by C. E. Murphy
Jana slipped her arm through his anyway. "One's children are supposed to have more refined tastes than one's self. Emma makes amazing lemon meringue pie. If you're very nice, maybe she'll make you one and you can see what I mean about restaurant pie."
"I have had homemade pie before, Jana," Janx said dryly. "That's no reason to reject what's more readily available."
"It is when what's available isn't worth eating. Father," Jana said more quietly, more carefully, as they exited the church, and Janx looked down at her with a gaze so unguarded she squeezed his arm, almost a hug, as she whispered, "Thank you."
"Not at all, Jana. Not at all. That's what family is for."
21st CENTURY GHOST
The phone rang, blaring R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Tony made a face and answered it with, "If I'd been brave enough to discuss it out loud I would have called you in the first place."
"Don't be ridiculous. Nobody ever calls anybody anymore if they can possibly avoid it. Seriously, you and Grace?"
"You've got to admit she's kind of a…hell of a woman, Grit."
"Ghost. She's a hell of a ghost." Margrit's voice sparkled, if that was even possible. "Yes, she is. Where do you want to take her out?"
Tony groaned, sinking into his chair. Technically it was his lunch break and discussing his love life aloud in the precinct wouldn't draw attention. In reality he worked with detectives who worked lunch at their desks, dealing with overdue paperwork, so he mumbled deliberately, instead of speaking clearly. "I was thinking Cam and Cole's wedding."
On the other end of the line, Margrit Knight squeaked like she'd swallowed a Life Savers whole. "You want to take her to a wedding as a first date? Damn, man, are you just gonna go straight to putting a ring on it? I didn't know you two had even talked to each other!"
"There was some down time between all the…excitement." Tony pulled a hand over his face, then kicked his feet onto his desk and tilted back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. There had been a leaky pipe in it sometime before he'd started working there, and a brown watermark still stained the tiles. Once in a while he considered getting a can of white spray paint and painting it over, but the faint yellowing of age on all the other tiles would suddenly be obvious if he did that. The guerrilla tactic of having the whole squad sweep in some night, repaint the whole ceiling, and swoop out again had occurred to him recently, but he chalked that up to too much exposure to the Old Races. Or maybe just to having learned about them; finding out there were dragons and djinn and gargoyles—"Oh my," he breathed aloud, and Margrit, on the other end of the line, said, "Yeah," with a rueful note in her voice, as though she'd understood his whole thought process perfectly.
And maybe she had. She'd always been an astute lawyer, but something had changed in her recently. More than Tony knew, probably, but he knew for sure she'd been given two sips of vampire blood, gifts of health and life. It might have made her telepathic, too, although he gathered that was more a gargoyle's forte. Not that they were telepathic, exactly, but they communicated within an…over-mind…and Margrit had slipped between the cracks, found her way into that shared mind somehow. So he didn't know; she could be telepathic now. "You'd better focus on prosecuting, then."
"What?" Margrit sounded amused, and clearly didn't know what he meant, which suggested it was only long familiarity, and not telepathy, that had allowed her to understand the oh my comment. Tony shook his head like she could see him. "Nothing. Never mind. Do you think she'd go out with me?"
"I have no idea, Tony. You'd have to ask her."
"I don't even know where she lives. Or how to find her."
"Go down to the speakeasy. I bet she keeps a scout there, just in case anybody comes looking for her."
"I'm a NYPD detective," Tony said after a moment's silence. "You'd think I might have come up with that on my own."
"I'm sure you would have, if you were acting in your capacity as one of the city's finest," Margrit said cheerfully. "However, when you're reduced to calling ex-girlfriends to ask for dating advice, you have slid firmly into hopeless romantic territory, and nobody expects a hopeless romantic to be able to do detective work."
"That doesn't make me feel reassured."
"I'm not at all sure that's what I was trying to accomplish," Margrit said, still cheerfully. "Go get 'em, Tiger."
Tony muttered, "For God's sake, Margrit," and hung up to the sound of her cackles.
#
No one—almost no one—knew who'd built the speakeasy into an unused subway tunnel a hundred or so years ago. Maybe more; maybe it hadn't always been a speakeasy. But it was recognizably one when Grace O'Malley, the Big Apple's favorite leather-clad vigilante, had quietly informed historical preservation societies and city officials that she had 'discovered' it beneath the city streets. It had become a tourist destination since then, and most of the room was cordoned off, keeping it safe from oily fingers and sweaty hands.
He hadn't been to the speakeasy before—first it was too popular as a new tourist site, and then it was too late: he was a New Yorker, and never habitually went to what visitors regarded as touristy spots. The only reason he'd been to anything on Broadway was Margrit, who liked musicals, although in his secret heart, Tony admitted he wouldn't turn down tickets to Hamilton if they fell his way.
The photos he'd seen of the speakeasy almost did it justice. It had been built into the subway tunnel itself, out of some kind of golden wood that had been polished until it gleamed. There were electric light fixtures so closely matched in color they seemed to grow out of the wood, and thick clouded glass made the lights throw a gold glow everywhere. There were abstract Tiffany windows set into the back wall of the speakeasy, random patterns of brilliant colors. Tony had seen the pictures they made when overlaid, and tried to find the shapes of dragons and selkies hidden in the splashes. He almost could, but only almost. That was probably part of how the Old Races stayed hidden: not even people who knew what they were looking at could quite see it.
The rest of the room—it really was only a room, only one single curved tunnel through time—held lounges and velvet chairs, chess sets and glasses he assumed were also Tiffany in origin, with thick red and gold carpets under dark red hardwood tables. Everything about the room, except the stained glass windows, was done in red and gold, like someone wealthy had waltzed through dripping richness and left it to lie where it fell.
This space had been shared territory between the dragonlord Janx and the master vampire Eliseo Daisani, Tony remembered sourly, and thought that was exactly how the speakeasy had been decorated. Even the modern velvet cords that kept people away from the antiques looked unusually expensive, as if the city hadn't wanted to bring the tone down. There were a number of people, some of them guards, filtering through the narrow paths made by the cordons. Most of them had cameras and phones out, one or two trying to get a signal to post their selfies right away. Tony chuckled and stepped back out of the door, watching the entrance that led back up to the streets. A teenage girl with her hair done in cornrows watched him with a look that said she figured he was a cop, even if he was in jeans and a baseball jacket. Tony lifted his chin in greeting and she edged back without really moving. Not quite afraid of him, but wary. After a minute, Tony poked his head back into the speakeasy and got one of their informational flyers, scribbling a note on it. Then he turned it into a paper airplane and threw it toward the girl.
'Toward' was generous. It flew a few feet, spun in a couple of circles, and skidded to the floor a lot closer to Tony than the girl. He pulled a face and went and got it, throwing it again. It did the same thing and he collected it, exasperated, to try to improve its aerodynamics. Before he finished, the girl, looking amused instead of wary, came over, took the flyer from him, and folded it into a completely different airplane that flew from one end of the hall to the other without so much as a twirl. Tony watched it bump into the far wall, crinkling its nose, and turned an admiring look on the girl. "You must be good in your engineering classes."
"It asked if you knew Grace."
The girl backed up a step. "Why does a cop want to know?"
"I'm a friend of Margrit Knight's. I know Grace. I just don't know how to get ahold of her." Tony lifted his hands, fingers spread.
"How come you want to?"
Tony wrinkled his face. "To ask her out."
Sheer glee and a bright white smile split the girl's face. "I'll let her know."
"Y—" There was no point: the girl darted off, leaving Tony behind with his head hanging and a rueful smile pulling at his lips.
#
Once upon a time, it had been unusual for someone to come knocking at the balcony door. The balcony, after all, was nine stories up, roughly the size and shape of a fire escape grill, and had no exterior access. Never-the-less, Grace O'Malley—rangy, bleach-blonde, leather-clad; basically everything top modeling agencies were looking for—stood out there, leaning on its waist-high railing. She'd knocked, which was observing protocol, by Old Races standards; most of them could rip doors off their hinges, if they wanted to. Not that Grace was actually of the Old Races, but she belonged in the same headspace, as far as Margrit was concerned: not human, imbued with magic, living a secret life.
There wasn't anything particularly secretive about arriving on the balcony to say, "He wants to what?", though. Margrit, both exasperated and amused, threw her hands up.
"I don't know why you're talking to me about this. I'm not a matchmaker. Come in, it's cold out there." It wasn't, or at least, she didn't feel the cold the way she used to, and Grace, as far as Margrit knew, didn't feel it at all. The ghost drifted inside to lean against the kitchen counter instead of the balcony railing anyway.
"People don't ask Grace out, love. I reckoned you'd know what was going on in his mind. I also know where you live."
"Oh, that's reassuring. You're a ghost. Can't you find out where he lives through some kind of secret network?" Margrit got water from the behemoth of a fridge, patting it fondly as she lifted the jug to ask if Grace wanted any. The ghost nodded, took the glass she was offered, and said, dryly, "I'm using my secret network right now, lawyer."
"Oh, pfft. I'm not secret."
"No, love, you're just the core holding all the Old Races' secrets in the city together."
Margrit rolled her eyes, but didn't argue, that time. It had only been days since Janx and Daisani had both fled New York, and the ramifications of their empires falling to selkie and djinn hands were still rumbling. Not even rumbling, really; the truth was things had barely begun to settle, and it was likely to be months or years before both empires ran smoothly again. Until then, Grace was right: Margrit was the mediator. The Negotiator, a title she'd stepped up and claimed for herself, even knowing its costs. The truth was, by the time all the dust had settled, she would be irrevocably bound up in the Old Races' world, in their negotiations and their decisions about shaping their future.
As if there had ever been a moment, from the first time she laid eyes on Alban Korund, that that hadn't been true. Margrit smiled, shook her head, and said, "So what is it you want, Tony's address or his phone number? Because, for the record, I'm not handing over his address without his permission."
"Does Grace look like she carries a mobile?"
"Grace sounds like she's affecting 'mobile' because she's Irish-born, never mind that she came off the boat three hundred years before phones were invented." Margrit snorted as Grace gave a guilty-as-charged shrug. "How do you communicate in the modern day without a cell phone? Messages in a bottle? Graffiti? Morse code?"
"Believe it or not, lawyer, there are still functioning pay phones around this city, and name me a business that doesn't still have a land line. Why would someone like me want to carry a beacon for the cops to track? And reception is terrible in the tunnels anyway. You could call him for me."
"Are you twelve? I am not playing—" Margrit broke off to laugh. "Telephone. I am not playing telephone between two adults who are trying to set up a date. You know where he works. Send him a note by courier. I don't know, but don't put me in the middle of it."
Grace stared at her long and hard for a moment, then shoved away from the kitchen counter in a sharp, explosive motion that contained—not anger, Margrit thought, but perhaps fear. Which seemed absurd; Grace O'Malley was one of the most brazenly confident people she'd ever met, but she had an aura of real discomfort. When she spoke, it was without the usual devil-may-care edge to her voice. "It's been a long time since Grace has had a date, love."
Surprise curved a smile over Margrit's lips. "Well, Tony's a good guy to start with, then."
"Is he? You broke up with him."
"About seven times," Margrit agreed, still smiling, but it faded. She folded her arms under her breasts, studying her feet, and said, "I used to say we were too stubborn, too much the same and too different. Too rigid. Couldn't bend enough for one another. Our careers weren't compatible, and neither of us was going to give them up." She glanced up, meeting Grace's eyes for a moment, then looked away again. "Except he offered to give up being a cop for me, in the end. I was…this had all happened, by then. Or had started happening, at least." She made a gesture as if it could encompass all the ways the Old Races had changed her life, trusting that Grace would understand. The other woman nodded, and Margrit went on. "This world, this secret world…I wanted to be a part of it, and I never imagined Tony could handle it. I was wrong, but ultimately…the truth is he loved me more than I loved him. I was the rigid one. He was willing to bend. I wasn't. And now I've got a man of actual stone to dash myself against—"
"That's too much information, love."
Margrit laughed. "You know what I mean."
"I also know Alban Korund is mighty flexible, for a gargoyle. I think that's the thing about you, lawyer. You're so damn sure of yourself you'll stand against the tide—against the ocean—and say 'No. You move.' It's why they like you."
"It almost got me killed on at least three separate occasions, too. I wasn't trying to make a point about me, though. Or only about why Tony and I didn't work out. I underestimated him. He loves that the Old Races exist. And if he's even thinking about asking you out, it's because he's more able to bend than I ever imagined. He's a good guy. I think you might like him."
"Is he sniffing around because I'm part of that world?"
"I'm pretty sure he's sniffing around because you're a tall leggy blonde in black leather, Grace. And—no offense, but you're only peripheral to the Old Races."
"I was, until you came around."
Margrit raised her hands in apology. "My point is that he's got easier access to the Old Races by dropping by here, and that if he wants to ask you out then he's okay with what you do. Even if he's a cop. It's not a bad start to a date. Or a relationship."
"Speaking of relationships." Grace gave her a sly smile. "How is he in bed?"
"Oh, no." Margrit lifted her hands again, this time warding the question off. "No way. We've already failed the Bechdel test with this conversation. I am not getting into intimate bedroom details."
Grace made a face. "That bad?"
"Grace! No! Grace!"
Grace laughed, and, her own hands raised in an apology she clearly didn't mean, faded backward through the balcony door, and drifted out of sight.
#
It wasn't that Margrit Knight was wrong. Far from it: the lawyer was right. Finding Tony Pulcella shouldn't have been—wasn't—hard for a woman like Grace. She could slip into the precinct building, leave a note, and disappear again without ever being seen.
It was that she lacked the nerve to do it without encouragement that troubled her. She was Grace O'Malley, Ireland's pirate queen, and she by god ought to have been able to accept—or reject—a date without getting another person involved, and never mind that the detective had involved someone else in the first place. Grace wasn't known for being easy to find, else she'd never be a
ble to do her job, slinking around the city trying to help kids who had been thrown out of their homes or otherwise had nowhere else to go. The tabloids called her a vigilante, though that had a crime-fighting air to it that didn't suit. She'd been known to stop a mugging or a rape from time to time, but she didn't scour the streets looking for criminals to apprehend. Nor did she kid herself that anyone who happened along might be decent enough of heart and brave enough of soul to interrupt that kind of behavior, or even that she did it from the decency of her own heart. She did it in large part because they couldn't hurt her, no matter how hard they tried, and it was easy to be courageous and valiant when you were untouchable.
She wouldn't think somebody like Anthony Pulcella, whose actual life was on the line, would be interested in a showboat like herself.
That was the one part of her mind; the other said sure and why wouldn't he, for I'm Grace O'Malley, the pirate queen, and led her back around in a circle to the first thought.
Well, she thought a little while later, breaking in to a police station was a thing she hadn't ever expected to find herself doing, and yet there she was, leaving a scrap of paper on Tony's desk, and then ghosting out again as the sun began to rise.
#
Tony didn't find the sticky note for two days.
Paperwork had been dropped on top of it and it took him that long to get it cleared off. Half his coworkers laughed as he jolted to his feet, swearing, then fell back into his chair. Meet me at the High Line Tuesday at 7, the note said in old-fashioned, precise handwriting. No name, but it could only be from Grace. And Tuesday at 7 had been the night before. Somewhere between laughter and despair, Tony texted Margrit: i accidentally stood her up. she left a note i didnt see.
Oh my God, came the text back, a few minutes later. You two are like teenagers.
His phone buzzed again a couple of hours later. It couldn't actually have buzzed irritably, but picking it up to read Margrit's message, it felt like it had—and the tone of her text only confirmed the sensation.