C.E. Murphy - Heart of Stone

“I cannot go to the police.” Alban’s voice dropped, quiet determination filling it. “My…condition,” he said carefully, “forbids it. If I should be kept in custody past dawn-no.”

“Your condition, ” Margrit mimicked. “Why are you even worried about-about what people like us think, anyway?”

“My life is already lived in shadows,” he said. “To spend every night hiding my face until these murders are solved or until those who would pursue it die is too much. Margrit, listen to me. Talking to you in the park the same night that girl died was an unspeakably bad coincidence. It was the first time I had the nerve to do it. I never intended to speak to you again. I only wanted to hear your voice.”

Margrit shuddered. “That’s incredibly freaky.”

“I suppose it is. I hadn’t thought of it like that. I…wouldn’t. But I’d intended to leave you alone after that.” He fell silent a moment or two. “You might be glad circumstances forced me to act otherwise. That car would have killed you.”

“So, what, you just follow me around town every night making sure I’m safe? Oh, Christ.” She lifted her gaze, focusing across the street without seeing. “The gargoyle on the building across my street at work. The one Mark and I couldn’t remember seeing before. That was you. Oh, my God.”

“It was, yes. I’ve been seeking another opportunity to speak to you. Could we continue this conversation in person? I don’t like talking about myself over the phone.”

“Gee, I wonder why. My roommates are home,” Margrit said. “They’re not going to take kindly to you knocking on the door.”

“I believe I can avoid that,” Alban said into the phone and in her other ear. Margrit jerked her head up at the echo, and scrambled to her feet as Alban, wings spread, glided down to her balcony, landing with a gentle clatter on the grated floor.

He seemed larger outside the confines of a room. Broad shoulders shifted easily in the city lights, wings folding behind him into near invisibility. The alien lines of his face were still handsome, and his body language spoke of confidence. He still wore the jeans, disconcerting on a creature who looked like he was best suited to guarding cathedrals. By comparison, her memory of him seemed like a dream, half remembered and hazy. His presence was as palpable as a mountainside, so solid Margrit wanted to step forward and put her hands against his chest and push, to see if she could move him. To see if the broad expanse of bare skin would be warm and soft under her touch, or if it would be as still and cool as the stone it resembled.

To see if his breath would catch at her small hands on him, as hers wanted to, simply at the sight of him. To revel in astonished pleasure at the difference in their coloring, her mocha fingers a splash across his alabaster skin.

“Jesus Christ,” Margrit said into the phone. Alban quirked heavy white eyebrows and clipped his cell phone shut, turning his palm up to show her the instrument, dwarfed by his hand. Margrit swallowed and lowered her own phone, thumbing it off. “My roommates are inside,” she repeated thickly. “If I scream-”

“I’ll be gone before they can get here,” Alban promised. “Margrit, I don’t want to hurt you. I need your help.” Space inverted around him, and he shrank, changing from the gargoyle to the man. His voice changed register, still recognizably Alban, without the granite. “Is this less distressing?” he asked. Margrit thought she detected a note of wistfulness in the smooth tone. She closed her eyes.

“Look.” Her own voice was too high, and she couldn’t bring it down again. “Look, whoever, whatever you are, I can’t help you. I can’t even believe you exist.”

“Even though you see me standing before you?”

Margrit’s eyes opened involuntarily. “I hit my head,” she said without conviction. “I’m suffering aftereffects.”

“No,” Alban said. “I am a gargoyle, one of the last of the Old Races. And I-”

“Need my help, yeah, I got that part.”

“Please.” He rumbled the word, though the man was smaller than the stone beast, had less breadth of chest to deepen speech. Margrit closed her hand around the balcony railing, inhaling to speak.

The phone rang.

She flinched violently, nearly dropping the device. It shrilled again and she set her jaw, watching Alban, daring him to move as she lifted the phone and thumbed it on.

“I see you,” Tony said.

MARGRIT FOUGHT THE impulse to crouch again, to make herself as small a target as possible, an irrational reaction born of pure fear and guilt. Her whole body wanted to flee, as if the act of being discovered with the gargoyle somehow made her a fugitive, too. She locked her knees, fingers clenched around the phone. “Tony?”

“I can see you,” he repeated. “Two of my men will be at your door in about twenty seconds.”

“Tony, what the hell are you doing here? What-?”

“I was on my way over when somebody called in a tip, saying they’d seen a man meeting your pal’s description in the area.” His tones were a shade too clipped to be conversational. “Imagine my surprise.”

“Margrit?” Alban asked softly.

She shook her head, knotting her fingers around the railing as she peered down at the street. Tony leaned on the hood of his car, phone at his ear, watching her from five stories below.

“Tony, I swear to God this isn’t what it seems. Jesus, I barely even know what it does look like.”

“It looks like you’ve invited a suspected murderer into your house, Grit. Or are you going to tell me he flew onto your balcony?”

Margrit ground her teeth, shooting Alban a black look. He offered her a wan smile in return, more humor infusing it than she thought appropriate. Then, unexpectedly, sympathetic laughter bloomed inside her. “Would you believe me if I did?”

“Oh, I’m all ears, Grit. I’d just love to hear this story. Wait, don’t tell me. You were just about to call me, right?” Tony’s anger took the amusement back out of the situation, and an equally profound sympathy for the cop flooded Margrit.

She cast one more desperate glance at Alban, then shrugged. “He flew onto the balcony. I’d just said I was going to call the cops.” Alban’s eyes widened and Margrit closed hers, shrugging, then moved her thumb over the phone’s mouthpiece so she could speak to the gargoyle. “He’d be more likely to believe space aliens beamed you down than the truth, Alban. It doesn’t matter. I could tell him the truth from now until Judgment Day and it’d fall on deaf ears.”

“You’re very confident,” Alban whispered.

Margrit opened her eyes and flashed him a smile. “Sure. It’s not my life I’m defending.”

Tony swore, loudly enough to echo up from the street below. Margrit flinched, uncovering the receiver again. “You wouldn’t believe me, Tony. Nothing I say is going to help you understand. I’m sorry.” Her knuckles ached, her hand wrapped so tightly around the railing she could feel iron digging marks into her palm.

She flinched again as a solid knock rattled the front door. Alban’s gaze shot upward, examining the four stories to the top of the apartment building. “Margrit, do you trust me?”

“Cole, don’t answer that!” Margrit turned away from the gargoyle to bellow through the door as her roommate yanked it open.

“Grit? What’s wr-Jesus Christ!”

“Cole, this isn’t-this is isn’t what it looks like,” Margrit blurted again. Alban took his eyes from the rooftops and sketched a brief bow in Cole’s direction, elegant formality in the midst of descending chaos. A touch of delight brimmed and burst in Margrit at the gargoyle’s peculiarly consummate grace. The knocking on the front door intensified. Cam ran for the door, calling, “What the hell’s going on?”