C.E. Mutphy - Hands of Flame

“Not now that you’ve warned me,” he said with more apology.

Margrit glared at him. “All right. All right, fine, whatever. Never mind what she is. Some secrets have to be kept.” She sighed suddenly and pulled her hair loose to scrub her fingers through it. “How about the secret of where the bodies are? Do either of you know what that means?” Worry washed away her frustration and she hugged herself. “I don’t care how safe you think she is. I want to make sure.”

“My dear—”

Margrit spun to face Janx, exasperation filling her voice to the edge of lividity, mercurial human emotion a wonder, as always, to Alban. “I heard you. What if you’re wrong? She’s the one who told me to ask the question that just sent Eliseo Daisani running out of here like a bat out of hell, Janx. How often does Eliseo run from anything?”

Janx looked toward Alban, who opened a hand in answer to the question. “There was Moscow. But then, you left rather precipitously, too, didn’t you? With your tail between your legs, if the stories have it right.”

The dragon’s nostrils flared, and Margrit looked from one Old Race to another with an expression that demanded explanation. Alban flashed a smile and shook his head. “That’s all anyone knows about it. But aside from that, I don’t remember the last time Eliseo ran from anything, and a gargoyle should.”

“You’ve been out of the memories a long time, Stoneheart. There was Van Helsing.” A hint of smugness slithered over Janx’s face as Alban lifted his eyebrows. “You wouldn’t know about that. It was what sent him—and me, in the end—to the Americas. Van Helsing is why there’ve been no vampires but Daisani these past hundred and fifty years.”

“Van Helsing is a story,” Margrit protested.

Momentary silence filled the chamber before the dragonlord smiled. “You can stand here, in this company, and say that with such authority? You asked once what happened to those humans who executed the Old Races. Your own facetious answer was immortality, but you’re not so far off, my dear. Human fiction disguises worlds of truth.”

Margrit shot a look from Janx to Alban and back again, then cast a wary glance toward Kate, as though checking to see if the other woman could tell if the Old Races were having her on. Kate made a tiny motion of denial and Margrit’s gaze came back to the dragon and gargoyle. “Are you telling me Abraham Van Helsing existed and hunted vampires? That he came to help some woman who was bitten—But it doesn’t work that way. You can’t turn a human into a vampire.”

“Ah, but what if you flip the story around? What if Lucy lies dying of consumption, and her doting suitor discovers a sip of vampire blood will cure all her ills? What if he begs help from a doctor friend and they pursue the panacea at all costs, but are refused and the beloved wife dies? The lover might retire, his heart broken, but the doctor might be unable to let the idea of a universal cure go. He might make of himself a hunter, perhaps the best in all the world.”

Margrit lifted her hands to her temples, massaging.

A burst of sympathy filled Alban and he stepped forward to touch her shoulder.

She dropped her hands and stared at the ceiling before exhaling heavily. “Yeah, okay, I guess he might just. I mean, all the other stories are turned on their ears. So what happened?”

Janx shrugged. “Eliseo determined retreat was the better part of valor, and fled. Shortly thereafter he met Vanessa, and you know the rest.”

Margrit laughed, short, sharp sound, and turned a despairing look on Alban. “That’s so far from the truth I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Why are we still here?” Kate demanded with what struck Alban as very human impatience. “Even if Daisani can’t do anything to this Chelsea person, shouldn’t we still be going after him? What if you’re wrong?”

Janx sniffed. “I’m rarely wrong, Katherine. And there’s no haste, because it’s not possible to catch up with him. Your sister might have, but as for the rest of us, we may as well wait for him to come to a stop.”

“Wherever that may be,” Kate said sourly.

“Most of us do have somewhere we call home.” Janx gave Margrit a telling look. “Unless it’s been stripped of us, of course. Either way, I have very little fear for our friendly neighborhood bookseller.”

Margrit glowered at the dragon. “Chelsea told me to ask about the bodies when I asked if Eliseo had any vulnerabilities. I’d think you’d be just a little bit interested in what the answer was. If you’re not, that’s fine. I won’t pursue it, but you’ll release me from this promise, no holds barred. I leave Daisani alone, he retains his empire, and you don’t go after Tony. I’m going to check on Chelsea. Come or don’t, but make your choice, dragonlord. I’m sick of this.”

Janx said, “I liked it better when she was afraid of us,” to Alban, then bowed melodramatically to Margrit. “Very well. I’ll chase your wild goose.”

Kate and Janx walked ahead, red-haired vanguards of a tiny army. Margrit itched to turn to Alban and plead for him to take her and take wing. They’d left the tunnels as close to Chelsea’s bookstore as any of them knew how, but the intervening blocks could have been swept away under a few beats of Alban’s wings. The idea of a few minutes of time alone in the sky with him was as appealing as making certain of Chelsea’s safety that much more quickly. But neither Janx nor Kate could transform as discreetly as Alban, and with Janx’s grudging agreement to join them, Margrit was reluctant to now leave him behind.

“Did I do this?” Her voice sounded wrong to her own ears, too soft and high. Alban looked down, concern creasing his forehead, and she fluttered a hand at the pair in front of them; at the world. “Did I make your world this place where we’re all running around trying to stab each other in the back before someone else gets a chance?”

“You had help,” Alban said with a ghost of humor.

Margrit twisted a smile. “I feel so much better, then.”

“Even my people have come to believe this is necessary, Margrit. Even I have. Not the politics and machinations, but a forcible entry into the modern age. Perhaps the one doesn’t come without the other. Everything has a price.”

“I hope it’s worth it.” Margrit’s phone rang and she clapped a hand against her hip, then pulled the phone from her pocket to say, “Hello?”

Kaimana Kaaiai’s easygoing voice came across the line, sounding, as usual, as though he had a smile in place. “Margrit Knight. Cara asked me to contact you. She seems to think you have another trick up your sleeve.”

Margrit stopped walking and scowled at the sky, lips thinned as she considered what to say. After a moment she shrugged and chose the truth. “I had one. It fell out.”

Some of the geniality fell out of the selkie lord’s voice. “Really. I was given to understand this trick would compensate us for a significant loss. I’m disappointed to hear it won’t be coming through. What, if I may ask, was it?”

“Does it matter?” The brusque question was just better than the ill-advised suggestion to suck it up that Margrit was tempted to give. “I’m sorry to have bothered you, especially if you’re back in Hawaii. It must be about four in the morning.”

“On the contrary, it’s seven in the evening. Nothing to worry about,” Kaimana assured her. “Will you be providing another form of recompense?”

Margrit pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it. It was a moment before she trusted herself enough to say, “I’m afraid not,” politely. “It was a gamble. You lost. It happens.”

“It was your gamble, Ms. Knight.”