C.E. Mutphy - Hands of Flame

“First, he is, but more important, he’s not the one gunning for Tony. It’s Janx, the guy who used to run the House of Cards up in Harlem. Tony took the House down and Janx is looking for retaliation. If he didn’t owe me a favor, Tony would be dead already. Unfortunately, I owe him one, too, and this is what he’s asking for.”

“What on earth could someone like Janx have against Eliseo?”

Margrit ground her teeth together, then repeated, carefully, “You do not want to know.”

A difficult expression—regret, distress, perhaps mixed with chagrin—crossed Rebecca’s face and faded, leaving it neutral with acceptance. “If you say so, Margrit. But if Tony is being threatened by a criminal, that’s something for the police to deal with, not—”

“Mom!” Exasperated almost to the point of amusement, Margrit tied her hair back up with quick ferocious movements before she trusted herself to speak again. “Mom, if there was any other way to deal with this, I would. There isn’t. So it’s pretty simple, really. Are you going to help me?”

Regret and its closer cousin sorrow left marks in Rebecca’s face this time. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but you know the answer to that. You know I can’t.”

Margrit turned away, finding one of the soft leather sofas to sit down on hard. Conflicting emotions rattled her: relief and dismay in equal parts, neither of them certain what to do with themselves. She had known on every reasonable level that Rebecca couldn’t possibly agree. It was too black an area, too obviously illegal, and the fact that she herself had been willing to follow it said more than she wanted to consider about the path she’d taken since meeting the Old Races. At the same time, her mother had been the only real inside chance she’d had. “Yeah.” She heard her own voice distantly. “Yeah, I knew that. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No,” Rebecca said, surprisingly cheerful. “You shouldn’t have. And you could have saved us time and trouble by asking on the phone, Margrit, really.”

“There was always the chance you’d say yes. I wanted you here where you could act before you came to your senses.”

“Margrit.” Rebecca’s voice gentled. “There was never any chance I’d say yes.”

Thick pain settled around Margrit’s heart, squeezing. Without that help, legal or not, she was out of options as to how to take Daisani down. Out of options she wanted to consider: Chelsea’s cryptic advice lingered at the back of her mind, nerve-wracking and tantalizing. “I know. But I hoped I was wrong. It wasn’t a bad plan, except for it being illegal. I even had a buyer for the stock.”

“Call your stockholders,” murmured a voice behind Margrit. Familiar voice, touched with the hint of desert sands, and as Rebecca’s face whitened, Margrit realized the pressure around her heart wasn’t just exhausted emotion. Not with the soft, faint threat in Tariq’s words: “Prepare Daisani’s fall, Rebecca Knight, or watch your daughter die.”

An offended part of Margrit’s mind protested, silently, that she’d been dead once lately and facing the sentence twice in a day seemed unfair. As though he heard her thoughts, Tariq leaned in close, body warmth no more than a mist by Margrit’s cheek. “Your life was forfeit, Margrit Knight. Imagine my surprise to see you at Eliseo Daisani’s apartment today.”

Margrit caught her breath, or tried: it hitched, as did her heartbeat. “What were you doing there?” Her voice sounded like Rebecca’s had when she’d stood in this same position, Tariq’s fist around her heart: weak, fluttery, pained.

“Ensuring the glassmaker’s empire was ours. Your offer was generous, but merely cemented a deal already in the making. We had never, since we left our deserts, intended on sharing it.”

Sudden clarity blazed through Margrit, making the pain in her chest seem worse. Clear as gargoyle memory, the moment of exchange between Daisani and Tariq after the trial played vividly for her mind’s eye. “You double-dealing bastard.” A note of admiration wheezed through the words. “You’re playing both sides against the middle. That’s why Daisani wouldn’t agree to let Malik’s death go, even though Janx asked him to. He promised you.”

“So he did, and we cannot allow a lack of retribution. Your life would have sufficed, had Daisani’s gift not made it so hard to take.”

“So now what?” Speaking made Margrit dizzy, but stopping seemed like giving up. “Now you’re going to take him down, too, for backstabbing you whether he meant to or not?”

“In essence.” Tariq sounded smug. “Why settle for one empire when we might command two?”

“You’ll command nothing if you don’t release my daughter.” Rebecca finally broke in, voice strong and confident after Tariq’s murmurs and Margrit’s breathless attempts to keep talking. A surge of pride and panic rose in Margrit: she had hoped to distract the djinn from Rebecca’s presence, though to what end she didn’t know. In case of sunset and a psychic link warning Alban she was in need of rescue, perhaps. Even with a hand fisted around her heart, the idea amused her.

Tariq lifted his gaze to Rebecca, misty presence shimmering in the edge of Margrit’s vision. “You’re in no position to issue commands.”

Rebecca’s eyebrows rose. “Do you have access to the accounts that could bankrupt Eliseo Daisani? No,” she said after a judiciously brief pause. “I didn’t think so. I see a few choices here, Mr.—?”

“Tariq,” Margrit whispered when Tariq didn’t speak. “His name is Tariq.”

“Tariq,” Rebecca repeated. “You can kill Margrit, or me, or both of us, none of which will achieve your goals, or you can release her, earn my goodwill and accomplish what you’re attempting. It seems like a simple decision to me.”

Tariq made a soft, derisive sound. “And what prevents me from killing you when I have what I want?”

“Your word on it,” Rebecca said calmly. She sounded as though she was brokering a business deal, not bargaining for her daughter’s life. Margrit, mixed with admiration and terror, wondered if she sounded like that when bartering with the Old Races. “Your word that you won’t harm Margrit or myself, or any of our family, not now and not ever,” Rebecca concluded.

No, Margrit decided, she didn’t sound that confident, and she didn’t think she was ever that thorough. Tariq laughed, murderous sharp sound. “And you’d trust my word?”

“Yes.” Rebecca spoke with no caveats, no doubts, nothing but serene confidence, and then offered a soft, pointed smile that had put the fear of God, or at least Rebecca Knight, into Margrit for her entire childhood. Something like a laugh tried to break free of her constricted chest as Rebecca explained, almost gently, “I would trust your word because, if for no other reason, you owe Margrit your freedom.”

Tariq’s hand spasmed around her heart, as much show of shock as Margrit had ever seen a djinn indulge in. She was certain his astonishment was echoed in her own face, a suspicion that was confirmed by Rebecca’s brief acknowledging nod.

“Not wanting to know doesn’t mean I don’t watch, Margrit. I understand that sometimes you need a weapon at hand even if you don’t want to use it. Am I right?” She turned her gaze on Tariq, an eyebrow lifted.

For a moment the events of the past hung over them all as though they replayed on a screen, clear and precise. Margrit had faced down Daisani over Tariq’s freedom when the djinn had been captured in a binding circle of vampire’s blood. Daisani had been more than willing—eager, even—to enslave Tariq as punishment for damages done to Rebecca, and Margrit had threatened the vampire with everything she could in order to gain Tariq’s release. It had been a gesture of passion, borne in the moment, and Tariq and Daisani had both thought her a fool. Margrit had had no idea her mother had paused to watch the exchange, and now wondered if the honor that seemed to hold so much sway within the Old Races—even amongst those who denied its power—would be visited upon mortals.