C.E. Mutphy - Hands of Flame

“I would have, too, if I’d found out you were screwing around on me with—”

“Margrit’s greatest indiscretion with regards to me was in keeping her silence on my true nature during Detective Pulcella’s investigation.” Alban cut in, voice low with warning. “I can understand your fear and distrust of me—”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Cole spat, scorn so thick it almost hid the note of falsehood in his denial.

Alban shrugged, wings rippling with the movement. “But I think it unfair to impugn Margrit’s honor. You’ve known her for many years. Surely you think more highly of her than that.”

“I don’t know her at all.” Cole turned away, a slash of hurt and anger against the night. Cameron’s shoulders dropped, much of her joy gone, but she turned to Alban with a hopeful smile.

“Thank you for trusting me. Us. I have about five million questions, and I really, really hope I get a chance to ask them sometime. I’m glad to have really met you, Alban.” She hesitated, then put out her hand, and Alban clasped it gently with taloned fingers.

“I am glad, as well, and I think we’ll have more opportunities to talk.” His smile was toothsome and alarming, if she was predisposed to being alarmed, but Cam’s answering smile dimpled with a hint of the delight she’d shown earlier. Then she followed Cole, concern in the bent of her body.

Margrit steepled her fingers in front of her mouth as she watched them go. “That went better and worse than I hoped. I thought Cam would be more alarmed, but I hoped Cole would have mellowed out a little by now.”

“He may never, Margrit.” Alban stepped up behind her, folding his arms around her waist and closing his wings around them both, making a pocket of warmth against the wind. “We don’t keep ourselves hidden because we want to hide from reactions like Cameron’s. She did take it better than you.”

“Well, you were wanted for murder. And I’d been hit by a car. Almost. And…” Margrit elbowed Alban lightly as he began to chuckle. “I came around.”

“And she had the safety of friends at hand. Yes, you did, a gift which I will never stop marveling at.”

Margrit sighed. “Maybe it’s a girl thing. We all watched too much Dark Shadows and Beauty and the Beast when we were kids and now magnificent creatures hiding in the dark are tantalizing, not terrifying.”

“I hate to disagree with such a persuasive argument, but not only were you terrified of me initially, but I believe Janx and Daisani still…”

“Scare the shit out of me?” Margrit offered when Alban hesitated, lost for a phrase. He chuckled and nodded, earning Margrit’s rueful smile. “All right, so it wasn’t the best argument ever. I should…probably go in and try to talk to them. And if that doesn’t work, at least take a shower and try to find the twins before I have to go…”

“To work?”

“That’s how that sentence should end. Instead I have to try to keep the djinn from declaring all-out war on you, me and Janx, probably especially me, and if that doesn’t work, I have to borrow a pint of Daisani’s blood and get the police department to trust me when I say dip the handcuffs in it.” Margrit thinned her lips, looking up at the gargoyle. “You’ve made my life very complicated. Interesting, but complicated.”

“I hope you can forgive me for that.”

“Probably.” Margrit drew a deep breath. “All right. Tell me where to find the twins, and leave me to face my housemates.”

The sounds of argument cut off as Margrit closed the front door. Cameron, pink-cheeked with distress, looked out of the bedroom she shared with Cole and whispered, “We didn’t think you’d be coming home.”

“I thought maybe it would help to talk.”

“Talk?” Cole’s angry voice sailed past Cameron. “What is there to talk about? When you said it was too much to deal with a couple weeks ago, I thought you meant it was over, Grit.” He appeared behind Cam, who turned out of the way so her taller form wouldn’t block his view or his conversation.

Conversation. That was an unusually polite word for the exchange. Margrit sighed and went to lean on her bedroom door. Cam, falling into an old pattern, stepped away from Cole to lean against the front doorframe, making an unequidistant triangle between the three of them. They’d spent uncountable time in those doors, standing around talking for hours after they should’ve slept. A spark of hope lit in Margrit’s breast, even though Cole’s tight expression told her there was no reason for it. “I think I said I was too tired to fight about it right then and we’d talk about it later. I guess it’s later now.”

“Yeah? And what do you want me to say? That it’s okay you’re screwing a freak?”

“No.” Margrit’s reply was very soft, even to her own ears. “Mostly what I want you to say—to promise—is that you won’t tell anybody, under any circumstances, what you know. Because if the rest of them find out you’ve learned about them, if they think you’re any kind of risk, they’ll kill you, Cole. Both of you. Their existence depends on secrecy.”

“Of course we wouldn’t tell.” Cameron sounded confident and strong, her expression laced with challenge as she looked toward her fiancé. “Aside from who would believe us, it’d be a death sentence. Not for us,” she said as Cole’s gaze darkened. “For them. You wouldn’t want to be responsible for killing somebody, would you, Cole?”

“That thing isn’t a somebody. It’s a monster. How do you even know it’s safe, Margrit? How do you know it’s not going to turn around and tear you apart someday?”

“Because if he wanted me dead, I’d be dead half a dozen times over already.” A shiver turned Margrit’s skin to goose bumps as she realized how true her statement was. She’d been in more danger in the weeks she’d known Alban than she’d ever known before. “He wouldn’t have had to have done anything. He could’ve just let that cab run me down in January.”

“Was that on purpose?” Horror filled Cameron’s question and her voice shot higher as Margrit nodded. “Grit, what happened back then? Did Alban kill all those people?”

“No.” Margrit glanced upward for strength, then plunged on. “It was another gargoyle, a woman who thought Alban was her father and had abandoned her and her mother. She tried to kill me. Alban saved my life.” She rubbed her hand over her forearm, remembering the pain of its break. “He’s been protecting me for a long time.”

Cole demanded, “How long?” as Cam’s worry relaxed a little.

“Years,” Margrit replied reluctantly. Cole’s expression said the same things she had thought when she’d first learned that Alban had been watching over her: that she’d been stalked by a lunatic. “He doesn’t think of it that way,” she said to the unspoken accusation. “Gargoyles protect. That’s what they do. It’s what they are.”

“At least somebody was keeping an eye on her.” Cam’s smile wavered hopefully. “I mean, she wasn’t out there running every night all alone after all.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” Cole asked.

Cam’s tottery smile fell away. “It does me.”

“Knowing there was a monster stalking your best friend makes you—” Cole broke off with a sound of fear and frustration, then turned on his heel and reentered their bedroom. The door closed behind him at a decibel and speed just shy of a slam.

Cameron flinched and Margrit dropped her chin to her chest. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” Cam sounded exhausted and bewildered. “Grit, I don’t know…”

Margrit lifted her gaze again, tightness pricking at her eyes and throat. “I know. It’s one thing to date somebody your friends don’t approve of, but this is different. This isn’t the guy you think might be violent or have a drug problem or who’s just a jerk.” She chuckled and put a hand over her face for a moment. “In fact, Alban’s about as far from any of that as you can get. But it’s a little hard to ignore what he is.”