House of Cards

by C. E. Murphy

  “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, s
tretching 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 openmouthed 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.