Margrit smiled a little. "No, it’s okay. I think Cameron and Cole have got me covered. I’m going to eat something and maybe we’ll go out for a while and…" Her smile faltered. "And have a drink to absent friends."

"All right. Bring Tony along next weekend, if you like." Rebecca smiled toward Cameron and Cole before Margrit walked her to the door. The moment it closed behind her, Cam appeared in the kitchen doorway.

"‘Bring Tony along,’ eh? Is that a parental capitulation I hear there? I thought she didn’t like Tony."

"I don’t know what it was. She must feel really bad for me." Margrit shook her head. "She doesn’t dislike Tony. How could she, really? He’s a great guy. She just wishes her daughter would date a black man instead of a golden-brown one. My mother the activist. Even romance is a political statement. I mean, I understand where she’s coming from. She grew up in the sixties and she was one of the first black women stockbrokers at her firm. But what’m I supposed to do, dump Tony because his family’s from a few hundred miles farther north than ours?"

"Nah," Cole said from the kitchen. "You two find plenty of other good reasons to dump each other regularly without getting political. Besides, his family’s been on this continent as long as yours has. You can get married and have cute little melting-pot American kids, instead of African-Italian-American kids. All those hyphens would send them to tears."

"Besides, the acronym sounds like a scream. AIA!" Cam flung her hands up dramatically, earning a quick laugh from her housemates. Cole looked around the doorjamb over Cam’s shoulder. "You want me to heat up your dinner, Grit?"

Margrit hesitated. "I was thinking I might go for a run."

"It’s seven-thirty! It’s dark out!"

"I know. I’ll bring my pepper spray and my phone, and I’ll call if I’m not going to be back in an hour." Margrit pulled her shoes on, glancing apologetically at her friends. "I really need to run, guys. I’ll be careful, I promise."

"You better be, or I’m going to tie you to a bungee cord so you can’t get past the door." Cameron raised a fist threateningly and Margrit smiled.

"Good to know you care. Back in an hour, I swear."

CHAPTER 12

Margrit took the stairs down to the street two at a time and swung around the doorframe on the way out of the building, trying not to think. The jog up 110th brought her to the park already warmed up, and she stretched out into a run as she reached the paths. Habit born of safety measures kept her gaze ahead of her and glancing around, something she’d abandoned for watching the sky when she knew Alban was there. The gargoyle’s absence, Russell’s death, Janx’s ultimatum; everything felt off-kilter and reluctant to be buried in physical movement.

An exhausted laugh burst free from Margrit’s lungs. She hadn’t thought of Janx or his second-in-command since Daisani’s bombshell, and she hadn’t gotten what she’d hoped to out of the vampire. Without some kind of support from the Old Races, she couldn’t imagine how she might hope to protect Malik. She couldn’t even protect ordinary people.

Her hands knotted into fists, throwing her stride off. Russell’s death wasn’t her fault. Where that guilt came from, she didn’t know; even if she’d gone to work early to talk to him, she’d have been more likely to get herself killed than to have saved him. Daisani’s bloody gift helped her heal quickly, but didn’t give her a vampire’s speed or a gargoyle’s strength. She was hardly a match for most assailants. Her guilt came from an irrational assignation of culpability, but even teasing herself with what Cole called "fancy lawyer talk" didn’t lessen the regret tightening her heart.

Barely past the playground, a thick stump of a man crouched by the pathway, his position so natural it seemed as if he belonged there, more decorative than a living person. His white hair, cropped short, glowed beneath the park lights, wind stirring it in the only indication that he was more than a statue. Glad to be distracted from her own thoughts, Margrit swung wide, as if a few feet might make the critical difference should he spring from his crouch. She stretched her stride out, putting on speed before her name came after her through the night. "Hey, lawyer. Knight. Margrit Knight."

She turned to run backward a few steps, then stopped at the edge of the path, yards away from the man who’d called her name. He remained where he was, shoulders hunched and head lifted to meet her gaze. Distance and darkness smoothed the ravages of a scar on the left side of his face, but memory told Margrit that his eye there was nothing more than a closed pit. Disbelief laced her voice. "Biali?"

The squat man pushed out of his crouch, muscles in his arms playing like an aging prizefighter’s. "Yeah."

She crossed the path, coming to stand within a few feet of the blunt man. He was taller than she, though not nearly as tall as Alban. "What are you doing here?"

"Running errands for Janx. He wants to see you. C’mon."

"Where’s Alban?" Margrit bit her tongue too late, angry at herself for asking. Alban had made his choice clear enough: he wouldn’t be looking for Margrit on anyone’s whim.

Impatience and dislike creased Biali’s scarred face, reminding Margrit that it had been Alban who’d left that mark on the other gargoyle. "Why should I know? Come on."

"I haven’t gone for a run in two days," Margrit protested. "You’re here. Wait for me. I’ll be half an hour."

"Wait for you. While you run around in Central Park. Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

"You can keep an eye on me." She pointed upward, winked and started running without waiting for the outraged exclamation that followed her.

Flying with Biali was not like flying with Alban.

Neither of them were happy about it. Biali kept his head turned away, as if an unpleasant odor lingered. Margrit, not trusting his grip on her waist, deadlocked her wrists around his neck, her own teeth bared out of determination rather than delight. There was none of Alban’s gentle surety in cornering or catching drafts, no warning in the way Biali held her that they were about to climb or fall through the sky. Flight with Alban had been an exercise in freedom, joy undiluted by the hammering of her feet against the earth as it was when she ran. Flying in Biali’s arms was a study in refusing to scream.

It had been his idea. Margrit had stared disbelievingly, just as he had when she’d announced her intention to run in the park. It was faster, he’d argued, and more to the point, didn’t force him to use human means of transportation. His mocking, "You’re not afraid, are you, lawyer?" had driven her to agree.

Not afraid, but very glad to have her feet touch down on the roof of the House of Cards and for Biali to release her. He did so with a peculiar expression, before nodding his head slightly, as much gesture of respect as she’d ever seen from the scarred gargoyle. Margrit gathered her voice enough to say, "Thanks for the lift," before looking for an escort inside.

"I’m all you rate." Biali stumped ahead, yanking open the steel roof door with casual ease and not bothering to see if Margrit followed him. He transformed before the second door, an implosion of space shivering the air, and it was a stocky man in jeans and tight a T-shirt who led Margrit through the building to Janx’s alcove.

Janx sat just as he had the first time Margrit met him, leaning back in a metal folding chair with his long legs propped on the table and crossed at the ankle. His hair, falling in dark red lines across his cheeks, played up smoldering anger in eyes gone darker green than she’d seen them before. There was no languid grace in the way he moved his hands or head, though thin smoke whirled after those motions in its usual slow dance. Heated air burned Margrit’s lungs, and her throat convulsed with the struggle not to cough.