Janx surged over the table, landing a hand’s-breadth from Alban. Though more slender in build, the dragonlord stood nearly of a height with Alban in his human form. For all that he moved gracefully, his breath came harsh and loud. 'You would not.' Green flame brightened and danced in his eyes, disbelief warring with outrage. 'You cannot.'
'Bad company, Janx. Perhaps I’ve learned something in all my years of exile, after all.'
'Or in the last weeks, the world rejoined and rediscovered. You would not dare.' Uncertainty began to give way to fury, the color in Janx’s eyes shifting from green to the shade of low-burning embers.
'All these centuries of exile, Janx. All for the sake of a promise made. I have nothing left to lose. Don’t,' he added abruptly, granite hardening his voice. 'Don’t try to hold Margrit over my head now, like a trinket whose life commands mine. If any harm comes to her, I have no more stomach for you or Eliseo or your ages-old games. I hold your secrets, Janx. If you want them kept, make Margrit’s safety your priority.'
Janx rolled his jaw, eyes dark with anger. 'The favor’s been asked and agreed to, Stoneheart. If I call it back, I’ve burned it up. Your little lawyer’s too good a negotiator to let that go. And another of my men died tonight. I will not let Malik go unattended.'
'Keep him from foolishness in the day and I’ll keep him safe at night.'
Janx pursed his lips. 'How? I gave Margrit an impossible task. It’s no easier for a gargoyle to watch over a djinn.'
Alban shrugged. 'So long as he carries his cane, I can track him, and I’ve never seen him without it.'
'His cane? Do you have a deep sensitivity to baubles, Alban? I thought that was a dragonly trait.'
'Avarice for baubles is a dragonly trait. Sensitivity to stone is a gargoyle’s gift.' Faint humor rolled through Alban when Janx’s expression remained confounded. 'The head’s not glass, Janx. It’s corundum. White sapphire. The easiest of any stone for my family to track.'
A ripple of disbelief crossed Janx’s face, heightening Alban’s humor. He kept it contained, amused enough by the dragon’s disconcertment to draw the moment out. 'You thought it was glass. I never knew the dragonly trait for sensing wealth was nothing more than human legend. Malik must enjoy that.'
'Admiring wealth is not the same as sensing its presence.' Janx’s voice was hoarse. 'That stone is as large as his fist. Where did he get it?'
'I can’t imagine. And if you want me to be able to track him, you won’t ask, or he’ll put it aside. Do we have an accord, Janx?'
Another spasm of avarice crossed the dragonlord’s face before Janx visibly set aside his interest in the stone. 'Split the favor. Margrit’s duty in sunlight, yours by the stars. I have other reasons to keep that game in play.' At Alban’s slow nod, Janx fell back a step, a scowl fitting over his lively features. 'Who taught you to fight, Alban? I don’t remember this in you.'
'You should.' Alban’s voice roughened again. 'My brothers would never have trusted their most precious confidences to anyone weaker than themselves. Time’s dulled your memory, dragonlord.' He smiled faintly. 'You should ask a gargoyle to remember for you.'
Sudden greed flashed in Janx’s eyes. 'Oh, I intend to. I intend to, Alban. Like it or not, after all this time, you’ve chosen a side. You came to me, not to Eliseo.' Greed faded into a sharp smile as he spread his hands. 'Welcome home, Stoneheart. After so long, let me welcome you to the House of Cards.'
CHAPTER 9
Hurrying home through the park without the confidence of having her inhuman defender watching from above was more nerve-rattling than Margrit would have imagined. Bad enough to be without his protection; worse still to be dressed in work clothes, unable to run reliably. She unlocked the front door to her apartment building and stepped inside, a rope of tension released from within her shoulders, as if the door closing behind her made the world a safer place.
It wasn’t cold enough outside to make her feel as numb as she did. Margrit climbed the flights of stairs to her apartment heavily, legs aching with the effort. It simply hadn’t occurred to her that Alban might flat-out reject her request for help. That he might disappear into the night like a ghost, leaving behind nothing more than the certainty that this time he meant it: he would not return to watch over her. Without Alban she had no support amongst the Old Races, no one she trusted.
'Grit? Is that you?' The question sailed out of the kitchen almost before Margrit had the key in the lock, Cole’s baritone carrying concern.
'Yeah. Sorry I’m late. I was at the office.' Margrit followed her housemate’s voice to the kitchen and sat down on the stool next to the telephone.
Cole turned away from doing dishes, an eyebrow lifted dubiously, then both rising in surprise. 'You really were. I figured you’d be running in the park.'
'No.' Margrit looked at her hands. 'Not tonight.'
'Maybe you should. Not that I want to encourage you to do stupid things, but you sound like the dog died.' Cole picked up a dish towel, drying his hands, then folded his arms across his chest. 'What’s wrong?'
'I’m thinking about taking another job.' The idea formulated as she spoke.
Disbelief shot Cole’s voice into a higher register. 'You’re kidding. What, did a position open up in the D.A.’s office? I thought you and Legal Aid were bound in holy matrimony.'
'Not with public services at all. I saw Eliseo Daisani yesterday, and he offered me a job again.' Margrit’s temples throbbed badly enough that she touched one, expecting to feel the vein popped beneath her skin.
'Elis- the Eliseo Daisani?' Cole asked, as though there were several possibilities, and as though he’d never said it before. Margrit smiled faintly, which did nothing to alleviate her headache. A headache was a malady, the sort of thing Daisani’s blood should wipe away. Maybe it didn’t work when the aches and pains were born of tension.
'That one, yeah. The very, very rich one.'
'The very rich one who used to date your mother?'
Margrit winced. 'If that’s what they did, yeah, I guess so. I try not to think about why my mother knows him, Cole. You’re not helping.'
'Just wanted to make sure I had the right Daisani, Grit.' Cole crossed the kitchen to crouch in front of her, taking her hands in his. 'Why in the hell would you do that?'
For a fleeting moment Margrit considered telling the truth : I’m about to have a dragon pissed off at me for failing to protect his liegeman djinn, and the gargoyle I thought would help me has walked away. The vampire’s all I’ve got left. Daisani was the only person who could protect her if she failed to keep Malik alive. Moreover, if Daisani was behind Janx’s lieutenants’ deaths, maybe she could use herself as a bargaining chip to protect Malik. And Kaimana Kaaiai wanted her to be his courier between Janx and Daisani, anyway. Working for Daisani would only make that easier.
Margrit pulled her hands from Cole’s and pressed them to her face. 'I’m defending this guy,' she said into her palms. 'He’s a complete bastard, a total son of a bitch. A rapist. The good news is I’m going to lose. Evidence is completely on the prosecutor’s side, and my guy’s too fucking dumb to take a plea. But I’m in there doing my best to get him off, because that’s my job, and Jesus, Cole, what kind of job is that?' She looked up through her fingers, finding his worried eyes studying her. 'I don’t know. Maybe it’s just finally getting to me.'
The worst of it was that the argument sounded plausible to her own ears, and from the sympathy tempering Cole’s expression, it resonated with him, as well. Margrit sighed. 'Compared to that, a posh office with a park-side view and a big fat paycheck’s starting to sound pretty good.'
'Ah, c’mon, Grit,' Cole said gently. 'Daisani’s building doesn’t even overlook the park.'
Margrit exhaled a soft burst of laughter, winning a smile from her housemate before he asked, 'You eaten recently?'
'Um…' She tipped her head back, stretching her throat. 'Not since lunch, I guess. I don’t even remember if I ate lunch.'
'Then you probably didn’t. You never forget a meal.' Cole pushed himself upright and went to the fridge. 'Cam’ll be home in a few minutes. You can have some dinner and we can talk about it. This is kind of out of
