House of Cards. C.E. Murphy

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СКАЧАТЬ quite a tux, but its sharp clean lines looked as expensive.

      “I am. Dinner with my wife. It’s her birthday, and I forgot her gift at the office.” He slipped a hand into his pocket and came up with a jewelry box that he balanced on his fingertips, eyebrows elevated in invitation. Margrit opened it to reveal a gold ring set with diamonds and pink alexandrite. “It’s her fifty-fifth. Think this’ll help her forget that?”

      “It’s gorgeous.” Margrit smiled and closed the box again as she returned it. “I think she’ll love it.”

      “I hope so,” Russell said dryly. “It cost a month’s salary. You don’t have to mention that to anybody.”

      Margrit laughed. “Russell, you dress so well I can’t help thinking a month’s salary goes a long way.”

      He brushed a mote off his suit and shook his head, smiling. “You would, wouldn’t you? No, back in the days of the dinosaurs I made some money in stocks. I shop out of that budget. Come on.” He tilted his head toward the door. “You need to get out of here. I’ll walk you down.”

      Margrit cast a glance at the paperwork on her desk. “But—”

      “Boss’s orders. Besides, you haven’t yet told me what our rich Hawaiian friend wanted.” Russell picked Margrit’s coat up off the floor where it’d fallen with the chair and put it around her shoulders. “Will you be abandoning us to pull in a corporate paycheck with a philanthropist’s agenda?”

      “Well, now that I know I’ll never match your wardrobe on what I make at Legal Aid, I’m considering it. No, he saw me talking to Eliseo Daisani at the party last night and wanted to know what I knew about him.” Margrit sat down long enough to retrieve her shoes and put them on, then turned off her light and fell into step beside her boss. Malik was probably long gone, but she felt safer in Russell’s company.

      “I’d think he could find out anything he needed to through more usual avenues. What’d he want to know?” Russell held the door for her, and Margrit, left to lead, headed for the stairs instead of the elevator. Russell muttered, “I forgot you took the stairs,” but caught up easily.

      “I always take the stairs. That way I can eat as much Ben & Jerry’s as I want.” Margrit trailed her hand along the railing. “I’m sure he’s got people who do nothing but research other people for him, but I get the idea he likes to pretend he’s a man of the people. Could I have used ‘people’ any more times in that sentence?”

      “I don’t think so.” Russell flashed a grin at her, then glanced toward the parking garage.

      “Can I give you a lift anywhere?”

      Margrit smiled and shook her head. “No, thanks. I’ll take the subway home. Probably faster, anyway. Tell Joyce happy birthday.”

      “I will, thanks. See you in the morning, Margrit.”

      “‘Night, Russell.” Margrit tightened her coat around herself with a sigh, then hurried for the subway station.

      Halfway home from the subway Margrit took a detour, impulse driving her to the park in the skirt suit she’d worn to work, rather than changing into running gear before going there. The sky had lost its last hints of twilight, and she hoped wearing daytime clothes might signal a change of intent to her gargoyle protector. Curiosity would impel most humans to investigate. Gargoyles might be made of harder stuff, but she hoped not.

      She slid her fingertips over the sleeve of her jacket, imagining briefly what Alban’s expression might be had she worn the white silk dress of the night before. He was, if anything, an element of earth, so perhaps the close-fitting dress wouldn’t bring fire to his eyes, as it had with Janx. But it might have brought a subtle shifting to the forefront, the rooted approval of stone. A glimmer of Alban’s admiration meant more, even in her imagination, than Janx’s easy flattery ever could.

      The temperature dropped further and her determination to face Alban girded as a lawyer instead of in exercise gear seemed increasingly foolish. She might have kept warm by running, and the gargoyle would watch from above no matter what she wore.

      A few runners, familiar strangers to her, nodded greetings or flashed smiles, though they’d never exchanged names. One, a tall raw woman with dreadlocks pulled into a thick ponytail, spun as she passed, running backward and cocking a curious eyebrow at Margrit’s outfit.

      “Meeting someone,” Margrit called in explanation, and the woman’s expression cleared into a smile. She turned away again with a wave, stretching her stride out until night rendered her invisible.

      “So much for New Yorkers’ legendary indifference.” A hint of an Eastern European accent flavored the statement, as did a heavy sense of the inevitable. Hope and relief prickled Margrit’s skin, then sank inward, filling an emptiness inside her with warmth. It seemed absurd to tremble as she turned, but her steps were unsteady as she did so, searching for the speaker.

      Alban stood almost swallowed by shadows at the edge of the fountain’s circle of light, suit jacket flipped open to allow his hands to ride in his pockets. His stance was broader than usual, feet planted shoulder width apart as if he expected to take a hit. Even his posture was more human than she’d seen it before, shoulders rounded and weight rolled forward through his hips. His head was ducked, so that when she met his eyes it was through fine strands of white-blond hair falling loose from their ponytail and into his face.

      “Did Grace teach you to stand like that? Like a fashion model,” Margrit said as Alban’s gaze came up writ with confusion. “Aggressively sexy for the camera. She stands that way.” A flash of the two of them together, both pale, Grace in her unrelenting black leather and Alban a studied contrast in his business suit, made Margrit curl a hand in a fist, then loosen it again. In the intervening weeks, Alban might have shared considerably more than a new way to stand with the under-street vigilante, but that was the path he’d chosen. Just as Margrit had chosen a sunlit world, and a boyfriend whose work demanded much, but didn’t steal away every hour from dawn to dusk.

      No. Alban had chosen that particular path for her.

      Margrit’s hand curled a second time, as if she picked a fight with herself. She’d chosen her daylight life as much as Alban had, by opting not to pursue him until the Old Races sought her out again. Laying blame at the gargoyle’s feet was cheating, and she didn’t like the impulse.

      “I need your help.” She spoke too abruptly and the words were all wrong, nothing of what she wanted to say in them. Alban’s expression remained impassive. “Staying away from me to try to protect me doesn’t work. I’m in over my head with your people again, and I really could use your help.” Still the wrong words. Margrit set her teeth together. “Alban, I … Come on.” She gave an unhappy laugh. “Give me something here, will you?”

      But for a breath of wind stirring his hair, he might have been carved of stone. Like talking to a brick wall, though Margrit couldn’t conjure up any humor at the thought. After a few seconds she pulled her lower lip between her teeth.

      “Yeah. Yeah, all right, fine. Have it your way.” Hands knotted into fists once more, she nodded, then turned and walked away. Disappointment churned in her stomach and she told it to go away, trying to build a slow anger from it instead. The gargoyle had gotten her into the Old Races’ world, and if he didn’t want to help her now that she was ensconced, then to hell with him. A petulant impulse to show him, like a child would, latched onto growing anger and helped it flare.

      “Margrit.” СКАЧАТЬ