Hands of Flame n-3

by C. E. Mutphy

  “That would be superb. I look forward to hearing from you.”

  “Yes,” murmured Eliseo Daisani. “I imagine you do.”

  The only saving grace about Margrit’s startled yelp was that everyone around her looked as surprised as she felt. Given the company in which she stood, that seemed like a triumph: even the Old Races could be taken off guard by a vampire.

  Alban recovered first: of the others, Janx looked too irritated to recoup gracefully, and Ursula held Kate’s arm until white flushed around her grip. The gargoyle stepped forward, putting himself between Margrit and Daisani. “Eliseo.”

  “Alban. Do you think hiding Margrit behind you will protect her from me if I choose to hunt her?”

  “I think even a vampire must consider whether he wants to risk battle with a gargoyle.”

  “Have you a wooden stake?” Daisani teased, then, as Margrit peered around Alban’s width, made a light welcoming gesture. “I am not, at the moment, here to exact any kind of vengeance. In fact, I have something of a conundrum, and our dear Miss Knight is, as usual, at its heart.”

  “As usual?” Margrit protested. “You’ve known each other for centuries, and I’ve earned an as usual already?”

  “You must admit, you’ve gone to extraordinary lengths to become an as usual,” Janx said lightly. “Do come in, Eliseo. Do sit down and tell us all your troubles. Oh, and might I introduce you to Sarah’s daughters? Katherine, called Kate, and Ursula.” He offered a sweeping bow, falling back a step in order to better present the twins.

  For once, despite being in a safe area, Daisani chose not to show off, and approached the twins at a merely human pace. He stopped a few feet away, gaze hungry as he studied the twins, and as they studied him in return. Ursula’s grip had moved to her sister’s hand, both of them bloodless with it.

  “You have the look of your mother about you,” Daisani finally said. Even Margrit could hear the restraint in his soft words; as much restraint as it must have taken to walk at a man’s speed, the better to not challenge either woman, and perhaps be found wanting.

  Wanting, or worse, alone.

  Ursula nodded. “That’s what she always said. She didn’t think we took anything from you.”

  “Me,” Daisani whispered, and Kate flapped her free hand toward both him and Janx, and said, “You. Both of you. Either of you. Except what we did, of course.”

  A look of perfect befuddlement washed over Daisani’s face as he glanced toward Janx, the expression by far the most human thing Margrit had ever seen grace his features. “Ursula is your daughter,” she said, taking sudden pity on the vampire. “Kate is Janx’s. There’s no doubt of it once you see them in action.”

  “Ours?” Daisani asked in astonishment. “Ours both?” He looked back at the twins. Ursula lifted a shoulder and let it fall.

  “Chimera, Janx called us. Children of two races, but not three. I’m all vampire. Kate’s all dragon. I think if we were anything less, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do.” She kept staring at Daisani, eating him with her gaze, though neither of them moved any closer to the other.

  “The selkies said half-blood children are full heirs to their Old Races gifts,” Margrit recalled. “What would happen if a dragon and a vampire had a child?”

  Daisani turned a dangerous look on her, so quelling that goose bumps rose on her arms. Bewildered, she gaped at him, and some of the warning in his gaze faded. He looked back toward Ursula, leaving Margrit to wonder what bit of precious knowledge she’d come so close to treading on. A quick glance at Alban garnered no evident answers: the gargoyle lifted his eyebrows in as much question as she had, then dropped a wink that promised they would explore the question later, together.

  “I would like to know you.” Daisani spoke so quietly it almost went unheard under Margrit’s silent conversation with Alban. She glanced back toward the father and daughter, and discovered she recognized the control with which Daisani held himself. He had stood similarly when Rebecca Knight had been in his arms; he had stood so when he had ordered Margrit to find the man who had murdered Vanessa Gray. He had even, she thought, perhaps stood that way when he’d invited her to dance in a ballroom filled with six sentient races, and it shot an agony of sympathy through Margrit’s heart. Immortality, she had realized only recently, was a lonely business, and to read the vampire’s emotions and vulnerabilities so clearly took her breath away. Inhuman, yes; they were all inhuman, but not at all incomprehensible.

  “I’d like that, too,” Ursula finally said. “Mother told us what she could about you, but it’s not the same.”

  Something unbent within Daisani, his next breath more easily taken. “No, it’s not. I am honored for the opportunity.”

  “Yeah.” Kate tossed her hair and gave the vampire a defiant look. “You should be.”

  “Kate,” Alban murmured, and she looked a little abashed.

  Janx draped himself over the abandoned chaise lounge and folded his arms behind his head in a soft blur of thin blue smoke. “Lovely as this all is, I’m sure it’s not why you came sneaking to my lair, Eliseo. Why are you here?”

  “Ah.” Daisani turned away from the twins with one last glance at Ursula. “My conundrum, yes. I received a phone call a little while ago, Margrit. A call from, if you’ll excuse the colloquialism, the last person on earth I might expect to receive such a thing from.”

  A cold fist wrapped around Margrit’s stomach and clenched. She felt her expression turn stricken as guesswork ran ahead of Daisani’s words. “Mother?”

  “Indeed. She laid out a conundrum of her own, one dealing with dragons and djinn and daughters—”

  “Oh my,” all three of the daughters in the room murmured, and Janx’s tenor ran below them with the same phrase. Margrit wrinkled her face as Janx waved a finger at Alban in admonishment. “Really, Stoneheart, you couldn’t possibly have failed to see that coming. Won’t you at least play along?”

  “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-cr
ossing. 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.”

  CHAPTER 35

  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.”

  “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 Abr
aham 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.”