C.E. Murphy - Heart of Stone

Alban came closer, water splashing as he moved through the darkness. “That wasn’t the end of my tunnel,” he said. “Someone dug up there. Mine ends a few hundred feet away, in a dry place. I’m sorry, Margrit.”

“Grit.” She sniffled. “You could call me Grit. But not Peggy or Peg or Meg or Maggie or Madge or Marge or any of the other nicknames you can think of that go with Margrit.”

“Grit.” Alban paused. “Isn’t that a food?” he asked eventually, then repeated, “Grit,” and seemed to be shaking his head. “No,” he said with a note of finality. “I don’t think I can.”

Despite herself, Margrit giggled, a painful little burst of sound that came out through her nose. “Yeah, Grit, like the food, but singular. Why can’t you?” She shuffled through the cold water toward his voice.

“It’s painfully lacking in formality. Could you call me Al?”

She giggled again, then sneezed and coughed, bending over to hack water from her lungs. “You’re not an Al.”

Alban’s fingers found her spine, a light comforting touch. “You see?” he asked. “Grit and Al are a different pair entirely. You and I are Margrit and Alban.”

“Margrit and Alban sounds nicer, doesn’t it?” She straightened, coughing once more. Alban’s hand remained at the small of her back a moment longer, warm and gentle enough to drive away her cold misery. The shiver that ran over her had nothing to do with the chilly glop sliding down her skin, but instead brought heightened awareness of the closeness of bodies and the possibilities illuminated by shadow. There was nothing inhuman about his touch when darkness cloaked the hand on her spine, nothing alarming or strange that should be backed away from.

The line he traced up her body lit trembling sparks inside her, until he found her shoulder and followed her arm back down, to wrap his fingers around hers. His hand, stony and solid, dwarfed her own. The sparks were quenched as Alban’s alien form came to the forefront of Margrit’s thoughts once more. Confusion rushed in to replace the heat she’d felt, leaving her frighteningly alone in the dark tunnel.

“Yes,” he murmured. “It does. Are you all right?” he asked again.

Margrit nodded in the darkness. “I’m okay now. Thanks.”

“You’re sure you don’t want a light?”

She ran her free hand over her sodden shirt and filthy jeans. “It’d probably be easier to walk,” she said reluctantly. “Just don’t look at me, okay?”

“I’ll try not to,” Alban said, amused.

“You’re making fun of me.”

“Yes.” He let her hand go and rummaged through something, then said, “Put your hands out,” and deposited a leather bag in them when she did.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Things I might want in the event of a quick escape. I keep it under the bed.”

“Oh! I saw it, yeah. I didn’t know you’d grabbed it.”

A match flared and Alban’s smile came out of the darkness. “I did. There, this will help.” The flame grew brighter as he put it to a torch, waiting for the wood to catch.

“Have you ever heard of flashlights, Alban?” Margrit looked down at herself as the light increased. Her clothes and hair were wet and dirty, but not as appalling as she’d imagined. The cold water around her ankles was littered with floating debris and yellow scum. Margrit shuddered and lifted her eyes.

“It could be worse,” Alban offered, looking her over.

Margrit smiled briefly. “You said you weren’t going to look.”

“I forgot,” he said easily. “I’ve heard of flashlights. I’ve just never managed to buy one, for some reason.”

“Probably because torches are a lot more dramatic and well suited to the whole creature-of-the-night thing.”

Alban’s jaw worked, as if he was trying to come up with a protest. “I very much would like to say that I’m not a creature of the night,” he finally grumbled.

Margrit felt a smile slide into place and grow. “Yeah, and I’d like to say I’m not covered in slime, but neither of us is going to get what we’d like. How do we get out of here? I want a shower.” Her voice rose in a whine and she scowled.

“This way.” Alban gestured with the torch. Margrit shouldered the leather bag and slogged after him, staring fixedly at his back instead of at the murky water. His wings fell like a cloak, easier to see from behind than in front. The membrane was so thin that torchlight glowed through it, warming the ivory skin to a more human color. It looked soft and delicate, though it was capable of offering Alban the capability of flight, so had to be less fragile than it appeared. The impulse to touch the cascade of pale skin gripped her, and Margrit moved closer, reaching out without thinking how intrusive the action would be.

At the first touch of her fingertips she could feel both extraordinary strength and impossible softness. The sensation wasn’t an unfamiliar one, though Margrit associated it with far more intimate parts of a man’s anatomy. Heat flushed her cheeks as Alban’s breath caught, wings fluttering at her touch, and she realized the comparison might be closer than she’d known. He turned toward her, his tight features highlighted by the torch’s flame. Margrit dropped her hand, fighting not to twist it behind her back guiltily, and found herself without words as she stared up at his angular, alien face.

He was so vividly male, and so completely not human. It created a divide that Margrit could almost see a bridge over, but didn’t know how to cross. Didn’t know if she could. Didn’t know if she wanted to. Male, but not a man…His eyes were wide and watchful in the torchlight, dark pupils eating the colorless irises, as he waited for her to choose.

“You’re beautiful,” Margrit said awkwardly. Alban’s eyelashes fluttered, so subtle a motion that it might have meant nothing, but inside that instant possibilities shattered once more, leaving him with a brief smile and shuttered gaze.

“Thank you.” He glanced down the tunnel, breaking the moment for good. “Not much farther. You’re doing all right?”

Margrit bobbed her head, managing a faint smile of her own, painfully aware of how meaningless it felt. Alban offered her his hand again, and she took it, walking beside him. “So can you magically find the tunnel that comes out beneath my apartment building? Isn’t that how it works in the stories?”

Alban’s quiet laughter echoed off the walls. “Maybe if I lived beneath the streets, but my preferred paths are over the rooftops. The best I can do is get us to street level. Which should be…” He slowed, then stopped, lifting the torch. Several yards away, the tunnel dead-ended. Frowning, Alban looked at the ceiling, then walked back a few feet, studying the top of the tunnel rather than the path they’d taken.

“There aren’t any wrong turns,” he said under his breath.

“Don’t tell me the end of your tunnel comes out on the other side of that wall.”

Alban’s mouth twisted. “What would you like me to tell you?”

“That you know a way out of here and we’re not going to freeze to death in a sewer? No, wait.” Margrit’s voice rose. “That I’m not going to freeze to death in a sewer, because you can just turn to stone and sit it out. That’s what I’d like you to tell me!”

“We’re not going to freeze to death in a sewer,” Alban said, so calmly that it made Margrit hear the edge of hysteria in her own voice. She let out a breath of relief. “It’s a storm drain,” he added.

She closed her eyes, setting her teeth as she counted to ten. When she trusted her voice, she lifted her chin. “All right. I’m better now. I’m not usually like this, you know.”

“Not usually cold, wet, hungry and stomping around in sewers with a gargoyle? I’m surprised.” Humor glinted in Alban’s colorless eyes. “You’re handling it very well for an amateur.”