“Oh, God.” Margrit’s voice sounded thin and pitiful in the cold air, clutching her arm to her side, memory no longer a distraction from pain. “You killed all those women over the last two hundred years. The ones who’d seen Alban. Jesus. What were you waiting for, if you were already killing them?” Ausra turned and smiled at her.
“On your knees already. I like that. Waiting for you, Margrit. Waiting for Father to risk himself in conversation with a perfectly ordinary woman. He never did that before you. I wanted to make sure he cared before I took it all away. I’ve been very patient,” she said petulantly.
“But why?” Margrit lurched to her feet, gasping for air through spikes of pain in her arm. “What good will it do? There must be easier ways to destroy somebody.”
“Mother died from exposure,” Ausra snarled. “She died from discovery. I would have it the same way for him.”
“Are you crazy? That was two hundred years ago, Ausra! There wasn’t CNN on the spot then! This won’t just ruin him, it’ll destroy all of you!”
“It’s all right,” Alban said quietly.
Margrit’s head snapped around. “What the hell does that mean? Of course it’s not all right!”
“It is. If nothing else, I can do this for my child.”
“What, die for her?”
Alban turned a gentle smile on Margrit, solid determination in his eyes contributing to the fear rising in her. “The sacrifice is more than worthwhile.”
“You’re both nuts!” Margrit shouted. Yelling distracted her from the pain, she realized, so she kept doing it, desperately relieved for anything that pushed the sick throbbing in her arm away. “You really think one dead gargoyle’s going to be the end of it? Know what humans like more than almost anything? Finding stuff out! Whether you’re dead or just exposed, Alban, it’s not going to stop there!”
She whirled on Ausra, eyes crossing as she banged her arm against her torso. “You think destroying him’s the answer to your problems? Chickee, I’d be looking at serious therapy, if I were you! Look at me! Look at me, Ausra!” Margrit thrust her bruised right hand out, unable to move the left to do the same. “Humans are still killing each other over shit like this! Over the color of somebody’s skin! Do you really think we’re just going to shrug and look the other way if a gargoyle turns up in the middle of New York City? You’re committing suicide! Genocide! And I’m not going to let you!”
“How are you going to stop me?”
“You can’t, Margrit.” Alban smiled again, distant and kind. “Ausra doesn’t want all of us, only me, and I’m not one who’ll be missed by our people.” Weariness colored his words, his shoulders dropping, and Margrit barely heard the next words: “And some kind of peace will be welcome. I’ve been alone long enough.” His gaze shifted to Ausra. “What matters is that my daughter will survive.”
“At the cost of your life?” Margrit shouted. “That’s not good enough, Alban!”
“It is.” Alban took a step forward, his wings flexing gracefully. “We breed so rarely, and I have so much to atone for. I’m sorry,” he said to Ausra. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there, Ausra. I truly believed Hajnal to be dead. I would never have given up hope if I’d known about you. If the price for that failure is to die in your place, then I pay it gladly.”
Margrit jerked herself between the two gargoyles, bellowing at Alban. “Who the hell says that’s the price? One psycho gargoyle chick? I don’t think so. She’s not judge and jury, goddamn it, Alban!”
“She is if I accept her as such.” Alban touched Margrit’s cheek. “It has been an honor to know you, Margrit Knight.” He smiled a little wryly. “I only wish we’d had more time.”
“If you’d stop being such a fucking idiot, we would!”
“No, Margrit,” Ausra said pleasantly, behind her. “You wouldn’t.”
“What!” Margrit whirled around, falling a step to the side. “What?”
“You wouldn’t have more time, even if Father wasn’t throwing himself on his sword.”
“Why the hell not?”
Ausra’s fist slammed out, knuckles cracking against Margrit’s cheekbone. White pain crashed through Margrit’s eyes and she collapsed, trying to catch herself with her left arm. The broken bone gave further under her weight and she screamed, a thick animal sound that turned to choked sickness. Ausra pounced after her, glee written across her delicate features. “Because I’m going to kill you.” She took a fistful of Margrit’s shirt and pulled her up, hand lifted again.
Margrit stared up at her, muscles locked with pain and disbelief. She tried to close her eyes, filled with the irrational conviction that it would somehow hurt less if she didn’t see it coming. Her eyelids wouldn’t respond, any more than she could convince her legs to get up and carry her away as fast as she could run. An inhuman roar tore against her eardrums, and she thought, so that’s what dying sounds like.
Alban appeared above Ausra, behind her, jaw dropped to let his roars escape, and his massive hands closed on Ausra’s head. He twisted, one violent motion that turned her head around the wrong way, the sound of fireworks popping off accompanying the action. Ausra’s body turned to jelly, her own weight pulling her head from Alban’s hands.
Police sirens wailed in the distance.
CHAPTER 31
MARGRIT STARED UP at Alban, her chest heaving. He stood above her, hands cupped loosely, as if he still held Ausra’s head. The sirens grew louder, and Margrit shook herself, swallowing against bile. “You’ve got to go,” she whispered hoarsely. He blinked at her without expression.
“Alban!” she said again. “You’ve got to get out of here. You’ll still be at the station at dawn if you don’t. Go. Go! I’ll be…” She laughed, a funny, high sound of pain. “I’ll be okay,” she promised. “Go.”
Memory, exhausting, washed over her: Hajnal’s voice, saying the same words that she herself spoke now. Margrit laughed again, thinly. “I’m not Hajnal. Go, or it’s all for nothing. Go!”
Alban nodded once, jerkily, wheeled and ran. Margrit’s eyes finally closed, and she didn’t see him disappear into the sky. Lights flashed, blue and white, through her eyelids, and someone shouted, “Put your hands up!”
Margrit put her right hand up, a slow painful motion.
“Both hands!” the cop barked.
Margrit shook her head. “I can’t,” she whispered, and lay still.
Tony was beside her bed when Margrit opened her eyes again. Tony, and more vases of flowers than she could count in a glance. She blinked slowly, then sneezed. Every muscle clenched and she flinched, expecting agony.
There was none. She opened her eyes again, cautiously, and looked around until she found an IV drip feeding into her right arm. “Ooh. They gave me the good stuff. That’s good.” Her eyes drifted shut again, then she frowned. “…Tony?”
The policeman gave a quiet, nervous laugh. “Yeah. Hi, Grit. Glad to see you back among the world of the living.”
Margrit absorbed that. “How long’s it been?”
“About eighteen hours. They weren’t real worried, said you were just sleeping. I didn’t believe ’em.”
She pried her eyes open. Tony had days’ worth of stubble, and circles under his eyes, though the bruise she’d given him had faded to faint yellow. “So I’ve been sleeping and you’ve been watching me?”
He pursed his lips, looked around, found no escape, and nodded. “Pretty much.”
Margrit nodded slowly. “You look like hell.”
He spilled worried laughter. “Thanks. You should see the other guy.”
“Would that be me?”
Tony nodded again. “Pretty much, yeah.”
Margrit absorbed that. “Is there a mirror?”
“You think that’s a good idea, Grit?”
“Do you?”
He studied her, then let out a noisy breath. “Yeah, I guess. You’re tough. You’re not pretty right now,
