Heart of Stone

by C. E. Murphy

  “I like to think of it as an exchange of goods. They live in my building, I collect…rent. I suspect the difference is slight enough from your perspective that you’ll think me a right bastard regardless.” He laughed again. “I’ve been called considerably worse in my time, though rarely by a mortal woman who knew me for what I am. You amuse me, Miss Knight. I think you have no idea how rare that is.”

  “I do try.” Margrit’s voice croaked and she coughed before forcing her eyes open again. “You’re about the last person I’d expect to see here. What happened with the injunction?”

  Unmitigated delight crossed the vampire’s face. “Your supervisor has made a positive circus out of it all. He’s managed to convince half the city, without saying anything slanderous, that you’ve ended up in the hospital as a direct result of taking on my corporation over the building destruction. The injunction went through this morning.”

  “You look happy about it.”

  Daisani beamed. “Challenges, Miss Knight, are as rare as women like you. I’ll win in the end, of course, but it’s positively inspiring to have someone put up a fight. In fact, that’s why I’ve come.”

  “Out of inspiration?” Margrit laughed almost silently, pleased all over that it didn’t hurt. Daisani smiled broadly, showing unnervingly normal teeth again.

  “Precisely. I so hate to see a worthy opponent at anything less than her peak, I’m inspired to action.” He smiled once more, extending his hand. “Let me help you sit up, Margrit. I have a gift for you.”

  Panic seized her stomach yet again and she felt color burn in her cheeks. Daisani laughed. “Not that sort of gift. Hasn’t Alban told you? It doesn’t work that way.”

  “Thank God,” she said with feeling.

  Daisani chuckled again, helping her to sit up before brushing a fingertip across his exposed inner wrist. “But you are right about one thing,” he murmured. “The gift is blood.” He caressed his wrist again, and a thin red line opened. Margrit stared at him in revulsion, and he clucked his tongue, waving a finger at her in gentle admonition. “One sip for healing. This is a gift, Miss Knight, not a favor to be repaid. One sip.”

  Margrit watched blood bead as Daisani turned his wrist up to catch it there. “And two sips?”

  He smiled. “Taste, and I’ll tell you.” He moved his wrist to her mouth, brushing liquid across her lips. Margrit licked automatically, then startled and gagged, swallowing down blood that was sweeter than her own, tangy iron drowned by a thick sugary taste. Daisani turned his wrist up again, the cut sealing over. “One sip for healing,” he said, folding his cuff back down. “Two for life.” He met her eyes and smiled again. “Three to kill.”

  Margrit’s heart rate leaped, blood rushing to her face, making her wounds and bruises ache badly enough to bring tears to her eyes, in spite of the morphine. She wet her lips again, whispering, “Yeah?” through the pounding in her head. A strengthening surge of blood poured into her left arm, making the bone and muscles there throb, too. “Is this tasting an accumulative thing, or does it start over after a while?”

  “Three strikes,” Daisani said, “and you’re out. I do look forward to meeting you again, Miss Knight. I’ll see myself out. Don’t get up.” Smiling, he rose and left Margrit behind, pain beating at her skin as if it was trying to escape.

  “Grit?” Her name was spoken softly, unlikely to disturb her if she wasn’t drifting on the wakeful side of sleep. Margrit inhaled and opened her eyes to find Cole at the edge of her bed, wearing a tentative smile.

  “Ah.” She let her eyes close again. “If it isn’t my roommate the dickhead. Hello, Cole.” She flexed her toes, then her arches and upward, carefully bringing each muscle group into play. It only became extraordinary when she twitched the fingers of her left hand and they moved easily, no stab of pain where the bone had broken. “How long have I been asleep?”

  “Since yesterday afternoon. Cam, your parents and I have been taking turns keeping an eye on you. Grit, I’m sorry. I felt like an asshole immediately, and then with you being attacked…”

  Margrit turned her head to look at her dark-haired housemate, and sighed. “You were an asshole. Don’t get me wrong. I think you should grovel a lot, and probably fix me gourmet meals for a few weeks. But, um.” She mashed her lips together and glanced down. “I was out of line, too. You were worried and I…look, I’m sorry, too, okay? Maybe we should just call it even.”

  “Sounds good to me.” Cole leaned over to kiss her forehead, then pulled her into a careful hug. “I really am sorry, Grit.”

  “I know.” Margrit sighed and curled her fingers into his sweater, eyes closing again. “Man, I’m tired. When are they letting me out of here?”

  “I don’t know. You look a hell of a lot better, Grit. The doctors have been muttering to each other about how fast you’re healing. They keep checking your charts, like they made a mistake with the initial diagnosis.”

  “Maybe they did. I’m feeling pretty good.” The latter part, at least, was truth. There would be no explaining the gift Daisani had shared with her, not now and not ever. “Are my parents still here?”

  “Yeah. They went down to get some lunch. You want me to get them?”

  “That’d be great.” Margrit slid deeper into the pillows. “And tell the doctors I’d like to go home, please.”

  Janx came as she pulled her shoes on the next morning under a nurse’s watchful glare. He leaned in the door, red hair more fiery in the sunlight that streamed through the windows, and watched her admiringly. “I didn’t think you’d be up so soon.”

  Margrit looked up, then waved the nurse out of the room as she pushed her foot into her shoe with a thump. “Apparently I’m a very fast healer. Are any of you not going to come see me?”

  “I thought you’d be happier if I kept Malik away,” Janx said merrily. “You’re looking well, Margrit. You don’t mind if I just call you Margrit now, do you? I think I’ve earned the intimacy, since you’ve successfully pulled one over on me.”

  Margrit’s heart went still for a beat. “I have?”

  “Please. Who else could have managed to get access to that number? Fortunately for me, the phone I called him from is owned by some poor bastard in Ohio. I imagine he was a little dismayed when the police broke down his door at two in the morning. But I must say, well done, really. I didn’t even suspect. You appear to have all the guile of an ingenue, Margrit, hiding the consummate acting skills of an old dame of the theater. Are you a very good lawyer?” he asked politely, then dismissed the question by following it with, “I’ve brought you a gift.”

  Margrit straightened up, shifting her sling against her body. “I’m not sure I need or want any more presents from you people.”

  Janx laughed and sauntered forward to put a cell phone in her hand. “This one is purely recompense for ruining your other one. I’ve even gotten you the same number. Now, aren’t I splendid?”

  Despite herself, despite knowing what the man was, Margrit laughed. “You are,” she admitted. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” He narrowed jade-green eyes at her. “There is a point of business, I’m afraid.”

  Margrit sighed. “Of course there is. What is it?”

  “There’s still the matter of favors owed,” he said. “Two from you.”

  “And one from you. I know, Janx. Just because it hasn’t been called in yet doesn’t mean it’s over.” Margrit arched her eyebrows at the dragon. “You should remember that, too. Someday I’ll need that third request.”

  Janx bowed from the waist. “And I’ll be delighted to honor it. You’re a worthy opponent, Margrit Knight. It’s wonderful to have you in the game.” He clapped his hands together, a sharp pleased sound. “Now, I believe they won’t let even the most fit of persons walk out of one of these death traps under her own power. May I have the honor of wheeling your chair?”

  “I don’t think so,” Cole said from the doorway. He came in to kiss Margrit’s uninjured cheek and examine he
r critically. “You look almost normal. I’m afraid I’m the lady’s wheels, Mr…?” He offered a hand to Janx.

  The dragon arched an eyebrow, then shook it. “Janx,” he said. “Just Janx. You must be Cole.”

  Cole cast a startled glance at Margrit. “Yeah, I am.”

  “A pleasure to meet you, Cole. Do us all a favor, and take good care of this young lady. She’s more remarkable than she knows.” Janx bowed again, then exited, leaving Cole staring after him with raised eyebrows.

  “Care to tell me what that was about?”

  “No,” Margrit said, grinning. “Just one of my many admirers. Cole, please, please get me the hell out of here.”

  The yellow police tape was gone, the ground scraped raw, no longer muddied with blood. The park lights made sharp-edged shadows on the rough earth, sunset having come and gone. Margrit hitched her thumbs in her waistband, studying the area for signs of Ausra’s death, but nothing was there. A mounted policeman rode by, nodding a greeting. Margrit nodded in return, bouncing on her toes to keep warm. Running tights and a sweatshirt would let her break directly into her workout if Alban didn’t come, but they weren’t warm enough for standing around the park.

  Footsteps sounded behind her, and she lifted her chin, eyes closing with relief. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

  “I almost didn’t.” Alban’s steps stopped several feet away. Margrit lifted her chin higher, feeling the distance as a wall between them, even without seeing it. “I thought a long time about leaving New York for good,” the gargoyle added after a moment.

  Margrit gave a laugh that made her heart ache. “Over a woman.”

  “Isn’t it always over a woman?” Faint humor infused Alban’s voice, and she turned to him, studying the angles of his face in the blue streetlights. His hair purpled beneath the lamps, his eyes colorless and intent on her. Even the suit jacket was the same, lilac in its shadows, the cold not bothering him at all.

  He inclined his head, making a small, fluid gesture that encompassed the fact she was on her feet and out of the hospital. “Yes. You’re healing very quickly.”

  “A gift.” Margrit pulled a quick, wry smile. “From Daisani.”

  Alban’s silence was foreboding. “That…” he said eventually, and Margrit laughed.

  “Was a bad idea. I know. It was his bad idea, though, and I was stuck in a hospital bed. I didn’t have anywhere to run.”

  “Running isn’t your strong suit, anyway.”

  “On the contrary,” Margrit said, offended. “I’m a very good runner.”

  “Not when the direction to run is ‘out of danger.’”

  Another smile flickered across Margrit’s face, keeping more complicated emotions at bay. “Maybe not then,” she admitted, then bit her lower lip. “Alban…”

  “I’ve searched the memories,” he said abruptly, cutting her off. “Mine. Ausra’s, and Hajnal’s through them.”

  Margrit cocked her head, then shook it uncertainly. “You have their memories now? How’d that happen?”

  He turned his hand palm up, and his voice held old weariness. “Each family carries a part of the Old Races’ history. We gather once every century to share memories, so the history remains. If someone dies, her memories go to the nearest gargoyle, so nothing is ever lost, even when a family dies out. Ausra was the last of Hajnal’s family, the Dunstal line. I am the last of the Korunds. I carry the memories of both those lines, now.”

  “Jesus, Alban. That’s a hell of a burden.”

  “Made the more so for exile.” Alban said the words as if they didn’t matter, making Margrit’s teeth grind. “Hajnal’s memories are, I think, tainted by Ausra’s rage. It’ll take time to sort through her anger and find the truth, but what I remember from the old memories, from before I left the tribe, there have only been a few cases where a gargoyle faced daylight. In each of those, the individual was a half-breed.”

  Margrit knotted her hands, wanting to pursue the topic of exile, though a trace of amusement slid through her annoyance. How she expected to force a creature with Alban’s weight advantage to talk when he didn’t want to, she couldn’t imagine. She relaxed her hands, letting irritation go, to ask another question: “A half-breed? Like half…dragon? Vampire?”

  Alban nodded. “Another Old Race. We’re not prone to intermingling our bloodlines, but it happens once in a while.”

  “Half-human?” Margrit asked in a low voice. Alban shifted backward, putting a little more space between them. Broadening the wall that lay between them. There were so many reasons not to breach it. The words danced through her mind for the hundredth time: alien. Inhuman. Different. Racially separate.

  “It’s taboo,” he finally replied. “An exiling offense, as much as killing one of our own or letting humans know we exist. Though the selkies have interbred with humans for generations, to keep their bloodline alive at all. So perhaps we’re not so different.”

  “We don’t know how long Hajnal was that man’s captive.”

  “No.” Alban said the word with brusque finality, leaving Margrit to bow her head.

  “Thanks for choosing me.” She let a breath out, adding, “Two out of three, Alban.”

  He shook his head, a slight questioning motion, and she turned her gaze away, looking into the park. “You just told me three things that were exiling offenses among the Old Races. You’ve done two out of three in the last week. You told me about yourself, and you killed Ausra to save me. Where does that leave you?”

  “Alone.” The ease in Alban’s voice made Margrit look at him again, offense rising on his behalf.

  “That’s it? You’ll just sit back and take it? You had good reasons to do what you did.”

  “Among the Old Races, Margrit, there is no good reason to break our laws. What few selkies may be left are hardly part of our people any longer, and no one would have truck with them if it could be avoided. I’ve lived half my life in exile. It does me no harm to continue this way.”

  “I don’t think that’s acceptable.”

  “What you think doesn’t matter, Margrit. It’s how our society has built its laws.”

  “Laws, Alban,” Margrit said clearly, “are for reinterpreting, rebuilding, negotiating and discarding when they no longer make sense within the confines of a society. I’m not quitting just because the going’s getting tough.” Regret suddenly spiked as she thought of Tony. She had stopped when things got tough with him, too often.

  Margrit set her jaw, putting the thought aside. “I owe Janx favors and Eliseo Daisani wants a piece of me. Cara Delaney went missing on my watch, and I’m going to find her. Like it or not, I’m taking on your world one race at a time, so I don’t see why I shouldn’t go all the way and challenge your stupid exile laws, too. Walk away if you want to, but you brought me into this thing as your advocate, and that’s what I’m going to be.”

  Alban looked down at her across the space he’d delineated, finally shaking his head. “I’ve put you in danger already, Margrit. I’ll do what I can to remove the onus of promises made to Janx and Daisani. You’ll be able to return to your own world unfettered. The rest of it is my own problem, and I choose not to question the laws the Old Races have abided by for millennia.” He hesitated, as if there might be something left to say, then opened a big hand with graceful measure, and sketched a brief bow from the waist.

  “Goodbye, Margrit.”

  Margrit watched him go, a pale form leaping above the treetops, wings snapping open to catch the air, before she doubled over to stretch her hamstrings. Then she was running, almost without transition, pavement slapping by beneath her feet as she drew in deep breaths of cold air, savoring the sheer, exhilarating joy of exercise.

  Ir. Ra. Shun. Al. Safety in long strides, freedom in exercise. Margrit sprinted around a park bench and broke into a hard run down a long straight stretch, half imagining she heard the annoyed grunt of a broad-shouldered monster in the trees. A creature bound to protect by his very nature, even if he threat
ened to walk away from it. A smile warmed her face as she put on speed, imagining Alban’s winged jumps above her.

  She would never see him, he reasoned.

  Humans never looked up.

  HEART OF STONE

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-0798-5

  Copyright © 2007 by C.E. Murphy

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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