Heart of Stone

by C. E. Murphy

  “Maagh.” Margrit swallowed the sound, surprised at how automatic the impulse to respond in kind with her name was. Alban smiled, a flicker of understanding and dismay.

  “Please. You have no reason to trust me, I know, but I need your help.”

  “My help.” She stared up at him. They stood only a few inches apart, unmoving among the sea of bodies, like a couple so lost in one another they’d forgotten to keep dancing. Only the tension between them gave lie to that illusion. “Why would I help you?” she asked. “And why me?”

  “Because I’m innocent,” Alban whispered, “and because you’re not easily frightened.”

  Margrit’s heart skipped a beat, hanging painfully in her chest a moment too long. A jolt of stress angled through the empty place where the heartbeat should have been, and she gasped, stumbling a step. Alban caught her, a hand around her elbow to steady her, then let go again almost before she knew he’d touched her. “Please,” he repeated. “I don’t have much time. Will you help me?”

  “I—”

  The attitude of the dancers changed, a sudden switch from casual to disturbed. Heads turned, bodies straightening, as if in response to a silent warning that not all was right with the world. Margrit and Alban looked toward the DJ’s table, the direction the alteration had come from.

  Tony pushed his way through the crowd. His clothes didn’t set him apart from a dancer who wanted onto the floor, but the brusque way he moved, full of purpose, did. There was no acknowledgment of the music in his movements.

  “Dammit!” Alban cast one desperate look down at Margrit, then disappeared from her side. In almost the same moment Tony grabbed her shoulders, examining her with a critical glare, then released her to continue after his prey. A cobalt spotlight lit Alban’s hair to a fiery blue. Then the strobes popped back on, and Margrit lost them both in the crowd.

  He hadn’t kissed anyone in nearly two hundred years.

  She was almost as surprised as he was, looking him up and down. “Goin’ slumming or something, buddy?” She was tall and plump, with kohl-rimmed eyes, her hair dyed an unnatural black. In his slacks and button-down shirt, hair pulled back in a long ponytail, he no more fit into the Anne Rice Victoriana Room than anywhere else in the club.

  Still, there’d been no choice. Margrit had swept the street with her gaze that evening, watching for someone who wasn’t there. Searching in shadows between alleys and cracks in buildings, not looking up, where he hid among rooftops. He’d followed her from her building after night had fallen, boldness driving him to linger across the street, high in the sky, to wait for her evening run. Instead, she’d left with friends, dressed as he’d never seen her: in a short trench coat thrown on over a skirt no longer than a promise, showing off slender strong legs. Tall heels shaped her calves, her stride as certain in them as it was in running shoes. He’d caught only a glimpse of the camisole she wore, clinging to her ribs and hugging her waist, when she’d slipped her coat off just inside a restaurant door.

  He’d quashed the desire to follow her in, an impulse stronger than anything he could remember in decades. He’d protected her in the beginning because her daring nighttime runs woke fondness in him. But a few moments’ stolen conversation had lit embers so long banked he’d never have imagined they might still bear heat. Even that he might have ignored, had the news not borne whispers of impossible things to his ears. Need had arisen in him: a need to prove himself innocent to Margrit; a need to avoid becoming even more of a fugitive from the human world than his people were by their very nature.

  With that need came awareness of his own limitations. Margrit’s indignation at being accosted had reflected back the shallowness of his own existence. In all his centuries, he had never found himself or his enduring path to be wanting, but now he was reminded of a vitality so long forgotten he almost wondered if it had ever been. He had not—not!—let himself brush his hands over her arms to feel the softness of her skin, or his mouth over her shoulder before he’d spoken, for all that she’d seemed to invite it. The closeness they’d shared had been heady enough, so extraordinary as to make him risk uncharacteristic things.

  Such as kissing this woman now standing before him. “Flirting with a beautiful woman is never slumming.”

  A sly smile of disbelief stained her mouth as surely as her lipstick stained his own. A pang of guilt laced through him, already too late. Authorities knew he was in the building, and he could not afford to be caught in their presence come sunrise. The chance to get Margrit away and speak with her had come and gone. The only thing left was his own survival. Nothing else would have driven him to the measure he’d already taken, much less the one he was about to.

  He lifted his gaze, examining the room briefly. It was littered with carved vampires and gargoyles, their stone forms making drink holders and seats for the dancers. The walls held mock gaslights and candles, giving off flickering yellow light usually overwhelmed by the dance floor light show. The bar was dark polished wood, the seats covered in red velvet with worn spots, and the dancers were pale and beautiful in their dramatic dark clothing. “I have an idea,” he murmured to the girl. “There are three security cameras…”

  “An’ she comes over an’ he goes over an’—”

  “We can see it, Ira.” Tony waved his hand, silencing him.

  On the security screens, the kohl-eyed girl grinned at the camera in the corner and reached up. The picture cut out. In the opposite corner, Alban was recorded doing the same thing, except he kept his eyes and head lowered so the camera recorded only the top of his blond head.

  The detective swore and hit the security-room desk with the heel of his hand. The Goth girl had been detained in the hall; Margrit could hear her talking to another cop.

  “Man, I thought he wanted to, y’know, like, make out. Get a little down and dirty in the club, y’know? I thought it was cool.” She was pale-faced and sullen, her lipstick so dark red it bordered on black. “That’s all. I’ll pay for the wire, Jesus. But then he was fuckin’ gone, man. Bailed and left me to take the blame. Bastard.”

  An air vent at the top of the wall opposite the camera was found with its grate dangling from just one screw. The third camera in the Goth Room had caught Alban frantically untwisting screws after the other two cameras had been disabled.

  Tony pounded the desk again. “A full-grown man couldn’t have fit into that vent, goddammit. Especially not in forty-five seconds. He didn’t have time. And nobody saw it happen!” The third camera—hidden behind a bubble in the Goth Room ceiling—hadn’t filmed Alban’s scramble into the vent, but had focused instead on its sweep around the room. “Goddammit. Westing! Anybody find anything in the furnace room yet?”

  “No, sir. They’re searching the perimeter of the building, too.” The cop talking to the Goth girl leaned into the security-room door, frowning at Margrit. She lifted an eyebrow brazenly, challenging him to question her presence there. He spread the fingers of one hand in appeasement and focused on Tony instead.

  “Keep looking,” Detective Pulcella muttered.

  “Yes, sir. What do you want me to do with her?” The cop gestured at the Goth girl. Tony scowled at her, scowled at Margrit and scowled at his coworker.

  “Arrest her for vandalism and get all her information. She might end up as an accessory to murder.”

  “Murder! Jesus fucking Christ! What the fuck are you talkin’ about? I clipped a couple wires and I said I’d pay for the fuckin’ things! C’mon, they’re not really fuckin’ pressing charges, are they? C’mon! C’mon! Gimme a fuckin’ break here!”

  Westing sighed. “Sorry. Come on. I’ll check up on the air-conditioning vents when I’m done.” The last was directed at Pulcella as he escorted the livid girl out of Margrit’s sight. Tony watched the tape one more time, swearing, and stomped out of the security office. Margrit followed in his wake.

  “He told me he didn’t do it.” It was the first thing she’d said since they’d finished ushering everyone out of t
he club, one at a time, past her. Margrit had stood there, shaking her head, unable to identify Alban among the hundreds of club-goers.

  “Of course he said he didn’t do it.” The detective stalked into the Blue Room, his movements deliberate. “If everybody would just come on in to the police and say, ‘Yeah, I did it,’ my job would be a lot easier. Of course he said he didn’t do it. How the hell did I lose him?”

  “Desperation makes people do weird things.” Margrit sat on the stairs she’d fallen down earlier, closing her eyes briefly. There’d been no threat in Alban’s touch as he’d danced with her. Even when he’d spoken, soft words lifting hairs at her nape, she hadn’t felt menace. Intensity, yes; enough that the memory made breathing harder, cold and warm shivering through her in equal parts. If he’d meant her harm, he might have taken her from the dance floor, using fear to cow her into behaving. “You watched the tape ten times, Tony. The vent was the only way out. Where else could he have gone?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know!” Tony puffed out his cheeks and glanced over at her. “Look, Grit, it’s three in the morning. There’s really nothing else you can do here. Let one of my men drive you home, okay?”

  She mimicked him unintentionally, pursing her own lips, then nodded and dragged herself to her feet, using the stair railing as leverage. “Yeah, all right. I’m sorry I didn’t grab him when he took off, Tony.”

  “That wouldn’t have been a good idea. Apprehending criminals isn’t your job.” A faint smile washed over his mouth. “Getting them off is.”

  Weariness swept Margrit’s own smile away. “The joke’s old, Tony,” she said quietly. “It was old the first time. Are we ever going to get past that?” She exhaled, looking away to make it clear she didn’t want to pursue the topic just then, and lifted her eyebrows, bringing the conversation back to where it had begun. “The whole heroic citizen’s arrest thing would’ve been nice, anyway.”

  “Margrit…” Tony let her name trail off as acknowledgment of the dropped discussion, then sighed. “I don’t need you to be a hero, Grit. I need you to keep yourself safe.” He crossed to her, putting his hands on her waist and his forehead against hers, just briefly. “Go on home, okay?” His voice was quieter. “Take care of yourself. I’ll call tomorrow if I can make it to dinner. It’ll be a last-minute thing if I can. You know how the first forty-eight hours go.”

  “Yeah,” she said again. “I know. Just call if you can.” She echoed his sigh and stood on her toes to steal a brief kiss. “Look, I’ll grab a cab. You guys have enough to do without somebody driving me home.”

  “Thanks.” Tony let her go and she felt his gaze on her all the way out the door.

  FIVE

  THE CHORUS IN her head had changed. Feet slapping against the concrete now rang out in time with worse-than-use-less, worse-than-use-less. Margrit collapsed onto a park bench and stared up at the weak noonday sun, heaving for air. She’d slept badly, her dreams haunted by Alban’s strong hands and the blur of pixels that had followed his disappearance from the Blue Room.

  Cam’s alarm in the other bedroom had awakened her at four in the morning. After twenty minutes of tossing, she’d gotten up and gone to the office. It was hours before her coworkers began to arrive, the time productive to the point of absurdity. If practicality didn’t demand she be available until five o’clock more or less daily, Margrit thought she might petition her boss to allow her to work the same kind of early morning hours Cole did, just for the joy of getting things done. Practicality, she reminded herself, and the unlikelihood of wanting to get up at four in the morning regularly. As it was, it’d taken a rare cup of coffee to get her through until an early lunch, when she’d pulled on running gear in hopes of shaking off exhaustion with endorphins.

  Children ran rampant over the playground equipment across the path from her, as their parents watched. Gleeful shrieks split the air, sounds so sharp they seemed to press the color from the sky. So sharp, too, as to be easily heard over Margrit’s headset. Daytime running allowed her the luxury of exercising to music, a noisy rock beat that helped set her pace.

  She pulled one of the earphones out and slid down the bench, eyes almost crossing with fatigue. Children in brightly colored jackets made blurry shapes as her focus wandered. Beyond the jungle gym, kids on swing sets created gaudy arches against the brown grass, Margrit’s imagination turning the scene into surrealist artwork.

  Just across from her, a ponytailed girl of about four tried with great determination to crawl up the underside of dome-shaped monkey bars. A bigger kid gave her a boost onto the first rung, and she scrambled up jubilantly, hands and knees hooked over the bars from beneath. She crawled to the top of the dome and hung there, upside down, her breath steaming in the chilly air and a broad grin of satisfaction smeared across her face. Margrit laughed and applauded quietly.

  The little girl curled up and wrapped her hands around the bars again, and continued down the other side of the dome, inverting herself entirely. Margrit squinched one eye shut, afraid the child would fall on her head. Instead, when she could reach the ground with her outstretched hands, she unfolded her knees from the lowest bars, executing a brief handstand before she rolled onto her back and climbed to her feet, incredibly pleased with herself.

  Margrit grinned again and turned her face back to the sky, imagining a set of monkey bars big enough for her to do that on. The strobe-lit girders in the club flashed through her mind, the spans stretching and meeting at corners like the monkey bars did. Margrit snickered and made claws with her hands, trying to imagine hanging on to bars that big. She’d have to wrap her whole arms around them, and her legs. It’d be no good for acrobatics like the child had performed. What a sense of superiority one would have, though, looking upside down at all the dancers below, spying on them without their knowledge.

  The pixilated blur of Alban jumping made a bright line behind her eyelids. Margrit jolted upright, grabbing the bench’s slats. “Holy shit!”

  A handful of disapproving parents turned to glare at her. Margrit clapped a palm over her mouth, wide-eyed with guilt, then moved her hand to whisper, “Sorry,” as if a quiet apology made up for blurting a curse at a noticeable volume. “Holy shit,” she repeated, this time in a whisper all to herself.

  “He hid in the rafters.” Margrit flung herself into the seat by Tony’s desk with an air of triumph. Tony stared at her, first blankly, then in disbelief. Dark circles shadowed his eyes and lines creased the skin at the corners of his mouth, giving a hint of what aging would bring. On a man twenty years his senior the lines would be distinguishing, giving a handsome face with character and strength. But for the moment, Margrit said, “You look terrible,” without thinking.

  He snorted a laugh. “Thanks. You look like you got enough sleep.” He gestured to her running gear. “Enough to exercise, anyway.”

  “I’m faking it. Runner’s high. I ran here from work.”

  He glanced at a clock. “Early lunch?”

  “I got to work at five this morning. Anyway, I told Russell I’d remembered something else about the guy in the park and I had to talk to you. I think he figures getting bent out of shape when I’m trying to help another public service agency is counterproductive. He’ll take it out in blood later. But listen, Tony.” She leaned forward to seize his hand, enthusiasm overtaking her. “He hid in the rafters. In the Blue Room girders. No cameras look up there.”

  Tony chuckled, a rough low sound. “I’m sure there’s a nicer way to say this, but you’re out of your fucking mind.”

  “I’m not!” She let go of his hand and thumped her fist on a stack of paperwork on his desk. “We saw him jump, right? In the video.”

  He tilted his head back and blew out a noisy breath. “The ceiling in there’s thirty feet high, Margrit. Even where you were, it’s gotta be twenty, twenty-two feet.” He lowered his head, eyeing her. “You really trying to tell me you think he jumped twenty feet straight in the air?”

  Margrit folded her
arms. “You got a better suggestion?”

  “No,” he said after long moments. “But it’s just not possible.”

  “What if he was on something?” she demanded.

  “He didn’t act like he was.”

  “Well, maybe it’s something you don’t know about. Maybe he’s an Olympic athlete. I don’t know, but look. We can at least find out if somebody was in the rafters.”

  Tony’s eyebrows shot up, challenging. Margrit tossed her ponytail, grinning at him. “Betcha nobody dusts up there.”

  His eyebrows drew down, then slowly rose again, his expression clearing. A smile crept across his face and then he laughed. “All right. All right. I think you’re crazy, but he went somewhere, and that’s not a half-bad idea. If you’re right, I might even be able to get prints.” He clapped his hands together and stood up, weariness swept away.

  “Do I get to come?” Margrit asked. “C’mon, Tony.” She stood, bouncing on her toes. “It was my idea. I promise I won’t touch anything. Swear to God. I just want to know if I was right.”

  He looked at her, still grinning. “How about if I tell you over dinner tonight?”

  “How about I go with you and we discuss what we find over dinner tonight?”

  Tony laughed. “That wasn’t supposed to be an opening for negotiation.”

  “I’m a lawyer, Tony. Everything is negotiation.”

  He swung his jacket on, eyeing her sideways. “You won’t touch anything. And if any trouble crops up you’ll do what I say, and get out of there.”

  “Scout’s honor,” Margrit promised, holding up three fingers.

  He held up two fingers. “I was a Cub Scout,” he told her dryly. “You got it wrong.”

  “I was a Girl Scout, Tony, and it’s three fingers for them.” Margrit arched an eyebrow, then tipped her head toward the door. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

  Margrit stood to one side of the Blue Room, arms folded under her breasts as she watched a young officer scramble up an aluminum ladder. Tony shuddered faintly and she smiled, edging toward him. “What was it you were doing when you found out how thin air is and how hard the ground is?”