C.E. Mutphy - Hands of Flame

“Not until I learn what trouble Rebecca Knight has had that she turns to Eliseo to solve it.” Alban folded his arms over his chest, making his breadth that much more impressive.

Daisani’s lighthearted telling sobered, not because of Alban’s unvoiced threat, but because his focus narrowed on Margrit, a hint of anger coming through. “It wasn’t a bad idea, Miss Knight. Calling on your mother to help lay my empire low. Not that she would agree, which even I could have told you. Even to save her daughter’s life, she wouldn’t act on a promise like that, perhaps especially one made to the djinn who’d threatened her, as well. So she called on me, and on the weight of the secret she has held for me for thirty years, I found myself reluctant to deny her what she asked. And now I find myself with a promise of protecting you on the one hand, and a promise to permit your execution on the other. Tell me, Margrit, what shall I do?”

“I’ve been dead once. Isn’t that enough?” Margrit passed her own question off with a wave she recognized as having been adopted from the Old Races; from Janx, specifically, she thought. “You could call the playing field even,” she said more quietly and more seriously. “You’re in a position to do that.”

Janx tipped his head, small motion that still managed to be a warning. Margrit fought off a grimace, briefly exasperated with the ancient battle of one-upmanship the two elders had. “I wish you would,” she went on. “Walk away from New York. Let this lifetime go. You’ve got plenty more ahead of you.”

“You’re not answering the question, Miss Knight.”

Margrit made her hands into fists. “Tariq’s happy to backstab you now over a decision you made months ago, a decision that doesn’t have anything to do with him or his people or any deal you made with them. He’s playing my survival off as being a betrayal of your agreeing to my death, and he’s…” She trailed off, finally fully realizing what Daisani had said. “My mother double-crossed a djinn?”

“Really, Margrit, how many times have I told you that your mother is a remarkable woman? I’m sure she doesn’t think of it as double-crossing. I’m sure she considers it to be…survival of the fittest. If she could lie bold-faced to one of the Old Races, then turn around and ask another of us for help, I would say she’s most certainly fit to survive.”

Pride rose up in Margrit as a blush, heating her cheeks and bringing a foolish smile to her face. “Go, Mom. Wow. The best I’ve done is mislead you.”

“Which is fairly remarkable in itself,” Daisani said dryly. “Once more, you’ve failed to answer the question.”

Still riding on a wave of pride, Margrit let the truth out unvarnished. “You should break the deal with the djinn and let me live. At least I was up front about trying to take you down. I’m an honest enemy, if I’ve got to be one.”

“An honest enemy. One who will report to work Monday morning as expected?”

“Keep your friends close?” Margrit asked with a wince. “I’d like to. I’d actually like to, and part of me is saying if I go to work for you, I have a chance at getting my hands on the right kinds of material to bring you down. I can’t just try like I did tonight and walk away. I have to succeed, because Janx isn’t going to let Tony go on a good try from the home team.”

“Janx?” Daisani wheeled to face the indolent dragon, who looked up with mocking apology.

“I’m afraid she’s right. If she’d like to go to work for you, I’m happy to take the cost out of Detective Pulcella’s hide. Entirely up to you, Margrit, of course.”

“Of course.” Margrit pressed her lips together, arms folded across her chest defensively. “You know, I actually came down here to ask you something, Janx. Something I didn’t think Eliseo would answer.”

“Really.” Janx kicked his legs off the lounge and sat up, fingers laced and interest brightening his eyes. “Whatever could that be?”

“I came to ask about one of his vulnerabilities.” Margrit watched the vampire as she spoke, unconcerned for Janx or his reaction. “I came to ask if you knew what it would mean if I asked him where the bodies are buried.”

Sound erupted around her, a cat’s shriek melded with a whale’s song and all of it accompanied by an explosion of movement vastly unlike anything Margrit had seen from the Old Races before. Daisani seemed to fly apart, a black viscous splash of oil and night, and then came back together again so quickly she doubted she’d even seen the change.

He was in Margrit’s face, and somehow stopped from tearing her apart: Ursula was there, between them, moving as fast as he did. Then Alban, crushing Daisani’s biceps in an unforgiving grip. Janx was on his feet, flexing with eagerness, and Kate crowded in beside Ursula, helping make a barrier.

Margrit had seen none of them move. Her heartbeat was sickeningly fast, making her light-headed with the panic of being in the midst of a reckoning that she had no control over. Chelsea’s warning, to have Alban with her when she asked that question, seemed pitifully inadequate now: without the entire quartet who held Daisani off, she was certain she would already be dead. That she would have died so quickly that she would never have seen it coming.

Daisani craned his head toward her, neck elongating to an impossible degree. Ursula snaked into his path, half blocking Margrit’s view, clearly protecting her. “Me first, Father.”

Hesitation flickered in Daisani’s black eyes. His jaw opened too far, starting to unhinge, and then he snapped it shut again and withdrew into himself, suddenly the same contained businessman Margrit had met him as. He shook off Alban’s hands, and to Margrit’s horror, the gargoyle let him.

“You will come to regret asking that question, Margrit Knight. You will come to regret it, and so, too, will the one who guided you toward asking.

“Catch me,” the vampire whispered. “Catch me if you can.”

Daisani’s words lingered far longer than he did, sounds left on a whisk of wind as he sped away. Ursula, unexpectedly, squealed with glee and disappeared after him. Even Kate look startled at her sister’s departure, taking a few abortive steps to follow before stopping. Alban flexed his hands, regretting that he’d released the vampire, but uncertain Daisani couldn’t have slipped free regardless.

“Chelsea,” Margrit whispered. “He’s going after Chelsea. Can Ursula stop him?”

Kate shook her head. “Ursula’s not trying to stop him. She just wants to race. She’s never had anyone as fast as she was to go up against.”

Janx snorted beneath Kate’s denial. “One does not go after Chelsea Huo. Not even Eliseo is that rash.”

Margrit stared at him and Alban put himself between the two of them, catching Margrit’s hand in his own. “Would you go after the serpent at the heart of the world, Margrit?”

The petite human transferred her stare to him, becoming incredulous. “How could you?”

“No more than you can go after Chelsea. Don’t worry.”

Margrit dropped her chin to her chest, forehead pinched with the force of her frown. “So her referring to humans wasn’t just because she’s gotten in the habit of thinking of all the races by their specific names.” She lifted her gaze, lips thin, and pulled her hand from Alban’s to fold her arms. “What is she?”

Alban fought off the temptation to follow her and simply shook his head. “Some secrets aren’t ours to tell.”

A beat of silence, then two, filled the room before Alban, half apologetically, said, “Some secrets aren’t ours to tell.”

Margrit threw her head back, scowling at the chamber ceiling. “Of course not.” She set her teeth together, then, jaw still held tense, visibly tried to let it go. Tried, and almost succeeded: Alban barely heard her threat of, “One of these days I’ll get inside your memories and find out.”