Hands of Flame

by C. E. Murphy

  “Of course I did.” Margrit hurried down the room to pull a stool up beside Cara. Davis remained at the door, murmuring, “Not too long, please, Ms. Knight. My patient needs her rest.”

  “Of course.” Margrit smiled over her shoulder at him, found herself gazing too long, and, blushing, looked back at Cara as the door closed again. “There can’t be anything people wouldn’t agree to do for him. Oh, my God. I think I could be paralyzed from the eyes down and if he said get up and do a salsa I would.”

  Cara smiled faintly. “I guess he’s not my type. He said, ‘Feel better,’ but I don’t yet.”

  “Damn.” Margrit took Cara’s hand cautiously. “What happened, Cara? Are you all right?” She wrinkled her nose as she asked the question; all right depended on how it was defined. Cara was alive, but the delicate lines of her face were swollen and bruised, making dark blots of her eyes. Her right arm was in a cast, and the stiffness of her body suggested more restraining bandages in other places.

  “I got shot.” The flat statement struck Margrit as badly out of place, coming from a selkie. Mundane humans got shot, not mystical Old Races. Cara freed her hand from Margrit’s and drifted her fingers to below the ribs on her left side. “In the back, above the kidney.”

  “Who…? Not a…?” Margrit didn’t want to voice the word djinn aloud, but Cara, understanding, shook her head with a faint smile.

  “No, we haven’t been trying to kill each other. We have a common enemy.”

  “Humanity.” Margrit ground her teeth. “So it was one of us who shot you.”

  “I didn’t see who it was. But I was too far from the water to escape, so an ambulance came and picked me up. I have to get out of here, Margrit. I have to…” Passion left the slight woman and she sank back into the bed, even her bruises graying with exhaustion. “I would heal faster if I could transform. It helps put things to right.”

  “Cara, the only way I can think of to get you out of here is to ask Daisani to have you transferred to a private hospital.”

  “I don’t want to owe him anything.”

  “I know, but you also don’t want anybody looking at your blood work too closely. Do you even know what they’d find?”

  “We do our best to tend to our own sicknesses,” Cara replied, answer enough. “But I didn’t ask for you to help me get out of here. There’s something else.”

  “Deirdre?” Margrit’s stomach tightened in concern.

  “She’s safe. I sent her away when the fighting started.”

  “Why didn’t you go when the fighting started?”

  “Kaimana asked me to be here.” Admiration bordering on reverence colored Cara’s voice, reminding Margrit of how the interns had looked at Dr. Davis. Kaimana Kaaiai hadn’t struck her as the sort of man to inspire such loyalty, but on the other hand, he’d engineered the selkies’ acceptance back into the Old Races. That he’d done so in part by ruthlessly manipulating humans had soured Margrit against him. Cara, though, had no reason to feel that same disappointment. “I know you see me as young and weak, but Kaimana acted on my advice when he brought the quorum together. I’m stronger than you think.”

  Margrit began a protest, then bit it down. “You’re right. It’s hard not too think of you as a girl in too deep. Maybe because that’s how I feel a lot of the time, and you’re younger than me. So what are you, his lieutenant?”

  “I’m the one holding this treaty together, here in New York. Without me to remind them who our enemy is, I’m afraid they’ll start tearing each other apart, laws or no laws.”

  “Cara, no offense, but how are you managing that?”

  Cara’s gaze shifted away, then back again. “I have help. An adviser. But there’s something else, too. This treaty is causing another problem.”

  “Worse than open fighting on the streets?”

  “Much worse. Margrit, I need to know if you’re our ally.” Whatever Cara had hidden when she looked away now faded beneath resolution that turned her bruises into streetwise makeup and attitude. “I’d thought you were. You helped us shake up the world, and then you disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?” Margrit echoed, startled and stung. “Everything kind of went to hell. I’m just trying to get my head on straight. It’s not like I left the city.”

  Something scathing darted through Cara’s expression, hardening her beyond anything Margrit had seen in the past. For an instant she no longer looked like a battered young woman on a sickbed, but rather an embattled warrior, too marked with scars to have pity for anyone else’s. “When a human walks away from the Old Races, she’s gone whether she’s in the next room or a thousand miles away. I thought you were on our side.”

  “On your side.” The sting blossomed, as much an alpha-female reaction to Cara’s change as an honest and justified anger. Margrit dropped her voice, not wanting to chance being overheard, but unwilling to let the challenge go unanswered. “I did what you wanted. I got the quorum together and they voted to accept the selkies back into the Old Races as full brethren. Yeah, that was on your side, but it was because I thought it was the right thing to do. You bred with humans because there was no other way to survive, and I think it’s stupid to deny a people’s heritage the way the rest of the Old Races did to you. But let’s talk about on your side, Cara. Let’s talk about the peace treaty you developed with the djinn outside of the quorum, to make sure your natural enemies would support you. Let’s talk about how that treaty said you’d help destroy Janx and his House so the selkies and djinn could take over his underworld contacts and businesses. Let’s talk about how that power play created a situation that led to Malik’s death. Just what part of any of that did you mention to me? You used me. So forgive me if I don’t quite know what on your side is supposed to mean anymore.”

  Cara lifted her chin, undaunted by Margrit’s accusations and gaining strength from her own convictions. “You’re right. We used you. We got what we wanted through you. From you. We have recognition amongst the Old Races. We have money and power, if we can hold on to Janx’s territory.” She took a breath and held it, then ended with grim finality: “We also have a treaty with a people who wish to decimate the remaining Old Races in retaliation for the death of one of their own.”

  Margrit stared, then laughed, a sharp sound of incredulity that bit into her anger and tore some of it away. “Tell them no. Are they nuts?”

  “They’re djinn.” Cara’s bruises lent depth to her short reply. “Read your mythology, Margrit. Djinn aren’t known for their sanity.”

  “Then break the alliance. You’d have to be insane to agree.”

  “We need them.” Despite lying on a bed, Cara squared her slender shoulders as if she was repeating another skirmish in an endless battle. “Without their acknowledgment of our people—”

  “The quorum’s already been met. What are they going to do, say never mind, we didn’t mean it? I’d think if it worked that way, Janx would’ve repudiated you by now, since he’s the one whose territory you took over. And you’ve got numbers. There are tens of thousands of you. None of the other—” Margrit broke off, modulating her voice before she dared go on. “None of the other Old Races have that. You don’t need to go to war over a stupid mistake.”

  Cara smiled, thin humorless expression. “That’s what allies do, Margrit Knight. Mistake,” she added clearly.

  Margrit shook her head, uncomfortable realization clicking into place. Cara had never before used her name with such impunity. She’d called her Miss Knight, and Margrit had called her Cara, the relationship unequal. Cara’s new confidence leveled it. Coarse embarrassment heated Margrit’s cheeks as she realized she’d preferred having the upper hand, and how petty that was. She measured her response cautiously. “No money for nothing here, Cara. I’m finally starting to learn that you people all deal in information as a commodity. I’ve overplayed my hand too many times already.”

  “What do you want from me in exchange for information about Malik’s death?” All the girl’s for
mer shyness had vanished, leaving behind a young matriarch of considerable power and confidence. Margrit dropped her gaze to the floor, hoping to hide regret at the change. Not that competence or self-assuredness were in any way bad, but she missed the soft, young woman she’d barely known.

  “I’d have to think about that,” she answered quietly. Lied quietly: she wanted to know how long Cara had known that Kaimana intended to use Margrit to manipulate the Old Races into the position they were now in. Her own delight and relief at finding Cara again, at being able to return her selkie skin, had been so real that Margrit hated to think Cara had known then that Kaimana intended to use her. But Cara had almost certainly known; it was she who’d brought Margrit’s point about strength in numbers to the selkie lord.

  It was a question that could be brought up later. Margrit wanted to hoard the knowledge she had, in case there was a better way to spend it. Then, incongruous, the image of the countdown calendar her coworkers had made flashed in her mind, sixteen hours left on it. Margrit flattened her mouth at its reminder. “I’ve got to go to work, Cara. Is there anything I can do for you before I go?”

  “Yes.” Cara pushed herself up, cheeks paling beneath the bruises. “The reason I asked you to come in the first place. Not to get me out of here. There’s a meeting this morning between—” She, too, broke off before lowering her voice to continue. “Between the djinn leaders and my people. Me. It’s in part to discuss how to deal with the humans trying to gain ground in our territory—”

  “Janx’s territory,” Margrit said sourly.

  Cara went on with no notice. “And in part, a last chance for me to try to talk them out of avenging Malik al-Massrī. I need you to go in my place.”

  “Cara, I have to go to work!”

  “This is more important. If you don’t go, we may end up embroiled in race war. You’re the only one who can prevent it.”

  “Me and Smokey the Bear. There must be somebody else. You’ve got to have a hierarchy of some kind, a second in command you can send. Nobody would listen to me even if I could go.”

  “You have to go get Chelsea Huo,” Cara said implacably. “She’s been helping me. If you arrive with her at your side, they’ll listen to you. They’ll have to.”

  “Or what, Chelsea will brew them a nice cup of tea? Cara, you aren’t listening. I have a trial in less than two hours. I have a job.”

  “This is your job. Are you really going to risk us going to war for the sake of a single case in the human justice system?”

  Margrit jolted to her feet, taking a few quick, sharp steps to let off steam, then swung back around to scowl at Cara. It came to her again that this situation, or any like it, was why she hadn’t slithered out of the agreement to work for Eliseo Daisani. The Old Races were a tremendous disruption to her life, and only working for someone intimately involved with them would give her the leeway she needed to deal with the impossible circumstances they threw her way. None of her other reasons, legitimate as they might be, held a candle to that one. She had no intention of walking away from their wondrous, complicated world, and becoming Daisani’s assistant meant she could remain a part of it without disappointing anyone else. “Shit. Shit. Goddammit!”

  Cara dropped back into the pillows, delicacy once more visible in her strained features, though a smile curved her lips. “That’s what I thought. That’s why you’re the Negotiator.”

  “The what?” Margrit laughed, harsh sound. “I’ve got a title now? How very…you of you.”

  “It’s a sign of respect, Margrit. We don’t often honor your kind with titles. The meeting’s at ten. Please, go see Chelsea. She has to go with you, or even the place you’ve earned might not carry enough weight.”

  Margrit rolled her jaw, irate and trying not to let it bloom into fresh anger. “You’re going to owe me for this one, Cara. I’m about to make myself look bad in my last trial for you and yours. There’s going to be a price.”

  “There always is.” Cara nodded toward the door. “Now go.”

  EIGHT

  “YOU’LL BE FINE, Jim. It’s your case anyway, and I’m just standing as cocounsel.” Margrit got dressed as she reassured her coworker. Halfway back from Harlem she’d decided there was no way she could face the morning without a shower and fresh clothes and had detoured home. Neither of her housemates were there, leaving the house quiet enough to make an apologetic call. “I know this is a long way from ideal, but I’ve had something unavoidable come up. Personal business. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” The resentment in Jim’s voice betrayed him.

  Margrit clenched her jaw, then deliberately loosened it. “I’ll do my best to come by this afternoon if you want any advice, but you’re as prepared for the case as I am. I’ve got to go.” She repeated her apologies and hung up, then turned to glower at herself in the mirror.

  If her expression could be ignored, the woman reflected back at her looked professional and cool, well collected in a skirt suit with a dark, subtly red blouse beneath it. Her gaze, though, was angry with frustration and resignation, and even loose corkscrew curls did little to soften its edges. Margrit sighed and twisted her hair back, jamming an ebony stick through it. It finished off the look, making her hard and unassailable.

  Too hard for her own tastes. Margrit found a pair of gold filigree earrings and slipped them into place, feeling herself relax a little as she did so. If the clothes made the man, they could also remind her of what she wanted to be. The gold looked well against cafe-latte skin, bringing out warm depths. It was better to not be so cold. Feeling less grim, Margrit slipped low heels on and picked up her purse, and, armed for the day, left her bedroom.

  The front door swung open and Cameron, wearing loose gym sweats and a snug T-shirt, bounded in and let go a shout of surprise as she nearly ran Margrit down. Margrit laughed and clutched her heart, staggering back. “Good morning.”

  “You didn’t come home last night.” Cam gave her a cheerful fish eye. “Did you have a hot date?”

  “I did, as a matter of fact.” Margrit tried dodging around the tall blonde, but Cameron swayed back and forth in the hall, deliberately blocking her. Half a foot taller than Margrit even when Margrit wore two-inch heels, Cam’s long limbs ensured she could keep her smaller housemate stuck in place.

  “With who? Alban? You haven’t seen him in a couple weeks, right? C’mon, talk. And those are fighting duds, Grit. Don’t tell me you’ve got a court case after being up all night.”

  “Okay. I won’t tell you.” Margrit ducked through an opening in Cameron’s waving arms. Now that her housemate had mentioned it, she realized how tired she should be, but the long previous day didn’t seem to be dragging her down. Daisani’s gift in action, maybe, though she thought he’d said health didn’t negate a need for sleep.

  Cam reached over her head to bang the door shut. “Have you had breakfast, young lady?”

  “I swear, you and Cole are like my parents. No,” Margrit admitted reluctantly. Her stomach rumbled on cue and Cameron barked triumph.

  “Is your court date at nine?”

  “…no…”

  “Then you have time to eat and gossip. Shoo. Go. Go.” Cameron herded her down the hall toward the kitchen, making Margrit laugh again.

  “When’d you get so pushy?”

  “Right about when you started sneaking around and not talking to us anymore. Couple weeks ago now. What’s going on, Margrit?” Cameron’s jovial tone dropped away, leaving concern. “I know you and Cole are on the outs, but neither of you will tell me why, and you’ve been getting up to run in the middle of the night for the last ten days.”

  Guilty surprise sizzled through Margrit. She went to the fridge, an orange behemoth from the fifties, and stared inside it as a way of avoiding Cameron’s worried gaze. “Did Cole make any bagels?”

  “He did, and I’ll prepare you the perfect peanut-butter bagel in exchange for some kind of actual information about your life. Otherwise I’m holding them hostage.
”

  Margrit took jam out of the fridge and turned to face her friend, whose calculating expression turned satisfied as she put bagels in the toaster. “Talk. What’s going on?”

  “Honestly? Everything’s completely out of control and I feel as if I’m coming apart at the seams. You ever get yourself into something so deep it looks like there’s no way out?”

  “Yeah. I’ve told you about how I got the scar on my leg.” Cam edged Margrit out of the way to get to the peanut butter.

  Margrit’s gaze fell to her friend’s shin, where she knew a long silver scar marked the tan skin beneath Cam’s sweats. “A car wreck,” she said, knowing she skimmed the truth.

  Cameron turned, a jar of peanut butter in hand, and gave her a hard look. “A drunk-driving car wreck. The only thing about it in my favor was I wasn’t the one driving. And I remember thinking if I could undo it, if I could get out of it somehow, if I could make it have not happened, I would never be that stupid again in my life. I wouldn’t drink, I wouldn’t drive, I wouldn’t get in a car with somebody who had been, I’d do anything to make it unhappen.” The bagels popped and she lathered butter, peanut butter and jelly on them with abandon. “So, yeah, I know what it’s like to feel out of control and with no way out. What’s going on, Margrit?” She handed one of the bagels over and sank her teeth into her own.

  Margrit took hers and inhaled its warm, rich scent, trying to loosen the tightness in her chest. “It’s work stuff, kind of.” It was true, insofar as she was going to work for one of the Old Races in a handful of days, but it was also inaccurate enough to be a blatant lie. “I’ll tell you about it as soon as I can.” She’d promised Cole that much after he’d seen Alban’s true form. He’d wanted to tell Cameron, but Margrit had put him off and he’d agreed, aware that without seeing Alban’s transformation herself, Cameron would never believe them.