House of Cards

CHAPTER 6

"Cara!" Margrit jolted to her feet for the second time, this time rounding the end of the couch to skid across the carpet toward the petite selkie girl. She seized Cara's shoulders to hug her, then, appalled at her own rudeness, released her grip. Cara laughed, stepping forward for a gingerly embrace.

"I'm sorry,"Margrit blurted. "I didn't mean to manhandle you. But I was afraid you were dead, with your neighbors tearing your apartment apart and then you disappearing. Where did you go?" She released the other woman, giving her a scowl disrupted by delight.

"It's all right." Cara's dark eyes were full of pleasure. "I don't think anyone's ever been this glad to see me. A few of the others came just after you left, and took us away. I'm sorry if you were worried, but once we had Deirdre's skin we thought it was safer for us to disappear, so Daisani couldn't get to it again. You won the fight against him." Admiration lit her irises to amber. "Even without me you kept fighting for the building. Thank you, Margrit."

"The building wasn't about you at all." Margrit pulled her into another impulsive hug, surprised to find herself trembling with relief. "Daisani just got lucky with his workmen finding your skins, Cara. He was having a temper tantrum," she said, only considering how ill-advised the words were after she'd spoken. Damage done, she shrugged, glancing toward Kaaiai. "It turned out it was actually over the speakeasy down in the subways that you're offering security financing for. It used to belong to Daisani, and he was pissed off at Grace for giving it up to the public. She-"

"Grace," Kaaiai interrupted. "Grace O'Malley? They told me about her in the grant for financing. I can't understand why anyone would let themselves be saddled with a name like that. The real Grace O'Malley was a brigand and a murderer, not a hero."

Margrit crooked a smile. "Humans do that, Mr. Kaaiai. We make romantic heroes out of violent, awful people. Billy the Kid. Bonnie and Clyde. Captain Jack Sparrow," she added with a wink. "Anyway, the modern Grace is a sort of vigilante. Maybe she's trying to redeem the name."

"Vigilante implies violence," Kaaiai said with a note of disapproval. "I was given to understand she eschewed violence."

"I've met her. She says she doesn't kill people." Margrit shuddered and brushed her fingertips over her forehead, where Grace had once pressed the barrel of a gun. "I don't think she does. I think she just scares them. She's been trying to get kids off the streets for years, from the bottom up, literally. She's got areas staked out in the storm drains and tunnels under the city. One of them was under your building," she said to Cara. "Daisani was after it, not you."

"All of this," Cara murmured. "All of this because of a mistake?" She glanced toward Kaaiai, apology written in her eyes. "Maybe-"

"No," he said with gentle certainty. "No, Cara, you were right to come to me, and right to suggest what you have. I apologize, Ms. Knight, go ahead. I didn't mean to interrupt."

Margrit glanced between the selkies, curious, then offered a smile to the girl who'd been her client. "I don't have it with me, Cara, but your sealskin is safe at my apartment. Daisani gave it to me. I earned it," she corrected, watching Cara's eyes darken further. "I remember what you said about owing him, and I took the warning to heart, but I think it's too late for me."

"Not necessarily." Kaaiai stood, inserting himself back into the conversation physically as well as vocally. "If you're on our side, Ms. Knight-"

"Your side?" She shook her head, stepping away from Cara to face the broad selkie male. "I don't even know what sides there are. I'm not on anyone's side."

A memory of alabaster skin seared her, carved angles of a wide, beautiful face whose blue-tinged shadows would never know sunlight. Desire flared at the remembrance of a scent like sun-warmed stone and strands of heavy white hair flowing over her fingers. A tremor had caught them both as she'd brushed fingertips over the soft membrane of wings, a sensual, silken touch. She'd made her choice to stand beside Alban as his advocate, first when he'd asked for her help, and later when he'd rejected it. If there were sides to consider, Margrit already knew where she stood. "I'm not on anyone's side," she repeated without conviction,

"Cara tells me you've spoken with Janx. I know for myself you talk to Daisani. My official job here in New York has nothing to do with the Old Races, Ms. Knight, but having an attaché like yourself who can move between the two of them freely would allow me to accomplish some other business while I'm here. Unless you have a specific loyalty to one of them that could compromise your position as a negotiator?"

"A neg - Mr. Kaaiai." Margrit put all the firmness she could into his name. "I think you're overestimating my ability to influence anything in your world. I owe Janx two open-ended favors. Eliseo Daisani gave me a drink of his blood because I caught a bad guy for him, and he's trying to get me to work for him. At best I'm walking a high wire between those two. You want me to start running back and forth on it playing messenger?"

"What if I could turn that high wire into a platform?"

"Can you?" Margrit's voice was dubious. "I don't know what it would take, but I don't think a handful of selkies are going to be able to pull off that kind of trick. I've already had one misguided gargoyle try to rescue me, and all it's done is drag me deeper into the hole."

"Alban Korund." Kaaiai said the name thoughtfully. "I've got more experience at this sort of thing than he does, which probably doesn't reassure you."

"Not really. What?" Margrit asked, with a glance toward Cara. "You don't curl your lip and call him 'the outcast'?"

Kaaiai gave Cara a brief smile. "Young people are staunch in their prejudices."

"I've noticed old people are, too," Margrit said dryly. "It just seems a little weird to me that a people who've chosen exile for their whole race would call Alban's kettle black. I don't even get the idea that he broke one of your laws, just that he walled himself off from his people."

"To a gargoyle, there's not much worse. I think none of us can understand." Kaaiai indicated not only himself and Cara, but Margrit, with a small circular gesture. "None of us share the intimacy gargoyles do, with their ability to exchange memories and thoughts. Deliberately exiling ourselves from the Old Races was a choice we made as a community. It didn't leave us alone in the fashion that Alban Korund keeps himself. I think it would be like cutting away your hand, or your heart, to do what he's done."

"And it's unforgivable?"

"It's incomprehensible. There aren't many of us as a whole, much less within the individual races. The idea of turning our backs on out-people..." Kaaiai shook his head. "Whether it's forgivable is for the gargoyles to say, not me."

"What would you say, if it were up to you?" Kaaiai lifted a big shoulder and let it fall. "I would welcome any of my people back with open arms, but we've lived apart from the rest of the Old Races for a long time. We may no longer think as they do. Which brings me to the point of asking you here, Ms. Knight." Caution spilled through Margrit in cool waves. Janx's theory sat badly with her, but Kaaiai's easy admission that the selkies had changed gave it weight. She glanced toward Cara, whose eyes shone with enthusiasm as she looked from Kaaiai to Margrit and back again. The desperation that had once marked the young woman was gone, girlish hope replacing it. Even when fear had driven her, though, she'd advised Margrit against bargaining with Daisani. Cara's conviction had seemed unalterable, and all appearances suggested her situation had only improved since then. If she, desperate and afraid, refused to work with Daisani, then it seemed unlikely a man like Kaaiai, clearly a leader, would condone or participate in the murder of Janx's lieutenants.

"I'm listening." Margrit focused on Kaaiai, putting thoughts of Janx away. There would be time, and if Janx's fears were right, the more information Margrit got now, the stronger her hand would be later. "What do you think I can do?"

"We've spent generations hiding ourselves in our fight for survival. It's time to challenge the order that has held the Old Races in place for millennia, and decide how we can best approach a new world. We need an advocate, Ms. Knight, and you're the obvious choice."

Margrit left Kaaiai's suite with her thoughts in chaos and closed the door gently, as if doing so would hide the way she grasped the knob and sagged against it. The security guard posted in the hall slid her a sideways glance, impersonally curious. Margrit arranged her face in the semblance of a smile, then gave it up and exhaled heavily, still leaning on the door.

Alban's sharp-cut features played in her mind's eye. Of the Old Races' three worst offenses, the gargoyle had broken two of them for her: he'd told her about their existence, and then he'd killed one of his own to protect her. The laws, Margrit had argued, were antiquated, but he'd insisted on enforcing his own exile. And now a selkie presented her with a chance to face those laws and do her best to knock them down.

Intellect warred with ambition. She had no birthright to so blatantly and deliberately challenge their traditions. But she wanted to, and a better opportunity would never be offered. Laws were meant to be tested and changed as time passed. The ability to help shape a future for the Old Races was as much a brass ring as anything she coveted in her ordinary life.

Her own arrogance was breathtaking. Margrit tilted a smile at the ceiling. Perhaps that was one of the reasons behind the Old Races' law of not telling humans they existed. The almost assured destruction of their peoples, should humanity learn of the monsters that lived with them, was the obvious reason for secrecy. But the belief that humanity's path was the better one was as much a danger to the fabric of the Old Races' society as outright exposure. Margrit might well be doing none of them any favors, by taking the stand that Kaaiai had offered.

None of them save one, and there was no indication he would appreciate it.

The elevator dinged, music muffled by the carpets. Margrit shook off the stillness that held her and managed a step or two away from the suite doors just as Tony Pulcella emerged from the elevators. They stared at each other, equally startled, before Margrit laughed. "Tony!" The big Italian cop grinned and came down the hall with long strides, pulling her into a hug. "What're you doing here?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing." Margrit smiled up at him, dusting imaginary motes off his shoulders. He wore a suit without a tie, looking well-pressed and handsome. "I forgot you were on security detail."

"Still don't know how I got the job." Tony gave a good-natured shrug.

Margrit's smile died abruptly, leaving her mouth curved but empty of emotion. She shot a glance over her shoulder at the closed suite doors, anger bringing color to her cheeks. It was almost impossible Kaaiai had asked for Tony by chance, without knowing his erstwhile girlfriend had had dealings with both Janx and Daisani.

"Gotta say it's less stressful than homicide, though. Maybe I oughta take a turn at doing this for a living. The hours are still crazy, and it's boring as hell, but private security's not as rough as being a cop. Might make it easier for us. What would you think? Hello?" he added after a few seconds, waving his hand in front of her face when she didn't reply. "You with me, Grit?"

Margrit nodded, bringing herself back to the conversation. Outrage on Tony's behalf was useless. Confessing to him she suspected he'd been placed on security detail so Kaaiai could have a discreet method of getting to Margrit sounded insulting to his skills, even if she could explain the extraordinary world that Kaaiai belonged to. But it gave her a little more measure of the man who'd made her an on-the-surface irresistible offer. Like Janx and Daisani, Kaaiai seemed to have no compunction against using humans to obtain his ends.

"I'm here. Sorry. I was thinking." Her eyebrows furrowed as she pulled Tony's suggestion back to mind. "Wouldn't you hate it? You just said it's boring, and you've only been doing it twelve hours."

"For what I hear some private security pays, I could stand being bored. Might even help you pay off those student loans you're always complaining about, if you're nice," he added with a wink.

"You know that's posturing." Her parents had paid for her schooling, an extravagance Margrit often felt embarrassed by, surrounded as she was by coworkers who had tens of thousands in loan bills.

"So maybe I could take you on some nice vacations." Tony's expression turned serious. "We've had this problem with our schedules all along, Grit. I know I said I'd look at business school if you really wanted me home by six every evening, but maybe something like this would work out for us. It'd kinda let me keep one foot in the game and you wouldn't have to worry."

"It's worth thinking about." Even as she spoke, guilt pounded through her veins in cold splashes. The offer that Kaaiai had laid out entwined her ever-more thoroughly in a world Tony didn't belong to, and it was an offer Margrit doubted she'd resist. The breach they had worked so hard to close over the last weeks suddenly loomed again, widening with every moment. "But this probably isn't the best time to talk about it. Shouldn't you be at work?"

Tony glanced over her head toward Kaaiai's suite. "Yeah, I- Hey, shouldn't you be? What are you doing here, Margrit?"

"Mr. Kaaiai asked to see me." Truth was the only answer she could come up with, feeble in its honesty. "It turned out he was a friend of Cara Delancy's, the girl who asked me for help with the Daisani building, remember?"

"I remember." Tony's gaze darkened. "Was?"

"Oh. Oh! No, is. Is. She's okay, Tony." Relief brightened Margrit's voice. "I just talked to her, in fact. Some of their friends packed her up and moved her out of the apartment that afternoon. They were afraid to get in touch with me in case Eliseo Daisani was trying to find her. She and Deirdre are okay."

Answering relief turned Tony's frown into a quick smile. "Maybe that's how I ended up with this job. Your client rubbing elbows with the rich and famous. I gotta say, Grit, I could get used to you working with the high and mighty."

Another stab of guilt assailed her. Margrit tried to push it off with a smile. "A young squatter and her baby don't exactly qualify as high and mighty, Tony. Maybe it is how you got the job, though. Kaaiai could've looked me up and found out we were dating. Good for both of us, huh?" It was a less ugly interpretation than she'd imagined.

"Great for both of us. Look, I'm on til eleven tonight, or later if the function runs late, so-"

"So no dinner date. That's okay. He's only in town for ten days. We can handle a week and a half's worth of disruption."

"I'm glad." Tony's voice lowered. "Wasn't that long ago that ten days meant we weren't seeing each other anymore."

"Things change." For a moment the words sounded full of alarming portents. Margrit shivered and stood on her toes to steal a kiss. "I should get back to work. I'll see you when we can, okay?"

Margrit smiled and Tony released her, waiting until she'd reached the elevator to call, "Hey." When she looked back, he lowered his voice to say, "Love you."

"Yeah." Margrit dropped her gaze, trying to hold Tony's image in her mind, then looked up with another smile. "You, too, babe. I'll see you later."