by C. E. Murphy
So I focus on Margrit, chasing her through the streets until she chooses a building and enters. There, she ignores the small rising box and takes the stairs instead. I slip through the door behind her, and am struck with the ease of infiltrating her home. Perhaps Amar was correct, once upon a time: perhaps, had we moved much earlier—thousands of years ago, long before my own birth, or even his—perhaps we might then have conquered the humans, who are so blind to our existence. They could not have stood against us, we who can move with the wind, but it is far too late now.
The home she has led me to is unremarkable: two rooms for sleeping, one for preparing meals with a small, busy room beside it that might be meant for eating those meals, but which cannot possibly be used as such, not with the papers and books piled all around it. The final room is for visiting, and in the corner of that room rests Alban Korund, the exiled gargoyle who has changed the Old Races and their destiny as much as his human lover has done. The sun has not quite set yet, and he is bound to stone as are all his kin, and I study him while the human makes use of the room they call bath. I can hear water running there, more water than we would dream of using in a day in the desert, but her wasteful ways are not, at the moment, my concern.
Korund is massive, but then, gargoyles are. Even the smallest of them have weight far beyond the largest of the djinn: we are air, and they, earth. He is also beautiful, more delicately formed than the finest sculpture: I can see blood vessels in the wings that fold over his shoulders. His face is noble, proud, solemn even in sleep, and white hair cascades over white shoulders, all but hiding the upswept tip of his ears. Margrit Knight does not look like a killer; Alban Korund does not look like a changer of ways.
Sunset strikes unexpectedly: Korund changes without warning, an implosion of air that is familiar to all the Old Races. The transition is impossible to see, from one moment a monster to the next a man. Still massive, but less so than in his natural form, he would be unremarkable among humans were it not for his astonishing paleness. White hair surrounding a face not old enough for it; skin that has never known sunlight's touch. He is my opposite in size, in coloring, in strength, and it strikes me that he is as much Margrit Knight's opposite in these things as well.
Margrit, as if she knows the very moment of sunset in her bones, calls, "Alban, can you come here a moment?" over the sound of still-falling water.
His smile is swift and heartbreaking. The djinn are not given to admission of profound love, and to see its presence writ across his features, even so briefly, startles me. Then he passes through me as he goes to his lover, and I follow.
Margrit, to my astonishment, is in the meal-preparing room, not the bathroom. She is sitting on the small table at its far end, and holds a small, bright green object casually in one hand. Alban stands aside, blocking off city light from the door that leads to their tiny balcony.
They are both looking at me, which should not be possible. I am as the wind, ephemeral, unseen: they cannot know I am here, not unless I take mortal form and show myself to them.
"Look down," says Margrit Knight, and I do.
I am standing—drifting—in a ring of blood. Revolted, I back up, only to bounce off a wall I cannot see. It stings, a dull burst of sensation that fades quickly, but I would not care to experience it again. My gaze, which she cannot possibly see, jerks to Margrit, who says, "Vampire blood" as if this conversation is nothing of note. As if speaking to the wind of creatures that barely exist is usual, and for her, I fear it is.
"Did you know," she says conversationally, "did you know that a vampire's blood can cage a djinn, just as salt water can render one physical? That's what's in the water gun, salt water, so you may as well show yourself before I have to soak you, because you're sure not going anywhere until I decide it's all right."
Flushing with fury, I solidify.
#
Margrit's breath left her in a rush, more relief in the sound than she wanted. Alban, echoing her thoughts, murmured, "Not Tariq after all," and Margrit nodded. The djinn was female, the first female she'd ever seen, and showed naked emotion on her face, which most of the djinn Margrit had met did not.
The ones who had, though, did tend toward rage, which this woman shared. Her eyes were startling, aquamarine in a dusky face, and her thick hair was drawn back in bands. Margrit had the impression it, too, would crackle with anger if loosened, and for the space of an instant felt sympathy for the woman. She'd be furious, too, if she'd been caught sneaking around after someone. Unfortunately, the thought made Margrit grin, and the woman dissipated again, whipping around the confines of the blood circle in a whirlwind temper. Margrit sat back, watching and wondering if the circle would hold. An actual vampire's blood circle certainly would, but Margrit had drawn the circle from her own blood, which was at best only tainted with a vampire's gift.
It held long enough, at least. The woman snapped into focus again, hands clenched at her sides. She wore loose pants, banded at the ankle and waist, though her midriff wasn't bared like a Disney princess's might be. Shifting silks followed her curves instead, shimmering like wind as she breathed. Margrit thought she was lovely, but most of the Old Races were, and the ones who weren't tended to make up for it in charisma. "How did you know?" the woman demanded. "How did you know I was here?"
Margrit cast a glance at Alban, then shrugged and looked back at her captive. "I should be asking the questions, you know. You're the one in the cage. But okay, I'll give you one for free. The lights kept flickering when the wind gusted. Djinn disrupt electricity, and I might be a little paranoid these days."
The woman sniffed. "As you should be if you've made an enemy of Tariq."
"Are you working for him?"
Surprise wiped the woman's fury away, answer enough. "Okay, who are you working for, then? Who are you?"
The woman spat, "My name is Tahira Firaz Galia al-Shareef di Nazmi al-Massri." Margrit's stomach twisted in horror before Tahira finished with, "Malik was my brother."
"I'm sorry." That was slightly better than I didn't mean to, which was equally true, but pathetic. Margrit set her water gun aside and lowered her head, aware she was hiding behind her hair and momentarily unashamed of it. Then she lifted her gaze again, meeting Tahira's squarely. "It was an accident, and I wish to hell it hadn't happened, but at the time it was him or—"
"All of us," Alban rumbled when Margrit broke off. "I am sorry for your loss, Tahira al-Massri, but Malik pitted himself against a gargoyle and a dragon—"
"And a resourceful human," Margrit said.
Alban nodded before finishing, "And that challenge cost him his life. If I understood, his intention had been to win back lost prestige, a place in his tribe. Perhaps a position of leadership within it. I have never known how he lost his standing. Perhaps he never spoke of it."
Tahira paled, but didn't strike at the blood circle again. Margrit's stomach twisted a second time, the impulse to free the djinn almost stronger than wisdom. "Why are you here, Tahira? If it's vengeance, you probably should have pulled my heart out in the park, or wherever it was you started following me. But you're not a murderer, are you," she said softly.
"Because I do not look like one?" Tahira asked bitterly.
"Because I'm still alive."
The djinn's mouth twisted as sharply as Margrit's stomach had done. "I thought, when I saw you, that you did not look like a killer."
"Nobody does or doesn't. Killing is something that happens in war or passion and occasionally in psychosis, and just about anybody can do it if they're pushed far enough."
"Were you pushed so very far?" Tahira's aqua eyes were dark with accusation and hope, as if an affirmative might give her succor or strength.
Margrit picked up her water gun again, slumping against the wall as she turned it around in her hands. "Maybe. He was coming to kill me. To kill Janx, if he could. To kill Alban. I had this with me because I knew salt water solidified your people. It was the only way they could hit him. The only way they
had any chance of stopping him, though Alban could have turned to stone and waited him out. Malik wasn't very patient. But he—Alban—was trying to protect Malik from Janx."
"He was what?"
Margrit looked up from the gun, sympathetic once again to the djinn woman's predicament. "It got complicated for a few months there. Malik was in danger and Janx set Alban to protecting him. But then Malik betrayed Janx and came after him, and Alban tried to protect him from Janx's retaliation, and—oh, God, Tahira, it was a mess, and I'm so sorry. But Malik was coming after me, and I had the damned water gun and I soaked him with it, and Alban didn't know and jumped him, and—I'm sorry." She got up and sprayed the floor with water from the gun, erasing the blood circle in spite of Alban's choked objection. Tahira held very still within its remains, eyeing the water gun warily.
"I'd be dead already if she was going to kill me," Margrit said to Alban, "and I'm not going to start keeping prisoners now. I'm sorry," she said to Tahira yet again. "I was afraid you might be Tariq. I thought the plan might be to kill me here so it looked like Alban had done it and—" She waved a hand in frustration. "And start the whole mess up again. I have put far too much work into the Old Races to let you set everything on fire all over again. But if you're not here to kill me, why are you here?"
Tahira straightened her shoulders, making the most of her scant height. Margrit felt another flash of sympathy: she had done the same thing more times than she could count, though usually out of sight of others. She was a lawyer, and the body language of enlarging herself was too much of a tell. Others might see it as a weakness, and she couldn't afford that in the courtroom. Tahira probably had less cause to make those adjustments off-screen, and really, had Margrit just been freed from prison, she might well have done the same thing, telling or no. Already half-prepared to accept whatever Tahira said, what the djinn woman asked for still took her entirely off-guard:
"I am here to seek asylum with the Negotiator."
#
Margrit Knight, who is as dark as I am, almost certainly does not blush easily, but I have brought her to it with my request. I have taken her breath as well, and left an astonished brightness in her eyes. Her companion, the gargoyle, simply becomes still in the way of the Old Races, more still than any human could hope to achieve. I am still, too, unmoving within the broken circle of blood. Everything, everything hinges on Margrit's reply, and I am not certain she will grant me what I ask. I am, in truth, not certain that she can, and so the question is truly whether she will try.
What breath she had left finally leaves her in a rattling rush, a sound just shy of laughter. "Asylum. From what?"
"From the ways of my people. From the laws and traditions that forbid a female from leaving the tribes or from becoming more than ornaments on the arms of our males."
"God," Margrit says under her breath, "sometimes you Old Races are much more human than I want you to be."
I ignore her, and finish speaking my need: "Asylum, so I might help shape our future, and in time change the lay of power within the djinni tribes. My life has been dictated by males, Margrit Knight. A male I did not love, or even like, wanted me as his wife, and tortured my father to gain permission. Only Malik heeded my wishes, and fought Amar for my right to refuse. You did not kill my brother. I did, decades past, when his loss on my behalf cost him his place in the tribes."
Margrit and Alban exchange glances, a different sort of surprise on their faces now. She looks back at me with interest, and says, "We knew he'd challenged someone in the tribes, that he'd lost and had had to leave. We didn't know why. That's, um."
"Softer," Alban rumbles, and Margrit snorts an agreement. "Softer than we'd imagined from him," she concludes.
Despite the intensity of my need I smile, brief and rueful. "I was his single weakness, perhaps. His only softness. I think exile would have burned it out of him."
"Yeah," Margrit says after a moment. "He didn't like anyone, and I had the impression he especially didn't like me. But then, I didn't see him interacting with any other women, and God knows I've met enough men who just don't see women as human." She pauses, exasperated. "You know what I mean."
My mouth quirks. "I do. And you are not unlike me, Margrit Knight. You may have reminded him of me, and that may have made things worse."
"I'm not that much like you, either," she says, though I can see in her eyes she recognizes the similarities of height and skin tone, even of bone structure. Enough similarities, at least, that Malik may have seen them too, and hated her all the more for reminding him of the sister and the home he lost. "Anyway," she says, then glances around the room with a frown. "Why are we still standing in the kitchen. Come on into the living room. I'll order some…" She squints at me. "I don't suppose you eat pizza."
Absurd excitement blooms in my chest. It is silly and I know it, but the thought of trying foreign foods, of tasting unknown dishes, delights me. "I have not, but I would like to."
Alban murmurs, "I will never understand how you keep your figure, eating the way you do," to Margrit as she takes the calling device—the phone, I know this word from what little I've studied of the human world—as she takes the phone from the floor, puts it back on the table she had been sitting on, and presses buttons on its surface. She smiles at Alban while she does so, saying, "You sound like Cole. I've told both of you a hundred times, I run ten or fifteen miles a day so I can eat whatever I want. Besides, my metabolism's been perfect since—yeah, hi, I need to place an order for delivery."
The tantalizing since lies where it is, untasted. Alban escorts me to the living room while Margrit speaks on the phone, and for a minute or two we sit across from one another, Old Race to Old Race, and have nothing at all to say.
I have met very few of the other races. The selkies, our old enemies, were thought lost to time, and the vampires, too, had disappeared. I met a dragon once when I was young, a vast white wyrm called Rumi, but he left the hot desert sands and never returned. I know gargoyles the best, for they come from time to time so the histories might be recorded and preserved in the memory kept safe by their stony forms. Even so, females are not expected to speak with them, and now, faced with one, I do not know what to say. Except, after long moments, "Will she grant me what I ask?"
Margrit herself answers, and there is no offense in Alban's face that she does so. "She is disinclined to send someone back to a situation they find untenable, but she doesn't know what kind of asylum you think she can provide."
She comes to sit, not beside Alban, but in the same lumpy green couch I have settled on. It is not uncomfortable to me, because I can become so light that my weight barely dents it, but it also does not appear to be uncomfortable to her, who is sucked down into its bumps and crevasses like a stone falling into water. "I've earned myself a place in your hierarchy, Tahira. A title, 'The Negotiator', and I know that's significant. So yes, maybe I can get you some kind of asylum. I'm certainly not sending you home if you don't want to go, but if the djinn come for you—and there's a lot of them in New York now, you know that, right? They've taken over Janx's empire and the selkie have taken over Daisani's. So if they come for you, I'm going to have to give them something else, not you, in lieu of you. And I don't know what that something else is."
A shiver races over my skin, insubstantial as I am. I have tried hard not to think about my burden, about the cloth-wrapped weight that lies inside the bag I carry. Amar, thank the sands, thought nothing of it, only assumed it was whatever niceties I might need in traveling across the world, but it is more dangerous and more precious than that. Or so I am told, at least: what I bear was given to me by my mother, from her mother before, all the way back to the edge of time when the desert was small and our people difficult to hide within it. I have never dared to look at it, much less dared to touch it, and it is with trepidation I remove it from the bag now and offer it, wrapped in silk, to Margrit Knight.
Her eyebrows quirk, curiosity barely contained. She glances at me, making s
ure of her permission, and when I nod she begins to unwrap the thing. Layer after layer, the soft cloth I have put around it only the newest after thousands of years. Its shape becomes clearer as older silk is unwound, and Margrit's eyebrows draw down in perplexity, then crinkle as she begins to imagine what she holds.
In less than a minute, a puddle of cloth lies between us on the aged green couch, and Margrit Knight holds in her hands an ancient earthen lamp.
#
"You…this…" The pounding strength of Margrit's heart weakened her voice. That, and a childish giddiness, because what she held in her hands was both obvious and impossible. "This is, um. I mean, it can't really be. It can't really be," she said again, looking at Tahira.
The djinn woman's sea-green eyes held no hint at all of humor. Fear, in fact, was her chief expression: the wariness of a cat afraid to get wet. Margrit wheezed laughter, took up a piece of the cloth she'd unwound, and made to brush some of the dirt from the lamp's round sides.
Alban's sudden throat-clearing stopped her. She startled, dropped the lamp into the pile of cloth, and sat on her hands to rein in the polishing impulse. "The genie in the lamp is real?"
"The lamp is real," Tahira whispered. "Or I believe it to be. It has come down through my mothers since before history began. We do not dare touch it, for fear it will pull us in."
"How is that even possible?" Margrit almost laughed at her own enthusiastic wonder. She had met members of all the surviving Old Races, and yet a fairy tale lamp dropped in her lap could still astound her. It looked roughly like the representations of Aladdin's lamp: a round body with an elongated snout and an uplifted handle opposite. Every lamp carried by Aladdin, though, had been brass, and this one was cruder than that, pottery instead of metalwork. Earth, Margrit thought: earth to hold the air in. "Who made it?"
"A witch."
Disbelief flashed through Margrit, then quenched itself as a sharp memory rose: Grace O'Malley, the street side vigilante whose assistance had helped Margrit to secure the future demanded by rival djinn and selkie tribes. Grace, who had the uncanny knack of being somewhere more quickly than she should be able to, and who could stand up to a dragonlord without fear. Margrit had brushed with death before she had seen Grace's secrets, and those were still not hers to tell. But Grace had laid the circumstances of her own creation at the feet of a witch, and had dared Margrit to disbelieve when she already trucked with Old Races. "Witches," she murmured instead of arguing. "What race are they?"
