Hands of Flame (11 page)

Margrit opened her mouth and shut it over an escaping bubble of laughter. “No.” Then, seriousness overtaking her, she added, “But when
was
the last time, Janx? This century?” She flicked her fingers, trusting Janx to understand what she meant even if her words weren't literally accurate. “The world's population has doubled in the last hundred years, and I don't even have words to describe the difference in media from even fifty years ago to today. If you let this play out, you're no better than Aus—” Chagrin bit the word off too late.

Interest lit Janx's eyes. “Ausra?”

Margrit sighed. “She was so determined that Alban should pay for Hajnal's death that she couldn't see what her actions were doing. She was willing to expose all of you to the modern world in her quest for vengeance. Your survival as a whole is much more important than any individual grievance. You've got to be able to see that.”

“And you will fight passionately to make certain we do, without quite being able to commit yourself completely to our world. Margrit, I do not mean this for a threat, but this is not a line upon which you will forever be permitted to balance. There are no half measures, something Alban has come to be reminded of, of late. In the end, you will choose your own world or ours. Don't,” he added to her indrawn breath. “You're about to tell me you have, but you haven't. You believe you've chosen us because you've lied and sacrificed and put our needs above your own, but there's a martyr in that, and it is not a choice. You're still bedazzled, though not as badly as you were before you watched three of us fight and one of us die. There will be a moment, Margrit Knight, when you will make your choice, and that moment will be unmistakable. Don't cheapen it by thinking you've already made it.”

Margrit's hands had curled into fists as he spoke, nails cutting into her palms. Color burned her cheeks until her eyes were hot with tears and her breath felt harsh and cold in her throat. “You think the last three months have been a
game
for me? Russell, my
boss
, my boss for the last three years at Legal Aid, is
dead
, Janx. My boyfriend dumped me. I've been nearly killed more than once and today I went to try to stop your people from getting into a war instead of doing my own job. You think I'm kidding around?”

“No,” Janx said, unexpectedly sympathetic. “I think you underestimate the point at which you can walk away. You still can, and until that threshold is crossed, you should remember that you have a way out. I didn't mean to anger you or belittle what you've done for us. Or to us,” he added more wryly. “But the truth is that if you had chosen our world, you would without hesitation join us if we left this city. Not without regrets, perhaps, but without hesitation. It's the cost of our friendships. It always has been.”

Insult still heated her face, but curiosity leapt to throttle it. Margrit bit down on asking about a woman she shouldn't know anything of. Sarah Hopkins, who had been pregnant with Janx's child, or Daisani's, and had turned to Alban to escape the seventeenth-century fire that had burned London. She wondered if Sarah had been unwilling to pay the cost, and had been able to walk away far, far later than Margrit imagined possible.

“Is that what happened to Chelsea Huo?” The words came hard, tight voice putting Chelsea in Sarah Hopkins's place. “Did she choose the Old Races? She's this nice, ordinary woman, but she was able to stand there today and give me legitimacy. Because she chose you?”

Laughter glittered in Janx's eyes, and he unwound himself from the couch, leggy and comfortable in his own skin. “A nice woman,” he echoed, clearly delighted by the sentiment. “How charming. I shall have to tell her. Would you call me a nice man, Margrit?”

“You're a bad man, Janx.” Margrit deliberately unknotted her hands, shoulders slumping as she recognized that he had no intention of answering her question.
That
, more than anything, seemed to be the legacy of dealing
with the Old Races. She could only learn enough to realize how little she knew, and how unlikely it was she would be told more. “You're a bad man, and you know it.”

Janx spread his hands, an expansive cheerful gesture. “I know. Evil shouldn't look this good.”

A jarring memory seared Margrit's vision, showing her the sneering, angry face of a man she'd once defended. He'd raped three women, murdering one of them, and had watched Margrit with open, domineering scorn. Watched her as if she were a victim, waiting for him; watched her much as Malik al-Massri had watched her. Angry, threatened and threatening, proprietary, making her an object not of desire, but of subjugation. Janx had treated her that way once, and faced with her ire, had treaded a line of caution with comic exaggeration since. Margrit spoke slowly, words more weighted than she intended: “Evil doesn't.”

Something unexpected happened in Janx's green eyes, disconcertment fading into surprised pleasure. He held his pose a moment longer, studying Margrit without guile, then brought his hands together and shifted his weight so he could offer a flourished bow from the waist. “What peculiar honors you do me, Margrit Knight. For your kindness, I'll give you what you haven't asked for—advice.”

“Are you going to tell me to walk away?”

“No.” Janx gave her a toothy smile, letting it linger so her gaze was drawn to too-long canines. Daisani should have those teeth, she thought for the dozenth time. The vampire should have a mouthful of weaponry, not the dragon. “No, my dear. You're a lawyer. I'm going to tell you how to handle Alban's forthcoming trial.”

MARGRIT'S CELL PHONE
trumpeted the
William Tell Overture
, startling her into a flinch and earning a shift of surprise from Janx. Habit drove her to her feet as she searched her purse for the phone, and sent her walking a few feet away, as though doing so would render Janx incapable of hearing her.

“I wouldn't, if I were you. If you're getting reception, you'll probably want to stay exactly where you were.” Janx nodded to the chair she'd abandoned and Margrit came back to it, thumbing the phone on.

Her mother's voice, distorted with static, came through. Margrit put a finger against her opposite ear, trying to hear better, then muttered a curse as the connection dropped entirely. “It never rains but it pours. If I don't call her back, she'll think something terrible has happened. Can you show me the way out of here?”

“I can,” Janx admitted languidly. “Whether I
will
…”

“Well, your other option is keeping me locked up like Bluebeard's wife.”

“Like Beauty, I should think.” Janx collected Malik's
cane and pushed to his feet, still more stiffly than she was accustomed to. “Are you certain you have to go now? We were doing so well.”

“You've met my mother. The grapevine's probably told her I wasn't at the trial this morning, and she knows the only thing that would keep me away would be dismemberment or death.”

Janx gestured at her. “At least you look the part.”

Margrit looked at herself again and groaned. “I hope I have time to get home and shower before she sees me.”

“I could come along,” Janx offered hopefully. “Distract her.”

“Absolutely
not.”

“I can be very distracting,” he promised.

Despite herself, Margrit laughed. “Yes, you can be, but you may not be. Just tell me how to get out of here before Mom uproots half of Manhattan trying to find me.”

“Allow me to escort you, at least. Grace prefers not to have random interlopers wandering her tunnels.”

“That's another reason it wouldn't hurt for you to move on. This is her territory.” Margrit took the dragonlord's elbow when he offered it, matching her pace to his unusually slow one. He'd made deliberate haste in leaving the warehouse, had moved then with all his customary beauty, and now, she thought, he was paying for that arrogant performance.

“So concerned with territory and belonging. Are you like this in all aspects of your life, or just when it comes to us?”

“I think it's just you.” Margrit frowned down the tunnel, trying to recognize features. “The battles I fight aren't usually about territory. They're about money or power or passion. It's just with you that land wars come
into the equation. Grace has worked hard to make a safe place for those kids down here. You and what you do are the exact opposite of what she's trying to achieve.”

“You could always ask me a favor.” Janx's voice was too light, as though the question was a test. “I do believe I still owe you one.”

Margrit paused, drawing him to a stop, and studied him. “One,” she said slowly. “You owe me the one we agreed on. Then again, I very likely saved your life this morning, Janx. That makes two favors you owe me, and if I've learned nothing else, I've learned that the Old Races count coup. You could've told me how to deal with Alban's trial as a balance to the attack this morning, but you handed that over for free. For my Grace,” she echoed softly. “What would you do, dragonlord? What would you do if I asked you to leave Grace's tunnels, to leave New York, in exchange for your life?”

Janx's jade eyes grew paler and cooler as she spoke, and when he replied, it was less with anger than a mark of respect Margrit thought she had only just earned. “I wouldn't have expected you to call in that marker, my dear. I find myself caught between awe and dismay. Do you really believe my position here can be traded away so easily?”

“You wouldn't be dismayed,” Margrit said, “if it couldn't. So now I have my answer.”

Janx's lips curled, showing teeth. “You've learned too well for my tastes, Margrit Knight. This is your exit.” He stopped shortly, making a gesture of fluid chagrin. Margrit put a palm against the ladder he'd brought her to, glancing up, then pulled herself onto the first rungs before looking back.

“I haven't asked.”

“No.” Janx's expression turned dour. “You haven't asked
yet.”

 

Margrit's cell phone rang again as she reached street level. It was midafternoon, a deceptive amount of time having passed with Janx in the unchanging light below the streets. She took a breath and held it, then, hoping her voice would sound normal, answered with a cheerful, “Hi, Mom.”

“Margrit Elizabeth, what on earth is going on? I've been trying to call you all morning. Are you all right? Why aren't you in court? What were you doing in Harlem this morning?”

Margrit's eyebrows shot up so hard she rubbed her forehead, feeling like she'd sprained something. “Who told you that?”

“Tony called me.”

“Tony called you?” Margrit couldn't put enough emphasis on the words and fought off the urge to repeat them with the stress on a different one each time. Anthony Pulcella and Rebecca Knight had suffered a kind of long-running standoff in the years he and Margrit had dated.
Disapproval
went too far, but for Rebecca, Margrit's decision to date a man not of her own ethnic background was as much a political statement as a romantic one. Rebecca's capitulation, only two weeks earlier, had coincided perfectly with Margrit and Tony's breakup, though in her mother's defense, Rebecca hadn't known that when she'd finally given up the fight. Still, Tony calling Rebecca was well outside Margrit's expectations. “What'd he do that for?”

“He's worried about you, Margrit. So am I. He said
he saw you leaving the site of the dockside fire this morning. Did he?”

Margrit found herself staring sightlessly down the street, humans and vehicles a blur against the backdrop of tall buildings. She heard her own thought distantly:
humans
and vehicles. Not
people
, but humans. Some morning she was going to wake up and not quite recognize herself anymore. Maybe this morning, in fact, though she hadn't been to bed and therefore morning hadn't been properly introduced. The recollection made her yawn and heated her eyes with tears, helping her shake off her stupor. “Mother, what would I be doing at the docks?”

“I don't know, Margrit. What would you be doing not in court today?”

“Trying to stop the mess at the docks,” Margrit said, more honest than wise. “Tony was right. I was there. I'm fine, though, so don't worry.”

“Don't worry? Margrit, how can I not worry? Your behavior has been erratic since Russell died. I don't want to pressure you, sweetheart, but I think you should talk to someone.”

“I talk to people all the time, Mom,” Margrit said, a smile starting, and then the expression was choked off in a burst of absurdity bordering on offense. “You mean, a psychiatrist?”

“I was thinking a psychologist. You don't seem to be depressed, but someone to talk to about this sudden decision to change careers and going to work for Eliseo Daisani, of all people, and missing court dates, and this delusion of being able to stop fighting and striking workers at the docks—”

“Mom. Mom!
Mother!
I'm fine, Mom. I really am. Look, I'm working on something bigger than I am, and that's all I can tell you. I know it seems as if I've been acting strangely lately—”

“Seems?”

Margrit blew her cheeks out. “All right, I have been. But I have reasons, and if I ever can, I'll tell you. Okay?” She bared her teeth as she recognized the promise as one she'd given Tony too many times. “I'm sorry I can't tell you now,” she added more quietly. “I wish I could. But I'm being as careful as I can be, and everything's going to be all right.” She sounded confident and reassuring to her own ears, and hoped that her mother, at least, would believe it.

“Margrit, does this have anything to do…” Rebecca fell silent a long moment, then let go a quiet breath. “Never mind.”

“It does.” Margrit swallowed, hoping she'd interpreted her mother's unasked question correctly. Rebecca Knight had twice seen—or experienced—Daisani's inhumanly fast ability to move. Unlike Margrit, she seemed reluctant to pursue the
how
behind his talent, even when she owed her life to it. That she and her mother lay on opposite sides of such a narrow divide made Margrit's chest ache with loneliness. “Mom—”

“I see.” Rebecca's voice turned to a professional briskness that told Margrit she'd once again lost the moment to pursue a thread of connection between them. “Please be very careful, sweetheart. I'll tell your father I spoke to you today. We both love you.”

“I love you, too.” Margrit folded her phone closed and directed a frustrated glare at the street, as though some
where below, Janx would feel its heat. “If I haven't made my choice, I'd like to know what the hell else this is.”

“The consequence of living,” an auburn-haired woman replied as she brushed past. Margrit blinked and the woman threw a bright smile over her shoulder. “Never could resist a rhetorical question.” She disappeared into the crowd, leaving Margrit still blinking after her.

 

Tony Pulcella was waiting on her doorstep when she got home.

Margrit slowed halfway up the block, unexpected cheer from the woman's comment fading as she saw the detective. There was nothing she could say that would satisfy him. For a moment she looked around for an escape route, but by the time she looked back, he'd seen her and was rising to dust off his pants. Margrit sighed and joined him, itchingly aware she was still grimy from the encounter at the warehouse.

Tony looked exhausted, though he was cleaner than Margrit. For a moment they stood there looking at one another, before Margrit shrugged and tilted her head at the building's front door. “Want to come up?”

He nodded silently and Margrit opened the door, and, out of consideration for his weariness, took the elevator to the fifth floor, neither of them speaking until they'd entered Margrit's apartment. Then Tony said, “You're okay,” and, “You know where he is,” as though the two comments—not, Margrit noticed, questions—were related.

“I'm fine. You look like hell.” Margrit toed her shoes off and padded into the kitchen to open the fridge so she could offer Tony a Coke. He accepted and drained it without speaking, then turned an expectant gaze back
onto Margrit, who shrugged and addressed the other half of what he'd said. “I know he's down below the city. I doubt I could find where he's staying. I'm not much help there. Sorry.”

“How long've you known?”

“This is the first time I've seen him since you raided the House.” Both true and evasive, the same kind of answer she'd been giving Tony since she'd first encountered the Old Races. He'd been more than right to make a final break in their relationship. Margrit released her hair from its bonds and scratched her hands through it.

“So what were you doing there this morning?”

“Cara Delaney was hurt in a fight down there yesterday. She asked me to go reassure her people. I had no idea Janx would be there.” That, at least, was true.

“And you left with him because…?”

The corner of Margrit's mouth turned up. “Because I didn't want to sit through the third degree, I guess.” She hesitated, then admitted, “Because I figured you'd cover for me.”

“So you did see me.” Neither surprise nor anger colored Tony's voice, cool professionalism in place instead. Regardless, recrimination stung Margrit as she nodded. “I thought you had. You're right. I did cover for you. Maybe you can tell me why.”

Margrit drew breath to answer and Tony held up a palm, stopping her. “Better yet, maybe you can tell me why damned near every security camera we've found dockside is fritzed out and why on the handful that aren't, the images are smeared.”

“Smeared?”

“Like in the cameras from the Blue Room.”

“Oh.” Vivid memory played up as though she watched the videos again. Pixels had stretched and distorted behind Alban, making shadows when nothing was there. Only later had she realized that the camera had picked up some hint of Alban's true shape, and that she had been looking at his obscured wings. Janx would presumably generate such a blur of raw pixels that the man at their center would be rendered completely invisible. Then curiosity straightened her spine. Daisani did regular television interviews, and Kaimana Kaaiai had been filmed, neither of them with the distortion she'd seen in the dance-club camera recordings. She would have to ask the vampire how that was. Maybe something to do with converted mass. Though she'd only seen a baby selkie transform, Deirdre Delaney's size had seemed comparable in both shapes. Perhaps vampires and selkies had less to hide, so to speak.

“You going to share that thought with me?” Tony folded his arms over his chest, brown eyes dark with anticipation of disappointment. Margrit's answer caught in her throat and Tony's expression shuttered further. “You said al-Massri could disrupt electronics, Grit.”

Margrit tilted her head back, swallowed and reversed her gaze. “He could. He had one of those weird electric fields you read about. He fritzed my cell phone out.”

“That's not what you said.”

“Oh, come on, Tony, I said a lot of crap that night. I was upset.” In frustration on both her own behalf and Tony's, she'd laid out the alliances and natures of a group of gathered Old Races amongst whom she and Tony had been the only humans. That every word she'd spoken
had been true made no difference in Tony's ability to believe her.