“The police detective?” Alban’s eyebrows drew down. “How?”

“Janx. He mentioned Janx. He said-shit! Shit! We’ve got to get out of here. Shit!” Margrit scrambled from the bed, throwing the blanket off her shoulders. “Come on. We’ve got to leave.” She darted across the room, taking the stairs three at a time and talking over her shoulder as Alban followed her. “He said they’d gotten an anonymous tip. That’s how he knew you were at my apartment. And then right before he let me go he asked if the name Janx meant anything to me.” She slapped the inside of the soot-stained door, looking for the catch to open it. “He set me up!”

“I do not,” Alban said with great precision, as if doing so would force Margrit to suddenly make sense, “understand.”

She hit the door again. “Janx tipped him off, the son of a bitch. I don’t know,” she snapped, before Alban asked. “I don’t know how he knew it was Janx, but I will sure as hell find out. He gave me the name to see if I’d go to Janx. He’s fucking following me, I know it. I thought I was being silly and paranoid, but now I think he hopes I’ll lead him to you, and dammit, I might have. If he did follow me tonight…How the hell do I open this thing?”

Alban put one hand against the door and lifted his other one, palm out, to calm her. “He couldn’t have followed you beyond the bookstore, Margrit,” he said gently. “Unless he’s grown wings.” He offered a brief smile, pointing upward. “Remember?”

Margrit sagged against the wall as anger and panic bled out of her. “Right.” Lips pressed together, she took a deep breath, then straightened before making a mewl of dismay. “My shirt.” Tugging it over her shoulder to see the back proved what she’d suspected: soot was smeared across it, blackening the fabric into oily streaks. “Crap. Well, crap. This is dry-clean only, too.”

Alban chuckled. “Better a sooty shirt than a betrayed hideaway, I think.” He edged her aside and put his hand against the door, tilting his head as he listened. “The mechanism is here.” He touched a shallow groove in the stone, light gleaming dully off a black iron catch now that Margrit knew where to look. She reached for it, but he stayed her hand, shaking his head.

“You may be right, after all.”

Margrit’s fingers clenched into a fist. “What? You just said-”

“I know. But the voices I hear-I believe your detective friend is just on the other side of the door.” Alban hesitated. “Your people make use of tracking devices, don’t they?”

Margrit snorted, then winced at the sound, fearful it might carry through the stone walls. “I don’t think the NYPD has that kind of money, Alban.” She found herself patting her hands over her body regardless, searching for anything that didn’t belong. “Shit. Will they be able to open the door?”

Alban shrugged, liquid motion. “The mechanism is well hidden, but I don’t think it’ll stand up to a thorough search.”

“Well, they can’t catch you,” Margrit said flatly. “There’s no way you’d get out of there by dawn, and I’m not letting them turn you into a freak show.”

“I can hide in stone,” he reminded her. “They could find only you.”

“Can you? Can you turn all the way to stone before sunrise?”

Alban nodded. “It’s not usually necessary, but yes.”

“Okay.” Margrit bolted down the stairs, then stopped, turning to look up at the gargoyle. “Shit.” Alban’s wings flared, a sudden sharp motion that scraped them along the narrow walls as he avoided crashing into her.

“What?”

“The club…” Margrit grimaced. “You hid in the Goth Room. I sort of identified you in the security video. Tony saw your other shape. I’m sorry.”

“He saw it?”

“Well, he thought it was a mask. He thought you were incredibly clever, actually,” she added, then shook her head, pushing curls behind her ears. “But if he sees the same face here-”

“Then he’ll think the mask I used was modeled after it,” Alban said. “Believe me, Margrit, nothing else would make sense to him.” He cocked his head, listening. “They’re searching the wall now, Margrit. Maybe they won’t find the opening mechanism, but-”

“The storm tunnels,” Margrit blurted.

Alban’s eyebrows rose. “Not a pleasant option.”

“Better than abandoning you here,” she said.

Alban studied her briefly, then touched her cheek. “There isn’t much time.” He turned her around and nudged her down the stairs; Margrit jumped the last three and skidded across the stone floor. Alban shouldered past her, seven feet tall and winged, to lift the cot with easy strength and set it aside. A leather satchel was crushed against the wall by the cedar chest, which Alban pushed aside with a scraping noise. Beneath it, one of the flagstones had grooves in its shorter sides. Margrit stared down at them.

“Gimme a lever and I can move the world, Alban, but how the hell are you going to move that?”

He glanced at her, amused, and crouched, sliding massive fingers into the grooves and gripping. Smooth muscles in his arms and back bunched, and he straightened from the legs, lifting the stone so easily it might have weighed no more than a few pounds. A two-by-three-foot hole gaped in the floor, leading into blackness.

“Good,” Margrit said in a strangled voice. “Good, lifting with your legs. Good for you. Jesus Christ!”

Alban rumbled with laughter, propping the stone on his shoulder and gesturing. “The tunnel is broad enough to fit me. You should be able to make it easily, but it will be dark. The torches won’t last in the water.”

Margrit laughed, a soft high sound of alarm. “Is there a light at the end of it?”

“There’s ankle-deep water and muck at the end of it,” Alban said. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“You could’ve lied,” she muttered, but nodded.

“Go, then,” he said. “I’ll be behind you.”

Margrit sat down, swung her legs into the hole and, mumbling reassurance to herself, dropped into the pit.

CHAPTER 19

STALE AIR MET her, the scents of rot and dankness growing stronger as the tunnel angled deeper. Margrit moved with her head down and eyes closed, trying to convince herself that she was breaking the blackness around her like a wave, letting it wash over her, and leaving it behind. She breathed carefully, each exhalation deliberate, as if her lungs carried light and she was trying to stir it into the air.

The exit couldn’t be too much farther. Margrit tried not to think of Alban behind her, his head and shoulders bumping against the tunnel walls. Her slight form touched the walls only when the tunnel curved, and then she jerked away from them, distressed at the closeness.

“I’m not claustrophobic,” she mumbled.

“Good,” Alban said out of the silence behind her. She shrieked and collapsed against the tunnel floor, muscles gone watery. “Margrit?” he asked in alarm.

“I’m okay,” she said shakily, pushing back up to her hands and knees. “It’s just so dark I didn’t think I could hear anything.”

The blackness seemed friendly for a moment, filled with Alban’s amusement. “I understand. It isn’t too much farther.”

“How can you tell?”

“Would you have an escape route like this without knowing how far you had to go to get out?”

“No,” Margrit admitted, and then the ground disappeared from beneath her hands and she fell forward, screaming.

She hit the bottom hands first, elbows bending to take her weight. She rolled, still screaming, through thick, murky water that splashed sluggishly into her mouth and eyes. She swallowed convulsively, then surged to her knees, gagging and choking. Seconds later, heaving breaths in through her nose, tears streaming down her face, she heard Alban land behind her, a delicate splash that rippled the water around her.

“Margrit? Are you all right?”

“No.” She spat, then swallowed again, trying to hold back tears. She snuffled, wiped her hand across her nose and gagged once more, biting her tongue to keep from sobbing. “I mean, I’m not hurt.” She choked on the words and stumbled to her feet, shivering. “But I’m not okay.”