Heart of Stone n-1

by C. E. Murphy

  “Ausra,” Margrit whispered. “She did become somebody else. People, humans, do it all the time, Alban. They do whatever they have to, to survive. If that means finding a new persona and wearing it until you can’t remember who you used to be, then that’s what we’ll do. Maybe even gargoyles will, if they’re pushed far enough.”

  “Perhaps.” Alban’s hand fell away from his forehead, heavy and graceless. “She’s left a carving for us-for me-at the cathedral. That much I saw, in Biali’s memories. I should go alone, Margrit.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “You and what army are keeping me from going?”

  “If she’s trying to draw me there to wreak some sort of vengeance-”

  “Then you’re sure as hell not going alone,” Margrit finished.

  “It could be-is likely to be-dangerous. You humans are so fragile.” Alban brushed her cheek. “I don’t want to see you hurt, trying to help me.”

  Margrit released a humorless breath. “You should’ve thought of that before you got me mixed up with Daisani and Janx. It’s too late to keep me safe, and I’m not letting you go alone.”

  Alban’s mouth curved as he glanced toward the top of the stairs. “I could just leave you.”

  “The cathedral’s a block away. Leave me behind and I’ll just run over there and kick your ass up and down the sidewalk when I catch you.” She stepped closer, putting herself firmly in Alban’s space. “I’m going where you’re going, buddy.”

  “Buddy.” Alban tilted his head, the graceful action of a winged creature. “Does the use of nicknames suggest a new level in our relationship, Margrit?”

  “Yeah. It suggests the level where I feel free to kick your butt if you leave me behind.” Margrit turned a suddenly cheerful smile on the gargoyle. “So which will it be?”

  Alban tipped his head again, bringing it closer to Margrit’s. Her smile grew, her heartbeat thundering at the intimacy of his approach. With his mouth very nearly against hers, he murmured, “Forgive me.”

  In the same breath he gathered himself and leaped, clearing Margrit and the steps above her easily. She shrieked and ducked out of instinct, realizing his intent too late. She whipped around and scrambled up the stairs, tripping over her own feet in her haste. Fumbling with fallible, human grace.

  Alban shot her one apologetic look over his shoulder before shoving open the rooftop door and disappearing into the night.

  CHAPTER 30

  ALBAN IMAGINED HE could hear Margrit’s outraged gasp cutting through the air behind him; imagined he could hear her curse, and her footsteps echoing in the stairwell as she bolted down them. Imagined, too, that there would be a moment when she looked down the hollow shaft made by the circling stairs, and thought she might jump to the bottom as easily as Alban himself could have. Rash impulse defined her, in many ways; the willingness to act boldly, consequences be damned. That sense of infallibility sent her running through the park each night, challenging the darkness. It would send her after him to do the same, even if she had to take the mundane route of dashing down the stairs.

  Reaching the cathedral was a matter of seconds. He winged a tight circle above the unfinished southern tower, searching the shadows for Hajnal’s form. There was no one there; he hadn’t truly expected her to be. Biali might lead him to her, but memory told Alban she’d left deliberate clues. Faster to follow them, and try Biali only if this route proved fruitless.

  Faster. The thought came back to him so unexpectedly he chuckled. Margrit’s impatience was compelling. Less than a week had passed since he’d first spoken to her, and already the human need to get things done now seemed to be wearing off on him.

  Laughter faded as he landed atop the tower, falling into a habitual crouch. If Margrit’s idea of the appropriate speed at which to do things could be so easily learned, perhaps she was more right than he’d given her credit for. Perhaps his people had changed more through their interactions with humans than he could have thought. Exiled from his own kind, he had deliberately held himself apart from humanity as well, seeking no solace in companionship. It was possible the gargoyles had passed by him in their social evolution, and that he, now, was a relic from a time gone by. The Breach. He formed the words without speaking them aloud. Maybe the inherent accusation went deeper than he knew.

  The quandary could wait. Alban pushed to his feet, eyes half-closed as he turned his head, listening for the bang of a door and footsteps slapping on the sidewalk. Margrit would be there soon. Better if he was gone, drawing danger away, before she arrived.

  It took a handful of moments to find the carving among the partially finished blocks of the tower. The board, several inches long, was spiked with carved ivory pieces: the Empire State Building at midpoint, Trinity Church near the bottom, tiny carved trees littering the space that was Central Park. Carefully carved figurines were fitted into peg holes in the board; a miniature Alban sat hunched by Trinity, and beautifully carved, tiny women fitted into holes punched around the edges of Central Park-four of them, making a diamond. A fifth hole lay next to the first-first because it was the location where the first woman had died, no other reason. The figurine that belonged in that hole rolled on the miniature’s surface.

  Alban picked it up, studying it without truly seeing. The color, old ivory, brown with age, told him all he needed to know. Lying in his palm, it was the same color as Margrit’s skin, café latte, warm, lovely.

  Margrit’s scream tore up from below.

  She’d stood gaping after Alban for what felt like an impossibly long time. In a handful of days she’d come to think of him as someone who didn’t make decisions quickly, bound as he was by the element that was his essence. But beneath that, more profound even than the stillness of stone, was the nature of a gargoyle: to protect. She’d stood there, swaying in astonishment, wondering if others of the Old Races also had fundamental streaks in their being. If dragons lived to hoard, or vampires to feed. She couldn’t think what the selkies or djinn might inherently embody. Maybe renewal, for the selkies; they came from the water, where all life began. Their choice to breed with humans made sense, in that light.

  That was as much time as Margrit wasted in thought. She’d taken the stairs down four and five at a time, swinging on the railing to give her feet wings. Her injured hand yowled in protest every time she wrapped it around a bar, that only gave her more reason to reach the bottom faster.

  She burst from her apartment building at a flat-out run, swearing aloud when forced to hurdle an icy patch at the foot of the steps. There was no sign of Alban in the skies above. Margrit hurled herself down the sidewalk toward the cathedral, forthright anger driving her even as logic told her there’d be no way to catch the winged creature, nor any way to learn what Hajnal’s next step might be.

  A minute later Margrit ran up the cathedral steps, pounding a fist on the door and shouting uselessly. No one answered, though even if they had she could hardly imagine being allowed inside. She danced back again, turning her gaze upward, hands lifted to block the streetlights and help her see into the dark more clearly. “Alban! Alban, Goddammit, I know you’re up there! You can’t do this to me! You can’t-”

  A blow like a sledgehammer caught her in the ribs, knocking her breath away. An instant later she rose skyward, thrown ignominiously over a slender shoulder. Wings smaller than Alban’s, more delicate, strained against the air, as if Margrit’s weight was dangerously heavy.

  Margrit caught her breath and let it out in a scream.

  A snarl, higher in pitch but no more human than Alban’s growl, answered her. Wings slammed back, buffeting Margrit’s skull between them, and for a moment disorientation took over. She drew breath for another scream as her head cleared, but the sound was cut off in her throat as the female gargoyle banked in a dangerously sharp turn, bringing them down among the trees of Central Park. A uniformed police officer lay crumpled near a footpath. Margrit shook her head, trying to clear her vision, then shrieked again as the gargoyle dumped her to the eart
h, a dozen feet below.

  A swallowed scream erupted from her throat as she hit the ground badly, her left arm snapping audibly with the impact. White pain lanced through her, and she lay facedown, panting in agony, too stunned to move.

  “Margrit!” Alban’s voice came from above, just before another impact: the gargoyle woman landing with a thud, her feet on either side of Margrit’s ribs. She crouched, taking Margrit’s hair in her hand and pulling her head back.

  “One more step and she dies.”

  Margrit whimpered, pushing herself up a few inches with her right arm. The weight on her shifted, and she was helped onto her back by a foot to the ribs. Stars swam behind her eyes and she gritted her teeth against nausea, trying to focus. “Hajnal?”

  The woman standing above her was barely taller than Margrit herself, with large eyes and beautifully arranged flat, shining curls that spiraled around her face. Carefully shaped eyebrows rose at Margrit’s question, and she laughed, a sweet rich sound that was nothing like the granite of Alban’s laugh.

  “Hajnal? Oh, that’s even better than I hoped. No, I’m Ausra.” She turned her head in a snaky motion, to smile at Alban. “Don’t tell me you don’t recognize your own little girl, Papa.”

  Adrenaline ricocheted through Margrit’s body, a vicious swell of energy numbing her hands and deepening the nausea in her belly. But it gave her the strength to stagger clumsily to her feet, clutching her left arm.

  Alban stared at Ausra, his expression too blank to register shock or disbelief. Then he closed his eyes, in one brief moment of defeat. “You look very like her,” he said. “Even Biali thought you were she, in that first instant he saw you.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “And I couldn’t go far enough into the memories to find the truth. He taught you to carve. The memories are clearer now.” Alban opened his eyes again, barely seeming to see Ausra. “I knew she couldn’t be alive. Not after so long, not without me knowing.”

  “Alive?” Ausra gave him a hard-edged smile of anger. “Not for two centuries, Father. Not since you abandoned her.”

  “I didn’t,” he whispered. Ausra hissed, flashing a hand out. Long fingernails caught Margrit’s cheek, laying it open. She cried out, clapping her palm to her face and leaving her broken arm to dangle.

  “Every time you lie,” Ausra purred, “she hurts.”

  “I’m not-!”

  Ausra’s arm flashed up again, warningly. Margrit made a little sound of fear, stumbling back a step. “No,” Alban blurted. “No. Don’t hurt her.”

  “How precious,” Ausra murmured. “Concerned for the mortal girl. Did you care about all the other pretty toys, Father? The ones I left broken in the park for you? That was the best part,” she said with wide-eyed glee. “Destroying them in daylight, so all you knew was that they died, never how. And the guilt kept you hidden for so long, Father. I’ve been waiting to play again. They break easily, but they can last a surprisingly long time if you’re careful.”

  “Father…” Alban shook his head. “How can I be your father?”

  “Oh, the traditional way.” Ausra walked around Margrit with lanky strides. “Mommy and daddy gargoyle loved each other very much, you see, and one day they had a little gargoyle.” Her voice slid to ice. “Only Daddy had abandoned Mommy and baby by then.”

  “No!”

  Ausra’s hand flashed again. This time Margrit brought her forearm up, blocking Ausra’s next attack. The impact made her stumble to one side, Ausra’s size belying tremendous strength. Margrit’s whole body ached from stopping the blow.

  Her assailant tilted her head slightly, acknowledging Margrit’s attempt to save herself. “It won’t help,” she assured her, “but it’s more fun if you fight back. Too bad about your arm. Not that the odds were even to begin with, but now you don’t even stand a sporting chance.”

  “Ausra.” Alban’s voice was strangled. “This can’t be true. I would never have left Hajnal if she were pregnant.”

  “No, of course not,” Ausra cooed. “Not even to save your own stony skin, Papa. Of course not.” The mocking gentleness left her voice, turning it back to ice. “She died because of you, and it’s long past time you paid for it.”

  “How?” Margrit wrapped her hand around her left arm again, holding it against her body. “How can you be his daughter?”

  Ausra clicked her tongue. “Didn’t we just go through this? Mommy and Da-”

  “You’re the first witness.” Shocked recognition flooded Margrit, washing pain away for a moment. “You’re the one who reported Alban at the scene of the crime.”

  Ausra smiled. “And you jumped right on my bandwagon, didn’t you? Faster than I’d even hoped. I thought I’d have to go round and round, waiting for you to join the game. I didn’t count on the Gray woman dying, though. I was afraid you’d lose the scent. I had to go to certain extremes. You do have my mother’s stone, don’t you?” she inquired politely. “I’ll want that back before you die.”

  “Janx has it.” Margrit’s lie sounded thick to her own ears. “Why don’t you go get it from him?”

  Acidic laughter cut the cold air. “Janx? The dragonlord? How would he get it? Your detective should have brought it to you.”

  Margrit managed a laugh of her own, edging back half a step. She hardly imagined she’d escape, but the longer a guilty client talked, the more likely she was to say something damning, or for the circumstances to change. “Tony wouldn’t have shown it to me, Ausra. You think I’m important to this case. He didn’t. He’d have had no reason to. Anyway, somebody working for Janx took it from the scene before Tony ever saw it. Janx showed it to me last night. That’s why I thought you were Hajnal. I thought she’d lost her mind and was killing people. I didn’t count on a crazy daughter.” Flippancy helped keep Margrit’s mind off the white-hot pain in her arm, and she’d pulled back a few steps without Ausra stopping her. Maybe she could run.

  Outrun a gargoyle. The thought was ludicrous enough to make her smile.

  “She wasn’t pregnant,” Alban whispered. “She never told me.”

  “Do you want to know?” Ausra demanded. “Do you really want to know? Shall I share the memory, Father?”

  “No…” Margrit lifted her good hand, as if she could hold off the wall of memory that rose up and threatened to drown her.

  Bleeding from a dozen gunshot wounds, her wings in tatters, she crawled toward the east, leaving blood and water smeared together on the cobblestones. She shoved herself upward as rain-heavy clouds lightened in color, and howled out her life to the rising sun. Dawn, when it came, brought a blissful recession of agony, healing stone offering a last chance at life.

  She woke weak, her breathing difficult. A man sat beside her, a human, his eyes dark and thoughtful. She snarled, lunging for him, but chains brought her up short, manacles bound into her very flesh at wrist and ankle, around her throat. He didn’t move, only sat there, utterly without fear.

  Memory blurred. She grew stronger, testing her chains the same way at each sunset. He left her food, starting with raw meat, then finer items, experimental. She slept, even during the nights, during the hours that were normally hers to live. She broke a chain, if not the iron bound to her skin, and he began drugging her food. She could smell it, but had no choice: it was eat what he gave her or starve, and her body was too weak to go for days and weeks without meals.

  Her wings didn’t heal. He stitched them together, and the skin slowly grew back, but they were thick and heavy, and when she moved them, they barely responded.

  Worse than the thickness of her wings was the growing thickness of her belly. A burning anger coiled above the child growing inside her, waiting for the chance to break free and destroy the man who had captured her.

  Waiting, with desperate hope, for Alban to find her.

  Outside of the memory, Alban cried out, agonizing shout that brought Margrit to her knees, sobbing.

  She knew it wouldn’t happen. She had told him to run, had been glad when he did. She kn
ew he would wait, too, longer than they’d agreed. She would have. If she could only escape, even into the memories, she could find him; find help.

  But iron bound her, and nothing in the gestalt had warned her that in binding, it cut away her natural ability to reach the shared history that was her people’s greatest legacy. In six hundred years of living, she had never felt so alone. Waking every night to the bone-throbbing cold of the iron chains was bad; waking unable to find her way into the comfort of mental touch drove her slowly mad. At first she knew it, and fought it, but as weeks turned to months exhaustion defeated her strength, burned away her anger, and left her raw-voiced with shrieking out her solitude. Reason failed; worse still, the reason to retain sanity failed. Once, she’d known that a gargoyle’s death passed memories to the next nearest of her kind, making certain that no history was lost forever. A baby’s mind wasn’t meant to take that kind of influx of experience, even from a composed elder who could control the sharing. A child burdened with the chaos that had become Hajnal’s mind could be scarred beyond repair.

  She rarely recalled that, toward the end. Sparks of panic rose up with no explanation behind them, making her fear and weariness that much worse. And then new life came forth, screaming, frightened, cold, entering the world with the last of her mother’s strength and all of her mother’s madness.

  The memories became Ausra’s own, a solemn child playing before the fireplace. “Tell me about Mama, Papa,” she begged, and Hajnal’s captor smiled tolerantly and told her a story that gave lie to the little girl’s nightmares.

  “I thought everyone played all night and turned to stone in the day,” Ausra whispered beneath the rush of memory. “I was seven when I learned otherwise.”