Hands of Flame. C.E. Murphy

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СКАЧАТЬ across the rooftop would somehow retrieve a pair of missing gargoyles.

      Hank had been too angry at her reappearance and not guilty enough at taking the money to be responsible, she thought. She would confront him, but gut instinct said the building manager hadn’t broken the gargoyles to pieces and dumped them. Gut instinct and a lack of dust or rubble, though those could be taken care of with a broom. But unless Daisani had double-crossed her, Margrit had no other explanation. Color rushed to her cheeks at the idea, her vision tunneling and expanding again. There was nothing she could do to the vampire if he had, but there were things he wanted she could withdraw from the table. It was better than nothing.

      The rooftop door’s knob nudged her hip, making her realize she’d backed up without noticing. Margrit folded a hand around it, still staring blankly at the empty roof, then shook herself with deliberate violence and turned away. Whatever answers there were, they wouldn’t be found by helpless inaction.

      The building manager blanched so white Margrit had every confidence he hadn’t been responsible for the gargoyles’ disappearance. She left him with his wad of cash and found a subway station, unwilling to wait on a taxi making its tedious way through traffic.

      Her slow burn had lit to genuine, body-flushing anger by the time she reached Daisani’s building. She didn’t bother checking in, using her key card for the elevators with impunity, and stalked through what had been Vanessa Gray’s reception area to throw Daisani’s private office’s door open.

      He wasn’t there. A dry crack of laughter hurt Margrit’s throat as indignation deflated under the heavy weight of reality. Once in a while the world allowed itself to be set up for dramatic confrontations, but arbitrary disappointment was the more likely scenario at any given moment. She paused at Daisani’s oversized desk to leave the envelope of cash on it, then stepped forward to lean against the plate-glass windows that overlooked the city. It looked serene from so far above, no hint that the lives taking place within it were chaotic and unpredictable.

      The elevator in the front office dinged. Margrit straightened from the window, turning to find Daisani, looking as disheveled as she’d ever seen him, at her side. Genuine concern wrinkled his forehead, and he offered a comforting hand. “I came as quickly as I could.”

      Margrit’s eyebrows arched and a faint crease of humor warped the vampire’s mouth. “I came as quickly as humanly possible,” he amended. “The pilot informed me they’d already been picked up. Who—?”

      “I don’t know. I didn’t know what else to tell him. They were just gone. I don’t think it was the building manager.” Margrit thinned her lips, eyeing Daisani. He caught the weight of accusation and rolled back onto his heels, giving her a brief, unexpected height advantage.

      “And now you suspect me. You promised me something I wanted in return for their safe rescue, Margrit. I rarely renege on scenarios which provide me with things I desire.”

      “You know that bargain’s moot now. You didn’t rescue them. I’m not spilling secrets for noble attempts.”

      Pleasantry trickled out of Daisani’s expression, leaving his dark eyes full of warning. “That’s a dangerous choice. Are you sure you want to make it?”

      “This is twice you’ve failed to come through, Eliseo. Hell, right now I’m wondering why exactly it is I should come work for you. I promised I would in exchange for you keeping Malik alive. He’s dead.” An image of flames burned Margrit’s eyes and she blinked it away as Daisani’s countenance darkened. Sharp awareness that she should be afraid brightened Margrit’s focus, but no alarm triggered. Whether the vampire’s too-fast, alien nature had ceased to be a source of alarm, or if fatalism simply outweighed nerves, seemed irrelevant.

      “You’ve become dangerously bold, Miss Knight.”

      “I always have been. I’ve just gotten to where I’m not afraid of laying it out with your people, as well as mine. Oh, don’t give me that look.” She snapped away Daisani’s expression of faint dismay. “I wouldn’t be any use to you if I was terrified. Vanessa couldn’t have been.”

      “Vanessa and I,” Daisani said after a measured moment, “had a very different relationship than you and I do. And terror has its uses.”

      “So does boldness. If you didn’t take them, who did?” Margrit put the argument aside firmly, confident she’d won.

      Daisani gave her a long, hard look, speaking volumes about the game she played before he, too, set it aside. “Even if he knew about their predicament, Janx no longer has the resources to move two gargoyles. Besides, he hasn’t been seen in days. It’s possible he’s left the city.”

      “Do you really think he’d give up his territory that easily?” The House of Cards had burned, selkies and djinn moving into the vacuum left by its fall. Janx had retreated underground to lick wounds both literal and figurative, but Margrit doubted he’d readily walk away from the criminal empire he’d created. “There’s still a lot of upheaval going on at the docks. Cops have been down there nonstop since the raid and they’re still not keeping all the violence in check. The opportunity to take it all back is there for a strong enough leader.”

      “Ah, yes, the docks. Speaking of which, how’s your friend Detective Pulcella? I’ve seen him on the news several nights a week since the House was raided. He’s a good-looking young man, isn’t he?”

      Margrit’s hands curled into fists. “Yes, he is. I haven’t really talked to him since the raid.” Tony Pulcella was a homicide detective, though the bust that had given prosecutors Janx’s financial books had put Tony on a fast track to promotion and a wider range of responsibilities. The clincher was Janx’s arrest, and he’d been working long hours toward that end, as evidenced by innumerable news-camera glimpses of him day and night. He was well outside his jurisdiction, but homicides linked to Janx cropped up all over the city, and Tony had long since been part of the team trying to bring the crimelord in. His determination to do so had helped tear apart his relationship with Margrit, and ironically, she was now far more deeply entangled in Janx’s world than her ex-lover could ever have imagined.

      “Quite the proper hero,” Daisani went on blithely. “A pity for him that he can’t see what’s really going on.”

      “How could he?” Bitterness laced Margrit’s question. “You’d kill him if he found out about you.”

      Newscasts didn’t show the way the Old Races moved, too fluid and graceful, marking them as creatures unfettered by the bounds that held humanity in check. Margrit had learned, though, to look for other signs on the news: djinn with their jewel-bright gazes, selkies with their tremendously dark eyes, all pupil and blackness. The two races had forged a treaty to support each other, making natural enemies into one tremendous force, their numbers vastly greater than any others of the Old Races. The selkies had long since bred with humans to replenish their failing numbers, breaking one of the few dearly held laws that all five remaining races had in common. The insular, desert-bound djinn had supported the selkie petition to return to full standing amongst the Old Races in exchange for selkie help in taking over and running Janx’s underworld empire.

      Neither party appeared to be happy with the arrangement now that it was met. Clashes on the street had the feel and damage of gang warfare, leaving police bewildered when weapons were found abandoned at the water’s edge, blood on the ground and no sign of embattled people in sight. One journalist was dead, his camera destroyed. Margrit had little doubt he’d captured a selkie or djinn transforming, and paid the price for it.

      Janx had run the House of Cards СКАЧАТЬ