House of Cards

by C. E. Murphy

  She turned to run backward a few steps, then stopped at the edge of the path, yards away from the man who’d called her name. He remained where he was, shoulders hunched and head lifted to meet her gaze. Distance and darkness smoothed the ravages of a scar on the left side of his face, but memory told Margrit that his eye there was nothing more than a closed pit. Disbelief laced her voice. “Biali?”

  The squat man pushed out of his crouch, muscles in his arms playing like an aging prizefighter’s. “Yeah.”

  She crossed the path, coming to stand within a few feet of the blunt man. He was taller than her, though not nearly as tall as Alban. “What are you doing here?”

  “Running errands for Janx. He wants to see you. C’mon.”

  “Where’s Alban?” Margrit bit her tongue too late, angry at herself for asking. Alban had made his choice clear enough: he wouldn’t be looking for Margrit on anyone’s whim.

  Impatience and dislike creased Biali’s scarred face, reminding Margrit that it had been Alban who’d left that mark on the other gargoyle. “Why should I know? Come on.”

  “I haven’t gone for a run in two days,” Margrit protested. “You’re here. Wait for me. I’ll be half an hour.”

  “Wait for you. While you run around in Central Park. Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  “You can keep an eye on me.” She pointed upward, winked and started running without waiting for the outraged exclamation that followed her.

  Flying with Biali was not like flying with Alban.

  Neither of them were happy about it. Biali kept his head turned away, as if an unpleasant odor lingered. Margrit, not trusting his grip on her waist, deadlocked her wrists around his neck, her own teeth bared out of determination rather than delight. There was none of Alban’s gentle surety in cornering or catching drafts, no warning in the way Biali held her that they were about to climb or fall through the sky. Flight with Alban had been an exercise in freedom, joy undiluted by the hammering of her feet against the earth as it was when she ran. Flying in Biali’s arms was a study in refusing to scream.

  It had been his idea. Margrit had stared disbelievingly, just as he had when she’d announced her intention to run in the park. It was faster, he’d argued, and more to the point, didn’t force him to use human means of transportation. His mocking, “You’re not afraid, are you, lawyer?” had driven her to agree.

  Not afraid, but very glad to have her feet touch down on the roof of the House of Cards and for Biali to release her. He did so with a peculiar expression, before nodding his head slightly, as much of a gesture of respect as she’d ever seen from the scarred gargoyle. Margrit gathered her voice enough to say, “Thanks for the lift,” before looking for an escort inside.

  “I’m all you rate.” Biali stumped ahead, yanking open the steel roof door with casual ease and not bothering to see if Margrit followed him. He transformed before the second door, an implosion of space shivering the air, and it was a stocky man in jeans and tight a T-shirt who led Margrit through the building to Janx’s alcove.

  Janx sat just as he had the first time Margrit met him, leaning back in a metal folding chair with his long legs propped on the table and crossed at the ankle. His hair, falling in dark red lines across his cheeks, played up smoldering anger in eyes gone darker green than she’d seen them before. There was no languid grace in the way he moved his hands or head, though thin smoke whirled after those motions in its usual slow dance. Heated air burned Margrit’s lungs, and her throat convulsed with the struggle not to cough.

  “You have a strange way of showing your loyalty, my dear.” The customary warmth was gone from Janx’s voice, leaving controlled rage to replace it.

  Nerves hollowed her belly again, sickness that was beginning to feel familiar. “Malik’s not dead, is he?”

  “Not at all. In fact, I was sent a dispatch this afternoon that informed me Malik was under the express protection of Eliseo Daisani, and that any injury that came to him would be considered an act of war. I understand you’re also to be congratulated on your new employment, but under the circumstances I feel strangely reticent.”

  Margrit laughed, a shrill sound of shock, then forced herself to move forward as if the air didn’t want to hold her back. Difficult, but not impossible; job training had taught her not to show fear if it was at all possible to hide it. Then again, it’d taught her not to show surprise, either, and she’d given that game away. There’d be hell to pay later, when she dealt again with Daisani, but for the moment she seized on the opportunity he’d created for her. “Really? It was practically your idea.”

  Janx kicked his feet off the table as she spoke, leaning forward with his hands clamped together until the knuckles whitened with passion. “I’m fascinated to hear how you came to that conclusion.”

  Margrit smiled and dragged a chair from the table, swinging it around on one leg so she could straddle it, and draped her arms over its back, a deliberate echo of how he had sat two nights before. “You gave me a Herculean task, Janx.”

  Something indecipherable slid through his expression, and cockiness grabbed hold of Margrit. “That means impossible,” she explained, nearly laughing at her own audacity. Adrenaline made her dizzy, pulsing in her veins the way it hadn’t even during her run. Russell’s death was easier to put aside when she was suffused with the thrill of fencing with a dangerous opponent. Buoyed, she kept her helpful smile in place as insult and anger darkened Janx’s pale golden skin to ruddy. Even the smoke lingering around him seemed to thicken, disturbed by his deliberately slow inhalation.

  “My people know better than yours what Herculean means, my dear, and let me warn that you tread on lava shells.”

  Curiosity bumped cockiness out of the way. “I get the idea, but lava shells?”

  “The thin surface of magma exposed to air and hardened into a crust. It appears trustworthy, but cannot be walked upon, Margrit. Humans might survive a fall through thin ice into a frigid lake, but you will not survive a plunge into lava.”

  “Right.” Some of her invulnerable edge fell away and she reached for it again, keeping her voice clear and direct. “You said to protect Malik through any means necessary. I don’t have the capability, physically, to do that. So I went to the source of the threat as you defined it, and negotiated. Et voilà.”

  She spread her hands, mimicking one of Janx’s own gestures, and hoping she masked her own perplexity. Daisani hadn’t agreed to the proposal she’d barely made, but she doubted his offer to protect Malik was altruistic. “You didn’t give me a how-to manual, Janx. You just said to do it. But I want to know something.”

  “Another favor, Margrit?”

  “No. I just want to know why you didn’t tell me Kaimana Kaaiai was a selkie. Did you know—” She gave a thin laugh as Janx’s eyes lost their animation, going flat and dark as a snake’s. “You didn’t know. I thought you must not. If you’d known and hadn’t told me, I’d…”

  A hint of life returned to his face. “You’d what? I wonder. Scold me fiercely?”

  “Something about that effective, probably. It seemed childish, knowing and not telling me. I think more highly of you than that.”

  Janx’s eyebrows flicked up. “I have no idea why.”

  Fully aware the dragon would hear her, she muttered, “Neither do I,” then spoke in a more normal tone. “Kaaiai doesn’t seem like the type to be skulking around killing your men. Why risk his status?” A knot of horror bound itself below her breastbone. It hadn’t occurred to her that Kaimana might want Janx and Daisani in the same place so he could easily rid himself of them.

  No. Long gone from the others or not, selkies were of the Old Races, whose law prohibited killing their own kind. Even if the selkies ignored that law—they were already exiles—Kaimana wouldn’t have requested a public setting if he had murder on his mind.

  “And yet knowing this, that I believe selkies are the tool used to eliminate my men, knowing that there was a selkie in our midst, you chose to
bargain with Eliseo, and not Kaaiai.”

  “I had something Daisani wanted.” Half a dozen other explanations came to her lips as well, but Margrit held them back, trusting the simplest statement to be the most effective. “And you have something Kaaiai wants.”

  “I do?” Dangerous curiosity piqued in Janx’s gaze. “A roster of those most important to me, perhaps, so he or his people need not work to determine it themselves?”

  Margrit smirked. “I don’t think so. I don’t actually know what. He just asked me to have you meet him tomorrow night at the Rockefeller Center at eight o’clock.”

  “And why would I do that?”

  “So you can find out what’s going on. You’re the one who said a balance had changed, Janx. You’re the one who changed it. Maybe you’re going to have to reap what you sowed.”

  Admiration curled the corner of Janx’s mouth, while his eyes remained a hard jade. “My dear Miss Knight, was that a threat?”

  Tension sluiced out of Margrit in a quick laugh. “Oh, God, I hope so. I love the idea of threatening you boldfaced. Me. L’il ol’ human me.”

  Janx watched her, unblinking, until her own eyes started to water. It took effort to not turn her head as she let her eyelashes shutter for a moment. In that brief instant, Janx’s expression changed, so when she met his gaze again he was smiling. Margrit lengthened her neck uncertainly. “What?”

  “How delightful. You so brave, and making so many meetings and manipulations on your own. So much effort on his part, all for nothing.” Janx sat back, picking up a cigarette and waving it in the air with lazy contentment.

  “On whose part? What are you talking about?”

  “Alban, obviously.”

  Margrit tilted her head, uncomprehending. “Alban dumped me, Janx. Whatever he’s done, it’s got nothing to do with me.”

  “On the contrary, my dear. It has everything to do with you. You must understand the scale of time we are discussing, Margrit.” Janx’s voice softened, as if he spoke to a child. “Your country was not yet founded when Alban chose to stand apart from his people’s collective memory, and less than thirty years old when he folded himself in grief and turned his back on all the Old Races. We’re speaking of an era when the fastest method of communication was handwritten letters sent on sailing ships from one continent to another. A time when wars were fought with erratic muskets and horse cavalry. Slavery was still a way of life.”

  “Slavery is still a way of life all over the world, Janx.” Margrit refused to look down and mark the color of her own skin, keeping her gaze forthright on the red-haired man’s. “What’s your point?”

  Janx set his cigarette aside and leaned forward, hands clasped together on the table in front of him. “I only want you to understand how extraordinary it is, then, that your true and brave Stoneheart has come to me and offered his services, all in the name of releasing you from your favors to me.”

  At some juncture, the ability to feel shock had to burn out and leave her unable to reel with another hit. At some point, but not yet. Margrit swayed with the impact of Janx’s words, hearing herself ask, “Did it work?”

  “Yes and no. A gargoyle is useless at daylight security, but the nights, at least, you need not worry about Malik.”

  “Not that I’m ungrateful, but why?” The back of her head felt slightly detached, as if surprise had taken up residence there and was having a look around on its own. She laced her fingers against her skull, trying to hold herself together. It was an obvious tell, the kind of thing she’d never allow herself to do in court.

  Janx’s chair creaked as he leaned back, folding his own hands behind his head in a much different display of body language. “Isn’t it romantic?” he asked happily. “The lonely gargoyle, sacrificing his principles to render services to an enemy over the love of a mortal woman. His condition—free her from the favors she owes me, and he will be my slave.” The last words turned into a purr. Janx kicked back in his chair, and smoke dipped and swirled around him, coloring the air. Margrit stared unseeing at the whorls as Janx offered her a broad, delighted smile. “It’s the stuff of fairy tales, don’t you think, my dear?”

  “Yes, but why?”

  Janx kicked forward again, beaming openly. “To tell the truth, he only negotiated the one favor away. Malik’s safety, and that at night. But you, clever girl, have taken care of the daytime details, haven’t you, and built a multitude of other conniving schemes on top of that. I’m afraid the third favor is still your burden, though. Stoneheart’s strengths do not lie in making bargains. So I still hold your mark, and now have Alban at my beck and call. Why not, my dear? Why ever not? And the very best part is that now you know he brought me the rope to hang him with because of you. Because in knowing, you’ll find your loyalties drawn to me, in order to protect the good and noble Stoneheart.”

  “My loyalties?” Margrit broke into skeptical laughter. “You think blackmail begets loyalty?”

  “Not from the heart.” Janx’s smile went wide again. “I don’t care if you curse me every night for the rest of your mortal life, Margrit. I hardly expect to win your love. But I will have your cooperation, and that, my dear, is enough. Especially with your new job. I’m reconsidering. I think that congratulations are in order, after all. My dear lady, you could hardly have made this easier for me. Eliseo,” he said happily, “is going to spit.”

  “Do vampires do that a lot?” Her voice cracked again and Margrit swallowed hard, wishing for a glass of water. “It seems more like a dragon thing to me. Spitting fire and all that.”

  “That’s because you don’t know as much as you think you do.” Janx was on his feet, coming around the table and offering his hands. Margrit took them without thinking, and he drew her up. His fingers were cool, but hers were icy, from panic warring with relief in her veins. Janx lifted them to his mouth, more to smile over them than brush a kiss against cold skin. Her hands went colder still, until Janx’s felt hot. The smile he offered said he’d noticed both the permission granted and the chill that had overtaken her.

  “You’ll be my eyes and ears inside Daisani’s corporation, Margrit Knight. How positively wonderful. You’ll report back anything you think might be of the slightest interest to me, and I assure you, nearly everything Eliseo Daisani does is of interest to me.”

  “I just bet it is.” Margrit took her hands from Janx’s and turned away to rest her fingertips on the doorknob before she looked back. “Is there anything else?” She was vividly aware of having not been dismissed. Aware that she was making a play to change the power balance between them. Not to dominate it; that was beyond her scope. Just to change it, to press her advantage where she could, was enough.

  Acknowledgment glittered in Janx’s eyes as he recognized what she was doing. “You are so very brave, Margrit Knight. So very brave indeed. I believe that will be all, at least for the moment. Do remember the task I’ve set you to.”

  “Malik’s safe, Janx. Daisani’s my employer. If you want me to spy on him, I will, but that’s your third favor. You might want to think hard about whether that’s how you want to spend it.” Margrit executed a short bow and exited the alcove with her heart throbbing in her throat.

  THIRTEEN

  “MARGRIT.” ALBAN STOOD a mere handful of steps beyond the office door, his white hair colored to neon-blue and surprise clear in his voice. For a moment Margrit saw him as an outsider might: in his human form, his broad shoulders and alabaster skin were as discreet as they could be within the casino’s walls. Even so, he looked dangerous in the manner of a big man—dangerous because anyone so well dressed and well coiffed in Janx’s House of Cards was an employee. Mortals not privy to Janx’s true nature still knew him for what he was in the human world: a crimelord, able to buy and sell people and their dreams as easily as others might buy and discard a newspaper. A man of Alban’s physical stature and quiet grace was the sort who would be sent after bad debts and old loans. Even his coloring was a beacon of warning to the human
mind, for no one so pale could be entirely natural. Human nature dictated two options when presented with something new and potentially alarming: retreat or explore.

  Margrit reared back as if she’d retreat, then scowled at the door behind her. Janx’s office provided nothing like a safe haven, and returning would lose her what little autonomy she’d just earned. Jaw set, she looked back at Alban, whose expression hadn’t yet cleared. “Margrit, why are you here?”

  “What does it matter?” Abrasiveness did nothing to keep emotion away. She wanted to dart forward and crash into the solidness of Alban’s body, to find shelter in his arms, and wanting that angered her. “I got involved in your world, Alban. I can’t get away from it now just because you make a couple of sweeping statements.” She twisted to the side as she passed the gargoyle, trying not to brush his clothes.

  “Margrit.” Alban’s voice arrested her. “It matters because Janx should have released you from your vow to protect Malik.”

  “Know what?” Margrit turned to face him, hands knotted at her sides. “Believe it or not, I got that covered, Alban. I dealt with it, so you went and broke your vaunted neutrality for absolutely nothing. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve had an incredibly bad day, and I need Biali to take me home before my friends start to worry.”

  “Biali?”

  An unkind pulse of gladness swept her at Alban’s tone. Out of everyone she might have admitted to relying on, Biali would cut the deepest, and Margrit knew it. She’d shared memories with Alban, giving her a sense of the female gargoyle both he and Biali had loved, and over whom they’d fought. It was petty to lash out with Biali’s name as a weapon, but Margrit had a greater sense of injury than justice.

  “I’m here, lawyer.” The other gargoyle appeared at the end of the hall, arms folded against his thick chest as he leaned against the wall. Alban’s eyes darkened and a nasty mix of smugness and guilt sizzled through Margrit, the latter suddenly turning to a kind of hopeful desperation.