House of Cards

CHAPTER 4

"Margrit Knight." Janx rolled her name in his mouth as he always did, as if it were a morsel to be savored. His gaze took her in precisely the same way, inch by inch, judging and admiring what he saw. "I am not a man to be kept waiting, my dear, but I think in your case I will make a rare exception. For me?" He opened his hands to encompass her silk dress and upswept hair, then brought them back in, folding them over his heart. "Such beauty is well worth waiting for. Do let me take your coat, so I can admire you properly." He stepped around the cafeteria table that served as his desk, leaving thin wisps of blue smoke behind, and slipped Margrit's coat from her shoulders. "Exquisite." The word was murmured above her shoulder like the promise of seduction. "The color is lovely. So few women can wear white convincingly."

Margrit groaned and walked away to move paperwork and sit on the table, facing Janx as she loosened the straps of her heels and dropped them on the floor. Hard metal folding chairs were the only seating in the room. She hooked her toes under the nearest and pulled it closer, then planted her bare feet on its cold seat with another quiet groan. For a moment she just sat there, reveling in the chill that soothed the ache in her soles. "What do you want, Janx?"

The dragonlord murmured, "Ah," with such disappointment it might have been a child's aww. "It is to be strictly business tonight? How unfair, to arrive so late and so lovely, and then to deny me my little pleasures."

Margrit propped her elbows on her knees, rubbing her face delicately and watching Janx through her fingers. His dark red hair had grown since she'd seen him last, falling across his cheeks in slashes that played up the green of his eyes, even in the smoky room. He wore a priest-collared shirt and slacks, both hanging well and making her realize he was broader of shoulder than she remembered. His hands were in his pockets, his stance casual and beguiling, and the pout playing his mouth was neutralized by the laughter in his eyes. Margrit had yet to see something erase that perpetual amusement for more than a moment, and hoped she wouldn't. She'd managed once to make Eliseo Daisani laugh in the midst of a crisis, but even that had ended in a threat against her life. Repeating the experience with Janx wasn't a risk she wanted to take. So long as he found her entertaining, she was safe.

Which gave her the courage to drop her hands and say, dryly, "I'm so sorry, Janx. What was I thinking? Maybe we should do a waltz or two around your office before we get to the nasty matter of business. I'd hate for you to think I don't adore you."

He wasn't as fast as Daisani. Margrit saw him move, quick long strides that somehow suggested a larger creature transferring its attention from one spot to another. His approach was consummate grace, fire flowing across an open space like a living thing. Then he was beside her, making the air crackle with dry heat.

"I prefer a tango. Tell me, do you dance?" His pupils dilated as her heart cramped and missed a beat for the second time that day. Eyes half-lidded, like a snake's, he stepped back with a smile that revealed curving eyeteeth, and offered her a hand. "Dance with me, Margrit Knight."

She straightened her spine by slow degrees, the threat of imminent danger making her light-headed. The taste of reckless abandonment was always tempting. She'd spent the evening smiling and greeting people who might help her career, people who could keep her climbing the narrow hard road of success. Few of them, she thought, would have to fight the impulse to dance with the devil. The urge that pushed her toward agreeing was the same one that kept her running in the park at night. A life as focused as hers was made worth living by the risks she took outside the structure.

She slid the chair away and dropped her feet to the floor. The burnished steel wall of the room showed her dull reflection as she stood and took one step forward, her hand poised above Janx's. His smile curved wider, surprise and delight in it. Margrit tilted her head, and asked, very softly, "Is this your second request, dragonlord?"

For one astonished moment the glee drained out of Janx's face, leaving his eyes brimming with jade outrage. Then his lip curled, and in a voice unlike any Margrit had ever heard from him, he said, "Oh, you're good. You're very good."

It was not a compliment. Margrit let the corners of her mouth flicker in acknowledgment, and kept her hand in the air above Janx's. His nostrils flared and he dipped his other hand into a pocket, coming out with a cigarette that he lit with a scrape of his thumbnail against his forefinger. The breath he exhaled an instant later sent streams of thin blue smoke swirling around him, and then a smile as thin as the smoke played over his mouth. He took her hand, bowing over it. "To business, then, my dear lady. To business."

Not until he had walked around her, returning to his place at the table, did Margrit allow herself to draw a careful breath and lower her hand. Facing him was an exercise in small movements.

His usual amusement had returned in full by the time she'd done so. "You are so terribly brave, Margrit Knight. Is it truly honor among thieves that makes you so?"

"I don't see any thieves around here, Janx. In fact, I don't see anybody at all. Where is everybody?"Margrit glanced at the windows overlooking the empty, darkened casino on the warehouse's bottom floor, then brushed the question off as she sat down again. "We've been through this. I trust you to keep your word, which doesn't mean I don't appreciate that you're dangerous. You were also annoyingly cryptic on the phone. What's going on?"

"How much do you know about us?" The question, put forth bluntly and with none of Janx's typical humor, made Margrit's shoulder blades pinch. She felt as if she'd been called on by a law professor whose expectations outstripped her knowledge of the subject.

"You mean the Old Races?" She hid an irritated moue, knowing she was stalling in order to come up with an adequate answer. Janx nodded, gesturing for her to continue with a fluid motion that sent smoke swirling around his head.

"There are five of you. Five left, anyway. Dragons and djinn, selkies and gargoyles, and the vampires." She listed them the way she'd first heard them named, with dragons and djinn woven together, wonderful to pronounce. "There used to be others. Mermaids, anyway, and Bigfoot."

Janx's mouth flattened with vague insult and resigned acceptance. " Siryns and yeti."

"Siryns and yeti. Sorry. Anyway, I know the dragons came from some volcanic area and spread out because they don't like company. I got the idea it was the Pacific ring of fire, but I don't know why." She wrinkled her eyebrows curiously, but Janx passed a hand across his chest, refusing the question.

Margrit shrugged disappointment, but went on. "Djinn are from the deserts and selkies are from the sea, if there are more than one or two left. Gargoyles came from the mountains." She hesitated, remembering Cara's reluctance to say more.

"You've left one out," Janx said lightly. "The vampires. What do you know about the vampires?"

Margrit smiled uncomfortably and shook her head. "That they say ley don't come from this world at all."

"And what do you believe?"

"I wouldn't even know where to start, Janx. I've seen a selkie change skins and a gargoyle transform in my arms." Color suffused her cheeks as heat ran through her sudden, shocking body memory. More than just in her arms. Alban had transformed as she'd clung to him, arms around his neck, legs around his waist. The implosion of power had been an erotic charge lancing through the core of her, enough to make her blush even now.

Curiosity lit Janx's eyes to pale green, and Margrit forged on before he could speak. "Malik turned me into fog and hauled me through the city, and I've seen Daisani move so fast he looked like he was in two places at once. What I believe is you people aren't human. Anything beyond that I just don't know. Why?" she added warily. "Is there a vampire army congregating in the Hellmouth?"

"Not," Janx said, smiling, "as far as I know. Do you know how many of us there are?"

"A countable number. In the thousands, maybe, not even tens or hundreds of thousands." She wet her lips, studying the red-haired man across from her. "I got the idea there were maybe only dozens of dragons left, but I don't know why. Fewer than anybody but the selkies, though. Maybe it just seems like dragons would be hard to hide."

"The dark ages were not easy on my people," Janx admitted in short tones. "Your Saint George, to give an example."

"If there really was a Saint George and a dragon, or dragons, why don't we have bones and fossils?" Margrit leaned forward, eager for the answer.

Humor came back into Janx's gaze. "You've been waiting to ask that, haven't you? We know when one of ours has died, Margrit Knight. We come and take his body to the boiling earth he was born of. There's nothing left for your scientists and tabloid reporters to find."

"Tabloids," Margrit echoed. "So some of you have died recently. I'm sorry."

"Are you."

"Yeah. Yes, actually, I am." She lifted her chin. "This world of yours, the world the Old Races belong to. A few months ago, I didn't know it existed, but now that I do, despite everything, I wouldn't go back to not knowing. You... make things possible, Janx." Margrit heard the note of longing in her voice and cleared her throat, trying to modulate it. "I used to read stories about the Loch Ness monster. I never believed them, but I wanted to. I wanted there to be something incredible in the lake. It just wasn't rational." A smile curved her mouth until her eyes crinkled, honest delight flooding through her. "I've seen six impossible things before breakfast, now. I can believe in the Loch Ness monster if I want to. You-all of you, Alban and Daisani and even Malik-gave me that. You might see me as a pawn to be played in some enormous game I don't understand, but you've made it possible for me to believe in magic. I regret the passing of anything that takes the magic out of the world, even if it'd bite my head off as soon as look at me." Blue smoke sailed from Janx's nostrils, paling his eyes to granite green, making them unreadable. "I think I begin to understand you, Margrit Knight. Stoneheart was wiser than he knew, breaking centuries of silence with you."

"Why do you call him that? You call me by my full name and you give Alban nicknames. Why do you do that?"

Janx smiled, revealing curved eyeteeth again. "Who's to stop me?

What you don't know, or understand, about the Old Races is this," he said abruptly. Ice skimmed over Margrit's skin, reminding her that easy banter and Janx's playful manner were not the reasons she'd come to an East Harlem warehouse at two in the morning.

"We keep ourselves in line through a series of checks and balances. Everyone owes someone something. It keeps us honest, for the most part."

"God,"Margrit said involuntarily. "I'd hate to see you with free rein." Something nasty happened to Janx's smile, a reptilian coldness coming into it. "Yes "he agreed. "You would. It begins to look something like this."

He stood with startling abruptness, scooping up the paperwork she'd shifted earlier. He flipped open a folder, dealing mug shots out of it as if they were cards from a deck. Each photograph landed with astonishing precision along the edge of the table before her. She touched the second one, frowning at it. "That's... I know him. He's the man you were going to have drive me home in January."

"Patrick. He's dead."

Margrit jerked her hand back, her gaze skittering to Janx, then to the other two photographs he'd dealt. "They're all dead," he confirmed. "Patrick, to whom you showed so little trust-how shall I put it? He oversaw the day-to-day aspects of financial fecundity."

"He shook people down for the money they owed you," Margrit translated.

Janx exhaled, a sound laced with acid humor. "He oversaw that arm of my organization, yes. You ought to have trusted him," he added petulantly. "Patrick never looked for trouble. He only hurt people when it was strictly necessary, and I can't imagine you'd have made it so."

"How reassuring. What happened to him? Them," Margrit corrected. The faces of the other two men were unfamiliar. One was extraordinarily good-looking, charismatic even in the unflattering light of a mug shot. "And who were they?"

"I assume you're more interested in their positions than their names. The handsome one ran one of my larger substance rings, and the third-"

"I really shouldn't have asked. I swear, Janx, all I need to do is wander in here with a tape recorder sometime and you'd talk yourself right into a jail cell."

"Electronic devices tend to come to a short end around here, Margrit. You know that. Besides, you wouldn't really put me in jail, would you?" Janx's eyes widened, a protestation of hurt innocence that belied any care for the dead men whose photographs lay on the desk.

Margrit worked her mouth, trying not to let herself laugh, then avoided the question by tapping Patrick's picture. "So what happened to them?"

"Margrit." Janx sounded both disappointed and annoyed. "Eliseo Daisani happened to them, obviously."

Her eyebrows rose. "Are you sure?"

"Am I-Margrit," he repeated. "Aside from the fact that no one else would dare, do you really think Daisani would allow Vanessa's death to go unpunished? It's tit for tat, nothing more. My lieutenants for his woman. I might even call it a fair trade." His voice, usually oiled with humor, betrayed the faintest scratch of discord.

"I take it they're all human, then." Margrit spoke through her teeth, anger rising on behalf of the men Janx dismissed with only a hint of regret. "God, you people are bastards. These men probably had families, Janx, people who cared about them."

"They did. But then, I like to imagine their loved ones knew what kind of men they were. Drug dealers and thugs are expected to come to a bad end, Margrit. Who could really be surprised? This is very much the natural order of things in the world, my dear. People die and ambitious new men replace them. Frequently their deaths are thanks to their replacements."

"So how do you know that isn't happening now?"

"Because there's a pattern to these things, Margrit. I control my people. I watch for the ambitious ones, and when they're strong enough, I present an opportunity for advancement. One does not replace three men in five days, when doing this. I need to be sure each new piece fits in with the whole before I'm ready to change another aspect of my organization's leadership. This is not ambition. This is revenge."

"And a fair trade," Margrit said sharply. "So what do you want from me?"

"You have no idea how much I would like to burn that second favor on something as delightful as a dance."

"I don't need poetry, Janx. Just tell me what you want."

"Humans," Janx said without distress. "So demanding, so shortsighted. You want everything so quickly. You must learn patience, my dear. It would stand you well in dealing with the Old Races."

"Janx, you've got a hundred of my lifetimes to look forward to. I've got threescore years and ten. Maybe that's why I don't want to waste time with you flirting around the subject."

"Margrit." Janx turned the corners of his mouth down, a picture of injured feelings. "I'm not flirting." Charm and lightheadedness slid from his eyes, cooling their color. "I'm trying to soften the blow."

She braced, as if what happened next might be a physical attack. Jade glinted through Janx's eyes again, a smile playing over thin lips. "I do like that about you, Margrit Knight. You transform fear into defiance so quickly. Does it cost you?" He dismissed the question as easily as he asked it, brushing it away with long fingers. "Vanessa Gray was Daisani's right hand for over a century, but she was only human. Forgive me,"he said with an upward dance of his eyebrows, "but from our perspective you are-"

"Pawns,"Margrit said flatly. "Easily played and easily discarded, just like your lieutenants. I get it, Janx. What do you want from me?"

"Malik is my right-hand man."

Margrit stared at the dragonlord without comprehension, then came to her feet, shoulders rising with tension. "Malik's one of you. Djinn. Daisani can't do anything to him. It's against your laws. The price of killing one of the Old Races is exile. Nobody'd deal with Daisani anymore."

"Eliseo Daisani will hardly fail to avenge his lover of thirteen

(decades over something as desperately irrelevant as race or exile. I have no proof that he's behind these murders, and he's hardly going to provide it. Nor will he be so clumsy as to leave a trail back to him In Malik's case."

"If he was going to, why wait? It's been months."

"I believe a tool for revenge has only recently arrived." Janx's voice went quieter yet, a song in its softness. "The djinn are a desert race, Margrit Knight. Amongst the surviving Old Races they have only one natural and true enemy."

Margrit spread her hands, then slowly closed them, grasping understanding. "The selkies. Water creatures." Surety filled the guess, and Janx's brief smile confirmed it. "I thought there weren't any left."

"Margrit. Don't be disingenuous with me."

"Well, that's what everybody keeps telling me. I met one, but she disappeared. I didn't think there were enough left worth mentioning. I thought that was the whole thing about them. They crossbred with humans and died out. What's that got to do with Malik? What's it got to do with me?"

"You don't know." Amusement washed through Janx's expression as he approached her, leaning against the table and folding his arms over his chest. "That's lovely. Margrit, my dear, all I care about is that I believe Malik's assassination is in the making. I expect you to stop it."