Hands of Flame

by C. E. Murphy

  “Yes. It’s just more important to get you to Mom and Dad’s right now. I’ll call as soon as I can.” She hung up and found both Alban and Kate watching her with uncertainty. “Daisani is not going to go after my mother,” she said softly. “No matter what else happens, he’s not going after her. He cares about her too much. He won’t go after her and I seriously doubt he’ll go after anybody under her roof.”

  “Perhaps we should all take refuge there.” Janx, voice filled with cold fury, came across the fallen bookshelves as silently and gracefully as he’d done once before. He stalked past the trio in the ruined foyer and out the door, all rage and beauty as he disappeared down the street.

  Kate stared after him, then turned back to Margrit and Alban with an expression of uncertainty.

  “Go,” Alban said after a moment. “Family is—”

  A too-familiar eruption shook the windows, the impact of air displacing as Janx transformed. Car alarms went off, and even Alban flinched before scooping Margrit into his arms and running for the door.

  “Put me down! Put me down!” Margrit pounded on his shoulder as he sped toward the closest alley. Kate sprinted past as Alban slowed, and launched herself into the air barely a few feet into the safety of the alley’s darkness. Air exploded more softly, her form vastly smaller than her father’s, and moments later a second sinuous dragon beat its way past rooftops and into the city sky.

  Alban rumbled in obvious frustration, then, to Margrit’s astonishment, cursed quietly and flung himself after Kate, transforming with a comparatively inaudible bamf as he strove for the rooftops.

  “Alban! I have to call the cops, I have to—”

  “You have a cell phone,” Alban said implacably. “Nothing is preventing you from calling.”

  They broke above the roofs to the sound of shouts from below, people swearing about car alarms and the shotlike explosions of air. Margrit twisted to see if anyone was looking up and nearly fell from Alban’s arms, his grip not intended to hold someone writhing around. They both shouted with panic, Alban tucking his wings in preparation to dive after her if necessary. The beat of falling instead of striving upward brought them dangerously close to the rooftops again. Margrit knotted her arms around Alban’s neck and bit back a scream as he swore a second time and glided over a break between buildings, catching the updraft to work his way higher into the air.

  Not until they were well above the skyline did he unclench his jaw enough to say, “Are you well?”

  “No.” Margrit muffled her answer against his shoulder, willing her heartbeat to slow from its panicked rush. “I’ve never heard you swear before. I didn’t know you could.”

  “Given sufficient cause, yes. There they are.”

  Margrit, clinging to him, turned to catch a glimpse of Kate’s slim serpentine form hundreds of yards ahead of them, and losing ground to Janx’s much larger shape. It took only a glance to know where they were going. Margrit buried her face against Alban’s shoulder again and whispered, “Daisani’s penthouse. Don’t let me fall.”

  “Never.”

  The promise, which had in the past been sensual, was now simply grim. Margrit had never heard the gargoyle sound so severe, and remembered abruptly that the only reason she knew Chelsea Huo was that Alban had sent her to the bookseller as a place of safety and refuge for them to meet at. A burst of apology for asking him to stop, to not pursue Kate and Janx and the more distant Daisani, filled her. She hugged him hard, whispering, “Sorry,” into the lashing whiteness of his hair, then brought her phone back to her ear to call Tony.

  He picked up with a groggy, bewildered, “Cameron?”

  “No, sorry, this is Margrit. I’m borrowing Cam’s phone. Did I wake you up?”

  “Grit.” Tony cleared his throat, and she could all but envision him rubbing his eyes, sitting up, kicking his legs over the side of the bed to plant his feet on the floor and putting an elbow on his knees so he could lean into his hand as he woke up. She’d seen him do it often enough in the years they’d been together. “It’s the middle of the night. What’s going on? Where are you? Sounds like a wind tunnel.”

  “I’m…flying. Tony, Chelsea Huo is dead. Somebody needs to get over to her bookstore right away.”

  “Che—The one who owns Huo’s On First?” The detective woke up fast. “Are you there?”

  “I was.”

  “And now you’re…?”

  “On my way to Daisani’s apartment.”

  “Why? Did he—?”

  “I don’t know. I hope not. Can you get somebody to go to Chelsea’s bookstore? I’m sorry to call like this.”

  “Margrit, you…” Whatever he wanted to say was eaten by professionalism as he sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll take care of it. Is there any point in telling you to be careful?”

  Margrit glanced toward the rapidly approaching apartment building. Daisani’s helicopter was knocked on its side and in flames, as though Janx had regarded it as a rival and dispatched it before entering the building. The fire showed that the rooftop access door hadn’t just been ripped off its hinges: the entire framework for it had been shattered, concrete blocks and steel lying in a shambles.

  Kate reached the roof as Margrit watched, flying too fast to come in for a graceful landing. She rolled nose over tail, tumbling in a long, wing-tucked line, and came out of it as a human woman running at full tilt. She disappeared through the ruined door, and Alban put on a burst of speed, wings straining to race through the night and catch up with the unfolding drama.

  “No,” Margrit said. “No, there really isn’t. I’ll call you later, Tony. Thanks.”

  Alban backwinged a moment later, crashing down to the rooftop hard enough to jar Margrit. She squirmed free of his arms as he transformed, the rush of air temporarily overwhelming heat from the helicopter fire, which blazed with enthusiasm. The smell of aviation fuel corroded the air and she ran for the rooftop door, uncertain if the flame had already reached the fuel and not wanting to be on hand if it hadn’t. Alban was her pale shadow, though he overtook her inside the building by dint of simply springing over the railings as she took the stairs.

  A flare of frustrated amusement hit her and she yelled, “Cheater!” after him as she swung around the turn of stairs, jumping down them with the railing as her own guide.

  Seconds later, as Alban burst into the chaos of Daisani’s apartment in front of her, she thought it was just as well that he’d cheated. Even with his broad body protecting her, the heat in the flat was appalling. For the first time she wished she had an elemental form to change into, something that would protect her from inhuman extremes. As if hearing her thoughts, Alban flashed to his gargoyle shape, stony body blocking more of the heat and allowing her to gain some sense of what went on before her.

  Daisani’s apartment, which had been lush and full of brightness earlier, was black and red with fire. The power no longer functioned, only the city glow and Janx’s flame lighting the room.

  Dragon and vampire rolled together in a mass of kinetic energy, Janx’s tail and wings flicking out and smashing tall windows as their body weight flattened furniture and sent walls to shuddering. It was nearly impossible to see Daisani: he was a sliver of darkness in the dragon’s gold-tipped claws, so formless Margrit’s eyes slid off him as she tried to find edges upon which to focus.

  Ursula, looking impossibly small and fragile against the roiling bodies, leapt on Janx’s shoulders and pounded on his neck with both fists, like a toddler throwing a fit. Her usual tidiness was disheveled, clothes torn, hair flying askew as Janx rolled again, letting go of Daisani with one foot to claw at the younger vampire riding him.

  Daisani slipped free, a fluid wash of blackness. For a fraction of a second Margrit saw puncture wounds, but then he was moving, his presence nothing more than a blur of rage in the room. He ousted Ursula from her bronco ride, taking her place, and Janx contracted like a cat and flung himself upward. The ceiling fell in a rain of plaster and sparks, but Daisani leapt fre
e with casual arrogance.

  “Stop them!” Margrit’s scream was nearly inaudible even to her own ears, making her realize the sheer cacophony in the ruined apartment. Alban shot her an bewildered look, as if asking how, and she grabbed his arm to pull him around and make him look at her. An explosion erupted behind him and he collapsed over her, protective, as fire fell from above.

  “Stop them?” Even Alban’s bellow against her skin was all but impossible to hear. “How?”

  Impatience surged in her, sheerly human response. She wanted to shake the gargoyle, rattle sense and the obvious into him. “Attack them! Use your telepathy! Find out what the hell he’s hiding that’s worth all of this!”

  The idea was appalling.

  Margrit had suggested such a thing before, as astonishing then as it was now. Changes, changes everywhere, but to turn his people’s gift against another of the Old Races still ran deeply contrary to anything he’d ever considered. And yet, watching the two ancient rivals battle, Alban was unable to see another way to stop them. He could throw himself into the fray, but he would only add another dimension to the battle, give them a third target, rather than have any hope of calming them. Not with the rage that had driven Janx; not with whatever fear of discovery had forced Daisani’s hand. In the thousands of years that they had played their game, they had never, to his knowledge, taken the fight directly to one another.

  But now Janx had nothing left to lose, and Daisani, it seemed, still did. Whether it was his empire or his secret, it was worth fighting for. Worth killing for, though Alban’s mind balked at the idea that Chelsea Huo was dead. Balked at the idea Eliseo could have taken her life. That anyone could have, but that Daisani would even try was almost beyond comprehension.

  The vampire screamed as Alban stood frozen with indecision. His speed was phenomenal, but Janx had the knack of fighting such a rival. It wasn’t a matter of catching him, but anticipating him. Daisani’s blurred form had rushed one way; Janx had turned another, not as swiftly, but quickly enough, and the vampire had impaled himself on gold-tipped claws. Blood now ran from those talons. Janx roared fire, melting blood and gold alike as Daisani, weakened, thrust himself back and darted away.

  Ursula, similarly, raced back into the fight, but this time Kate was in the way, tackling her sister. Her greater weight pinned Ursula, and incomprehensible arguments broke through the flame and ruin. That was something: a small something. The twins, at least, would probably not lose their lives in Janx and Daisani’s battle.

  Clarity, like metal striking stone, rang through Alban at that thought. Short of extraordinary measures, the two combatants would kill each other, and for all their sins, the idea of a world without them was infinitely worse than the world with them in it.

  Alban breathed, “Forgive me,” without knowing from whom he begged absolution, and for the first time in his life—for the first time in the history of his people—reached to create an uninvited bridge between minds and memories.

  The world split in two.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  MARGRIT CRASHED TO the floor, clutching her head in her hands as Alban’s presence became larger than he was. Gullies opened up around her, deep stony rents in the earth that she feared plummeting through, and from them mountains shot up, heaving and writhing, as though the gargoyle memories were under attack. Static washed through her mind, blaring white noise louder than her own thoughts, louder than anything she’d ever experienced, even the endless ruin of the House of Cards, even the shattering destruction of Daisani’s apartment.

  She forced her eyes open, trying to see in the world she knew still existed around her. It wavered through the concepts of the gargoyle overmind, but Janx had stopped fighting. The dragonlord looked as stricken as she felt, taloned feet clawing at his own head, as though he might scrape away the double-world that surrounded him. The twins, too, writhed in pain, all of them experiencing the same blasted reality she saw.

  Of all of them, Daisani remained on his feet, countenance angry as he faced Alban. Challenged Alban: the slight vampire leaned into the chaotic world as though he might edge his way forward, put himself in the gargoyle’s space and fight for whatever last vestiges of control might be his.

  Wrong; it was wrong. That undercurrent came through clearly, Alban’s agony and worry over how the world had changed. There was certainty in him, certainty that forcing his way into Daisani’s mind had opened a channel that wasn’t meant to be. Certainty that Margrit’s presence exacerbated the wrongness, her bewildering talent for connecting nongargoyle minds to the gestalt hissing to deadly life. None of the Old Races in the apartment could escape it. Margrit felt Alban’s fear that none of the Old Races in the city, perhaps the world, could escape it; that he had gone much too far in a pursuit of dubious justice, or in a misguided attempt to save Old Races lives.

  With that conclusion, she felt him begin to draw back, trying to break the forcible link he’d created. Dismay tore at her throat and she shoved to her feet, finding strength to stand against the relentless noise in her head. She pushed by Alban, determined to meet Eliseo Daisani in the battleground of memory herself, if the gargoyle could not.

  The ground under her feet steadied as she approached Daisani, though whether that was through his willpower or her own, she had no idea. She felt Alban’s protest at the back of her mind and ignored it; felt Janx’s curiosity driving her on, and took strength from it. Daisani only smirked at her, faint expression of superiority, as though he considered himself untouchable.

  It was oddly satisfying to reach out and slap the expression from his face.

  Fury followed shock, and the vampire blurred, disappearing from visible sight. Margrit whipped to follow him, and when he struck against her, slammed a hand up to catch his blow.

  Astonishment wiped every other emotion from Daisani’s eyes. Margrit’s answering smile felt ugly with smug delight and she leaned toward Daisani, still holding his wrist. “You’re only faster than me in the real world.”

  He yanked away and fled again, impossible speed across rough terrain. Margrit, gleefully, gave chase. In the human world, constrained by her human body, she could never hope to catch the vampire, but in her mind, oh, in her mind, she was fast.

  The thought tasted of Alban, as though he’d given up trying to pull back and was now urging her on. Urging her to finish the race, urging her to end the game and release them all from the harsh, static connection she created within the overmind, amongst the Old Races. Remembering her own deadly headache, Margrit overcame regret at being unable to play cat and mouse with Daisani, and put on a surge of speed that turned the world to Doppler effects, stretched light and sound whisking by her.

  She caught Daisani in a floodplain that seemed a thousand years away from the gargoyle mountains. His territory, she thought, though it was as easily hers, tall wild grass and open land looking like a birthplace of humanity.

  They came together with a monumental crash, Margrit flinging herself off the ground to tackle the slender vampire. She had no particular strength, but then, neither did he: any preternatural power came from speed, and she thought she had the slight weight advantage. Dust and earth kicked up around them as they crashed to the savannah floor, and Margrit gathered Daisani’s lapels in her hands to haul him up, nose to nose.

  “Where are the bodies buried, Eliseo?”

  Daisani hissed, a sound of pure fury and insult that lost any vestige of humanity. His face, his body, his whole form melted away, becoming oil-slick and hellacious. His jaw unhinged into a maw of black teeth, and his eyes disappeared into nearly invisible slits. Segmented, insectoid wings sprang from his back and slammed toward her, razor claws along their edges slashing at her face and hands. Margrit screamed, kicking away, and he pounced after her, a lashing, barbed tail whipping toward her feet. He was altogether more alien than any of the others, every trace of earthly presence turned into a slick, violent predator too fast to stop.

  Panic rose in her, then unexpectedly broke
, leaving a calm tide behind. Daisani’s pounce landed, sending them tumbling again, and rather than try to escape this time, Margrit surged forward and embraced the vampire, shuddering at the way his oil slid over her skin.

  Surprise froze him in place for just an instant, and into that stillness she whispered, “If I’m going to die, I’m sure as hell going to find out what I’m dying for. Alban, please!”

  For the second time in as many minutes, the world fell apart.

  It re-formed much more solidly, a structure imposed that had not been there before. Daisani screamed as though the sound was being ripped from his soul, then writhed back into the dapper human form Margrit was so accustomed to. Panting rage in his eyes said it was not his choice to be so shaped, and his skittering glance at the echoing building in which they stood told Margrit he knew where they were.

  Alban’s presence surrounded them, his will a thing of stone, indomitable. More and more walls built up around Margrit and Daisani, each of them borne from a snarl or a whimper from the vampire. Tangled in Alban’s mind and Daisani’s memories, Margrit recognized that the gargoyle was literally stripping hidden knowledge from the vampire and re-creating it openly. His own reluctance to do so was buried beneath a determination to save her; he had failed her more than once, and the price of doing so again was far too dear.

  For the first time Margrit’s own will faltered, but it was too late: the church was built, and a familiar voice was speaking. “They must be bound by iron, staked with wood, buried in earth and water.”

  “Yes,” said another voice irritably, “very dramatic, but how do I catch them?”

  The angle reeled, Daisani turning to face the man with whom he spoke. A big man, his regular features lined with intense determination, he was dressed in clothes of a wholly different era, clothes that marked him, to Margrit’s eye, as out of place and time, though she knew it was she who was out of time. But recognition worked its way through the minds linked to Daisani’s memories: vampire hunter, Janx whispered. The most successful of them all. Margrit was afraid to even think the name, afraid she would be wrong, afraid looking into history-made-fiction might somehow unravel time. She knotted her hands against her mouth, stopping all sound, and held her breath to listen to Daisani’s murmur.