House of Cards

by C. E. Murphy

  “Okay. Be—be careful, Tony.”

  “Always.” Rough amusement filled the word, and then he was gone, leaving Margrit clutching the phone and staring from it to Alban.

  “I’m sorry,” he rumbled as she hung up. “I could overhear your conversation.”

  “I figured. But where—No. Why?”

  Alban didn’t answer until the sharpness of his upward climb leveled off, his concentration solely on reaching the heights above the skyline. “Not for Janx. Not even for you,” he admitted in his deep voice. “He’ll destroy them, Margrit. He’ll kill your friend Tony and anyone with him.”

  Margrit made an abortive move to dial her phone again. Calling would be useless; it wasn’t as though Tony didn’t know raiding a criminal’s lair was dangerous work. He hadn’t gone into policing for the safety or the extravagant benefits. Margrit put her face against Alban’s shoulder, trying to will away fear.

  For once, Tony’s Italian good looks stood out clearly in her mind, dark hair and ruddy cheeks and easy white smile. He still seemed overblown and lush compared to Alban’s stark paleness and chiseled features, but remembering his good humor and simple humanity, suddenly so fragile, made Margrit’s heart hurt. Fear for his life made overlooking his flaws easier, though it abruptly seemed unfair to consider his worry for her a flaw. If she could have made him understand that she needed the nightly run in the park as much as he needed the excitement of his job…

  Margrit tried to push regret away. The choices had been made on both their parts. Still, the what-if loomed large in the face of never again.

  “Are you all right?” Alban’s voice, quiet with concern, cut through the rush of the wind. Margrit nodded against his shoulder, aware it was the first time she’d ever consciously lied to him.

  “I’m fine. Just scared.”

  A hitch came into Alban’s wingbeats. He drew her closer, gentleness and hesitation in the action. “Margrit, I don’t know what I was thinking. I shouldn’t have brought you.”

  She stiffened, glowering at his jaw. “Like hell you shouldn’t have. I would’ve just taken myself if you hadn’t.”

  “It’s going to be dangerous. Your people are so fragile.”

  “You’ll protect me.” She spoke with simple confidence, glad to shuffle off even the smallest deception. “Look at it this way. At least you’ll know where I am if I’m with you.”

  Alban chuckled, a sound without humor. “Given that I’m likely to be the only thing capable of standing between Janx and the utter destruction of your friends, I’m not sure that’s the reassurance you intended it to be.” He tucked her closer, though, and drove forward through the sky, threats to abandon her left behind in the wind.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THEY HIT THE House of Cards’ rooftop at a run, Alban shifting into human form between one step and the next. A startled guard barked a protest, and Alban hit him in the chest, knocking him against the wall effortlessly. Margrit squeaked, then put on a burst of speed to outpace the gargoyle as they took the stairs down toward Janx’s alcove.

  Alban caught her as she crashed through a second door, literally wrapping an arm around her middle and hugging her to a stop. Margrit pinwheeled as he whispered a warning into her hair.

  Madness reigned below them. The casino was in an uproar, voices pitched so high in fear and anger Margrit was surprised she hadn’t heard them earlier. Alban, though, must have. Margrit relaxed in his arms as she understood why he hadn’t wanted her to charge in.

  Most humans wouldn’t have eyes to see it. Djinns and selkies moved with too-fluid purpose, rousting people toward the streets. Certainty seized Margrit: the Old Races below knew their window of safety had ended. Word had flown ahead of them, warning that Janx had learned of the coup attempt. Humans didn’t belong in the burgeoning frey; they were customers and users, too valuable to waste in a fight between the Old Races.

  Angry the mortals fought back, refusing to be assuaged or moved until the warehouse’s front doors blew open. A blast of cooler air rode in, then burned away as Janx stalked into his casino, nearly blazing with fury. Margrit’s breath seized, a too-familiar response to the dragonlord’s presence. Alban’s arms tightened around her reassuringly.

  Humans scattered before Janx where they’d stood their ground against the other invaders. Desperate men scraped up poker chips and clutched them as they ran for the doors, only to be repelled by bouncers too savvy to let them escape, even amid chaos. Margrit caught a glimpse of Biali’s thick form and brilliantly white hair among the darker heads below, and wondered which he fought for—his employer or vengeance.

  “Malik is nearby.” Alban’s voice was low enough to cut through the noise.

  Margrit twisted in his arms, looking around. “How can you tell?”

  “His cane’s made of corundum.” Alban tipped his head as Margrit frowned at him. “Sapphire. My family is sensitive to it, and a piece that large is easy to track.”

  “That’s a sapphire?” Sheer childish greed rose up in Margrit. “It’s as big as my fist. Where’d he get a stone like that? I thought it was glass. My God. Did he get it from Janx? Does Janx really have a hoard? I want to see it.” Below near-hysterical interest lay a bitter awareness that people fought for their lives only a few yards below them. Margrit clenched her teeth, trying to control herself, and hoping it was fear and adrenaline that drove her spate of words rather than a sudden loss of faculties. “Never mind the hoard.” She scanned the space below with renewed concern. “Where’d he go? How did he get here so fast?”

  Alban gave her a look that bordered on pity and brought confused heat to Margrit’s cheeks. It said too clearly that mere humans could never hope to match the speeds even the slowest of the Old Races could achieve; that questions of locomotion were so basic as to be embarrassing. She remembered, uncomfortably, how Janx’s way of moving often seemed to be a simple transference of attention, focus flowing from one place to another and drawing his body along with it nearly instantaneously. Lower lip in her teeth, she glanced away. “People are going to start dying down there.”

  “Then we’d better put a stop to it if we can.” Alban finally released her, and Margrit broke into a run again, just as glad to have not encountered the mob unprepared. Alban strong-armed another pair of men, these ones scrambling to escape the fight.

  Margrit found a certain reckless satisfaction in bursting into Janx’s office unannounced a few seconds later. The door banged against the wall, steel on steel, and Janx flinched, whipping to face her with his hands clawed, ready for a fight. Margrit skidded on the floor and stopped herself with both hands planted on the cafeteria table he used for a desk. Malik was nowhere to be seen, so she put that aside to blurt, “Cops are coming.”

  “What?” The startled question was as human and unplanned as his angry flinch had been. “Margrit, I admire your alacrity in arriving, but police? Coming here? I own half the department, my dear. Don’t you think someone might have mentioned an attempt as audacious as… Bother. I can’t think of an alliterative way to end that sentence. Never mind.” He fluttered his hand dismissively, with no hint of any emotion beyond his usual lightheartedness. “No one would dare.”

  “There hasn’t been time for anybody to tell you. Forget the selkies. You’re about to be arrested.”

  The dragonlord blanched, his skin nearly as white as Alban’s and his fiery hair contrasting to make him look sickly. The green in his eyes was swallowed by rage, leaving nothing but blackness. He leaned forward, fingertips white against the table’s surface. “And you know this how?”

  “Tony tipped me off, because he never imagined I’d warn you!”

  “The police. So quickly.” Janx’s answering whisper bordered between accusation and question. He wrapped his fingers around the edge of the table, as if controlling his anger. “You’ve brought this on me.”

  “Oh, give me a break. You’re the one who never saw what Malik was up to. We can fight about it later, unless you want to do it fr
om jail. You—”

  He twisted his arms, a violent explosion of motion, and the cafeteria table flipped lengthwise, squealing as the metal legs scraped the floor. It slammed into the windows, shattering cracks in the glass before it bounced away again, a clattering counterpoint to Janx’s roar, “You did this!”

  He pounced, a lithe, quick movement transferring great size and weight from one focus point to another. Margrit shrieked, flinging her arms up in useless self-defense. But Alban was there between her and the infuriated dragonlord. Even in his human form, Alban had the breadth of shoulder and a stone-solid ease to his defensive crouch.

  “Margrit is not your enemy, Janx.” He spoke in a low, steady voice, as if trying to make reason more appealing than battle. “Margrit is not your enemy, and this is not the time or place to argue about it. You don’t share my daylight weakness,” the gargoyle admitted with a faint smile, “but I’d rather not see any of us locked away in human jails. Don’t be a fool, dragonlord. Leave the fight for another time.”

  Janx curled his hands into talons, his mouth twisted in a snarl. He heaved one sharp breath, then dragged himself upright again, his countenance black with anger. “Not until I have dealt with Malik. You, I’ll deal with later.”

  The air burned out of Margrit’s lungs again as Janx locked his green gaze on her. “Janx, I’m not—”

  “Malik!”

  Margrit bolted for the door, responding more to the sound of authority than any impulse to find the djinn. Malik coalesced in front of her, smug triumph in his eyes as he focused on Janx. “You called?”

  She exhaled and stepped back, putting herself where she could see both dragon and djinn without feeling in danger herself. Janx stood at the windows, his fingertips white against the cracks he’d caused. “Tell me, Malik.” His voice was oil-smooth, once more full of light pleasure. “Who did you challenge in your rite of passage?”

  The barest smirk shaped Malik’s lips, answer enough. Margrit’s stomach cramped and she took one more step back against the cracked windows. Janx turned his head, the slithering motion of a mongoose watching a snake.

  Then he moved, a flowing of action larger than Margrit could take in easily. Malik showed no surprise, simply dissipated where he stood, impossible for even Janx’s quickness to catch. The dragonlord bellowed, too large a sound for a man his size, and whipped around, following Malik’s movement without needing to see where he went. He surged forward again to the sound of the djinn’s laughter, mocking and cold in the steel alcove.

  “I can do this forever, Janx.” Malik reappeared long enough to speak, his thin face dark with delight. Janx snarled and pounced at him again, Malik holding his ground and brandishing the sapphire-headed cane. Margrit closed her eyes at the sound of a faint click, half afraid Janx wouldn’t stop himself in time. A hiss made her open her eyes again to watch Janx skitter back, silk shirt sliced open, though no trace of blood gleamed red on the blade within Malik’s cane.

  “Oh, Malik.” Undiluted pleasure rushed through Janx’s voice, and below it Alban rumbled, “Janx,” in warning.

  Janx slid his hand over the cut in his shirt, then rubbed his fingertips together, as if savoring the near miss. “Oh, Malik,” he repeated. “My dear Malik. Are you so confident in yourself as to risk my death? You voted against clemency, djinn. You should not have pushed it so far,” he whispered.

  “Janx,” Alban said again.

  The dragon snapped his gaze away from Malik, a snarl contorting his features. “Keep out of it, Stoneheart. This is not your battle.” He flowed forward again, transferring his weight, only to come up hard against Alban as the gargoyle put himself between dragon and djinn. Outrage flushed Janx’s skin, and Alban put a hand on the other man’s shoulder.

  “You set me to be certain of Malik’s welfare, Janx.” Wry regret infused Alban’s voice. “I’m afraid it is my battle.”

  “I didn’t mean keep him safe from me!”

  Margrit clapped a hand over her mouth, trying to silence laughter too late. For an instant the three men focused on her and she pressed herself against the window, wishing she’d kept silent. Then Alban returned his gaze to Janx. “You set a gargoyle to watch over someone’s safety, dragonlord,” he said quietly. “It is not a task to be altered at your whim. You knew that well enough when you put it to me the first time, and you know it now.”

  A ripple went through Janx’s body, a shudder that seemed to begin in the marrow of his bones and work its way out. “Do not test me, Stoneheart.”

  Alban smiled, an expression unlike anything Margrit had ever seen from him. There was no cruelty in it, but rather anticipation full of sharp edges. “The police are coming. Your House is about to fall. Do you really wish to do this now?”

  “Let him.” Malik sneered, confident behind the barrier Alban’s body made. “His time is over. The djinn are rising, and the dragons will fall.”

  Staggering defeat swept Janx’s face, his shoulders dropping and the strength draining out of him. “Perhaps.” Even his golden voice was dull, the fight gone from him. He looked up, ruin in his features, first to meet Alban’s eyes, then to look beyond the gargoyle at Malik.

  Nothing in his body language gave him away. No tension, no preparation, no coiling for attack. Margrit watched his broken gaze settle on Malik, and nearly laughed again at the outrageous falsity of it all. Everything about him, to Margrit’s eyes, bespoke the skill of a consummate actor drawing in his audience, and she wanted to stand tall and applaud.

  But Alban was relaxing, believing Janx’s posture and words. Malik looked triumphant, as if he’d won a battle. The sheer humanity of Janx’s act and the blatant inability of the others to read it took Margrit by surprise, leaving her unable to speak.

  Janx exploded.

  The concussive force of his transformation threw Margrit back, his size and shape so much greater than Alban’s that the air around him shattered. Overhead lights exploded, leaving a whiff of burnt ozone and a glow of neon from the casino. Windows, already weakened, blew outward. Margrit was saved from a plummet by a steel bar catching her shoulders, she slid down the metal, barely hearing her own terrified scream, and came to her knees on the cold floor, staring at the elegantly defined chaos before her.

  Alban had transformed as well, stony form lit with garish colors in the ruined alcove. Margrit couldn’t put a size to Janx’s dragon form, other than big, too big to be possible. Sinuous and slender, he twisted himself around Alban, scales gleaming through the darkest shades of red. Silver lined the undersides where Margrit could see them bending, making the length of him glitter and shine. Fine, delicate-looking wings ran two-thirds of his body length, each rapid clap breaking the air and making Margrit dizzy with force. His long, narrow muzzle streamed blue smoke as he squeezed Alban.

  The gargoyle bellowed, a sound of irritation rather than injury, and dug both hands around the edge of a scale, ripping back with all his force.

  The scale tore free to Janx’s shriek of pain, and his coils loosened enough for Alban to leap away. The gargoyle’s wings flared, catching a draft of air, and he landed a few yards away, hands curled around the scale he’d pulled from Janx’s hide. Blood spattered his arms, lurid in the neon light from the casino. Everything about him was alien, from the power surging through heavy, thick muscles to the battle lust rising in his eyes. All the familiarity Margrit had come to recognize, all the humanity, was drowned. He flung the scale away, sending it skittering toward Margrit’s feet.

  She picked it up, hands instantly sticky with Janx’s blood, and dented her palms with even an ordinary grip against the scale’s edge. Then, deliberately, she pushed her hand against its edge, feeling her skin slice open and blood flow. It hurt, but distantly, as if she’d seen the injury happen to someone else. Turning her palm up to watch the cut heal reminded her of the gift she, too, carried, but even its impossibility faded before the simple fact that Alban had been absolutely unharmed by the scale’s deadly edges.

  Fire tore
through the room, searing the air. Margrit screamed again, shoving herself back toward the shattered windows, the scale falling from her hands. Janx’s long neck whipped around, following Alban with another burst of flame. Alban dove through it, wings tucked close to his body, and came up on the other side with his pale skin unmarred by darkness, his fine white hair unsinged, though the denim jeans he wore were singed and smoking. Margrit’s heart lurched and she cringed at the very idea of that fire.

  Alban leaped over Janx, and the dragon followed his movement, spouting fire. Wings tucked to roll, Alban hit the wall feetfirst and sprang back toward Janx. The dragon ducked his head too late and Alban seized him around the throat. Stone squeezed forgiving flesh, scales cracking under pressure. Muscles bulged in Alban’s arms, his face contorted with concentration. Nothing recognizable was left in his features, only bared teeth and a killing rage in his eyes.

  Margrit fisted her hands against her mouth, holding back screams that she feared would draw the titanic combatants’ attention to her. Alban had insisted to her that he was not a man. She’d argued for him being a person, if not a human, finding excitement in his exotic form and alien capabilities.

  She’d thought she’d understood what it was to be a gargoyle. Now, cowering in the darkness as a battle raged around her, she knew she had understood nothing at all.

  Of the remaining Old Races, dragons had most to be wary of from the gargoyles. Stone burned, but not easily or quickly at the temperatures they could sustain, and even a dragon’s great size made no difference once a gargoyle’s strength took hold of a vital body part. The wings were easiest, even clamped close to the body, but Alban ignored them, flinging himself toward Janx’s throat for a crushing grip there. He had left one of his own kind crippled and blinded. Biali had spat on that mercy, and Alban would not offer the same opportunity again.