House of Cards

Margrit straightened, paperwork back in place. “That’s generous. I’ll give you a call tonight if he goes for it. Otherwise …”

They shook hands, exchanging resigned smiles as Jacob finished her sentiment: “Otherwise, I’ll see you in the morning.”

Despite the hour—it was well after five when she finished a fruitless discussion with her client—urgent voice mail brought her back to the office. She told herself that was the price of haring off to talk with selkies all morning, and kicked her shoes beneath her desk as she sat down to a pile of case files that hadn’t been there earlier.

A draft of cool air disturbed her studies some time later. Margrit glanced at her computer screen before twisting to see who else was working late. “Maybe we should get some di—”

A slim goateed man holding a glass-headed cane and wearing a dark suit stood a few feet away. “How generous. Do you always propose dinner to your wards, Margrit Knight?”

Margrit slumped, heartbeat rattling hard enough to kill any appetite she might have had. “Malik. How’d you—Never mind. You didn’t screw up anybody’s computer, did you?” Her cell phone had dissolved into a mess of useless electronic pixels after it had been treated to Malik’s ethereal manner of travel. Janx gleefully confessed that any electronics touched by a djinn met the same fate. It was impossible to put a bug on the dragonlord, so long as he employed Malik al-Massri.

Irritation filmed Malik’s sharp features. “No. I’m not here for petty vandalism. I understand you’re to be my . . .” His thin nostrils flared, as if the words were so distasteful as to produce a foul odor. “My protector.”

“Trust me, I’m not any happier about it than you are. I don’t suppose you’d be happy to just sit tight in the middle of the House of Cards, with four big burly guys keeping an eye on you, huh? It’d make life a lot easier for both of us.” Margrit bit her tongue on continuing. It was safe enough, comparitively, to respond to Malik’s arrogance with her own when they were at the House of Cards, under Janx’s watchful eye. Now there was no greater power on hand to control the djinn, and she didn’t want to offend him any more than she already had.

That led directly into her second reaction, which was gut-cold fear. Margrit had sized Malik up as dangerous in the first moments she’d met him, his ambitions and sense of self larger than he was. He was easy to offend, and she’d already done it more than once.

“On the contrary.” Malik took a few gliding steps toward her, his limp faint but noticeable. She came to her feet in nervous anticipation, as if there was somewhere to run. “I believe I’m a great deal less happy about it than you are. I do not require a human keeper, no more than sunlight requires that the shifting sand attend it.”

“You people have such gorgeous phrases.” Margrit startled him into silence, which helped her to regain her equilibrium. “People—humans—don’t talk the way you do. Not unless they’re making speeches. Look, I don’t even pretend that I could keep you safe if somebody wanted to take you out. You, you go …” Margrit fluttered her fingers in the air, not wanting to actually say “go poof,” though that was what the djinn more or less did. “I don’t even know how you injure somebody who turns incorporeal. It must be possible.” She focused briefly on the cane she’d never seen him without, then brought her eyes back to his, finding anger darkening there. “Oh, come on. I’m not making fun of you. You’d know if I was. I’m just saying it’s possible, right?”

Malik hissed, “Obviously.”

Margrit lifted her hands in supplication. “So Janx thinks somebody who knows how to hurt a djinn is out there, and he brought in somebody outside of his usual chain of command, outside of your people’s rules, to keep an eye on things. Shouldn’t you be flattered he’s that concerned about you, instead of pissed off?”

“Flattered. When the best ‘protection’ he’ll afford me is a weak human woman who admits her own uselessness as a guardian. Would you be flattered?”

“No.” A smile ghosted over Margrit’s mouth. “You’re not supposed to be making a counterargument here, Malik. I’m trying to sway the jury. Play along.”

“This is not a trial or a courtroom, sharmuta.” The last word’s sentiment was clear, and a sting of color came to Margrit’s cheeks. Malik took a final step forward, curling a hand over—into—Margrit’s throat. Air turned to unbreathable fog, clogging her throat and sending her heartbeat into terrorized spikes. She staggered back, trying to escape the djinn’s touch, but he flowed with her, fingers wrapped in her throat, almost palpable. Margrit swallowed convulsively, feeling a foreign body invading her throat like the thickness of a bad cough, swollen nodes closing off the possibility of breathing. Her chest ached, too little air caught there. Her chair caught her in the knees and she sat down again, a violent, awkward motion that Malik moved with easily. He leaned into her, fingers tightening around her windpipe, until his face was inches from hers.

“If I see you near me, if I discover you following me, if there is a hint of your presence, I will turn on you and kill you. I can rip your throat out like this, tear your heart from your body. I could make you a sacrifice to the wind, a better fate than you deserve. I will not be watched by one such as you. Do you understand me?”

Hot tears born of fear and rage spilled down her cheeks as Margrit nodded. Malik smiled, triumphant and vicious. “Goodbye, Margrit Knight.”

Then he hissed, jerking his hand back so quickly Margrit coughed and clutched her own throat, hardly believing she still breathed. Water made two bright marks on Malik’s wrist, shimmering, almost steaming, before he swiped his sleeve across them and smeared the tears away, leaving red spots behind. Margrit laughed, rasping her throat. “Just like the Wicked Witch, huh? All I have to do is throw a pail of water on you? Get out.” She pushed to her feet, drawing from a reserve of anger that went deeper than pain or fear. “Get out of here, you son of a bitch, and don’t you dare ever threaten me again. I know how to hurt you now.”

Malik curled a lip derisively, then faded in a swirl of fog, leaving Margrit standing alone with the crashing of her heart. Her chest still hurt, though she was unsure if it was from lack of oxygen or newborn relief. Only after long seconds of silence did she collapse back into her chair, fingertips pressed against her eyes as she tried to steady herself. Her stomach was a knot of churning sickness, sending tremors through her body. Tears would solve nothing, but they clung to her eyelashes and made her fingertips wet. She could fling them at Malik if he came back, tiny droplets made into a weapon. The thought gave her something to hang a rough laugh on. She dropped her hand, dragging in a deep breath as she stretched her chin toward the ceiling.

“Margrit?”

Margrit screamed loudly enough to echo and leapt out of her chair. It fell over in a clatter of metal and plastic, crashing against the desk. She found herself with a fist drawn back, ready to hit anything that approached.

Her boss stood in her cubicle door, a hand clutched over his heart. “Good God, Margrit, are you all right? You scared the hell out of me!”

Margrit croaked, “Russell. You scared me.”

“No kidding!” He let go of his heart to hang on to the edge of her cubicle and stare at her. Margrit planted both palms on her desk and dropped her head as she tried to calm herself. “Are you okay, Margrit? I thought I heard you talking to someone.”

“I’m … Yeah, I’m okay. I didn’t know you were here.” She chuckled weakly. “Obviously. I was … on the phone.”

“It’s nearly eight. What are you still doing here?”

“Is it that late?” Margrit turned away, picking her chair up. It was heavy and awkward, made worse by her hands still trembling. Russell came in to help, his eyebrows drawn with concern.

“It is. I know you’re hopelessly dedicated to the job, but you should have gone home after the trial.” He trailed off, frowning at her. “Everything go all right?”

“It’s fine. I’m losing spectacularly and Martinez won’t take a plea, but that’s his problem, not mine. We’re back on in the morning. Might even be out of there by noon. I can’t see the jury hanging around arguing about this one.” Margrit pressed her hands into the fabric of her chair, watching her knuckles whiten. “I came back to follow up on some paperwork, and I guess I lost track of time. What are you doing here?” She glanced up at her dapper boss with a smile that felt fragile. “Even the head man gets to go home sometime, right? You look like you’re going out,” she added, realizing he wasn’t in the suit he’d worn earlier that day. The one he wore now wasn’t quite a tux, but its sharp clean lines looked as expensive.

“I am. Dinner with my wife. It’s her birthday, and I forgot her gift at the office.” He slipped a hand into his pocket and came up with a jewelry box that he balanced on his fingertips, eyebrows elevated in invitation. Margrit opened it to reveal a gold ring set with diamonds and pink alexandrite. “It’s her fifty-fifth. Think this’ll help her forget that?”

“It’s gorgeous.” Margrit smiled and closed the box again as she returned it. “I think she’ll love it.”

“I hope so,” Russell said dryly. “It cost a month’s salary. You don’t have to mention that to anybody.”

Margrit laughed. “Russell, you dress so well I can’t help thinking a month’s salary goes a long way.”

He brushed a mote off his suit and shook his head, smiling. “You would, wouldn’t you? No, back in the days of the dinosaurs I made some money in stocks. I shop out of that budget. Come on.” He tilted his head toward the door. “You need to get out of here. I’ll walk you down.”

Margrit cast a glance at the paperwork on her desk. “But—”

“Boss’s orders. Besides, you haven’t yet told me what our rich Hawaiian friend wanted.” Russell picked Margrit’s coat up off the floor where it’d fallen with the chair and put it around her shoulders. “Will you be abandoning us to pull in a corporate paycheck with a philanthropist’s agenda?”

“Well, now that I know I’ll never match your wardrobe on what I make at Legal Aid, I’m considering it. No, he saw me talking to Eliseo Daisani at the party last night and wanted to know what I knew about him.” Margrit sat down long enough to retrieve her shoes and put them on, then turned off her light and fell into step beside her boss. Malik was probably long gone, but she felt safer in Russell’s company.

“I’d think he could find out anything he needed to through more usual avenues. What’d he want to know?” Russell held the door for her, and Margrit, left to lead, headed for the stairs instead of the elevator. Russell muttered, “I forgot you took the stairs,” but caught up easily.

“I always take the stairs. That way I can eat as much Ben & Jerry’s as I want.” Margrit trailed her hand along the railing. “I’m sure he’s got people who do nothing but research other people for him, but I get the idea he likes to pretend he’s a man of the people. Could I have used ‘people’ any more times in that sentence?”

“I don’t think so.” Russell flashed a grin at her, then glanced toward the parking garage.

“Can I give you a lift anywhere?”

Margrit smiled and shook her head. “No, thanks. I’ll take the subway home. Probably faster, anyway. Tell Joyce happy birthday.”

“I will, thanks. See you in the morning, Margrit.”

“‘Night, Russell.” Margrit tightened her coat around herself with a sigh, then hurried for the subway station.

Halfway home from the subway Margrit took a detour, impulse driving her to the park in the skirt suit she’d worn to work, rather than changing into running gear before going there. The sky had lost its last hints of twilight, and she hoped wearing daytime clothes might signal a change of intent to her gargoyle protector. Curiosity would impel most humans to investigate. Gargoyles might be made of harder stuff, but she hoped not.

She slid her fingertips over the sleeve of her jacket, imagining briefly what Alban’s expression might be had she worn the white silk dress of the night before. He was, if anything, an element of earth, so perhaps the close-fitting dress wouldn’t bring fire to his eyes, as it had with Janx. But it might have brought a subtle shifting to the forefront, the rooted approval of stone. A glimmer of Alban’s admiration meant more, even in her imagination, than Janx’s easy flattery ever could.

The temperature dropped further and her determination to face Alban girded as a lawyer instead of in exercise gear seemed increasingly foolish. She might have kept warm by running, and the gargoyle would watch from above no matter what she wore.

A few runners, familiar strangers to her, nodded greetings or flashed smiles, though they’d never exchanged names. One, a tall raw woman with dreadlocks pulled into a thick ponytail, spun as she passed, running backward and cocking a curious eyebrow at Margrit’s outfit.

“Meeting someone,” Margrit called in explanation, and the woman’s expression cleared into a smile. She turned away again with a wave, stretching her stride out until night rendered her invisible.