hell, but private security’s not as rough as being a cop. Might make it easier for us. What would you think? Hello?” he added after a few seconds, waving his hand in front of her face when she didn’t reply. “You with me, Grit?”

Margrit nodded, bringing herself back to the conversation. Outrage on Tony’s behalf was useless. Confessing to him she suspected he’d been placed on security detail so Kaaiai could have a discreet method of getting to Margrit sounded insulting to his skills, even if she could explain the extraordinary world that Kaaiai belonged to. But it gave her a little more measure of the man who’d made her an on-the-surface irresistible offer. Like Janx and Daisani, Kaaiai seemed to have no compunction against using humans to obtain his ends.

“I’m here. Sorry. I was thinking.” Her eyebrows furrowed as she pulled Tony’s suggestion back to mind. “Wouldn’t you hate it? You just said it’s boring, and you’ve only been doing it twelve hours.”

“For what I hear some private security pays, I could stand being bored. Might even help you pay off those student loans you’re always complaining about, if you’re nice,” he added with a wink.

“You know that’s posturing.” Her parents had paid for her schooling, an extravagance Margrit often felt embarrassed by, surrounded as she was by coworkers who had tens of thousands in loan bills.

“So maybe I could take you on some nice vacations.” Tony’s expression turned serious. “We’ve had this problem with our schedules all along, Grit. I know I said I’d look at business school if you really wanted me home by six every evening, but maybe something like this would work out for us. It’d kinda let me keep one foot in the game and you wouldn’t have to worry.”

“It’s worth thinking about.” Even as she spoke, guilt pounded through her veins in cold splashes. The offer that Kaaiai had laid out entwined her ever-more thoroughly in a world Tony didn’t belong to, and it was an offer Margrit doubted she’d resist. The breach they had worked so hard to close over the last weeks suddenly loomed again, widening with every moment. “But this probably isn’t the best time to talk about it. Shouldn’t you be at work?”

Tony glanced over her head toward Kaaiai’s suite. “Yeah, I—Hey, shouldn’t you be? What are you doing here, Margrit?”

“Mr. Kaaiai asked to see me.” Truth was the only answer she could come up with, feeble in its honesty. “It turned out he was a friend of Cara Delaney’s, the girl who asked me for help with the Daisani building, remember?”

“I remember.” Tony’s gaze darkened. “Was?”

“Oh. Oh! No, is. Is. She’s okay, Tony.” Relief brightened Margrit’s voice. “I just talked to her, in fact. Some of their friends packed her up and moved her out of the apartment that afternoon. They were afraid to get in touch with me in case Eliseo Daisani was trying to find her. She and Deirdre are okay.”

Answering relief turned Tony’s frown into a quick smile. “Maybe that’s how I ended up with this job. Your client rubbing elbows with the rich and famous. I gotta say, Grit, I could get used to you working with the high and mighty.”

Another stab of guilt assailed her. Margrit tried to push it off with a smile. “A young squatter and her baby don’t exactly qualify as high and mighty, Tony. Maybe it is how you got the job, though. Kaaiai could’ve looked me up and found out we were dating. Good for both of us, huh?” It was a less ugly interpretation than she’d imagined.

“Great for both of us. Look, I’m on till eleven tonight, or later if the function runs late, so—”

“So no dinner date. That’s okay. He’s only in town for ten days. We can handle a week and a half’s worth of disruption.”

“I’m glad.” Tony’s voice lowered. “Wasn’t that long ago that ten days meant we weren’t seeing each other anymore.”

“Things change.” For a moment the words sounded full of alarming portents. Margrit shivered and stood on her toes to steal a kiss. “I should get back to work. I’ll see you when we can, okay?”

Margrit smiled and Tony released her, waiting until she’d reached the elevator to call, “Hey.” When she looked back, he lowered his voice to say, “Love you.”

“Yeah.” Margrit dropped her gaze, trying to hold Tony’s image in her mind, then looked up with another smile. “You, too, babe. I’ll see you later.”




SEVEN


OPENING ARGUMENTS WERE brief and direct, but absorbed Margrit’s attention to a degree she was grateful for. A single day of interaction with the Old Races had thrown her world into chaos, and the opportunity to focus on something as ordinary as her job was almost liberating in its mundanity. Afternoon sunshine slipped across the courtroom through skylights, counting away minutes and hours of debate that she heard herself pursue with a passion she didn’t feel. Her client was guilty of rape, the evidence against him conclusive, but he’d insisted on a plea of not guilty and had forced a trial.

She’d faced the prosecuting attorney before, and approved of him in a clinical way. In a case like this one he focused heavily on the facts, leaving circus-ring tactics aside. He was still a showman, as most good lawyers were, but with the weight of evidence on his side he made only modest efforts to appeal to the jury’s emotions. They didn’t need to be led by the nose: it was enough to imagine the unspeakable crime being perpetrated against their mothers, their sisters, their daughters, themselves.

Nor did her client make a good defendant, even when not expected to speak for himself. She had discussed with him his posture, his expression, his body language more times than she could count. He still sat with open, sneering arrogance, as if his own sense of invulnerability would keep the jury from condemning him. Margrit had defended men like him in the past. They were always furious and astounded when they were found guilty.

The afternoon start to the trial meant it was unlikely to be concluded before the following morning, and even that would be quick, by Margrit’s estimation. Her shoulders unknotted a degree when the judge’s gavel came down for the final time that day, and the prosecuting attorney stepped across the aisle as her client was led away. “This is his last chance for a plea bargain, Counselor.”

Margrit shook her head as she shuffled papers into order. “A fact I’ll try to impress upon him, but he doesn’t believe he’s going to be found guilty.”

“Margrit, he was damn near caught in the act.”

She breathed a laugh, glancing up at her counterpart. Jacob Mills was a good ten years older than her, with gray starting to run through short-cropped, tight curls at his temples. He was exactly the kind of man her mother approved of, although the age difference would probably make Rebecca Knight raise an eyebrow. Margrit briefly entertained the idea of marrying another lawyer and dismissed it immediately: she had enough arguments with Tony, never mind someone trained in debate as she was. “I know, Jake. I’d just as soon we could all go home now, too, but I don’t think he’s going to take a plea.”

“You know my offer. It hasn’t changed.”

Margrit straightened, paperwork back in place. “That’s generous. I’ll give you a call tonight if he goes for it. Otherwise …”

They shook hands, exchanging resigned smiles as Jacob finished her sentiment: “Otherwise, I’ll see you in the morning.”

Despite the hour—it was well after five when she finished a fruitless discussion with her client—urgent voice mail brought her back to the office. She told herself that was the price of haring off to talk with selkies all morning, and kicked her shoes beneath her desk as she sat down to a pile of case files that hadn’t been there earlier.

A draft of cool air disturbed her studies some time later. Margrit glanced at her computer screen before twisting to see who else was working late. “Maybe we should get some di—”

A slim goateed man holding a glass-headed cane and wearing a dark suit stood a few feet away. “How generous. Do you always propose dinner to your wards, Margrit Knight?”

Margrit slumped, heartbeat rattling hard enough to kill any appetite she might have had. “Malik. How’d you—Never mind. You didn’t screw up anybody’s computer, did you?” Her cell phone had dissolved into a mess of useless electronic pixels after it had been treated to Malik’s ethereal manner of travel. Janx gleefully confessed that any electronics touched by a djinn met the same fate. It was impossible to put a bug on the dragonlord, so long as he employed Malik al-Massri.

Irritation filmed Malik’s sharp features. “No. I’m not here for petty vandalism. I understand you’re to be my . . .” His thin nostrils flared, as if the words were so distasteful as to produce a foul odor. “My protector.”

“Trust me, I’m not any happier about it than you are. I don’t suppose you’d be happy to just sit tight in the middle of the House of Cards, with four big burly guys keeping an eye on you, huh? It’d make life a lot easier for both of us.” Margrit bit her tongue on continuing. It was safe enough, comparitively, to respond to Malik’s arrogance with her own when they were at the House of Cards, under Janx’s watchful eye. Now there was no greater power on hand to control the djinn, and she didn’t want to offend him any more than she already had.

That led directly into her second reaction, which was gut-cold fear. Margrit had sized Malik up as dangerous in the first moments she’d met him, his ambitions and sense of self larger than he was. He was easy to offend, and she’d already done it more than once.

“On the contrary.” Malik took a few gliding steps toward her, his limp faint but noticeable. She came to her feet in nervous anticipation, as if there was somewhere to run. “I believe I’m a great deal less happy about it than you are. I do not require a human keeper, no more than sunlight requires that the shifting sand attend it.”

“You people have such gorgeous phrases.” Margrit startled him into silence, which helped her to regain her equilibrium. “People—humans—don’t talk the way you do. Not unless they’re making speeches. Look, I don’t even pretend that I could keep you safe if somebody wanted to take you out. You, you go …” Margrit fluttered her fingers in the air, not wanting to actually say “go poof,” though that was what the djinn more or less did. “I don’t even know how you injure somebody who turns incorporeal. It must be possible.” She focused briefly on the cane she’d never seen him without, then brought her eyes back to his, finding anger darkening there. “Oh, come on. I’m not making fun of you. You’d know if I was. I’m just saying it’s possible, right?”

Malik hissed, “Obviously.”

Margrit lifted her hands in supplication. “So Janx thinks somebody who knows how to hurt a djinn is out there, and he brought in somebody outside of his usual chain of command, outside of your people’s rules, to keep an eye on things. Shouldn’t you be flattered he’s that concerned about you, instead of pissed off?”

“Flattered. When the best �protection’ he’ll afford me is a weak human woman who admits her own uselessness as a guardian. Would you be flattered?”

“No.” A smile ghosted over Margrit’s mouth. “You’re not supposed to be making a counterargument here, Malik. I’m trying to sway the jury. Play along.”

“This is not a trial or a courtroom, sharmuta.” The last word’s sentiment was clear, and a sting of color came to Margrit’s cheeks. Malik took a final step forward, curling a hand over—into—Margrit’s throat. Air turned to unbreathable fog, clogging her throat and sending her heartbeat into terrorized spikes. She staggered back, trying to escape the djinn’s touch, but he flowed with her, fingers wrapped in her throat, almost palpable. Margrit swallowed convulsively, feeling a foreign body invading her throat like the thickness of a bad cough, swollen nodes closing off the possibility of breathing. Her chest ached, too little air caught there. Her chair caught her in the knees and she sat down again, a violent, awkward motion that Malik moved with easily. He leaned into her, fingers tightening around her windpipe, until his face was inches from hers.

“If I see you near me, if I discover you following me, if there is a hint of your presence, I will turn on you and kill you. I can rip your throat out like this, tear your heart from your body. I could make you a sacrifice to the wind, a better fate than you deserve. I will not be watched by one such as you. Do you understand me?”

Hot tears born of fear and rage spilled down her cheeks as Margrit nodded. Malik smiled, triumphant and vicious. “Goodbye, Margrit Knight.”

Then he hissed, jerking his hand back so quickly Margrit coughed and clutched her own throat, hardly believing she still breathed. Water made two bright marks on Malik’s wrist, shimmering, almost steaming, before he swiped his sleeve across them and smeared the tears away, leaving red spots behind. Margrit laughed, rasping her throat. “Just like the Wicked Witch, huh? All I have to do is throw a pail of water on you? Get out.” She pushed to her feet, drawing from a reserve of anger that went deeper than pain or fear. “Get out of here, you son of a bitch, and don’t you dare ever threaten me again. I know how to hurt you now.”

Malik curled a lip derisively, then faded in a swirl of fog, leaving Margrit standing alone with the crashing of her heart. Her chest still hurt, though she was unsure if it was from lack of oxygen or newborn relief. Only after long seconds of silence did she collapse back into her chair, fingertips pressed against her eyes as she tried to steady herself. Her stomach was a knot of churning sickness, sending tremors through her body. Tears would solve nothing, but they clung to her eyelashes and made her fingertips wet. She could fling them at Malik if he came back, tiny droplets made into a weapon. The thought gave her something to hang a rough laugh on. She dropped her hand, dragging in a deep breath as she stretched her chin toward the ceiling.

“Margrit?”

Margrit screamed loudly enough to echo and leapt out of her chair. It fell over in a clatter of metal and plastic, crashing against the desk. She found herself with a fist drawn back, ready to hit anything that approached.

Her boss stood in her cubicle door, a hand clutched over his heart. “Good God, Margrit, are you all right? You scared the hell out of me!”

Margrit croaked, “Russell. You scared me.”

“No kidding!” He let go of his heart to hang on to the edge of her cubicle and stare at her. Margrit planted both palms on her desk and dropped her head as she tried to calm herself. “Are you okay, Margrit? I thought I heard you talking to someone.”

“I’m … Yeah, I’m okay. I didn’t know you were here.” She chuckled weakly. “Obviously. I was … on the phone.”

“It’s nearly eight. What are you still doing here?”

“Is it that late?” Margrit turned away, picking her chair up. It was heavy and awkward, made worse by her hands still trembling. Russell came in to help, his eyebrows drawn with concern.

“It is. I know you’re hopelessly dedicated to the job, but you should have gone home after the trial.” He trailed off, frowning at her. “Everything go all right?”

“It’s fine. I’m losing spectacularly and Martinez won’t take a plea, but that’s his problem, not mine. We’re back on in the morning. Might even be out of there by noon. I can’t see the jury hanging around arguing about this one.” Margrit pressed her hands into the fabric of her chair, watching her knuckles whiten. “I came back to follow up on some paperwork, and I guess I lost track of time. What are you doing here?” She glanced up at her dapper boss with a smile that felt fragile. “Even the head man gets to go home sometime, right? You look like you’re going out,” she added, realizing he wasn’t in the suit he’d worn earlier that day. The one he wore now wasn’t quite a tux, but its sharp clean lines looked as expensive.

“I am. Dinner with my wife. It’s her birthday, and I forgot her gift at the office.” He slipped a hand into his pocket and came up with a jewelry box that he balanced on his fingertips, eyebrows elevated in invitation. Margrit opened it to reveal a gold ring set with diamonds and pink alexandrite. “It’s her fifty-fifth. Think this’ll help her forget that?”

“It’s gorgeous.” Margrit smiled and closed the box again as she returned it. “I think she’ll love it.”

“I hope so,” Russell said dryly. “It cost a month’s salary. You don’t have to mention that to anybody.”

Margrit laughed. “Russell, you dress so well I can’t help thinking a month’s salary goes a long way.”

He brushed a mote off his suit and shook his head, smiling. “You would, wouldn’t you? No, back in the days of the dinosaurs I made some money in stocks. I shop out of that budget. Come on.” He tilted his head toward the door. “You need to get out of here. I’ll walk you down.”

Margrit cast a glance at the paperwork on her desk. “But—”

“Boss’s orders. Besides, you haven’t yet told me what our rich Hawaiian friend wanted.” Russell picked Margrit’s coat up off the floor where it’d fallen with the chair and put it around her shoulders. “Will you be abandoning us to pull in a corporate paycheck with a philanthropist’s agenda?”

“Well, now that I know I’ll never match your wardrobe on what I make at Legal Aid, I’m considering it. No, he saw me talking to Eliseo Daisani at the party last night and wanted to know what I knew about him.” Margrit sat down long enough to retrieve her shoes and put them on, then turned off her light and fell into step beside her boss. Malik was probably long gone, but she felt safer in Russell’s company.

“I’d think he could find out anything he needed to through more usual avenues. What’d he want to know?” Russell held the door for her, and Margrit, left to lead, headed for the stairs instead of the elevator. Russell muttered, “I forgot you took the stairs,” but caught up easily.

“I always take the stairs. That way I can eat as much Ben & Jerry’s as I want.” Margrit trailed her hand along the railing. “I’m sure he’s got people who do nothing but research other people for him, but I get the idea he likes to pretend he’s a man of the people. Could I have used �people’ any more times in that sentence?”

“I don’t think so.” Russell flashed a grin at her, then glanced toward the parking garage.

“Can I give you a lift anywhere?”

Margrit smiled and shook her head. “No, thanks. I’ll take the subway home. Probably faster, anyway. Tell Joyce happy birthday.”

“I will, thanks. See you in the morning, Margrit.”

“�Night, Russell.” Margrit tightened her coat around herself with a sigh, then hurried for the subway station.

Halfway home from the subway Margrit took a detour, impulse driving her to the park in the skirt suit she’d worn to work, rather than changing into running gear before going there. The sky had lost its last hints of twilight, and she hoped wearing daytime clothes might signal a change of intent to her gargoyle protector. Curiosity would impel most humans to investigate. Gargoyles might be made of harder stuff, but she hoped not.

She slid her fingertips over the sleeve of her jacket, imagining briefly what Alban’s expression might be had she worn the white silk dress of the night before. He was, if anything, an element of earth, so perhaps the close-fitting dress wouldn’t bring fire to his eyes, as it had with Janx. But it might have brought a subtle shifting to the forefront, the rooted approval of stone. A glimmer of Alban’s admiration meant more, even in her imagination, than Janx’s easy flattery ever could.

The temperature dropped further and her determination to face Alban girded as a lawyer instead of in exercise gear seemed increasingly foolish. She might have kept warm by running, and the gargoyle would watch from above no matter what she wore.

A few runners, familiar strangers to her, nodded greetings or flashed smiles, though they’d never exchanged names. One, a tall raw woman with dreadlocks pulled into a thick ponytail, spun as she passed, running backward and cocking a curious eyebrow at Margrit’s outfit.

“Meeting someone,” Margrit called in explanation, and the woman’s expression cleared into a smile. She turned away again with a wave, stretching her stride out until night rendered her invisible.

“So much for New Yorkers’ legendary indifference.” A hint of an Eastern European accent flavored the statement, as did a heavy sense of the inevitable. Hope and relief prickled Margrit’s skin, then sank inward, filling an emptiness inside her with warmth. It seemed absurd to tremble as she turned, but her steps were unsteady as she did so, searching for the speaker.

Alban stood almost swallowed by shadows at the edge of the fountain’s circle of light, suit jacket flipped open to allow his hands to ride in his pockets. His stance was broader than usual, feet planted shoulder width apart as if he expected to take a hit. Even his posture was more human than she’d seen it before, shoulders rounded and weight rolled forward through his hips. His head was ducked, so that when she met his eyes it was through fine strands of white-blond hair falling loose from their ponytail and into his face.

“Did Grace teach you to stand like that? Like a fashion model,” Margrit said as Alban’s gaze came up writ with confusion. “Aggressively sexy for the camera. She stands that way.” A flash of the two of them together, both pale, Grace in her unrelenting black leather and Alban a studied contrast in his business suit, made Margrit curl a hand in a fist, then loosen it again. In the intervening weeks, Alban might have shared considerably more than a new way to stand with the under-street vigilante, but that was the path he’d chosen. Just as Margrit had chosen a sunlit world, and a boyfriend whose work demanded much, but didn’t steal away every hour from dawn to dusk.

No. Alban had chosen that particular path for her.

Margrit’s hand curled a second time, as if she picked a fight with herself. She’d chosen her daylight life as much as Alban had, by opting not to pursue him until the Old Races sought her out again. Laying blame at the gargoyle’s feet was cheating, and she didn’t like the impulse.

“I need your help.” She spoke too abruptly and the words were all wrong, nothing of what she wanted to say in them. Alban’s expression remained impassive. “Staying away from me to try to protect me doesn’t work. I’m in over my head with your people again, and I really could use your help.” Still the wrong words. Margrit set her teeth together. “Alban, I … Come on.” She gave an unhappy laugh. “Give me something here, will you?”

But for a breath of wind stirring his hair, he might have been carved of stone. Like talking to a brick wall, though Margrit couldn’t conjure up any humor at the thought. After a few seconds she pulled her lower lip between her teeth.

“Yeah. Yeah, all right, fine. Have it your way.” Hands knotted into fists once more, she nodded, then turned and walked away. Disappointment churned in her stomach and she told it to go away, trying to build a slow anger from it instead. The gargoyle had gotten her into the Old Races’ world, and if he didn’t want to help her now that she was ensconced, then to hell with him. A petulant impulse to show him, like a child would, latched onto growing anger and helped it flare.

“Margrit.” Alban’s voice cut through the darkness, soft and weary. “Margrit, wait.”




EIGHT


FRUSTRATED HUMOR LANCED through burgeoning anger as Margrit recalled the first time she’d walked away from the gargoyle. He hadn’t called her back and she’d been oddly dismayed, as though he’d failed to fulfill his role as required by the script. The mysterious stranger was supposed to call the principled woman’s name, and she was supposed to falter, then turn back to face the love she’d been denying.

Now, finding her steps slowing and coming to a stop, Margrit discovered it was just as frustrating to play the part as it was to have it stymied. A woman of her age, from her era, wasn’t really supposed to be so easily swayed, not by something as simple as her name being called across a dark pathway. That was for the movies, not her life.

Margrit turned around slowly, ironically aware of her own fickle nature. Alban had moved closer, coming into the light. He looked as she felt: conflicted, hopeful, wary, helpless. “I didn’t think you’d stop.”

“I’m not sure I would have, if my intellect were in charge. I guess it isn’t, because now it’s killing me not to run toward you in slow motion. The only thing that’s stopping me is I’m waiting for the music to swell.”

A smile etched itself into one corner of Alban’s mouth. “Next time I’ll try to arrange for an orchestra. Margrit—” He broke off, then spread his hands. “What’s happened? Your life seemed … settled.”

“How can anything be settled when I’ve got a gargoyle watching over me?” Margrit tried to keep accusation from her tone, making the question a genuine one. “Thank you, by the way. For jumping those guys the other night. You know that’s the first time anyone’s ever actually come at me? The news said mugging attempts in the park are up since January.”

“You mean, since Ausra murdered four women.” Alban shifted his shoulders as if he might move wings. “I’ve noticed more police recently. I’m sorry. I know you view the park as your haven. To have it violated must be distressing.”

“It’d be more distressing if you hadn’t fallen out of the sky to save me last night. Alban …” It was Margrit’s turn to trail off, staring across the distance the gargoyle kept between them. Amber streetlights took what little color he had and distorted it, yellowing the silver of his suit jacket and turning his shirt sallow. Margrit glanced at her own clothes, cream bleached to a sickly white and tan deadened into neutrality. Her skin was as unhealthy a shade as Alban’s shirt.

“Can we go somewhere else?” For the second time she surprised herself with abruptness. “Out to dinner, something, I don’t care. Just somewhere inside, somewhere real.” She looked up to see Alban abandon the wide stance he’d taken and come to his full human height, more than a foot taller than her.

“Real?”

“Indoors,” Margrit repeated. “So the light doesn’t screw up the colors. So I can see you properly. Please.”

“Margrit.” Her name came heavily, a sound of defeat. “It’s better for you to remain apart from my world. Dining with me only … prolongs the inevitable.”

“Which inevitable is that, Alban?” She stepped toward him, watching him tense and glance toward the trees, as if seeking escape. “Are we talking about inevitable heartbreak? An inevitable clash of your world and mine? Inevitable ending to whatever this thing between us is? Or are we talking about the fact that I’m inevitably stuck in your world already, because that’s the inevitable I’m facing.” She kept her voice low as she approached him, trying not to let irritation flare. “I’ve been accosted by a dragon, a djinn, a vampire and a selkie in the last twenty-four hours, and nothing you do is going to change that. I’m part of your world. If there’s an inevitable here, it’s that we’re involved with each other. Did you really think I’d be allowed to stay out of it once I knew the Old Races existed?”

“Accosted?”

Margrit let her head fall back, blowing out an exasperated sigh. “Well, at least something got your attention. Nobody seriously hurt me, but your world’s not going to leave me alone.” She took a breath and held it, touching her fingers against his sleeve. “Can we please go somewhere else and talk? You might not feel the cold, but I do, and I really am hungry. I came here from work and I haven’t eaten.”

“I’m unaccustomed to dining in public.”

“I’m unaccustomed to having to ask a guy three times to get a dinner date out of him. We �re both going to have to adjust. Will you please come out to dinner with me?”

Alban hesitated a moment longer, then retreated one step into shadow. “No. Margrit, I am sorry for involving you in my world, and I should have acted sooner, before the inevitable did draw you back in. I’ll do what I can to loosen the chains that bind you. I swore to protect you—”

“So help me, Alban! Skulking around in the sky isn’t protecting me, not when Janx wants me to keep Malik alive, and Malik’d rather kill me than let that happen!”

Alban flinched, his expression incredulous as he searched her gaze for truth. For a moment a thread of hope tightened in Margrit’s heart. A relieved smile curved her mouth and she moved forward, but Alban retreated again, deliberate and intricate as a dance. “I’ll deal with Janx,” he growled. “Forgive me, Margrit. I shouldn’t have let this go on so long.” He set his jaw, resolution coming into his eyes. “I will not watch for you again at night. I will not be here to protect you. Fondness kept me lingering too long as it is, and has done neither of us any favors.”

Cold clenched Margrit’s stomach, dismay born from belief. “I don’t believe you. You’re a gargoyle. You protect. That’s what you do, what you are.”

“And the best way to protect you is to leave you very much alone. My mistakes are to your detriment. I will always be sorry for that.” Alban pulled in a deep breath, broadening his chest. “Be well, Margrit Knight. Goodbye.”

He turned and sprang into the shadows, into the sky, a pale blur of winged imagination before treetops and distance took him away. Margrit shouted his name, running a few steps forward before stopping again in open-mouthed fury as the gargoyle disappeared from sight for the second time in three nights.

Regret and rage wound through him like snakes, conspiring to take away his breath. He ought to have known better; he did know better. It wasn’t only Margrit who might look for him in the night sky, and of those who were likely to, she was the least troublesome. He ought to have kept his word to himself, his promise to the beautiful lawyer, and stayed away. Instead he’d let sentiment rule him—he, a gargoyle, bending to the whim of emotion—and now Margrit paid the price.

Well, if irrationality was to govern him, he would ride it as far as it took him.

He folded his wings and dove, flight from the park having carried him high and to the north. He back-winged only a matter of yards above the rooftop he sought, wings aching with the strain of pulling out of the dive. Then again, it wasn’t a soft landing he intended. Stony weight smashed down, Alban landing in a three-point crouch that shook the roof, and, he trusted, echoed deep into the warehouse establishment below him. Caution made him transform to his human shape, heavy taloned fingers turning to a clenched mortal fist before his gaze.

Seconds later the rooftop door flew open and half a dozen armed men spilled through it. Alban lifted his gaze by degrees, knowing full well the picture he made: a solitary, pale man splashed against the black rooftop, a place with no easy access. The wind lifted his hair and opened his suit coat, making a flare like wings as he came to his feet with slow deliberation. The men who surrounded him—tough-looking, as if they’d seen their share of battle—exchanged wary glances, unsure of how to respond to his fearless stance.

One raised a gun as Alban stepped forward, daring to block the gargoyle’s path to the door. “You can’t go in th—”

“Stand down, Ricardo.” It wasn’t the voice Alban wanted to hear, but it would do; Malik appeared in the doorway, his cane held by its throat as he swung it. “Korund. What a surprise.”

Alban walked forward until he stood inches from the djinn, staring more than eight inches down at him. “I am already an exile. If any harm comes to Margrit Knight, I have nothing to lose by avenging her. You would do well to remember that.” He felt surprising freedom in voicing the threat, as though it broke shackles he’d been unaware of wearing. “I will see Janx, and I will see him now.”

“Janx doesn—nnk!” Fury lit Malik’s eyes as Alban planted a hand against his collarbones and shoved him against the door frame. It proved that Alban’s decision to transform to a human shape had been wise: had the armed men now behind him known that Malik was other than human, Alban would never have been able to put a hand on the djinn. The distinctive sound of weapons cocking followed hard on Malik’s outraged protest. Alban ignored them and stalked down concrete stairs toward Janx’s office. Malik’s voice sounded, ordering a stand-down for the second time. The door above banged shut, no heavy mortal footsteps following him. An instant later Malik coalesced in front of Alban, rage contorting his features.

Alban ignored him, startled to discover how little he had to say to the djinn. Malik vaporized again rather than be trampled, and a hint of small-minded glee bubbled at the back of Alban’s mind. He and the djinn could, at best, stymie one another. Malik might be capable of taking the breath from Alban’s body, but could do nothing to the gargoyle’s stone form, and gargoyles, as a people, were far more patient than the djinn. A gargoyle could remain in his stone shape until his djinn tormentors grew bored and left.

It would hardly come to that on Janx’s threshold, though. Malik didn’t reappear a second time, no doubt gone to warn his master of Alban’s arrival. That was unnecessary; short of human methods of destruction, only a gargoyle could manage the building-shaking landing Alban had made a minute earlier, and the only other gargoyle in New York was in Janx’s employ.

Concrete steps turned to iron grating, creaking beneath Alban’s weight. As the casino below came into view, he paused, fully aware of the windowed alcove to his right that overlooked the same broad room he studied. This was Janx’s House of Cards, the center of more criminal activities than Alban could easily name. The police, he understood, often managed to arrest minor players in Janx’s empire, but Janx himself went unscathed. Whether that was because he owned enough of the city to keep himself safe or because the authorities feared what might rise in his place, Alban didn’t know.

Below him, the desperate and weary played poker and roulette, hoping for a life-changing break of luck. The air tasted of despair, neon lights turning smoke to off-colored swirls as dull as the hope in the room. No one looked up: so human of them. Alban might well have walked through the warehouse’s upper reaches in his natural form and gone unnoticed. The temptation to risk it by shifting flared and died again. Anger had carried him this far, but a gargoyle’s temperament didn’t lend itself to impetuousness. Alban came down the stairs, following a hallway to Janx’s office, disconcerted by its familiarity. It was not a place he would consider himself comfortable in. Perhaps the ire that drove him burned away minor uneasiness.

Janx waited at the window within his alcove, a cigarette held loosely in his fingers as he watched the casino below. Neon light colored his skin to red and made his smile bloody as Alban entered the room. “I can’t wait to hear this.”

“How much credit do you deserve, Janx?” Alban kept his voice to a low rumble, undermining the dragonlord’s light tenor and amusement. “How much of my arrival here did you orchestrate?”

Janx turned from the window, cigarette moved to his lips so he could spread long-fingered hands in a protestation of innocence. “I can only hope I’m clever enough to have arranged this. Tell me your suspicions and I’ll tell you if I’m that deucedly maniacal.”

“Margrit Knight was attacked in the park two nights ago. Did you send the muggers to force my hand? To create a situation in which she was inexorably drawn back into our world?”

Hard-edged regret followed astonishment in Janx’s jade gaze, answer enough, before a lazy smile slid into place and masked his true emotions. He drew breath to speak, and Alban made a short gesture, cutting him off. Janx’s lashes lowered and he pursed his lips, echoing Alban’s gesture more languidly. “I would have,” he said, rather than lay claim to the devious behavior. “Weeks ago, if I’d thought of it. My compliments to you, Stoneheart. Who would have imagined you to have such a suspicious mind?”

“It seems I’ve been keeping bad company of late. Call off your favor, Janx. You know Margrit can’t keep someone like Malik safe. Whatever game you’re playing at has nothing to do with his life.”

A corner of Janx’s mouth turned up in slow wonder. “Au contraire, my old friend, it certainly does. Though you’re right about Margrit being doomed to fail. It’s a test.”

“For Eliseo. To see how much she’s worth. Call it off.”

Janx brought his palms together in a lazy clap. “You’ve become sly, Alban. Whatever is the world coming to?”

“Janx.”

“Do you want to bargain, Stoneheart?” Janx stepped away from his window to drag a folding chair from the table, whipping it around to sit on it backward. Alban watched Janx’s theatrics without changing expression, and remained standing, knowing he loomed, even in his human form.

The dragonlord thrust out his lower lip. “Margrit is much more obliging than you are, Alban. She plays along.”

“Margrit is human.” Alban’s voice dropped another register, scraping the bottom of a mortal vocal range. “I am less fragile than that.”

“If you want to bargain, Stoneheart, let’s be about it. What do I gain for releasing Margrit from the favor she owes me?”

“How long has it been, Janx?” The depth left Alban’s voice, replaced by softness. “How many years?”

Jade eyes darkened and muscle tightened in Janx’s jaw. “You know the answer.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

“Three hundred. Three hundred years and forty-two, since London burned and you swore an oath to men not of your race.”

“Not men.”

“We have no other word for ourselves. It’s lost to time and human influence, if we ever had one. We have always been �the people,’ among our languages. Do not,” the dragon said impatiently, “play word games with me, Alban. Your bargain. I would hear it.”

Alban stepped forward, leaning on the laminate table. It creaked beneath his weight, as if he wore his gargoyle form. “My bargain was made three and a half centuries ago. Let. Her. Go.”

Janx surged over the table, landing a hand’s-breadth from Alban. Though more slender in build, the dragonlord stood nearly of a height with Alban in his human form. For all that he moved gracefully, his breath came harsh and loud. “You would not.” Green flame brightened and danced in his eyes, disbelief warring with outrage. “You cannot.”

“Bad company, Janx. Perhaps I’ve learned something in all my years of exile, after all.”

“Or in the last weeks, the world rejoined and rediscovered. You would not dare.” Uncertainty began to give way to fury, the color in Janx’s eyes shifting from green to the shade of low-burning embers.

“All these centuries of exile, Janx. All for the sake of a promise made. I have nothing left to lose. Don’t,” he added abruptly, granite hardening his voice. “Don’t try to hold Margrit over my head now, like a trinket whose life commands mine. If any harm comes to her, I have no more stomach for you or Eliseo or your ages-old games. I hold your secrets, Janx. If you want them kept, make Margrit’s safety your priority.”

Janx rolled his jaw, eyes dark with anger. “The favor’s been asked and agreed to, Stoneheart. If I call it back, I’ve burned it up. Your little lawyer’s too good a negotiator to let that go. And another of my men died tonight. I will not let Malik go unattended.”

“Keep him from foolishness in the day and I’ll keep him safe at night.”

Janx pursed his lips. “How? I gave Margrit an impossible task. It’s no easier for a gargoyle to watch over a djinn.”

Alban shrugged. “So long as he carries his cane, I can track him, and I’ve never seen him without it.”

“His cane? Do you have a deep sensitivity to baubles, Alban? I thought that was a dragonly trait.”

“Avarice for baubles is a dragonly trait. Sensitivity to stone is a gargoyle’s gift.” Faint humor rolled through Alban when Janx’s expression remained confounded. “The head’s not glass, Janx. It’s corundum. White sapphire. The easiest of any stone for my family to track.”

A ripple of disbelief crossed Janx’s face, heightening Alban’s humor. He kept it contained, amused enough by the dragon’s disconcertment to draw the moment out. “You thought it was glass. I never knew the dragonly trait for sensing wealth was nothing more than human legend. Malik must enjoy that.”

“Admiring wealth is not the same as sensing its presence.” Janx’s voice was hoarse. “That stone is as large as his fist. Where did he get it?”

“I can’t imagine. And if you want me to be able to track him, you won’t ask, or he’ll put it aside. Do we have an accord, Janx?”

Another spasm of avarice crossed the dragonlord’s face before Janx visibly set aside his interest in the stone. “Split the favor. Margrit’s duty in sunlight, yours by the stars. I have other reasons to keep that game in play.” At Alban’s slow nod, Janx fell back a step, a scowl fitting over his lively features. “Who taught you to fight, Alban? I don’t remember this in you.”

“You should.” Alban’s voice roughened again. “My brothers would never have trusted their most precious confidences to anyone weaker than themselves. Time’s dulled your memory, dragonlord.” He smiled faintly. “You should ask a gargoyle to remember for you.”

Sudden greed flashed in Janx’s eyes. “Oh, I intend to. I intend to, Alban. Like it or not, after all this time, you’ve chosen a side. You came to me, not to Eliseo.” Greed faded into a sharp smile as he spread his hands. “Welcome home, Stoneheart. After so long, let me welcome you to the House of Cards.”




NINE


HURRYING HOME THROUGH the park without the confidence of having her inhuman defender watching from above was more nerve-rattling than Margrit would have imagined. Bad enough to be without his protection; worse still to be dressed in work clothes, unable to run reliably. She unlocked the front door to her apartment building and stepped inside, a rope of tension released from within her shoulders, as if the door closing behind her made the world a safer place.

It wasn’t cold enough outside to make her feel as numb as she did. Margrit climbed the flights of stairs to her apartment heavily, legs aching with the effort. It simply hadn’t occurred to her that Alban might flat-out reject her request for help. That he might disappear into the night like a ghost, leaving behind nothing more than the certainty that this time he meant it: he would not return to watch over her. Without Alban she had no support amongst the Old Races, no one she trusted.

“Grit? Is that you?” The question sailed out of the kitchen almost before Margrit had the key in the lock, Cole’s baritone carrying concern.

“Yeah. Sorry I’m late. I was at the office.” Margrit followed her housemate’s voice to the kitchen and sat down on the stool next to the telephone.

Cole turned away from doing dishes, an eyebrow lifted dubiously, then both rising in surprise. “You really were. I figured you’d be running in the park.”

“No.” Margrit looked at her hands. “Not tonight.”

“Maybe you should. Not that I want to encourage you to do stupid things, but you sound like the dog died.” Cole picked up a dish towel, drying his hands, then folded his arms across his chest. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m thinking about taking another job.” The idea formulated as she spoke.

Disbelief shot Cole’s voice into a higher register. “You’re kidding. What, did a position open up in the D.A.’s office? I thought you and Legal Aid were bound in holy matrimony.”




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